Politics

The lights are burning late in Davos tonight.

At the World Economic Forum, keynoter Joe Biden warned global elites that the unraveling of the middle class in America and Europe has provided “fertile terrain for reactionary politicians, demagogues peddling xenophobia, anti-immigration, nationalist, isolationist views.”

Evidence of a nationalist backlash, said Biden, may be seen in the third parties arising across Europe, and in the U.S. primaries. But set aside Joe’s slurs—demagogues, xenophobia.

Human rights watchdog Amnesty International has condemned the Turkish government, accusing authorities of putting the lives of 200,000 Kurdish residents at risk by deliberately starving them of food, medical care, and targeting them during military operations.  John Dalhuisen, Central Asia Programme Director for Amnesty, accused Turkey of targeting and punishing its Kurdish populations, “The operations currently being conducted under round-the-clock curfews are putting the lives of tens of thousands of people at risk and are beginning to resemble collective punishment“.

Since the war in Syria entered a new phase in late September with the entry of the Russian air force, we’ve brought you quite a bit of footage depicting the desolation wrought by five years of bloody combat between government forces and the mishmash of rebels battling for control of the country (see here and here).

As Bashar al-Assad put it in an interview with Die Presse, “much of Syria’s infrastructure is destroyed.”

The Prime Minister of Iraq has issued a scathing attack on Turkey, claiming that they are faking their fight against ISIS. Haider Al-Abadi says that Turkey currently view their Kurdish population as a greater problem than ISIS, and that their vow to fight Islamic Militants alongside the West in Syria is a complete bluff. Cnbc.com reports: “The Turks are telling us otherwise, (that) they’re eager to fight Daesh. But I’m telling them frankly, I’m not seeing evidence of that. I hope to see more evidence of that,” Al-Abadi said.

Islamic State militants are sheltering their senior officials and high-value prisoners at Syria’s biggest dam by Lake Assad on the Euphrates, believing that U.S. forces will not go near them in fear of unleashing a giant flood that could potentially kill thousands. High-value prisoners and senior Islamic State officials are being held at the Tabqa Dam, safe in the knowledge that there are no ground troops capable of dislodging them before they unleash a deluge that could “mean that there’s no electricity for all of eastern Syria”, according to Virginia Tech associate professor Ariel Ahram.