h/t osjusa.org Attributed to the Coptic Museum, Cairo, Egypt Coptic Christians probably came to predominate in Egypt by the 600s when Muslim Arabs conquered it. As late as 1200, some historians think that Egypt was half Christian and half Muslim. For the past two hundred years, the Coptic Christian population has been estimated at around […]
Archives for December 2013
Birth of Hope: Top Ten Solar Energy Stories 2013
(By Juan Cole) The story of a doomed race who need to be saved by a messiah is on people’s minds today. It functions at a spiritual level. There is an analogous story at the physical level. Humankind is facing the biggest crisis in its 120,000-year-long existence, the physical equivalent of original sin. It is […]
Damascus’s Other Battle: Regime Cyberwar on the Opposition
(By Dave Maass) Social Engineering and Malware in Syria: EFF and Citizen Lab’s Latest Report on the Digital Battlefield (via EFF) More than two years into the Syrian conflict, the violence continues both on the ground and in the digital realm. Just as human rights investigators and weapons inspectors search for evidence of chemical weapons, […]
Climate Denialists Spending Billions in untraceable Dark Money to fool the Public
(By Lauren McCauley) The expansive misinformation campaign behind climate change denial is increasingly being funded in the dark, reveals a new report published Friday in the journal Climatic Change According to the study titled "Institutionalizing Delay: foundation funding and the creation of U.S. climate change counter-movement organizations," while the largest and most consistent funders of […]
Chief Rabbi of Yazd, Iran, 1903 (Photo of the Day)
The Chief Rabbi of Yazd, Iran, in the center Iran’s population in 1900 was around 10 million. There were roughly 100,000 Jews in Iran at that time. Lord Curzon wrote in the late nineteenth century of different treatment of Jews in different parts of the country: “In Isfahan, where they are said to be 3,700 […]
The Iraqization of Egypt: Two Large Bombs Rock Security Bldg in Mansoura, kill 14, wound 130
(By Juan Cole) Two large explosions at the state security building in downtown Mansoura, Dahqaliya Province, killed at least 14 persons and wounded 130 on Monday, reducing some of the edifice to rubble and damaging its facade. The head of the directorate of security was among the wounded. [Photos via Mansouracity.com] Crowds immediately gathered to […]
War Crime: Syrian Regime Killed Hundreds of Civilians, including Children, with Airstrikes on Aleppo
(By Ole Solvang, senior emergencies researcher, Human Rights Watch) < Dozens of government airstrikes that have killed hundreds of civilians, including children, in Aleppo governorate in the last month were unlawful. After months of stalemate between government and opposition forces in Aleppo, Human Rights Watch documented an intensification of government attacks starting on November 23. […]
From Tahrir to New Orleans: Hope has not Failed, it has only Begun
(By Rebecca Solnit) Hope, History, and UnpredictabilityBy Rebecca Solnit North American cicada nymphs live underground for 17 years before they emerge as adults. Many seeds stay dormant far longer than that before some disturbance makes them germinate. Some trees bear fruit long after the people who have planted them have died, and one Massachusetts pear […]
A Christian Bride of Mosul, Iraq, 1903 (Photo of the Day)
Caption: A Mosul Bride: The girl in the centre of the picture is a Christian bride decked out in her wedding costume. The gold coins, necklaces, and girdle are her dowry. From M. E. Hume-Griffith and A. Hume, Behind the Veil in Persia and Turkish Arabia: An Account of an Englishwoman’s Eight Years’ Residence Amongst […]
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