By Bryan Shuman | – When you picture Yellowstone National Park and its neighbor, Grand Teton, the snowcapped peaks and Old Faithful Geyser almost certainly come to mind. Climate change threatens all of these iconic scenes, and its impact reaches far beyond the parks’ borders. A new assessment of climate change in the two national […]
This tiny minority of Iraqis follows an ancient Gnostic religion – and there’s a chance they could be your neighbors too
By James F. McGrath | – ( The Conversation ) – In March 2021 Pope Francis became the first leader of the Roman Catholic Church to visit Iraq. The number of Christians in Iraq has fallen sharply in the past two decades amid mass violence at the hands of the Islamic State group. Iraq stands […]
Iran election: what Ebrahim Raisi’s victory will mean for his country – and the rest of the world
By Arshin Adib-Moghaddam | – When Iranians elect a new leader, the world watches. So the election of Ebrahim Raisi, a hardline right-winger, to replace the more centrist Hassan Rouhani, is global news of some significance. Raisi is the choice of Iran’s socially arch-conservative and politically anti-reformist “deep state”. This ideological core of the state […]
As we continue to burn Gasoline, Coal, Rocky Mountain forests burning more now than any time in the past 2,000 years
By Philip Higuera, Bryan Shuman and Kyra Wolf | – The exceptional drought in the U.S. West has people across the region on edge after the record-setting fires of 2020. Last year, Colorado alone saw its three largest fires in recorded state history, one burning late in October and crossing the barren Continental Divide well […]
As new Israeli Gov’t Bombs Gaza, Relations with Palestine are on a Knife Edge– and will Stay There
By Tony Walker | – ( The Conversation) – The Israel-Palestine conflict has experienced its first violent spasm in the term of a new Israeli government. However, hostilities have since been contained, for the time being. Provocative demonstrations this week in Arab East Jerusalem involving Israeli proto-nationalists chanting “death to Arabs” were met with a […]
Conservative hard-liner poised to be Iran’s next president – what that means for the West and the nuclear deal
By Nader Habibi | – ( The Conversation ) | – Iran’s conservative rulers’ effort to orchestrate the outcome of the June 18 presidential election triggered a voter boycott – but the result may still bode well for ongoing negotiations over the lapsed 2015 nuclear deal. The leading candidate is Ebrahim Raisi, chief of Iran’s […]
How Israel’s missing constitution deepens divisions between Jews and with Arabs
By Brendan Szendro | – Renewed fighting has erupted again between Israel and the Palestinian group Hamas, endangering a ceasefire instituted after an 11-day war in May. The conflict in Gaza is an early test of Israel’s new coalition government. Recently, parties across the political spectrum united to remove Israel’s scandal-plagued prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu […]
It wasn’t just politics that led to Netanyahu’s ouster – it was fear of his demagoguery
By Dov Waxman | ( The Conversation) – There is something Shakespearean about Benjamin Netanyahu’s downfall. As in a scene from “Julius Caesar,” who was assassinated by Roman senators, Netanyahu was deposed by his former underlings, the leaders of the three right-wing parties that have joined the new government – Naftali Bennett, Avigdor Lieberman and […]
Israel’s Netanyahu may be ousted but his hard-line foreign policies remain
By David Mednicoff | (The Conversation) – After two years of repeated and inconclusive Israeli elections, the advent of a new coalition government has ended the long era of Benjamin Netanyahu’s prime ministership. Yet he leaves a legacy of hawkish policies that will likely remain intact. As a scholar of Middle Eastern politics, I think […]
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