Wednesday, April 01, 2020

4/1/20

Iran is ramping up threats to US in Iraq - opinion What appears to be going on in Iraq is some jockeying for position before the war. This is like the so-called Phoney War that preceded the invasion of France in April 1940.

Naftali Bennett: Ultra-Orthodox, Arab Sectors Present Biggest Israeli Coronavirus Challenges Defense Minister Naftali Bennett (Yamina) on Sunday pointed to the ultra-Orthodox and Arab sectors of Israeli society as being the "problem" in the spread of COVID-19, and called for his ministry to lead the fight against the virus instead of the Health Ministry.

The European Union will be destroyed by its immoral handling of the coronavirus crisis Many European citizens - particularly those in Italy - will pay a huge price because of the pandemic, and public opinion will not forget the EU's failure to help.

China Using Coronavirus for Further Deceit Any hope that the West may have harbored in the past about China evolving into a member of the liberal-democratic international order, should by now be considered dead, expired, extinct.

Islamic Waqf takes advantage of Temple Mount closure to conduct digs Waqf posts on social media, showing off the illegal digging it is conducting on the Temple Mount.

Will China Rebuild Syria? After almost a decade of civil war in Syria, the question of who will be in charge of the reconstruction has arisen over and over again (though any practical activity in that direction will have to be suspended during the acute stage of the coronavirus crisis).

Is Turkey ready to take on jihadis in Syria's Idlib? Turkey has been seeking to secure the strategic flashpoint M4 highway connecting Aleppo and Latakia in southern Idlib in a bid to resume joint Russian-Turkish patrols, as per the cease-fire reached between Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, in Moscow on March 5.

Erdogan Battles on Multiple Fronts in Risky Regional Power Bid Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan is at odds with just about everybody.

Oil plummets to 17-year low as broken market drowns in crude Oil slumped to a 17-year low as coronavirus lockdowns cascaded through the world's largest economies, leaving the market overwhelmed by cratering demand and a ballooning surplus of crude.

Who Wins When Saudi Arabia And Russia Fight An Oil War? Putin has taken a page from the Trump playbook of trade wars: be prepared to take short-term damage if you think your opponents will be forced to concede.