| Moderate Syrian rebels vow to protect journalists Posted: 15 Dec 2013 03:53 PM PST  BEIRUT (AP) — The leaders of Syria's main Western-backed moderate rebel faction said they would do everything in their power to protect journalists on assignment in the country and work to secure the release of those who have already been abducted.
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| Tamerlan Tsarnaev heard voices in his head: report Posted: 15 Dec 2013 10:46 AM PST  Suspected Boston marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev was tormented by voices in his head, according to the Boston Globe, which published the results of a five-month investigation into the attack on Sunday.
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| First UN aid flight from Iraq lands in Syria Posted: 15 Dec 2013 09:37 AM PST  The first UN aid flight from Iraq landed in northeastern Syria on Sunday with badly needed supplies, after a winter storm delayed it for several days, the United Nations said. UN aid agencies have "started airlifting urgently needed humanitarian aid from Arbil, Iraq, to Qamishli in northeast Syria as displaced families start to face one of the harshest winters ever," a UN statement said. The first flight chartered by the UN World Food Programme (WFP) "landed today in Qamishli airport," and "WFP plans to use 11 more airlifts to move enough food to feed over 30,000 people for one month," it said.
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| TV presenter among 19 killed in Iraq attacks Posted: 15 Dec 2013 09:34 AM PST  Mosul (Iraq) (AFP) - Gunmen murdered a female TV presenter in northern Iraq on Sunday, making her the sixth journalist killed in less than three months, while other attacks left 18 dead, officials said. Nawras al-Nuaimi was shot near her home in Mosul, Al-Mosuliyah TV said, and was the fifth journalist killed in the city since October. Mostly Sunni Arab Mosul is one of the most dangerous cities in Iraq, with militants frequently carrying out attacks and reportedly extorting money from shopkeepers. In the northern province of Kirkuk, gunmen killed two people and wounded a third, while three blasts in the Tuz Khurmatu area of nearby Salaheddin province killed two people and wounded three.
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| U.N. starts first aid airlifts to Syria from Iraq as cold grips Posted: 15 Dec 2013 08:20 AM PST  By Suadad al-Salhy BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The United Nations sent its first delivery of humanitarian aid by air to Syria from Iraq on Sunday and said it plans to deliver more food and winter supplies to the mainly Kurdish northeast in the next 12 days. The first cargo plane carrying food took off from Arbil in Iraq's northern Kurdistan region and made a one-hour flight to Hassakeh governorate in Syria, which has had no significant aid deliveries since May. The U.N. said two planes are contracted to do 23 rotations over the next 10 days. "We have been particularly worried about the situation of children and families in the northern parts of Syria because of the insecurity and limited access," said Maria Calivis, UNICEF Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa. "These airlifts will help ensure they have access to safe water and health care through the tough winter months ahead." The airlifts were delayed from last week because of a storm which swept across Syria and Lebanon, bringing with it high winds and freezing temperatures.
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| Gunmen kill female TV presenter in Iraq Posted: 15 Dec 2013 08:11 AM PST  Mosul (Iraq) (AFP) - Gunmen murdered a female TV presenter in northern Iraq on Sunday, her station and police said, making her the sixth journalist to be killed in the country since October. Nawras al-Nuaimi was shot near her home in Mosul, Al-Mosuliyah TV said, and was the fifth journalist killed in the northern city in the same period. Mostly Sunni Arab Mosul is one of the most dangerous cities in Iraq, with militants frequently carrying out attacks and reportedly extorting money from shopkeepers. On December 5, Kawa Ahmed Germyani, the editor-in-chief of Rayal magazine and a correspondent for Awene newspaper, was gunned down in front of his mother in Kalar, Sulaimaniyah province, in the autonomous Kurdistan region.
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| Yes, the President Probably Delayed Some Policy Before the Election Posted: 15 Dec 2013 06:12 AM PST  Rather than court controversy ahead of a re-election run, the Obama administration delayed work on environmental and health-related policies, according to The Washington Post. Obama is oft-criticized for not doing enough on the environment, though the addition of a former Clinton staffer who pushed for environmental policy in his second term was seen as a boost in profile for green legislation.
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| Prominent Shiite cleric backs fighting in Syria Posted: 15 Dec 2013 04:27 AM PST  BAGHDAD (AP) — A leading Shiite Muslim cleric widely followed by Iraqi militants has issued the first public religious edict permitting Shiites to fight in Syria's civil war alongside President Bashar Assad's forces.
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| 7 days in Iran Posted: 15 Dec 2013 03:19 AM PST These days, a generation after Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution, which turned flag burning and chants of "Death to America" into an art form, Iranians don't get to add many US passports to their database. Yet despite the decades of mutual hostility, Iran still has perhaps the most pro-American population in the Middle East. Iran began taking fingerprints of visiting US citizens in the late 1990s, in reaction to a US decision to do the same to all Iranians entering the United States. |
| Insight: Syria uses red tape, threats to control U.N. aid agencies Posted: 15 Dec 2013 01:19 AM PST  By Oliver Holmes and Stephanie Nebehay BEIRUT/GENEVA (Reuters) - It is a 15-minute drive from the five-star hotel that houses U.N. aid staff in Damascus to rebel-held suburbs where freezing children are starving to death. As the United Nations launches an annual appeal on Monday for funds to help more than 9 million Syrians who need aid, divisions among world powers that have crippled peacemaking are also denying U.N. staff the power to defy President Bashar al-Assad's officials and push into neighborhoods now under siege. "In government-controlled parts of Syria, what, where and to whom to distribute aid, and even staff recruitment, have to be negotiated and are sometimes dictated," said Ben Parker, who ran the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Syria for a year until last February. "According to the Syrian government's official position, humanitarian agencies and supplies are allowed to go anywhere, even across any frontline," he wrote last month in the journal Humanitarian Exchange.
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| Today in History Posted: 14 Dec 2013 09:01 PM PST Today is Sunday, Dec. 15, the 349th day of 2013. There are 16 days left in the year. |
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