A New Perspective on Constantine

(Worthy News) – A city in Northern Syria, once a refuge for those fleeing the fighting all around them, is now the scene of suffering and death. Afrin is a Kurdish city, but it has welcomed Christian and Yazidi refugees fleeing the Syrian civil war and ISIS militants.

“Afrin was untouched by the war going on all around us,” Valentine Hanan, a resident of Afrin, told CBN News. “We were a safe place in the middle of our war-torn nation.”

That all changed January 20, 2018, when Turkey, backed by Syrian rebels, started moving troops towards the northwestern Syrian Kurdish enclave. Now, Turkey controls the city and says it won’t leave. [ Source: CBN News (Read More…) ]

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(Worthy News) – Emergency teams rushed Tuesday night to another reported explosion in Austin — this one at a Goodwill store — but police and federal authorities said the blast wasn’t related to recent bombings that have killed and injured people and caused panic across Texas’ capital for weeks.

Police and emergency response teams said an “incendiary device” exploded, injuring a man in his 30s. Nearby stores, shopping centers and restaurants were evacuated. But police and the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives said a short time later that it was unrelated to the previous blasts.

Gary Davis, president and CEO of Goodwill Texas, stood outside a police barrier huddling with other Goodwill employees. He said the device was contained in a bag and detonated when a worker moved it. [ Source: CBN News (Read More…) ]

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(Worthy News) – Israel’s intelligence minister said that the operation to destroy Syria’s nuclear reactor in 2007, which was cleared for publication on Wednesday, shows Israel will not allow “those threatening our existence to have nuclear weapons. Syria then and Iran today.”

In a tweet, Yisrael Katz said he saluted then-Prime Minister Ehud Olmert for destroying the Syrian reactor 11 years ago. “When all accounts are settled, destroying the reactor will stand in Olmert’s benefit,” he wrote, referencing the fact that Olmert stepped down from his leadership role as part of a corruption scandal for which he went on to serve jail time.

Israel for the first time confirmed that it bombed a suspected Syrian nuclear reactor in 2007. The first public acknowledgement by Israel that its F-16 and F-15 warplanes carried out the September 6, 2007, bombing of the partially constructed Al-Kubar facility near Deir al-Zor was made after military censors lifted a more than 10-year order that had barred Israeli officials from discussing it. [ Source: Ha’aretz (Read More…) ]

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(Worthy News) – Israel’s military has formally admitted that it destroyed a suspected Syrian nuclear reactor in 2007.

It said the air raid in the eastern Deir-al-Zour region had removed “an emerging existential threat to Israel and the entire region”.

It said the reactor was close to being completed. It is long been thought Israel was responsible, but it never acknowledged this until now.

Syria has repeatedly denied that the bombed site was a nuclear reactor. [ Source: BBC (Read More…) ]

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(Worthy News) – Top defense officials in Washington and Seoul plan to restart a new round of massive military drills on the peninsula, initially delayed due to the recent winter Olympic games, within the coming weeks in a move assured to draw a harsh response from North Korea.

Defense Secretary James Mattis, in consultation with Korean Minister of National Defense Song Young-moo, on Tuesday”agreed to resume the annual combined [military] exercises … which were deconflicted with the schedule of the Olympic Games,” according to a Defense Department statement. The exercises, dubbed Foal Eagle and Key Resolve, are scheduled to begin in April, the Pentagon said.

“The United Nations Command has notified the Korean People’s Army on the schedule as well as the defensive nature of the annual exercises,” according to a separate statement issued by U.S. Forces-Korea from the command’s headquarters at Yongsan Garrison in Seoul. [ Source: Washington Times (Read More…) ]

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(Worthy News) – President Trump forged a bond Tuesday with Saudi Arabia’s new crown prince over increased U.S. military sales to the kingdom and their shared disapproval of the Iran nuclear deal, as they sought to erase eight years of strained relations under former President Obama.

Hosting 32-year-old Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman at the White House, the president said the U.S.-Saudi relationship is now “as good as it’s really ever been.” Mr. Trump said the Iran deal, which he is threatening to rip up by a congressional May 12 deadline, was a key item on their agenda.

“Iran has not been treating that part of the world or the world itself appropriately,” Mr. Trump told reporters. “A lot of bad things are happening in Iran. The deal is coming up in one month, and you will see what happens.” [ Source: Washington Times (Read More…) ]

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