By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) This article appeared at The Nation earlier this month. I’m reprinting an excerpt on the occasion of King Abdallah’s death . . . the kingdom faces a severe budget shortfall because of the plummeting price of petroleum. All this instability takes place against a backdrop of substantial regional turmoil. […]
Floods and fires across Southern Africa raise alarm bells on climate change
SABC News | — “Floods and fires across the southern african region are raising alarm bells on climate change once again. These effects are being felt across the globe as sea levels rise, tropical storms smash into coastlines, once-fertile lands battle with floods or drought and permafrost in the polar regions melts. Although Africa contributes […]
Netanyahu Imported by GOP to ensure Iran War
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) — Republican House Majority leader John Boehner secretly invited Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to Washington to address Congress and then once it was set up he let Barack Obama know about it. The reason for bringing Netanyahu is that Boehner wants to craft a super-majority in Congress that […]
Obama to GOP: More Iran sanctions lead to War (& 7 other Foreign Policy points in SOTU)
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) — President Barack Obama’s State of the Union Address slighted foreign policy in favor of touting domestic progress and proposing new domestic initiatives. But there were some foreign policy highlights worth underlining. 1. Obama pushed back hard against hawks like Senator John McCain, who want to ramp up a […]
Israel’s Syria Strike: Is it trying to Help al-Qaeda vs. Hizbullah & Iran?
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) — There are several questions around the Israeli helicopter gunship strike on Mazari` al-Amal in Syria’s Quneitra Province, which killed Hizbullah personnel and an Iranian general. First, what were the latter doing there? Second, why did Israel strike them? The Israeli cover story, that Hizbullah was planning attacks inside […]
Israeli PM Netanyahu Campaigns to Discredit, Defund Int’l Criminal Court
By Alexandra Halaby – (IMEMC & Agencies) Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has declared that the ICC announcement by Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda to initiate a preliminary investigation into Israel for possible war crimes committed in Gaza was “absurd” and a “perversion of justice.” Mr. Netanyahu went on to say that decision by the ICC was […]
Why solar power is spreading so fast in Africa
The Economist | — “Africans have been waiting for decades for the mains electricity which the rich world takes for granted. Sub-Saharan Africa’s 910m people consume less electricity each year than the 4.8m people of Alabama. Many more who are on the grid suffer brown-outs and dangerous surges in current. But a solar revolution is […]
The real Meaning of Fox’s “Fair and Balanced”
Paul Jamiol | (Jamiol’s World) Via Jamiol’s World
Why Martin Luther King would support Pres. Obama’s Tax on Super-Rich
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) — In one of his last speeches, at Grosse Point, MI., the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., laid out his next campaign, the one he died pursuing. It was not about civil rights for minorities but economic rights for “the other America” (the title of a book by Michael […]
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