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Archives for August 2015

Displaced and Refugees
Germany decides to Accept Syrian Refugees, Waives EU Rule

Germany decides to Accept Syrian Refugees, Waives EU Rule

contributors

Der Tagesspiegel by Andrea Dernbach translated by Samuel Morgan [NB Germany is expecting 800,000 asylum seekers this year, 40% of the EU total.] Germany has ceased applying the rules of the Dublin system to Syrian refugees. All deportations to other EU countries have been halted, Tagesspiegel reports. The Dublin system’s critics have said for years […]

Authoritarianism
Turkey's Snap Elections:  Erdoğan is forcing his people to take sides

Turkey’s Snap Elections: Erdoğan is forcing his people to take sides

contributors

By Bahar Baser and Ahmet Erdi Öztürk | (The Conversation) | – – Ever since the June 2015 elections, which thwarted the proposed presidential system that President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has long craved, Turkey has been hurtling into one of its most turbulent periods in decades. And with a snap election called for November 2015, […]

Apartheid
Major World Aid Groups & 150,000 people demand end to Israel's Gaza blockade

Major World Aid Groups & 150,000 people demand end to Israel’s Gaza blockade

contributors

Oxfam | (Press Release) – – Oxfam Press Release : More than 150,000 people from around the world have today joined 35 aid, faith, development and human rights organizations in backing an unprecedented joint call urging world leaders to press the Israeli government to lift the blockade on Gaza and remove the restrictions on basic […]

Climate Change
Water Being Used as Weapon of War in Syrian Conflict, UN Warns

Water Being Used as Weapon of War in Syrian Conflict, UN Warns

contributors

By Lauren McCauley, staff writer. | (Commondreams.org) | – – Compounded by scorching heat wave, Syrians are experiencing ‘deliberate’ water cut-offs, often for weeks at a time The United Nations on Tuesday said it has reason to believe that groups in the Syrian conflict are using the country’s scarce water supply as a weapon of […]

Featured
Defending Natalie Portman on Holocaust:  Sometimes it can be subverted to fear-mongering

Defending Natalie Portman on Holocaust: Sometimes it can be subverted to fear-mongering

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Actress Natalie Portman has kicked off a controversy with remarks about how to remember the Nazi Holocaust against the Jews, in which the National Socialists murdered 6 million. Her critics have run off on tangents and presented a lot of red herrings. Portman did not question […]

journalism
Jorge Ramos explains his ejection from Trump's press conference

Jorge Ramos explains his ejection from Trump’s press conference

contributors

Jorge Ramos | (Univision Noticias) (Video Interview)| – – Univision Noticias: “Jorge Ramos explains what happened after he was escorted out of Trump’s press conference”

Syria
ISIL's Assault on History: Blows Up 1st Century Baal Shamin Temple in Palmyra

ISIL’s Assault on History: Blows Up 1st Century Baal Shamin Temple in Palmyra

Juan Cole

RFE / RL | – – Gunmen from the Islamic State (IS) militant group have blown up a first century A.D. temple in the ancient city of Palmyra, Syrian government officials and a monitoring group have said. However, there is confusion over when the detonation is thought to have taken place. Syria’s directorate-general of antiquities […]

National Security State
Jeb Bush’s Torquemada Platform (Political Cartoon)

Jeb Bush’s Torquemada Platform (Political Cartoon)

contributors

Paul Jamiol | (Jamiol’s World) Via Jamiol’s World

Coal
Coal Industry Collapsing in Appalachia, leaving behind Blighted Landscape

Coal Industry Collapsing in Appalachia, leaving behind Blighted Landscape

Juan Cole

By Laura Gottesdiener. | (Tomdispatch.com) | – – In Appalachia, explosions have leveled the mountain tops into perfect race tracks for Ryan Hensley’s all-terrain vehicle (ATV). At least, that’s how the 14-year-old sees the barren expanses of dirt that stretch for miles atop the hills surrounding his home in the former coal town of Whitesville, […]

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