By Abbas Djavadi | ( RFE/RL | – – For a long time the Turkish government was accused of assisting the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) group. These accusations were heard especially since the battle Syrian Kurds fought with ISIS over the town of Kobani on the Syrian-Turkish border almost a year ago. […]
The Danger Of Dictatorship: How To Replace Iraq’s Flawed Political System?
By Mustafa Habib | Baghdad | (Niqash.org) | – – Iraq’s Parliament has failed its people. This was the message from protestors last week. But what could possibly replace the flawed system? Each potential solution comes with its own dangers. Protestors left Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone last week, after having spent two days expressing […]
Left For Dead: Myanmar’s Muslim Minority
VICE News | (Video report) | – – “In recent years, democratic reforms have swept through Myanmar, a country that for decades was ruled by a military junta. As the reforms took hold, however, things were growing progressively worse for the Rohingya, a heavily persecuted ethnic Muslim minority concentrated in the country’s western state of […]
100th Anniversary: What did the Sykes-Picot Agreement mean for the Middle East?
By Stephen Pascoe | (The Conversation) | – – To mark the 100th anniversary of the Sykes-Picot Agreement, we’ve got a package with an explanatory article about the secret accord (below) . . . The Sykes-Picot accord was conceived at a high point in Britain and France’s imperial power. Hammered out in the midst of […]
Surges, Mission Creeps & Drones in the Mideast: America’s Forever War
By Tom Engelhardt | ( Tomdispatch.com ) | – – There are the news stories that genuinely surprise you, and then there are the ones that you could write in your sleep before they happen. Let me concoct an example for you: “Top American and European military leaders are weighing options to step up the […]
Annual ‘March of Return’ draws thousands of Palestinians to the Negev
Ma’an News Agency | – – NEGEV (Ma’an) — Thousands of Palestinians participated in the annual ‘March of Return’ on Thursday afternoon near Bedouin towns in the Negev (Naqab) in southern Israel, commemorating the 1948 Nakba amid the conclusion of Israeli independence day celebrations. Palestinians in Israel, waving Palestinian flags and holding banners emblazoned with […]
Aside from Super-Rich, All Americans are poorer this century
TeleSur | – – Soon, researchers predict, the middle class will no longer be the largest class in the United States. Households in the United States made less money in 2014 than they did in 1999, according to a study released Wednesday by the Pew Research Center, a decline that transcends class. According to the […]
Sadiq Khan and the End of Islamophobia
By John Feffer | ( Foreign Policy in Focus) | – – The victory of Sadiq Khan has "normalized" Muslims in UK politics in much the same way that JFK normalized Catholics in American politics. But American Muslims are still waiting for their JFK moment. Even his own sister was mortified. In the recent mayoral […]
In Resistance and Creativity, the Occupied Palestinians find Hope
By Victoria Brittain | (OpenDemocracy) | – – The village of Nabi Saleh is a story of resistance in the face of theft and violence. Rawabi encapsulates the vision of a neo-liberal pacified Palestine. And then there is Gaza… On a warm spring evening in the occupied West Bank Bassem Tamimi was looking over his […]