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Archives for December 2014

Iraq
The Yezidis:  People of an Ancient Faith Battle Ethnic Cleansing

The Yezidis: People of an Ancient Faith Battle Ethnic Cleansing

contributors

By Richard Foltz | (Special to Informed Comment) — Among the many victims of the barbarous Daesh (what Arabs call ISIS or ISIL), none has suffered more severely than the Kurdish Yezidis. After overrunning a number of Yezidi villages in Northern Syria and Iraq during the summer of 2014, Daesh extremists – who consider Yezidis […]

Democracy
Tunisia:  Nationalist Candidate's claimed win in Presidential Poll Contested

Tunisia: Nationalist Candidate’s claimed win in Presidential Poll Contested

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) — The major political parties do fairly sophisticated exit polling in Tunisian elections now, and secular, nationalist warhorse Beji Caid Essebsi claimed a victory of some 52 or 53% on Sunday evening. His opponent, human rights activist and incumbent interim president, Moncef Marzouki, however, declined to concede. Formal results […]

Islam
Israel Turns Beersheba Mosque into Museum, while 10,000 have no place to Pray

Israel Turns Beersheba Mosque into Museum, while 10,000 have no place to Pray

contributors

BEERSHEBA (Ma’an) — Authorities in the southern Israeli city of Beersheba have recently converted an historic mosque into an Islamic museum despite the fact that 10,000 local Muslims still have nowhere to pray, locals said. Locals told Ma’an that an exhibit showcasing a collection of Muslim prayer rugs was recently opened in the building that […]

African-Americans
The *Other* Torture Report:  What the USA looks like to the World

The *Other* Torture Report: What the USA looks like to the World

Rebecca Gordon

(special to Informed Comment) — At long last – despite the attempts at sabotage by, and over the protests of the CIA, and notwithstanding the dilatory efforts of the State Department – the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence has finally issued the executive summary of its 6,300-page report on the CIA’s detention and interrogation program. […]

Iraq
How the Iraq Wars began with the Invasion of Panama

How the Iraq Wars began with the Invasion of Panama

contributors

By Greg Grandin | (Tomdispatch.com) — As we end another year of endless war in Washington, it might be the perfect time to reflect on the War That Started All Wars — or at least the war that started all of Washington’s post-Cold War wars: the invasion of Panama. Twenty-five years ago this month, early […]

Entertainment
Anthony Bourdain on Iran and Beirut (Bisley Interview)

Anthony Bourdain on Iran and Beirut (Bisley Interview)

contributors

By Alexander Bisley | (Special to Informed Comment) —  “By the end of this hour I will be seen by many as a terrorist sympathizer, a Zionist tool, a self-hating Jew, an apologist for American imperialism, an orientalist, socialist, fascist, CIA agent, and worse,” the inimitable Anthony Bourdain introduced his vital Gaza/West Bank episode Bourdain’s […]

Displaced and Refugees
Kurds inflict first Major Defeat on Daesh/ ISIL, Rescue Yezidis of Sinjar

Kurds inflict first Major Defeat on Daesh/ ISIL, Rescue Yezidis of Sinjar

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) — The pan-Arab London daily, Al-Hayat [Life] reports that the Iraqi Kurdistan paramilitary, the Peshmerga, have taken Mt. Sinjar from Daesh (what Arabs call ISIL or ISIS). They have therefore saved several thousand members of the Yezidi (Izadi) Kurdish religious minority, who have been besieged and sometimes enslaved or […]

Climate Change
GOP Denialism to Sink Capital: 150 Tidal Floods a Year for Washington DC by 2045

GOP Denialism to Sink Capital: 150 Tidal Floods a Year for Washington DC by 2045

contributors

Link TV | — “The eastern coast of the United States– from the Gulf of Mexico to New England — has one of the highest rates of sea level rise in the world. As a result of climate change, 5 to 11 inches of sea level rise is expected by 2045 leaving communities like Norfolk, […]

Dissent
Leftist Jordanians protest expected gas deal with Israel

Leftist Jordanians protest expected gas deal with Israel

contributors

BETHLEHEM (Ma’an) — Dozens of protesters marched in the Jordanian capital of Amman on Friday to denounce a gas deal with Israel that is expected to be passed by the end of the year. Protesters held signs against the Israeli diplomatic mission in Jordan and against normalization with Israel during the rally, bearing messages such […]

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