(Via AFP) Lawmakers brawl as Turkey tightens grip on judiciary (via AFP) Turkey’s parliament passed a contested bill Saturday tightening the government’s grip on the judiciary, sparking a fist-fight that left one lawmaker with a broken nose. Fighting erupted between ruling party and opposition lawmakers as the bill — tabled… ——— Related video: Euronews […]
Race Inequality in America by Graph, from Crime Sentencing to Income
(By Juan Cole) Most death sentences are handed out for killing white people, even though African-Americans make up 50% of murder victims (they are only 12% of the population). So if an African-American male had fired ten shots into the SUV of some white suburban kids playing their music too loud, killing one of them, […]
Saudi Valentines elude Puritan Morals Police
(Via AFP) Saudi Valentines defy the love police (via AFP) Red roses lurk hidden in flower shop back rooms and heart-shaped chocolates are sold under the counter, but Saudis still manage to buy Valentine’s gifts and defy the religious police. Florist Hussein came up with a simple solution to a ban on red tokens… […]
More Solar Workers in US than Coal Miners, and Solar doesn’t Poison Drinking Water
(By Juan Cole) By the end of 2013, the number of workers in the solar energy industry in the US had grown to 143,000. About a third of them are in California, followed by Arizona, New Jersey, and Massachusetts. the wind power industry employed another 80,000 or so workers directly, and many more in transportation […]
CAR Muslims Risk Ethnic Cleansing: What if Thousands of Christians were forced out of a Muslim Country?
(By Juan Cole) The Central African Republic has a population of 4.5 million, about 15 percent of them Muslim, or about 670,000 people. Those Muslims are now, according to Amnesty International, in serious danger of being ethnically cleansed. “The group [Amnesty Interntional] said attacks against Muslims had been committed “with the stated intent to forcibly […]
Sen. Al Franken: Comcast-NBC / Time Warner Merger Concentrates Media, Hurts Consumers
CNN: “Sen. Franken: We need more cable competition” Karl Bode writes in a similar vein at TechDirt: Comcast: Allowing Us To Get Immensely, Inconceivably, Ridiculously Massive Is ‘Pro Consumer’ (via Techdirt) Comcast has confirmed reports that the company will be acquiring Time Warner Cable in a deal estimated to be worth around $45 billion. With […]
Putinism in Cairo? The Rise of the Russian Model
Vladimir Putin on Thursday hailed the possibility of a run for the presidency of Egypt by Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, the architect of the July 3 coup against the elected Muslim Brotherhood government. Al-Sisi flew to Moscow this week in search of such support and of arms sales. The implicit message is that he is […]
Israel to Implant 9-Storey Ultra-Orthodox Seminary in Palestinian East Jerusalem
(Via AFP) Israel to build high rise in annexed E.Jerusalem area: NGO (via AFP) Jerusalem’s planning committee moved forwards on Wednesday with plans to build a nine-storey Jewish seminary in the heart of a densely-populated Palestinian neighbourhood near the Old City. Plans for the new tower block, to be built in the Sheikh Jarrah… […]
Did Religious Extremism drive 2 Million Egyptian youth to Unbelief?
(By Juan Cole) Egyptian journalist Hilmy al-Namnam said last fall that some researchers had concluded that there were 2 million Egyptian atheists. He blamed the rapid increase in unbelief among young people on the period of Muslim Brotherhood rule and the hypocrisy of television preachers. Educated young women are especially dismayed at the discourse on […]
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