Russia, Iran, Turkey together to end six-yr Syrian civil war: Putin

Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that his Iranian and Turkish counterparts have agreed to hold a "congress" in Russia in a bid to end the six-year civil war in Syria.

Putin made the announcement after talks with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

However, no date for the proposed congress has been announced.

The three leaders have issued a joint statement aimed at continuing the Syrian peace talks and finding a sustainable solution for the post-conflict period by convening a "Syrian National Congress of Dialogue," reported CNN, citing Putin as saying.

In a joint statement they urged the Syrian government and opposition to "participate constructively".

"The congress will look at the key questions on Syria's national agenda including working out a political organisation and the endorsement of a new constitution" and "the organisation of the new elections under the auspices of the UN", Putin added.

This came days after he hosted his Syrian ally, President Bashar al-Assad.

Bashar al-Assad, during a visit to Sochi earlier this week, stated that he was "totally committed" to a peaceful solution.

Putin told Assad that the military campaign was "wrapping up", but there was still "a long way to go".
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The dangerous trend threatening the future of the nation-state

When the historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., published his bestseller The Disuniting of America in 1991, he didn’t seriously entertain the worst-case scenario suggested by the title. At the time, the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia were imploding, while separatist movements in Quebec, East Timor, Spain’s Basque country, and elsewhere were already clamouring for their own states.

But when it came to the United States, Schlesinger’s worries were principally focused on the far smaller battlefield of the American classroom and what he saw as multiculturalism’s threat to the mythic “melting pot.” Although he took those teacup tempests seriously, the worst future Schlesinger could imagine was what he called the “tribalization of American life.” He didn’t contemplate the actual dismemberment of the country.

Today, controversies over hate speech and gender politics continue to roil American campuses. These, however, are probably the least important conflicts in the country right now, considering the almost daily evidence of disintegrative pressures of every sort: demonstrations by white supremacists, mass shootings and police killings, the current dismantling of the federal government. Not to speak of the way cities and states are defying Washington’s dictates on immigration, the environment, and health care. The nation’s motto of e pluribus unum — out of many, one —is in serious danger of being turned inside out.

A country that hasn’t had a civil war in more than 150 years, where secessionist movements from Texas to Vermont have generally caused merriment rather than concern, now faces divisions so serious and a civilian arsenal of weapons so huge, that the possibility of national disintegration has become part of mainstream conversation. Indeed, after the 2016 elections, predicting a second civil war in the United States — a real, bloody, no-holds-barred military conflict — has become all the rage among journalists, historians, and foreign policy pundits across the political spectrum.
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How the US government created and coddled the gun industry

After Stephen Paddock opened fire on Las Vegas concertgoers on Oct. 1, many people responded with calls for more gun control to help prevent mass shootings and the routine violence ravaging U.S. neighborhoods.

But besides a rare consensus on restricting the availability of so-called bump stocks, which Paddock used to enable his dozen semi-automatic rifles to fire like machine guns, it’s unclear if anything meaningful will come of it.

If advocates for reform despair after such a tragedy, I can understand. The politics seem intractable right now. It’s easy to feel powerless.

But what I’ve learned from a decade of studying the history of the arms trade has convinced me that the American public has more power over the gun business than most people realize.

Washington’s patronage
The U.S. arms industry’s close alliance with the government is as old as the country itself, beginning with the American Revolution.

Forced to rely on foreign weapons during the war, President George Washington wanted to ensure that the new republic had its own arms industry. Inspired by European practice, he and his successors built public arsenals for the production of firearms in Springfield and Harper’s Ferry. They also began doling out lucrative arms contracts to private manufacturers such as Simeon North, the first official U.S. pistol maker, and Eli Whitney, inventor of the cotton gin.
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Syria government behind sarin gas attack in April: UN

United Nations war crimes investigators said on Wednesday they had evidence that Syrian government forces were behind the chemical attack that killed dozens of people in Khan Sheikhun in April.

In the first UN report to officially blame Damascus, the UN Commission of Inquiry (COI) on Syria said it had gathered an "extensive body of information" showing the Syrian airforce was behind the horrific sarin gas attack on April 4.

"All evidence available leads the Commission to conclude that there are reasonable grounds to believe Syrian forces dropped an aerial bomb dispersing sarin in Khan Sheikhun," the report said.

At least 83 people, a third of them children, were killed and nearly 300 wounded in the attack on Khan Sheikhun, a town in the opposition-held northern province of Idlib, it said.

Other sources have given a death toll of at least 87.

Syria's government has denied involvement and claims it no longer possesses chemical weapons after a 2013 agreement under which it pledged to surrender its chemical arsenal.

A fact-finding mission by the UN's chemical watchdog, the OPCW, concluded earlier this year that sarin gas was used in the attack, but did not assign blame.
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Pakistan Army, ISI pushing Sindh towards civil war: Altaf Hussain

Pakistan's army and spy agency Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) are pushing Sindh province towards a civil war, the head of the country's fourth largest party has alleged and sought the intervention of the United Nations (UN) and the international community.

In a audio message, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) chief Altaf Hussain alleged that Pakistan Army and ISI have "virtually taken control" of all Pakistan including Khyber- Pakhtunkhwa, Sindh and all Balochistan.

"They have killed hundreds and thousands of innocent Mohajir Balochs and Pashtoons who raised their voice against Punjabi army," London-based Hussain said in the message.

"Now the the world community is realising that Pakistani intelligence agency, ISI has been harbouring the most wanted terrorists including Osama bin Laden, Mullah Omer and Mullah Akhter Mansoor in Pakistan," he said.

He asked "the UN Secretary General and the international community to intervene and use their offices to stop the bloodshed of Mohajirs, Balochs and Pashtoons" in Pakistan.

Hussain said Pakistan Army and ISI are pushing Karachi, Hyderabad and urban centers of Sindh towards a civil war.

"The patience of Mohajir Nation is cutting loose as more than 20,000 Mohajirs have been extra judicially killed in army-led operations which continues since 1992," he said.

Referring to the recent Iranian statement warning Pakistan for safe havens of Taliban, jihadi groups, Hussain said Islamabad is getting isolated by every passing day in the world community.
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