MOSCOW — Russia and the United States announced a new diplomatic effort Tuesday to bring together the embattled government of President Bashar al-Assad and Syria’s opposition in hopes of ending a conflict now in its third year.

The two nations, which have backed opposing sides in the deepening civil war, said they will push jointly for a new transitional government in Syria. Doing so would represent a new moment of cooperation between the countries, both influential in the Middle East, at a time when the Syrian conflict is severely straining regional stability.

Somebody should def kill them all.

In other news the American pansies are fleeing Afghanistan as the Taliban marches toward victory. However the liberal imperialists are trying to hold onto bases despite the objections of Karzi.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/may/09/afghanistan-hamid-karzai-us-nine-bases-withdrawal

Afghanistan: Hamid Karzai reveals US will retain nine bases after withdrawal

President strikes conciliatory tone about larger-than-expected continuing deployment, despite frequent criticism of US forces

In Nigeria, the Shell Oil-owned government is killing the most random of people in a futile attempt to slow the growth of Boko Haram.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/08/world/africa/body-count-soars-as-nigerian-military-hunts-islamists.html

Boko Haram has shown few signs of giving up — militants suspected of belonging to the group attacked a northern town on Tuesday, killing scores, Reuters reported. The military has not shown signs of relenting either, officials said. There has been “a very high increase in the number of corpses,” said one of the state’s top health officials. “It was not this bad” several years ago, the official said. “In the last year, it has become so bad. It has escalated.”

And finally, while we're browsing The Guardian:

Tunisia’s Interior Minister Lotti Ben Jeddou has indicated that jihadists who are being pursued by the army on Tunisia’s border with Algeria, are veterans of the on-going war that is taking place in Mali. This effectively demonstrates the heightened risk that militants may have likely crossed the borders into neighboring countries to seek shelter from bomb raids that were occurring in March and in April and to regroup and launch attacks in those countries that are participating in the war.

Since the January 2011 revolution, which effectively ousted Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, Tunisia has seen a proliferation of radical Islamist groups that were suppressed under the former dictator. Since then, these groups have been blamed for a wave of violence, notably an attack on the US embassy last September and the assassination of a a leftist opposition leader in February.

http://www.msrisk.com/ms-risk-blog/

7 May: Armed men in vehicles with machineguns and anti-aircraft guns have surrounded the foreign and justice ministries for over a week, demanding the Libyan government’s resignation. On 5 March, under pressure from gunmen, the General National Congress pushed through a controversial law to exclude members of Gadaffi’s former regime from holding public posts, even if they switched to support the rebels during the course of the 2011 civil war.

A leader of the militias stated, “We are determined to continue our movement until the departure of (Prime Minister) Ali Zeidan.” The militias had promised to lift their siege if the law was passed. Zeidan’s government has recently launched a campaign to remove the militias from Tripoli.

Libya’s defence minister, Mohammed Al-Barghathi had resigned, and then rescinded his resignation on Tuesday in protest over the continuous show of force by the militias, calling it an “assault on democracy and elected authorities.”

On 9 May, the militia added several additional demands, including Zeidan’s resignation, the freezing of a recently released state budget and the right to form a committee to take charge of the Foreign Ministry.

{The protesters are calling for prime minister Ali Zeidan to step down. Zeidan is a Geneva-imported human rights lawyer and a strong believer in Western liberalism. However so are his opponents so this story isn't even important.}

http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2012-03-10/world/35447284_1_al-qaeda-yemen-branch-anwar-al-awlaki

UNITED NATIONS — A reinvigorated al-Qaeda has made “alarming” advances in Yemen, expanding its military control over several southern towns and launching a series of brazen attacks that threaten the U.S.-backed political transition there, a senior U.N. envoy warned the Security Council in a confidential briefing last week.

“The scale of these attacks serves as a stark reminder of the security threat posed by al-Qaeda,” Jamal Benomar, the U.N. special envoy for Yemen, told the 15-nation council Wednesday, according to a copy of the briefing notes obtained by The Washington Post. “Despite all counterterrorism efforts, al-Qaeda in Yemen has not retreated.”

Al-Qaeda’s ranks in Yemen have grown in recent months, with fresh recruits arriving from Afghanistan, Somalia, Pakistan and other countries in North Africa and the Middle East, according to Richard Barrett, the head of the U.N. panel that monitors the group’s global activities. He said it also has “corralled” other Yemeni groups under an organization, Ansar al-Sharia, which means supporters of sharia, or Islamic law.

While the movement has demonstrated an impressive capacity to “mount these quite spectacular attacks,” Barrett said it is unlikely al-Qaeda’s local allies will embrace global jihad. “There is not the ideological cement to bind them come what may,” he said.

roseweird posted:

look how gently that guy is snoozin, he doesn't give a fuck, he prob said it then said "welp good night"

he took one look and fainted the fuck out