The Taliban has claimed responsibility for a car bomb attack near Kabul airport in Afghanistan on Monday. A senior US official said the target was a convoy of American embassy guards, moving to a secure compound in Afghan capital. No one was killed, but 28 people were wounded. The country’s public health ministry says that at least 19 adults and 9 children were being treated in facilities around the city.
Two weeks ago, the IAF assassinated infamous Lebanese militant Samir Kuntar.
Kuntar was held by Israel for nearly three decades in connection with his role in a 1979 raid that killed four people including a four-year-old girl. He returned to Lebanon in 2008 in a prisoner swap with Hezbollah, which he subsequently joined.
To the Israelis, Kuntar is evil incarnate - the very embodiment of terrorism. For many in Iran and Lebanon, he’s something of a folk hero. Here he is with Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah:
In the latest development in the ongoing saga of Ammon Bundy's seizure of a Federal wildlife reuge office in Oregon, the members of the militia said they're ready to fight, but they won't say what they would actually do if federal authorities try to remove them by force as reported in the clip below.
Submitted by Charles Hugh-Smith of OfTwoMinds blog,
This week I am addressing themes I see playing out in 2016.
A number of systemic, structural forces are intersecting in 2016. One is the decline of Great Power leverage.
Once a nation's civil society--broadly speaking, the institutions of social cohesion--has been shredded so that power rests in the hands of the few, the nations becomes exquisitely vulnerable to coups and regime change.
Each year for the past three decades Blackstone's Vice Chairman of Multi-Asset Investing Byron R. Wien presents his top 10 "surprises" for the upcoming 12 months.
What constitutes a "surprise", you ask? A surprise is "an event that the average investor would only assign a one out of three chance of taking place but which Byron believes is 'probable,' having a better than 50% likelihood of happening." Last year's list included a few predictions that didn't exactly pan out including: