2019

By Kyla Tienhaara | – Everyone, it seems, has an opinion about the (new) Green New Deal. It’s an ambitious plan to make America carbon-neutral — as well as more equitable — in a mere 10 years. Although the Green New Deal resolution that will be voted on in the U.S. Senate is likely to […]

Israel/ Palestine

Forgotten Palestinian Women of Jerusalem Struggling for their Rights as World Commemorated Women

Middle East Monitor

On International Women’s Rights Day, which falls on 8 March every year, we need to take a moment to look at whether all women are able to exercise all of their rights around the world. Are women’s rights limited to specific countries, while those elsewhere continue to suffer from oppression and discrimination? Are there women […]

Haredim

On Int’l Women’s Day, Thousands of Ultra-Orthodox Assault Women of the Wailing Wall

Maan News Agency

JERUSALEM (Ma’an) — Thousands of ultra-Orthodox youths violently disrupted a Women of the Wall prayer service, on Friday, forcing the multi-denominational feminist group to move to another location after two of its members sustained injuries near the Western Wall. According to the spokesperson of Women of the Wall, the group was holding an anniversary prayer […]

Archaeology

For Int’l Women’s Day: An Arabian Woman of Late Antiquity Prays to Goddesses for Peace

Juan Cole

For Int’l Women’s Day, via OCIANA a Safaitic Arabic inscription [c. 1-400 AD], by a wealthy woman calling on two goddesses for peace: “By Shamat daughter of Sar is the mule [owned] and O {Shahqam} —-m—- [and] Allat, [grant] {security} [for] the people of al-Ḍaf.” This inscription from the first centuries after Christ in Arabia […]

Corruption

Millionaire “Justice”: 5 Petty Shoplifting Charges sentenced more harshly than Manafort’s Hiding Millions

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Trump’s campaign manager, Paul Manafort, was given 47 months in prison for his crimes on Thursday, in a jaw-dropping ruling that treated him as a good family man without priors. He only didn’t have priors because white collar criminals are so coddled in an American firmly under the thumb of […]

Saudi Arabia

UN Human Rights Council seeks Freedom for Saudi Women Activists, Justice for Khashoggi

Human Rights Watch

Geneva (Human Rights Watch) – A joint statement by 36 countries on March 7, 2019 calling on Saudi Arabia to improve its human rights record was a landmark step toward justice and accountability, Human Rights Watch said today. The statement, delivered by Iceland at the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva, condemns the murder […]

Israel/ Palestine

Criticizing Israel Isn’t Anti-Semitic. Here’s What Is

Sarah Gertler

( Otherwords) – Weeks ago, when the first accusations of anti-semitism were being leveled against Representative Ilhan Omar, I was deeply agitated. Not long ago I saw her address these accusations at a local town hall. She reminded the world that, as a Black Muslim woman in America, she knows what hate looks like — […]

Christianity

Is the Southern Baptist Sexual Abuse Crisis rooted in Sexism?

The Conversation

By Susan M. Shaw | – Recent media reports have revealed decades of abuse by Southern Baptist pastors. Denominational leaders are offering apologies and calling the sexual abuse “evil,” “unjust” and a “barbarity of unrestrained sinful patterns.” Many Southern Baptist leaders are considering action. As a scholar who has written a book on Southern Baptist […]

Iran

Judge who Presided over Mass Execution made Iran’s Chief Justice

AFP

Tehran (AFP) – Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Thursday appointed ultra-conservative cleric Ebrahim Raisi, a one-time presidential hopeful, as head of the judiciary, the leader’s website said. Former judge Raisi, who currently heads the holy shrine of Imam Reza, was the leading rival to President Hassan Rouhani at Iran’s 2017 election and has […]

Archives for 2019

Why Critics of the Green New Deal are Just Plain Wrong