23 Mar
News and Analyses, A Foreign Perspective
English Online International Newspapers
For a change from the same old news stories from the same old news networks, here are links to English-edition online newspapers from other parts of the world. Nearly all of these are English-edition daily newspapers, with an emphasis on the Middle East and Asia. These sites have interesting editorials and essays, and many have links to other good news sources. We try to limit this list to those sites which are regularly updated, reliable, with a high percentage of “up” time.
Some of the available newspapers:
Asia & CIS |
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www.newscentralasia.com/ |
China |
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english.peopledaily.com.cn/home.html |
China & Hong Kong |
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www.scmp.com/news |
France |
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www.france24.com/en/france/ |
Israel |
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www.haaretz.com/ |
Norway |
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www.newsinenglish.no/category/news/ |
Palestine |
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english.pnn.ps/ |
Russia |
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english.pravda.ru/ |
Ukraine |
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www.ukrainianjournal.com/ |
Obama Praises “Courage” of Dissidents
Obama meets with Cuban dissidents and other civil society leaders on March 22, 2016 in at the US Embassy in Havana. Photo: Pablo Martinez Monsivais, AP/USA Today
HAVANA TIMES — US president Barack Obama met in Havana today with a varied group of Cuban dissidents and members of civil society. He praised them for their “extraordinary courage”, on the last day of his historic visit to Cuba, reported dpa news.
“All these people around this table have shown extraordinary courage,” Obama said during his meeting with dissidents and civil society at the US embassy on the Havana Malecon, a day after the president of Cuba, Raul Castro, denied there were political prisoners.
Obama said that some of them have concerns about “democracy, freedom of speech, worship or assembly or have advocated for democratic practices here in Cuba”. He recalled that some of them have been arrested “in the past and others very recently.”
“My hope is that we continue to fine tune our policy so that ultimately Cubans are able to live free and prosper,” added the president.
“It often requires a lot of courage to be active in the civil society here in Cuba,” said Obama, who added that “this is an area in which we continue to have profound differences” with the Cuban government said……………
- Second mass-casualty strike the US military has undertaken this month
- Two strikes have killed more than 200 people at ‘terrorist training camps’
The US airstrike happened hours after multiple attacks killed over 30 people and wounded more than 200 in Brussels, although it is unclear if any connection exists between the two events. Photograph: Isaac Brekken/Getty Images
Spencer Ackerman in New York
A massive US airstrike in Yemen has killed what the Pentagon estimates is “dozens” of people, the second such mass-casualty strike the US military has undertaken this month.
The two strikes, killing more than 200 people at what the Pentagon described as terrorist training camps, diverged so sharply from the previous years’ worth of relatively low-casualty strikes that observers speculated US policy might have quietly changed.
Peter Cook, the Pentagon spokesman, announced late Tuesday that the US had bombed a mountain redoubt in Yemen used by al-Qaida’s local affiliate, al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). He said it was a “training camp” used by “more than 70 AQAP terrorists”.
An independent assessment of the actual impact of the strike, to include a full casualty total and civilian impact, was not immediately available. The Pentagon did not provide further detail of where in Yemen the alleged camp was located.
“We continue to assess the results of the operation, but our initial assessment is that dozens of AQAP fighters have been removed from the battlefield,” Cook said in a statement………
President espouses power of capitalism to transform island nation from within and promises to ‘bury the last remnant of the cold war in the Americas’
The US president delivered an impassioned appeal for political liberties in Cuba, including freedom of expression and religion, as he spoke directly to the Cuban people in a historic speech broadcast throughout the communist-ruled island. Speaking at Havana’s Grand Theater with Cuban president Raúl Castro in attendance, Obama extended a ‘hand of friendship’ and said he had come to Havana to ‘bury the last remnant’ of the cold war in the Americas
Barack Obama urged Cuba to embrace the free market in a landmark speech in Havana that championed economic liberty rather than political reform as the key to unleashing the potential of its people.
Ignoring calls to echo Ronald Reagan’s famous “tear down this wall” speech in Berlin, Obama drew another leaf from the cold war playbook and focused instead on the role of capitalism in transforming society from within.
“Many suggested that I came here to Cuba to tear something down, but I am appealing to the young people to lift something up,” Obama told a handpicked audience of 1,000 in the Havana theatre that hosted the last US president to speak in the country, 88 years ago.
Although calling for free elections and an end to the detention of dissidents, Obama’s trip has focused heavily on the growth of small business in Cuba as a sign of internal momentum for change that can circumvent political stalemate.
“We have a clear example of what the Cuban people can build – it’s called Miami,” he said in Tuesday’s televised speech. “Being self-employed is not about becoming more like America, it’s about being more like yourself.
“What changes come will depend on the Cuban people, we will not impose our political or economic system upon you. … But having removed the shadow from our relationship, I must speak honestly about the things we believe,” added Obama…………….
Hardliners saw US president’s historic trip as a betrayal, but a rising number support his bid to reset relations with Cuba
Calle Ocho in Miami’s Little Havana. For many of the city’s 1 million Cuban Americans, Obama’s speech in Havana on Tuesday was a gauge of progress made, and a roadmap of obstacles still ahead. Photograph: Erik S. Lesser/EPA
Richard Luscombe in Miami
They gathered to watch in homes, restaurants and offices. Traffic along Calle Ocho, the main thoroughfare of Little Havana, became noticeably lighter and all work was dropped as groups of people crowded around TV sets to witness this piece of history.
For many in Greater Miami’s Cuban American population of more than 1 million, Barack Obama’s speech in Havana on Tuesday was a watershed moment, a gauge of progress made – and a roadmap of the obstacles that lie ahead on the pathway to ending more than half a century of hostility.
Across much of south Florida, every step of Obama’s trip to Cuba, the first by a sitting US president in over 80 years, has been closely watched and analysed.
To the hardliners, including many of Miami’s Cuban-born elected politicians, his mere presence on the stage at El Gran Teatro de la Habana on Tuesday was an outrage, a betrayal by the leader of the world’s greatest democracy, who caved in to a communist regime charged with more than five decades of human rights abuses…………..
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A baby gorilla rests his head on his mother’s chest in Rwanda’s Virunga national park.
Photograph: Andy Rouse/Barcroft Media
