Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification or IPC, on which the United Nations depends to determine the level of nutritional crises around the world, delivered the good news on Friday that Gaza is now no longer in famine. While that report is welcome, the situation that Israel is imposing on […]
Archives for December 2025
1/4 of Syrian Expat Refugees Have Returned, but many to Destroyed Homes, Land Disputes
By Sandra Joireman, University of Richmond (The Conversation) – Close to 1.5 million Syrian refugees have voluntarily returned to their home country over the past year. That extraordinary figure represents nearly one-quarter of all Syrians who fled fighting during the 13-year civil war to live abroad. It is also a strikingly fast pace for a […]
Israel’s Airstrikes on Lebanese Reconstruction Equipment, Factories are War Crimes
Human Rights Watch – (Beirut) – The Israeli military’s repeated attacks on reconstruction-related equipment and other civilian facilities in southern Lebanon throughout 2025 violate the laws of war and are apparent war crimes, Human Rights Watch said today. Residents and local municipal authorities told Human Rights Watch that the attacks have hampered reconstruction efforts and […]
California: Fossil Gas use Declining, replaced by Solar Plus Megabatteries
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The US Energy Information Agency reports that California’s fossil gas use is steadily declining. In the first half of 2025, fossil gas use was down a whopping 18% compared with the same period in 2020, to 45.5 billion kilowatt hours (BKWh). Even just in 2025, California reduced fossil gas usage […]
From Sykes-Picot to Silicon Valley: Why Middle East Fault Lines now run through American Tech
( Middle East Monitor ) – In 1916, the Middle East was partitioned by its rulers with ink between Britain and France. A hundred years later, with borders drawn by the Sykes-Picot Agreement, territories continue to contend with claims to legitimacy, sovereignty, and foreign intervention. The Middle East holds a reset, but not in a […]
“We cannot Negotiate with the Melting Point of Ice:” World’s Ice Sheets shed 640 bn. Tons in 12 Months
Chris Stokes, Durham University; Florence Colleoni, National Institute of Oceanography and Applied Geophysics (OGS), and James Kirkham, British Antarctic Survey “We cannot negotiate with the melting point of ice.” That’s the message from more than 50 leading scientists who study the Earth’s frozen regions, published in the latest annual State of the Cryosphere report. In […]
In 2025, 65% of Americans view Muslims Favorably, 85% view Jews Favorably
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Shibley Telhami, the Anwar Sadat Chair for Peace and Development and director of the Critical Issues Poll at the University of Maryland has the results of a sounding done this past summer on American attitudes to Jews and Muslims. The PDF of his conclusions and those of his colleague Michael […]
Inside the Trump Administration’s Man-Made Hunger Crisis
By Brett Murphy and Anna Maria Barry-Jester, photography by Brian Otieno for ProPublica. | – ( ProPublica) – On July 18, a mild, overcast night in Nairobi, Kenya, a team of President Donald Trump’s top foreign aid advisers ducked into a meeting room at the Tribe Hotel, their luxury accommodations in the city’s diplomatic quarter, […]
Trump Administration Concedes U.S. Researchers may Talk with Francesca Albanese, Special Rapporteur on Palestine, Despite Sanctions
Middle East Studies Association of North America | – ( MESA Press Release ) – WASHINGTON—In response to a letter sent by the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, the Treasury Department last week confirmed that a scholarly organization—the Middle East Studies Association (MESA)—may hold an event with U.N. Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese even […]
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