It’s anybody’s guess where the fiscal slope talks are going after today’s leadership session, but today marks the end of the first week of the lame duck session in Congress. What exactly got done? Well, the Senate confirmed a director for the FDIC for the first time since Sheila Bair left 16 months ago. The [...]

Nothing else needs to be said about the sociopathy of Joe Klein than what Glenn Greenwald describes today. Klein’s justification for drone warfare comes down to “we have to kill their children before they kill our children,” and frankly that’s about as nuancedas our foreign policy debate gets these days. Greenwald goes into all the [...]

In Russia, the all-girl punk band Pussy Riot has been found guilty of protesting Vladimir Putin at a cathedral in Moscow. The charge could carry up to three years in prison. The court case has generated international outrage about the curtailing of free speech. Prosecutors in Russia argued that Pussy Riot’s anti-Putin “punk prayer” violated [...]

Fighting in the Syrian capital of Damascus raged for a third straight day, the most sustained challenge to the seat of power of President Bashar al-Assad. The Syrian government has escalated their response as a result: Activists in the northern Damascus suburb of Qaboun said the Syrian forces were backed by helicopter gunships, an apparent [...]

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s continued survival is predicated on their Russian patrons to a large extent. So this shift from Moscow is really a crushing blow: Russia will cease deliveries of arms and fighter planes to Syria until the situation in the country stabilises, an official said yesterday, a move that would ratchet up pressure [...]

Days after the massacre in Houla, the Syrian government has committed a new round of killings. The United Nations discovered an additional 13 bodies near Deir al-Zour, killed execution-style, with their hands tied behind their backs. UN mission chief Maj Gen Robert Mood said he was “deeply disturbed” by the “appalling and inexcusable act” [...] [...]

The US has expelled Syria’s top diplomat in Washington, just one of many Western countries to throw out Syrian envoys after the Houla massacre. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said the U.S. holds “the Syrian government responsible for this slaughter of innocent lives.” Earlier Tuesday, numerous other western countries, including Australia, Britain, Canada, France, Germany, [...]

The United Nations has returned to the issue of Syria today, after a massacre in villages near the flashpoint city of Homs that killed at least 116 people, including 32 children. Syria is currently under a UN-managed ceasefire between its military and anti-government rebels, but the massacre in Houla after Friday evening prayers shows the [...]

As expected, Vladimir Putin declared victory in the Presidential election in Russia. It would mark the third go-around as President for Putin, after a stint as Prime Minister. Since his first Presidential run in 2000, Putin has remade Russia in his image, centralizing power, crushing dissent (particularly in the media), and basically instituting a kleptocracy. [...]

The United States closed its embassy in Syria today, in response to continuing attacks by security forces in Homs that have escalated the death toll in the uprising. U.S. Ambassador Robert Ford left Syria on Monday morning, according to CNN, and Syrian officials were told of the decision following the evacuation. Security concerns for the [...]

Hours after a horrific massacre in Homs, China and Russia vetoed a United Nations Security Council resolution on Syria, one which was already watered down in an attempt to get the support of the Russians. The two permanent council members rejected the draft resolution, which came hours after activists accused Syrian security forces of killing [...]