By Nawzat Shamdeen via Niqash.org The Sunni Muslim extremist group that has taken over the northern city of Mosul has a new source of income: real estate. The Islamic State group has confiscated the properties of all those who fled or taken them off those they consider enemies. Locals say the plan is to auction […]
Is the Center for Jewish Life stifling free speech at Princeton University?
By Max Weiss via The Princetonian I have never met Slav Leibin. Nonetheless, it recently came to my attention that he vetoed, with the approval of the Center for Jewish Life, my right to participate in a proposed panel on the recent hostilities in Gaza. Apparently this preemptive act of exclusion was carried out on […]
America’s Colonial Armies: Absentee Soldiers, Corrupt Officers and Collapse
By William J. Astore via Tomdispatch.com In June, tens of thousands of Iraqi Security Forces in Nineveh province north of Baghdad collapsed in the face of attacks from the militants of the Islamic State (IS or ISIS), abandoning four major cities to that extremist movement. The collapse drew much notice in our media, but not much in the way of […]
Iraqi Kurds to Turkey: Let Volunteers Through To Defend Failing Kobani
By Charles Recknagel via RFE/RL A top official of Iraq’s autonomous Kurdish region is calling on Turkey to let volunteer fighters through to the besieged Syrian city of Kobani, where Syrian Kurds are waging a desperate battle against Islamic State (IS) militants. Speaking on a visit to RFE/RL in Prague on October 13, Falah Mustafa, […]
French Planes bomb Damascus to put Down Syrian Revolt, 1925 (Video: This Day in History)
“Title reads: “Defence of Damascus. French troops – barricades – and armed posts – now circle the town of view of threatened attack by Rebels”. Having invaded and occupied Syria, French troops who brutally suppress an uprising against them in 1925 were described in British newsreels as “defending” Damascus against “rebels.” british Pathe: Damascus Revolt […]
The Tunisian Exception
By L. Carl Brown What has made Tunisia’s transition from authoritarian government, for all its ups and downs, more successful than those of its Arab neighbors? It will soon be four years since December 17, 2010 when Muhammad Bu Azizi from Sidi Bouzid in Tunisia immolated himself in protest against local government officials who barred […]
Columbus Day: How is it Still a Thing? (John Oliver)
John Oliver, “Last Week Tonight” “Christopher Columbus did a lot of stuff that was way more terrible than “sailing the ocean blue,” but we don’t learn about that. Columbus Day: How is it still a thing?” Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Columbus Day – How Is That Still A Thing (HBO)
Top Five Worst Disease Epidemics (Historical Footage)
Top 5 Worst Disease Epidemics – British Pathé
Cold as Hell: North Dakota Burns up the World with Fracked Oil
By Laura Gottesdiener via Tomdispatch At 9 p.m. on that August night, when I arrived for my first shift as a cocktail waitress at Whispers, one of the two strip clubs in downtown Williston, I didn’t expect a 25-year-old man to get beaten to death outside the joint. Then again, I didn’t really expect most […]
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