Some environmentalists are arguing that whales and dolphins are so intelligent, social and self-aware that they deserve a special status, of non-human individuals with basic human rights. Some cultures are still dedicated to hunting whales, and environmental activists who believe in the human rights doctrine regarding Cetaceans sometimes confront whalers at sea. Wikileaks cables released […]
Wainwright: Taseer’s Assassination Lays Bare Contradictions in Pakistani Islam
Aadil Wainwright writes from Pakistan in a guest column for Informed Comment: The assassination of Punjab Governor Salman Taseer has laid bare a crucial debate within the Pakistani public over the nature of Islam and the place of Islamic law in national affairs. That it is a debate among Muslims with more than one side […]
Iran’s Oily Revenge on US Drivers, US Troops
They’re baaaack. The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) is being chaired by Iran at the moment. And Iran thinks the run-up of the price of crude to over $90 a barrel is just dandy and requires no new OPEC meetings or adjustment of production quotas among members. Meanwhile, the US is back to using […]
Sadr Returns Triumphantly to Najaf
Al-Zaman (The Times of Baghdad) writes in Arabic that Sayyid Muqtada al-Sadr, leader of the Sadr Movement, returned on Wednesday to Najaf after 4 years in Iran. An aide issued a communique saying, “Muqtada al-Sadr arrived in Najaf in the company of a number of his major aides, among them Mustafa al-Ya`qubi, Muhammad al-Sa’idi, and […]
Wikileaks: Israelis ‘Intend to Keep the Gazan Economy on the Brink of Collapse’
The Norwegian newspaper Aftenpost has released a March, 2008, US embassy cable describing the Israeli blockade and siege of Occupied Gaza as an attempt to reduce the society to the lowest possible level of functioning without provoking a “humanitarian crisis” (presumably mass starvation). “Israeli officials have confirmed to Embassy officials on multiple occasions that they […]
Reagan gave Medicare the Tea Party Treatment
2011: GOP pledges to repeal Health Care as socialist plot, on behalf of big Pharma. 1961: Ronald Reagan attacks Medicare as socialist plot, on behalf of the AMA.
Calls for Peace, Tolerance in Cairo
Hundreds of Christians peacefully marched on Tuesday evening to a cathedral in Cairo, protesting the New Year’s Day bombing of the Church of Two Saints in Alexandria. Pope Shenouda III , head of the Coptic Orthodox Church, called on Christian youth to cease protesting and to adopt non-violent means of achieving their goals. He noted […]
Death of Pakistani Progressivism?
Salman Tasir, the governor of Punjab Province in Pakistan, was assassinated by one of his own guards Tuesday, allegedly for his desire to repeal Pakistan’s blasphemy law, which has been increasingly misused by the religious right to target Christians, Ahmadis and secularists. The guard who killed him was not a Deobandi fundamentalist but an adherent […]
Wrong Again, Sen. Graham: Cole in Truthdig
My column is just out in Truthdig, entitled “Wrong Again, Sen. Graham,” on the South Carolina senator’s modest proposal to keep two big American air bases in Afghanistan “permanently.” Graham says the bases would keep Afghanistan from being taken back over by the Taliban. But is that anyway an actual prospect? And wouldn’t the bases […]
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