By Thomas Newsome and William Ripple | – Exactly 40 years ago, a small group of scientists met at the world’s first climate conference in Geneva. They raised the alarm about unnerving climate trends. Today, more than 11,000 scientists have co-signed a letter in the journal BioScience, calling for urgently necessary action on climate. This […]
Archives for November 2019
The Iraqi and Lebanese Popular uprisings Caught between Iranian and Israeli Geopolitics
By Oraib Al-Rantawi | @OraibAlRantawi It is not only Iran that is paying close attention to the uprisings of the Iraqi and Lebanese people; Israel is also monitoring the situation closely, especially in Lebanon. It has also been involved in the Iraqi crisis recently and dealing direct blows to the Popular Mobilisation Forces and the […]
America: Bases, Bases, Everywhere, and Not a Base in Sight
( Tomdispatch.com) – They called it Castle Black, an obvious homage to the famed frozen citadel from the HBO series Game of Thrones. In the fantasy world of GoT, it’s the stronghold of the Night’s Watch, the French Foreign Legion-esque guardians of the northern border of the Seven Kingdoms. This Castle Black, however, was all […]
Is Microsoft Funding Israeli Spying on Palestinians?
(Middle East Monitor) – The act of Palestinian activists covering their faces during anti-Israeli occupation rallies is an old practice that spans decades. The masking of the face, often by Kufyias – traditional Palestinian scarves that grew to symbolise Palestinian resistance – is far from being a fashion statement. Instead, it is a survival technique, […]
Saudi Arabia’s High Cost of ‘Reform:’ Arrests, Torture, Murder
Human Rights Watch (Washington, DC) – Important social reforms enacted under Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman have been accompanied by deepening repression and abusive practices meant to silence dissidents and critics, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. The 62-page report, “‘The High Cost of Change’: Repression Under Saudi Crown Prince Tarnishes […]
Syrian Kurds charge Turkey with Ethnic Cleansing as US Military frets it will be “blind” without Kurdish Help
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The semi-autonomous Kurdish region of northeast Syria today accused Turkish forces of conducting ethnic cleansing campaigns in the Kurdish region they have occupied between Tel Abyad and Ra’s al-Ayn. The communique said, “and after more than 300,000 civilians fled from its cities and villages and hamlets and houses and hospitals […]
Hezbollah: What Lebanon’s Protests against Sectarian Elite Mean for the Party-Militia
By Adham Saouli | – The national uprising that has engulfed Lebanon since mid-October is historic and revolutionary. Protests have continued across Lebanon, even after Prime Minister Saad Hariri resigned on October 29 saying he wanted to give the country a “positive shock”. The response of Hezobllah, the armed political movement that has been part […]
Top 6 Problems with Trump Taking Syrian Oil
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Trump keeps talking about taking Syrian oil. In fact, many of those 1,000 special operations troops he pulled out, sending them to Iraq, are mostly back in Syria now, but in Deir al-Zor rather than up north. That is because the lion’s share of Syrian petroleum is in Deir al-Zor […]
No Premature Burial for Academic Freedom: Speaking up in Ann Arbor
By Chandler Davis | – (Informed Comment) – Let me make a case for urgency of defense of academic freedom. I’m not addressing the whole University community. Surely there are some who don’t have any concern for academic freedom as the AAUP understands it. Some who think for example that it was honorable and right […]