(By Juan Cole) This week the Fateh Party (secular Arab nationalist) of Palestine President Mahmoud Abbas met in Gaza with members of the Hamas Party (fundamentalist Muslim), seeking a reconciliation and a government of national unity. The Ra’y News Service of Gaza wrote, “The Palestinian Government has welcomed the [reconciliation] delegation sent by President Mahmud […]
The New York Times Criticized for Submitting to Israeli Censors
(By Sarah Lazare) The New York Times made a rare admission that it submits to Israeli state gag orders, fueling charges from critics that the globally-influential publication plays fast-and-loose with journalistic ethics to give favorable coverage to Israel. The revelation emerged when the The Times delayed its coverage of the Israeli detention of a Palestinian […]
This Saudi prince is accused of killing 2,000 endangered birds while on safari in Pakistan
Jeez. Happy Earth Day. A Saudi prince has been accused of killing 2,000 endangered birds during a safari in Pakistan earlier this year. More from GlobalPost: These cities are among the greenest in the world The birds, known as houbara bustards, are…
Government = Protection Racket for the 1 Percent
The evidence of income inequality just keeps mounting. According to “Working for the Few,” a recent briefing paper from Oxfam, “In the US, the wealthiest one percent captured 95 percent of post-financial crisis growth since 2009, while the bottom…
The Limits of ‘Protest Tourism’ in the Israeli-Occupied West Bank
(By “Jill Saunders”) “Jill Saunders”, a pseudonym, frequently attends the weekly demonstrations in the Palestinian village of Nabi Saleh. In this reflective piece, “Jill” questions the very idea of ‘protest tourism’ in the West Bank. The wind from the open window blows dusty air across my face as our minibus winds down the roads from […]
Top 5 Reasons Solar Energy will Save the World
(By Juan Cole) 1. The research and development monies now going into solar energy are great enough to fuel innovation and bring down prices rapidly. First Solar expects solar generation manufacturing costs to fall from 63 cents a watt to 35 cents a watt from now through 2017! 2. Honda is experimenting with a zero-carbon […]
A War of another Kind: Joint US-Yemeni Strikes on al-Qaeda kill 68
(via AFP) Dozens killed as Yemen, US mount air war on Qaeda (via AFP) An “unprecedented” US and Yemeni aerial campaign in Yemen killed at least 68 Al-Qaeda militants in a bid to head off attacks by the network’s local affiliate, officials said Monday. Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) has been linked to a […]
High Inequality Results in More US Deaths than Tobacco, Car Crashes and Guns Combined
In 2009, the British Medical Journal (BMJ) published a study that revealed what seems to be a shocking truth: those who live in societies with a higher level of income inequality are at a greater risk for premature death. Here in the United States,…
The Romantics and the Orient: What English Poetry owes to the Middle East
(By Samar Attar) Many times I have asked myself how can I concentrate on the British Romantic Poets when people in Syria, the country of my birth, have been killing each other for the last four years, supposedly in the name of liberty and freedom? Thousands of men, women and children have been killed, maimed, […]
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