Juan says: I’m honored to have an essay in this volume on threats to academic freedom and to free speech in the United States since 2023. I look at the crisis as it unfolded in is first months. All of the essays are urgent reading during America’s current Third Red Scare. I have been in […]
Archives for November 2025
Why Palestinian Statehood is a Prerequisite for Arab-Israeli Peace and Expansion of Abraham Accords
By Simon Mabon, Lancaster University (The Conversation) – Mohammed bin Salman wants to bring Saudi Arabia into the Abraham accords, the network of agreements to normalise relations between Israel with other countries in the Middle East and, increasingly, beyond. Donald Trump would have enjoyed hearing this when the Saudi crown prince visited the White House […]
The Hot Tub of Death? Bill Gates, Hurricane Melissa, and a Civilization Under Threat
Here is my essay for this week’s Tomdispatch.com. Don’t miss Tom Engelhardt’s canny introduction, in which he points to Donald Trump’s climate denialism as a context for that of his “billionaire buddies.” And by the way, it has now been shown that Hurricane Melissa clocked a wind gust of a mind-boggling 252 mph shortly before […]
“Your Reward is Neither Here nor There!” FitzGerald’s The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám 1:24
Stanza no. 24 in the first edition of Edward FitzGerald’s translation of The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám makes fun, as A. J. Arberry pointed out, of theologians and philosophers who spoke of metaphysical certainties. Personally, I think there is something almost Buddhist about it (see below). XXIV. Alike for those who for to-day prepare, And […]
Is Venezuela the New Iraq?
By Richard W. Coughlin | November 18, 2025 ( Foreign Policy in Focus ) – Iraq and Venezuela share an obvious trait: they are oil-rich states whose resource nationalism puts them at odds with U.S. geopolitical ambitions. For George W. Bush, Iraqi oil was framed within the “peak oil” panic and U.S. dependence on foreign […]
COP30: 5 Reasons the UN Climate Conference wasn’t the Promised “People’s Summit”
By Simon Chin-Yee, UCL; Mark Maslin, UCL, and Priti Parikh, UCL (The Conversation) – As the sun set on the Amazon, the promise of a “people’s Cop” faded with it. The latest UN climate summit – known as Cop30, hosted in the Brazilian city of Belém – came with the usual geopolitics and the added […]
The COP30 Climate Meet had One Job, and Totally Crashed and Burned
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – COP30 in Belém, Brazil, has ended without an agreement by member states to reaffirm the phasing out of fossil fuels, which is the only way to avert rolling climate catastrophes. COP28 at Dubai had included such language. The vague advice to countries to cut down on their carbon dioxide emissions […]
West Bank: Israel Emptying Refugee Camps a Crime Against Humanity
( Human Rights Watch ) – Nadim M., a pseudonym for a 60-year-old father of four, was forced to flee Tulkarem refugee camp in the West Bank of the Occupied Palestinian Territory in January 2025 when Israeli military forces raided the camp and stormed his home. He told Human Rights Watch that Israeli soldiers restrained […]
Why Israeli Soldiers and their Leaders are increasingly at Risk of Arrest Overseas
By Shannon Bosch, Edith Cowan University (The Conversation) – In late December 2008, then-Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert authorised Operation Cast Lead in response to rocket attacks from Hamas-controlled territory in Gaza. The three-week military assault killed around 1,400 Palestinians, including more than 300 children. Thousands of homes were destroyed, and hospitals, UN shelters, power […]
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