(Worthy News) – Hezbollah has captured much of an Islamic State pocket on Syria’s side of the border with Lebanon in a joint offensive with the Syrian army, its leader said on Thursday.
In parallel with the fighting, talks on a truce have begun with Islamic State but a military victory is more likely, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said in a televised speech.
Syrian troops and Iran-backed Hezbollah have been fighting to oust Islamic State from Syria’s western Qalamoun region. [ Source (Read More…) ]
(Worthy News) – Hezbollah has captured much of an Islamic State pocket on Syria’s side of the border with Lebanon in a joint offensive with the Syrian army, its leader said on Thursday.
In parallel with the fighting, talks on a truce have begun with Islamic State but a military victory is more likely, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said in a televised speech.
Syrian troops and Iran-backed Hezbollah have been fighting to oust Islamic State from Syria’s western Qalamoun region. [ Source (Read More…) ]
(Worthy News) – When President-elect Donald Trump met President Barack Obama in the White House shortly before the former’s swearing-in, Obama reportedly told him that North Korea would be one of the most pressing issues he would face.
It turned out that Obama was right. Seven months into the Trump presidency, an aggressive North Korea is openly threatening to attack the United States and has thus catapulted itself near the top of the new administration’s list of most vexing foreign policy headaches.
That it came to this has much to do – as Trump said – with the Obama administration’s unsuccessful policy towards North Korea – generally described as “strategic patience.” Obama officially gave his foreign policy approach that label in a national security paper in 2015, stating that “the challenges we face require strategic patience and persistence.” [ Source (Read More…) ]
(Worthy News) – Authorities have closed a church that serves three villages in Upper Egypt on the pretext that area Muslims object to it – one of at least 15 Christian worship sites shuttered in the bishopric of Minya, sources said.
Coptic Orthodox Bishop of Minya Anba Makarios spent weeks appealing to security officials to re-open the Virgin Mary and St. Paula Church in Minya Governorate’s Kedwan village, which was closed in July. When those talks failed, the bishop issued a statement denying security agency assertions that area Muslims object to the 1,300-member church, saying they live peaceably with Coptic Christians and that any opposition comes from a small extremist faction.
“There is actually no disagreements or disputes between the Copts and Muslims,” he said. “He among them who opposes [opening the church], if any is found, gives the excuse of the necessity to obtain a security clearance. Regardless of whether these may be right in their opposition or not, the authorities instead of responding by pointing out that this is the prerogative of the state institutions, or by stating that allowing prayer is a legal right, affirm prevention of prayer! In doing so, they underscore at the same time that the opposing factions are right in their reasoning.” [ Source (Read More…) ]
(Worthy News) – The United States says at least 16 Americans working for the U.S. government in Cuba suffered symptoms as a result of activity attributed to a covert sonic device. The diplomats suffered severe hearing loss.
This is the first time the U.S. is disclosing a number of Americans affected. State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert says it’s possible there are more. But she says all of the 16 are U.S. citizens. They’ve been treated by doctors either in Cuba or the U.S.
Nauert says the incidents are no longer occurring. But she says the U.S. hasn’t located a device that caused the symptoms and hasn’t identified the perpetrator. [ Source (Read More…) ]
(Worthy News) – HSBC Holdings Plc, Citigroup Inc. and Morgan Stanley see mounting evidence that global markets are in the last stage of their rallies before a downturn in the business cycle.
Analysts at the Wall Street behemoths cite signals including the breakdown of long-standing relationships between stocks, bonds and commodities as well as investors ignoring valuation fundamentals and data. It all means stock and credit markets are at risk of a painful drop.
“Equities have become less correlated with FX, FX has become less correlated with rates, and everything has become less sensitive to oil,” Andrew Sheets, Morgan Stanley’s chief cross-asset strategist, wrote in a note published Tuesday. [ Source (Read More…) ]
(Worthy News) – For months, health officials in this socially conservative state capital have been staggered by a fast-spreading outbreak of a disease that, for nearly two decades, was considered all but extinguished.
Syphilis, the deadly sexually transmitted infection that can lead to blindness, paralysis and dementia, is returning here and around the country, another consequence of the heroin and methamphetamine epidemics, as users trade sex for drugs.
To locate possible patients and draw their blood for testing, Oklahoma’s syphilis detectives have been knocking on doors in dilapidated apartment complexes and dingy motels, driving down lonely rural roads and interviewing prison inmates. Syphilis has led them to members of 17 gangs; to drug dealers; to prostitutes, pimps and johns; and to their spouses and lovers, all caught in the disease’s undertow. [ Source (Read More…) ]
(Worthy News) – The Catholic Church and local authorities have been criticized after trying to claim child sex abuse victims “consented” in a bid to avoid compensation payouts.
Lawyers who represent some of the victims have told the Sunday Telegraph that the defence is more frequently being used by private schools, religious groups and local authorities when trying to defend compensation claims.
The revelation comes after news that the Criminal Injuries Compensation Scheme, a Government agency, was denying some children compensation because it said they had “consented” to abuse – even if they were of an age where they could not do so legally. [ Source (Read More…) ]