Globe Trot: Germany, France make another bid for peace in Ukraine

UKRAINE: Germany and France announced a surprise bid to negotiate an end to the conflict in Ukraine, with heads of state Angela Merkel and François Hollande in Moscow today to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin. High-stakes negotiations come as NATO is setting up new command centers in Eastern Europe and doubling the size of its rapid reaction force—all amid escalating casualties in Ukraine and signals that Russia wants to expand its areas of control. It’s worth underscoring: East-West tensions are running at their highest since the Cold War.

YEMEN: Houthi rebels today announced their formal takeover and a new transitional government following the seizure of the presidential palace on Jan. 22 that led to U.S.-allied President Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi resigning. In an earlier Globe Trot, I suggest the Houthi rebels were allied with al-Qaeda, but those are separate factions also fighting in Yemen; the Houthis are Shiite-dominated and backed by Iran.

NIGERIA: Nationwide elections are one week away, and violence is likely before and after.

IRAQ: House Speaker John Boehner expects President Barack Obama to submit a new use-of-force agreement to authorize expanded war with ISIS within days. Incredibly, less than a year ago, the White House marched its lawyers up Capitol Hill to argue for ending the Authorization for Use of Military Force agreement (AUMF) enacted shortly after 9/11 to give the president authority to go after terrorists. Obama said then he wanted it repealed and would veto any revision.

Delays in U.S. action are putting the lives of Christian refugees in Iraq at risk. To qualify for asylum status in the United States or Canada, they must actually cross Iraq’s borders, and that means trekking through ISIS-held territory in Syria or Turkey.

JORDAN: The technical experts say a study of the video showing pilot Muath al-Kaseasbeh being burned alive reveals a new level of sophistication and audacity in ISIS show killings.

SYRIA: Government forces (the enemy that is fighting our enemy) dropped barrel bombs that killed at least 25 civilians in Aleppo, as the UN estimates more than 220,000 people have been killed in the four-year civil war there.

CORRECTION: The Feb. 4 Globe Trot had an extensive item on a speech by Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, that actually was from May 2014. I don’t believe Khamenei’s sentiments have changed, but I was careless to tag it as news.

I’M READING (or attempting) The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon (or at least Volume 1).