Nachdem das Datum festgesetzt und die Hotels gebucht sind, wird Genf II mit oder ohne SNC stattfinden, aber es zeichnet sich bereits ab, dass ein Haufen von Ländern des Westens eine Delegation der Assad-Regierung unter Druck setzen werden, ohne wirkliche Chance, dass ein ernsthaftes Ergebnis erreicht werden kann.

Congress members introduced a bill today to “fast-track” trade agreements, including the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) through Congress. If passed, lawmakers would only have a small window of time to conduct hearings over binding trade provisions and give an up-or-down vote on ratification without any ability to amend the terms before they bind the U.S. government. This legal arrangement is at odds with the spirit of the Constitution, which gives Congress authority over U.S. trade policy. Fast-track authority (also known as Trade Promotion Authority or TPA) means that Congress hands that power over to the White House and the U.S. Trade Representative. Stopping fast-track is one crucial step towards blocking secretive and undemocratic agreements like TPP and the EU-US trade agreement, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP).

Almost as badly as Israel needs peace (if this is even possible), it needs tasks and missions, which it can do alone and which can provide an abundance of achievements.

Ambassador Caspar Veldkamp was summoned “for clarification” over the decision, the foreign ministry said.

Dutch pension fund asset manager PGGM has stopped investing in five Israeli banks because they are financing Jewish settlements and have branches in the West Bank, according to Israeli newspaper Haaretz.

Haaretz says PGGM is withdrawing on the basis of United Nations resolutions which have defined the settlements as illegal.

„The damage is enormous,“ said David Elhayani, head of the Jordan Valley Regional Council, which represents about 7,000 settlers. „In effect, today, we are almost not selling to the (Western) European market anymore.

(07.01.) DNI Clapper welcomed Review Group members Geoffrey Stone, Cass Sunstein and Peter Swire and thanked all the members for their service. The meeting allowed senior IC officials to hear directly from the Review Group about the goals and objectives of the report’s recommendations and to ask questions about the groups findings.

The government‘s requests for reauthorization are typically classified. But in a release, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said it was declassifying its latest petition to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court in light of the public‘s interest in the metadata program.

„Now we are taking the solutions … home, all of us. Hopefully tomorrow we can either confirm or not, but hopefully confirm,“ he said.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will both attend the World Economic Forum in the Swiss resort of Davos this month, the organizers told Reuters on Friday.

• Deputy director: bulk data collection is an ‚insurance policy‘
• President Obama set to announce future scope of operations

To all loyal revolutionary men and women of Egypt…

In the life of nations, there come decisive days, and in the paths of revolutions major milestones. So, move ahead boldly with your Revolution, on this crucial moment of your non-violent struggle against the junta, committed to peaceful protest and defiance with selfless devotion and creative ingenuity, for the sake of the homeland and in revenge for the martyrs, in another revolutionary escalation week, under the title „Fail False Vote“, to boycott the sham referendum on the junta‘s illegitimate constitution.

The Brotherhood says Sisi‘s overthrow of Mursi constituted a coup which undermined democratic gains made since a 2011 popular uprising toppled autocrat Hosni Mubarak.