2018

Gun Epidemic: Pakistani Exchange Student killed by Santa Fe, TX, Shooter was no Safer in US than at Home

Just to note the irony that a Pakistani exchange student, Sabika Sheikh, was among the (so far) 10 persons killed in the school massacre at Santa Fe, Texas. Pakistan has seen a stark reduction in deaths from terrorism in recent years. The Global Terrorism Index for 2017 says that “Pakistan also recorded a decrease in […]

film

Race for Film Gold at Cannes in shadow of #MeToo & Gaza

Deborah Cole

Cannes (France) (AFP) – A jury led by Cate Blanchett will crown the winner of the coveted Palme d’Or for best film at Cannes Saturday, after a politically charged festival rocked by controversy and the #MeToo movement. Movies by Spike Lee, South Korea’s Lee Chang-dong, Italian Matteo Garrone and Nadine Labaki of Lebanon — one […]

Human Rights Watch

Saudis Arrest 7 Women’s Rights Activists who had Upstaged Crown Prince on Driving

Human Rights Watch

Beirut ( Human Rights Watch) – Saudi authorities since May 15, 2018, detained a total of seven prominent women’s rights defenders, Human Rights Watch said today. The activists have long advocated ending the ban on women driving and abolishing the discriminatory male guardianship system. Among those arrested are Eman al-Nafjan and Lujain al-Hathloul, along with […]

Israel/ Palestine

Palestinian women: a history of female resistance in Gaza and the West Bank

Maria Holt

Outside observers tend to imagine the face of Gaza as resolutely male: the bearded Hamas “militant”, or the young man hurling stones across the border fence. But Palestinian women, both in Gaza and the West Bank, have a significant presence as activists, protesting against an unjust occupation, but also as the backbone of a fragmented […]

China

China picking up Iran Gas Deal Trump forced France’s Total to Give Up… In Yuan, not Dollars

Julien Girault

Beijing (AFP) – The US decision to reimpose sanctions on Iran could scare off European investors but oil-thirsty China may step into the void and ramp up business links with the country. China, which is already Iran’s top trade partner and one of its biggest buyers of crude, has signalled that it intends to keep […]

Climate Change

Alabama Rep with Rocks in his Head blames Rocks for Climate Change

Juan Cole

Alabama representative for the 5th district Mo Brooks sits on the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee, and spent his time harassing climate scientists at a hearing. He blamed sea level rise on rocks falling into the sea from coastal erosion. Sea levels are rising in part because surface ice is melting owing to of […]

Displaced and Refugees

100,000 Yemenis displaced by Saudi-led Coastal Offensive, with Millions on edge of Famine

AFP

Aden (AFP) – A Yemen government offensive backed by ground troops and warplanes of the Saudi-led coalition has displaced tens of thousands of people along the country’s western coast, Amnesty International said Thursday. The rights group warned “the worst could be yet to come” after surveying civilians who made the perilous escape from front line […]

Iraq

Why Muqtada al-Sadr’s Shocking Victory in Iraq Elections isn’t that Shocking

Mustafa Habib

Baghdad (Niqash.org) The results of the Iraqi elections were surprising. But in fact, the way Iraqis were feeling about local politics beforehand indicates that nobody should actually have been all that surprised. The morning after the preliminary announcements about who had won and who had lost in the Iraqi elections, it was clear that Iraqis […]

Donald Trump

How Trump’s 2000 lies are Termites chomping at the Foundations of Democracy

Karen J. Greenberg

( Tomdispatch.com) Consider us officially in an Orwellian world, though we only half realize it. While we were barely looking, significant parts of an American language long familiar to us quite literally, and in a remarkably coherent way, went down the equivalent of George Orwell’s infamous Memory Hole. This hit me in a personal way […]

Archives for 2018