DOHA (Reuters) - A 31-member Taliban delegation has arrived in Qatar to sign a U.S. troop withdrawal deal that could end the war in Afghanistan, officials of the hardline Islamist group said on Saturday.
The United States and Taliban in Afghanistan are poised to sign a peace deal in the presence of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo that is part of a wider push for Afghan reconciliation and an end to the longest U.S. war.
The signing ceremony between the warring sides is set to take place in Qatar’s capital of Doha.
[IsraelTimes] A new Swiss payment mechanism allowing food, medicine and other humanitarian aid to be sent to Iran ...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites. Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979. The nation is today noted for spontaneously taking over other countries' embassies, maintaining whorehouses run by clergymen, involvement in international drug trafficking, and financing sock puppet militias to extend the regime's influence. The word Iran is a cognate form of Aryan, the abbreviation IRGC is a cognate form of Stürmabteilung (or SA), the term Supreme Guide is a cognate form of either Shah or Führer or maybe both, and they hate JewsZionists Jews. Their economy is based on the production of oil and vitriol... without stumbling over US sanctions has officially taken effect, Bern says.
The system was created to allow Swiss companies in the food, pharmaceutical and medical sectors to make aid shipments to Iran without drawing the wrath of Washington for breaching a vast range of sanctions against the Islamic country.
"The Swiss Humanitarian Trade Arrangement (SHTA), a payment mechanism to enable humanitarian goods to be delivered to Iran, came into effect on 27 February," the Swiss economic affairs ministry (SECO) says in a statement.
Iran has been facing severe medical shortages since the US pulled out of a landmark nuclear deal and reimposed crippling sanctions on the country in 2018.
Washington had exempted humanitarian goods, especially medicines and medical equipment from its punitive measures.
But international purchases of such supplies are forestalled by banks being wary of conducting any business with Iran, for fear of falling foul of sanctions themselves.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
02/29/2020 00:00 ||
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[NEWS.YAHOO] The Europe ...the land mass occupying the space between the English Channel and the Urals, also known as Moslem Lebensraum... an Union blacklisted two Ottoman Turkish nationals as retaliation over Ankara’s energy drilling off Cyprus in a move that has more political symbolism than economic punch.
The EU asset freezes and travel bans on two employees of Ottoman Turkish Petroleum Corp. make good on the bloc’s months-long vow to counter The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...Qatar's satrapy in Asia Minor... ’s oil and natural-gas exploration in waters that are part of the exclusive economic zone of member country Cyprus. The sanctions also are the first of their kind in response to the actions of a nation seeking to join the EU.
At the same time, the decision by EU governments in Brussels stops short of targeting any Ottoman Turkish companies. This reflects a desire to avoid antagonizing a key ally in the fight to prevent Middle East migration, particularly from war-torn Syria.
"Hanging in the balance is a possible influx of Syrian refugees into Europe," said Michael Emerson of the CEPS think tank in the Belgian capital. "It’s a highly sensitive political issue in the EU."
Relations between the EU and Turkey have been deteriorating since Ottoman Turkish President His Enormity, Sultan Recep Tayyip Erdogan the First ...Turkey's version of Mohammed Morsi but they voted him back in so they deserve him. It's a sin, a shame, and a felony to insult the president of Turkey. In Anatolia did Recep Bey a stately Presidential Palace decree, that has 1100 rooms. That's 968 more than in the White House, 400 more than in Versailles, and 325 more than Buckingham Palace, so you know who's really more important... responded to a failed coup attempt in mid-2016 by unleashing a widespread crackdown on political opponents.
Ties soured further in 2018 when the Ottoman Turkish navy prevented drilling by Italia-based Eni SpA in Cypriot waters and again late last year, when Turkey carried out a military operation in northern Syria to carve out a buffer zone and struck a controversial accord with Libya on their maritime boundary.
The acrimony has halted negotiations on a bid for EU membership by Turkey, which has been seeking to join the bloc since the 1980s and began accession talks in 2005. The energy-exploration tensions are a reminder of the most basic European disagreement with Turkey: its occupation of the northern part of Cyprus since a 1974 invasion.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/29/2020 00:00 ||
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Ht Wretchard.
[Al-Rooters] Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on Saturday that he had asked President Vladimir Putin for Russia to step aside in Syria and leave Turkey to deal with Syrian government forces alone. "Nyet"
After the death of its soldiers in a Syrian government air strike on Thursday, Turkey said it would allow migrants it hosts to freely pass to Europe.
Erdogan said in Istanbul on Saturday that 18,000 migrants has crossed the border, without immediately providing evidence, adding that the number would rise.
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/29/2020 06:49 ||
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#1
Bend over, I'll drive....
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
02/29/2020 8:44 Comments ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites. Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979. The nation is today noted for 
...Qatar's satrapy in Asia Minor...
