A resolution sponsored by Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey with both Republican and Democratic Senators as co-sponsors — Nuclear Weapon-Free Iran Act (S1881) —sits as a ticking time-bomb in Senate desk draws, which could explode after the January 28 State of the Union message. The resolution has the potential to hinder, perhaps derail, the difficult negotiations on Iran’s nuclear program.
Albert Camus would have been 100 this November had he lived beyond the car crash which took his life in 1960. Upon receiving the Nobel Prize he said, “the nobility of our calling will always be rooted in two commitments: refusal to lie about what we know and resistance to oppression.”
The use of chemical weapons in Syria, by whatever parties, followed by the Russian diplomatic initiative, has led to a US-Russian agreement on safeguarding and dismantling Syrian chemical weapons. This agreement may be an important turning point in the prolonged war in Syria.
Many recent events have slowed Washington’s rush to war against Syria. The time gained must be used wisely to create a renewed negotiated peace effort.
Simone Weil's life and writings are a prime example of the effort to establish a link between society and the direction of thought.
The tasks facing Mali's new president, Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, are many and difficult. The government administration and services — never very strong — have largely stopped working and must be restructured. Relations with the north of the country need to be harmonized, and new local leadership needs to come to the fore, and the role of Islam as a religious/political ideology needs to be discussed calmly and with good will.
Copyright Toward Freedom 2019