(By Marianna Charountaki) “While Iran’s importance for regional politics was always there, it has only now become apparent, especially for the foreign policies of international players, writes Dr. Marianna Charountaki.” In the aftermath of Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu’s unsuccessful ‘zero problems’ policy with his neighbours followed by the rapprochement between the KRG and Ankara, […]
Calls for Turkey PM to resign as 3 scandal-ridden ministers quit, forcing new Cabinet
(By Fulya Ozerkan and Dilay Gundogan) Turkey PM reshuffles cabinet amid graft scandal (via AFP) Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan replaced nearly half his cabinet in a dramatic reshuffle late Wednesday after a spreading graft scandal forced the resignation of three top ministers and threatened the premier’s own hold on power. Erdogan… Related […]
Assyrian Christian Revival in Turkey
(By Alexander Christie-Miller) The Christian Science Monitor recently reported on an Assyrian Christian revival in southeastern Turkey, fueled by a burgeoning Turkish economy and more tolerant laws enacted by Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan. In eastern Turkey, a rare renaissance for Middle East Christians (via The Christian Science Monitor) Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan addresses the […]
Damascus’s Other Battle: Regime Cyberwar on the Opposition
(By Dave Maass) Social Engineering and Malware in Syria: EFF and Citizen Lab’s Latest Report on the Digital Battlefield (via EFF) More than two years into the Syrian conflict, the violence continues both on the ground and in the digital realm. Just as human rights investigators and weapons inspectors search for evidence of chemical weapons, […]
Climate Denialists Spending Billions in untraceable Dark Money to fool the Public
(By Lauren McCauley) The expansive misinformation campaign behind climate change denial is increasingly being funded in the dark, reveals a new report published Friday in the journal Climatic Change According to the study titled "Institutionalizing Delay: foundation funding and the creation of U.S. climate change counter-movement organizations," while the largest and most consistent funders of […]
From Tahrir to New Orleans: Hope has not Failed, it has only Begun
(By Rebecca Solnit) Hope, History, and UnpredictabilityBy Rebecca Solnit North American cicada nymphs live underground for 17 years before they emerge as adults. Many seeds stay dormant far longer than that before some disturbance makes them germinate. Some trees bear fruit long after the people who have planted them have died, and one Massachusetts pear […]
Coleridge, Kubla Khan (Poem of the Day)
(By Samuel Taylor Coleridge) Kubla Khan Or, a vision in a dream. A Fragment. In Xanadu did Kubla Khan A stately pleasure-dome decree: Where Alph, the sacred river, ran Through caverns measureless to man Down to a sunless sea. So twice five miles of fertile ground With walls and towers were girdled round; And there […]
Walt Whitman’s “Salut au Monde” (Poem of the Day)
(By Walt Whitman) “Salut au Monde” [Greeting to the World: from Leaves of Grass, 1856] 1 O TAKE my hand, Walt Whitman! Such gliding wonders! such sights and sounds! Such join’d unended links, each hook’d to the next! Each answering all—each sharing the earth with all. What widens within you, Walt Whitman? What waves and […]
How many American Weddings would have to get hit by Drones before they were Banned?
(By Tom Engelhardt) The headline — “Bride and Boom!” — was spectacular, if you think killing people in distant lands is a blast and a half. Of course, you have to imagine that smirk line in giant black letters with a monstrous exclamation point covering most of the bottom third of the front page of […]
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