Bernie Sanders calls for normalizing ties with Iran: Zio-Watch, January 17. 2016

The Syrian government troops, backed by volunteer forces, have managed to retake full control of several strategic areas from foreign-backed militants in the northwestern province of Latakia.

Syria’s official news agency SANA quoted a senior military source on Sunday as saying that the armed forces took full control of al-Kindeisiyeh and al-Sukkariyeh villages and the surrounding hills on the northern countryside of Lattakia.

The source added that the Syrian army and allies managed to take back the mountains of al-Khanadiq, al-Kindeisiyeh, Kazbar and al-Sindyan in the same volatile region.

Syrian government forces are now defusing the explosive devices and mines left behind by terrorist groups across the region, the source noted.

Several terrorists were reportedly killed during the massive military operation, while the rest fled away towards nearby woods adjacent to Rabiaa town near the Turkish border.

Takfiri terrorists in Latakia, including the al-Qaeda-linked al-Nusra Front, are largely stationed in the northern and northeastern areas of Jabal Akrad and Jabal Turkman.

The Syrian army also carried out a series of assaults on several militant hideouts belonging to the so-called Jaish al-Fatah (the Army of Conquest) and al-Nusra Front in Kafr Sijneh village and al-Arbaeen Mountain in the southern countryside of northwestern province of Idlib over the past 24 hours.
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Vienna is radically changing its policy towards migrants and refugees, Austrian Chancellor Werner Faymann told local media. Faymann said that with the new measures introduced at Austria’s borders, the existence of “the whole EU is in question.”

“All refugees must be controlled, economic migrants must be sent to the countries of their origin,” Faymann said in an interview with Austria’s Oesterreich newspaper, to be published on Sunday.

Migrants walk during snowfall before passing Austrian-German border in Wegscheid in Austria, near Passau © Michael Dalder / Reuters

The government is implementing a strict monitoring system for asylum seekers, the chancellor said, adding that, just like in neighboring Germany, its border controls are being tightened, and repatriations of refugees are carried out.

“Anyone who arrives at our border is subject to control,” Faymann said. A valid identity card will now have to be provided to authorities, and those who do not have a right to asylum or have been already rejected by Germany will be denied entry, as will those who don’t intend to apply for refugee status in Austria.

Consequently, the Schengen agreement on open borders is “temporarily cancelled” in Austria, the chancellor said.

“If the EU does not manage to secure the external borders, Schengen as a whole is put into question…Then each country must control its national borders,” Faymann told the newspaper, adding that if the bloc’s external borders are not secured in the near future, “the whole EU [will be] in question.”

“It’s big business and what hasn’t yet been ascertained is who is running this show. A lot of [fake documents] are quite well produced, which means certain groups are actually making a lot of money and causing a lot of problems,” Mallinson said, adding that “it’s very difficult to distinguish between genuine refugees and those – and there are many of them – who are jumping on the bandwagon and coming in [to Europe].”
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A day after the historic removal of sanctions on Iran, US places new sanctions on Iranian companies and individuals for supplying ballistic missile program.

President Barack Obama on Sunday heralded the implementation of a nuclear deal with Iran, but said he is still steadfast against Tehran’s threat to Israel and others in the region.

The United States on Sunday imposed sanctions on 11 companies and individuals for supplying Iran’s ballistic missile program, the US Treasury Department said, a day after world powers lifted the crippling sanctions against the Islamic Republic over its nuclear program.

(JTA) — Days after the American Historical Association decisively rejected a resolution denouncing Israel, the Washington D.C.-based Association of American Universities reaffirmed its opposition to boycotts against Israeli academic institutions.

In a statement issued Thursday, the AAU said it was re-issuing its executive committee’s 2013 statement on boycotts because the annual meeting of the American Anthropological Association recently approved a resolution in support of a boycott of Israeli academic institutions.

The anthropologists’ group’s full membership — more than 10,000 scholars — is to vote on the resolution later this year. The American Studies Association and Asian-American Studies Association have passed similar resolutions.
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Mon Jan 18, 2016 6:3AM

The Palestinian Ministry of Health says more than two dozen Palestinians have lost their lives and hundreds of others sustained injuries due to Israeli fire in the blockaded Gaza Strip since the beginning of October last year.

The ministry announced on Sunday that 25 Palestinians were killed and 1,400 others injured with live and rubber-coated steel bullets in the Gaza Strip since October 1, 2015, Arabic-language Palestine al-Yawm news agency reported.

It said that Israeli military forces used live rounds as well as internationally prohibited munitions in their confrontations with Palestinian protesters, and that the slain Palestinians sustained fatal gunshot wounds mostly in the upper parts of their bodies, including head, neck and chest.

The Palestinian Ministry of Health further noted that the unarmed Palestinians were typically targeted in agricultural areas close to border fence in southern Gaza, adding that they did not pose any threat at all to heavily-armed Israeli troopers.

On January 15, an 18-year-old Palestinian, identified as Muhammad Abu Zayed, was fatally shot in the head as Israeli troopers fired live bullets to disperse Palestinian demonstrators east of Bureij refugee camp in the central part of the Gaza Strip.

Gazan Health Ministry spokesperson Ashraf al-Qidra said the Palestinian teenage boy was transported to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah, located over 14 kilometers (8.7 miles) south of Gaza City, where he succumbed to his grave injuries.Shortly afterwards, a second Palestinian died after being shot in the abdomen during clashes in the same area.
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Sun Jan 17, 2016 8:50PM

Three US citizens have reportedly been kidnapped from south of the Iraqi capital Baghdad.

“We are aware of reports that American citizens are missing in Iraq…We are working with the full cooperation of the Iraqi authorities to locate and recover the individuals,” said US State Department spokesman John Kirby in a statement released Sunday.

“The safety and security of American citizens overseas is our highest priority,” he added.

According to other reports, a translator also went missing along with the US nationals on Friday.

An Iraqi official was quoted by CNN as saying that, “A company filed a report Sunday about three of its staff going missing two days ago. They are American contractors. We are looking into this report.”

The identities of those missing are yet to be confirmed.