14-Feb-12 World View: Israel Accuses Iran of Attempted Embassy Staff Bombings

14-Feb-12 World View: Israel Accuses Iran of Attempted Embassy Staff Bombings

This morning’s key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com.

  • Israel accuses Iran of attempted embassy staff bombings
  • More vacuous outrage in U.N. as dozens more are killed in Syria
  • Germans approve Greece bailout even though they know it won’t work

 

Israel accuses Iran of attempted embassy staff bombings

Israel accused Iran and its Lebanon ally Hizbollah of being behind the two failed attempts, in India and Georgia, to kill Israel’s embassy staff with bombs. In New Delhi, a bomb wounded an Israeli embassy official, her driver and two passers-by. In Tbilisi, an embassy employee who is not an Israeli, was targeted with a bomb attached to his car, but he saw the bomb and called police to defuse it. Israel had already put its foreign missions on high alert because Sunday was the fourth anniversary of the assassination in Syria of Imad Moughniyeh, a military mastermind of Hizbollah — an attack widely assumed to be the work of Israel’s agents. Since then, there have been several attempted Hizbollah attacks against Israeli targets, but they’ve all been thwarted. Iran is denying that they’re responsible for the attacks in India and Georgia, though in the past they’ve vowed to get revenge for Israeli attacks on Iranian targets. Reuters and Jerusalem Post

 

More vacuous outrage in U.N. as dozens more are killed in Syria

On Monday, 30 civilians, including two children, were killed in violence by the the regime of Syria’s president Bashar al-Assad. More than 680 were killed last week. Reflecting the seriousness of the situation, diplomats at the United Nations made one explosive statement after another expressing moral outrage and insisting that the violence had to stop — NOW. CNN


Germans approve Greece bailout even though they know it won’t work

After two years of fighting Greece’s debt crisis, hardly anyone believes that the current strategy will work — not in Athens, Brussels or Berlin — despite Sunday’s passage of austerity measures by Greece’s Parliament. German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble was so disgusted that he wanted to cancel last Thursday’s Eurogroup meeting, after Greece’s politicians had failed day after day to reach fundamental agreements, but he was overruled by the other ministers. But it turned out that Schäuble was right: The Greeks had failed to provide important documents, including an agreement with private investors, and written pledges by Greek leaders to abide by agreed austerity measures. The Greeks hadn’t even submitted an application for fresh financial assistance. The Germans have decided that there is no hope, and that any attempt to bail out Greece will end in failure. HOWEVER, they’ve figured out that a complete default and bankruptcy by Greece will cost Germany €71.7 billion euros, with unpredictable consequences. THEREFORE, the Germans have decided to continue with the next bailout of Greece, because they feel it’s cheaper to bail out Greece than to deal with a Greek default. Der Spiegel

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