( RFE/RL ) – Iranian authorities have intensified their deadly crackdown in the country’s western Kurdistan region, which has been the epicenter of the anti-establishment protests that have raged for months. Human rights groups say government forces have killed more than a dozen people in predominately Kurdish cities in the past 24 hours. The bloodshed […]
Archives for November 2022
No more “Marry your Rapist”: Repeal Laws Discriminating against Women in the Middle East – ‘Equality Now’
By Amelia Smith | – ( Middle East Monitor ) – The women’s rights NGO, Equality Now, has released a policy brief to mark International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women on how inadequate justice for women and girls, and a lack of deterrents for perpetrators, has increased violence against women. According to […]
COP27: how the Fossil Fuel Lobby Crowded out Calls for Climate Justice
By Alix Dietzel, University of Bristol | – COP27 has just wrapped up. Despite much excitement over a new fund to address “loss and damage” caused by climate change, there is also anger about perceived backsliding on commitments to lower emissions and phase out fossil fuels. As an academic expert in climate justice who went […]
Did the Ukraine War kill ‘Natural Gas?’ Solar Power is 10 times Cheaper over the long Term
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The independent energy research firm Rystad Energy, headquartered in Oslo, has found that it would be ten times less expensive over the long run to install solar farms than to continue to operate gas-fired electricity plants in Europe. Although the Ukraine War has been good for petroleum and fossil gas […]
Ukraine War, Energy Crisis, pushes Germans’ Acceptance of Wind Turbines to Record Level
By Sören Amelang | – ( Clean Energy Wire ) – Onshore wind power has become more popular than ever among people living in Germany as a result of the war in Ukraine, a poll has found. One in three respondents said Russia’s war and Germany’s previous dependence on energy imports from Russia have made the expansion […]
Will Netanyahu’s new Religious Right Gov’t Turn Israel into an Iran, with Gender Segregation and Pampered Seminarians?
( Middle East Monitor ) – Outgoing Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid has asked Likud voters a series of questions related to the current impasse into which Benjamin Netanyahu, who is tasked with forming a new government, has fallen in the company of extreme neo-fascists and racist nationalist parties. “Is this what you wanted? That’s […]
COP27 flinched on phasing out ‘All Fossil Fuels’. What’s next for the Fight to keep them in the Ground?
By Fergus Green, UCL and Harro van Asselt, Stockholm Environment Institute | – (The Conversation) – The latest UN climate change summit (COP27) concluded, once again, with a tussle over the place of fossil fuels in the global economy. An agreement by the world’s governments to phase out all fossil fuels would have been a […]
Thanksgiving: The Pilgrims were saved by Native Advice; We should listen to Deb Haaland and other Native Leaders on the Climate Crisis
Revised. Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The popular story about Thanksgiving is an environmental parable that we would do well to remember today. It was a harvest festival in 1621, participated in by the 50 (out of 100) survivors at Plymouth Plantation and 90 members of the Wampanoag tribal confederation. A Patuxet, Tisquantum (known as […]
Iran’s Creative Resistance: From Hugs and Kisses to Tossing Turbans
By Fred Petrossian | – ( Globalvoices.org ) – It has been eight weeks since protests erupted across Iran on September 16 in response to the death of Mahsa (Zhina) Amini, who was detained by the country’s morality police for allegedly violating hijab regulations. Despite harsh repression, the killing of at least 360 people, including […]