The pan-Arab London daily al-Hayat [Life] reports in Arabic that sources close to the two major Shiite coalitions have revealed that they will form a 10-person committee of “wise men” to choose the country’s prime minister. The “wise men” will consist of or include prominent Shiite clerics chosen by Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, the spiritual […]
Israeli Settler Terrorists Plan more Mosque Burnings
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas charged that a fire that damaged a Palestinian mosque in the Israeli-Occupied Palestinian West Bank was set by Israeli terrorists among militant colonists of the territory. Israeli Trade Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer also said he suspected arson. Hamas, the Muslim fundamentalist party that controls the Gaza Strip, the other territory of […]
Suspect Arrested in Times Square Bomb Plot; Afghan anger at NATO Grows
As US authorities arrested Faisal Shahzad, a Pakistani-American recently returned from Peshawar, on suspicion of ties to the Pakistani Taliban and involvement in the Times Square bomb plot, bad news is coming from Afghanistan itself. Pashtuns in the affected areas appear to be angry at the US invasion of Marjah this winter and convinced that […]
From Waziristan to New York
It is a measure of the inter-connected character of our globalized world that the security of New York may be tied to events in distant, rugged and mysterious South Waziristan, Pakistan– a remote area even most Pakistanis know little about. And, US security may depend more on school-building and improving lives in South Waziristan than […]
I want My Country back from Big Oil
I want my country back. I want back the country of Teddy Roosevelt, who cared about our natural environment. I want back the country of Harry Truman, who wasn’t afraid to give em hell. I don’t want an administration that authorizes offshore drilling to make political deals with the most despicable forces in American society. […]
Can “Proximity Talks” Avert Boycotts of Apartheid Israel?
President Obama threatened that he would take over the Israel-Palestine peace process himself, along with European allies, and recognize a Palestinian state, if Israeli-Palestinian negotiations had not begun by September 1. Despite the howls of outrage from the far right Israeli government and its American acolytes, the threat seems to have worked. The Israelis have […]
Veiling ban in Belgium: It is all about the State
The bill proposing a ban on the niqab or the kind of Muslim veil that covers the entire face, passed by the lower house of the Belgian parliament, is not really about religion, crime or even immigration. It is about the primacy of state interests over individual preference. James Scott in his Seeing like a […]
Chaudhry: Dis(re)membering \pä-ki-ˈstän\
This is a guest essay by Kiren Aziz Chaudhry, University of California, Berkeley, one of our country’s foremost academic specialists in comparative politics.: “…for this uncanny is in reality nothing new or foreign, but something familiar and old-established in the mind that has been estranged only by the process of repression.”– Sigmund Freud. On assuming […]
Massive Offshore Windfarms to Power Green Germany
Note to environmentalists: German utility corporations are building gigantic wind farms offshore that are expected to provide a quarter of Germany’s energy in coming decades. One plant, on an island, came online this week. “Wind and solar energy, biomass and water power today cover more than 16 percent of German electricity requirements.” Germany has 21,000 […]
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