Europe

Germany: Even with Reduced Subsidies, Non-Gasoline Cars Comprised 46% of New Registrations in First 7 Months of 2023

By Benjamin Wehrmann | – ( Clean Energy Wire ) – The share of fully electric passenger cars in Germany continues to grow quickly, with the number of e-car registrations growing more than 37 percent in the first seven months of 2023 compared to the same time frame the previous year, figures released by the […]

Kurds

Amid growing Tension between Russia, Iran and the US, Syria’s Kurds have been Sidelined

The Conversation

By Scott Lucas, University College Dublin | – In north-east Syria, the 12-year conflict is far from over. Russian fighter jets buzz US surveillance drones, threatening to bring them down. Iranian-backed militias occasionally fire rockets at US positions. The Assad regime maintains that it will “regain every inch” of Syria, ending Kurdish autonomy in the […]

Brazil

Why did China attend MBS’s Ukraine Peace Conference in Saudi Arabia? Breaking with Moscow or Keeping Options Open?

Neil Thompson

London (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – China has come out in favour of a third round of talks to design a peace framework for the conflict in Ukraine following its attendance at an international forum in the Saudi city of Jeddah earlier this month. China’s attendance and active participation in the summit was seen […]

Colonialism

The Netherlands Waged a Bloody 4-Year War to keep Indonesia Colonized after 1945; Finally it is Apologizing

Anne-Ruth Wertheim

( Jacobin NL) On Monday 29 May 2023 I stood with my granddaughter and my son-in-law in front of the Proclamation Monument in Jakarta, with the two more than life-size bronze statues of the Indonesians Sukarno and Mohammad Hatta, who on 17 August 1945 proclaimed the independence of the Republic of Indonesia. In between them […]

Arab World

Russia’s Return as a Middle Eastern Power to Reckon With

Middle East Monitor

Amr Hamzawy ( Middle Eastern Monitor ) – The repercussions of the Russian-Ukrainian war forced the administration of US President Joe Biden to back down from the policy of limited interest in the Middle East, and pulled the US back into a region that has changed dramatically in recent years. This region has […]

Displaced and Refugees

Headlines and Front Lines: How US News Coverage of Wars in Yemen and Ukraine reveals a Bias in Recording Civilian Harm

The Conversation

By Esther Brito Ruiz, American University School of International Service and Jeff Bachman, American University School of International Service | – (The Conversation) – War entails suffering. How and how often that suffering is reported on in the U.S., however, is not evenhanded. Take, for example, the Saudi-led intervention in Yemen in March 2015 and […]

Russia

Ukraine War: Talks in Saudi Arabia give Zelensky an Opportunity to Push his Plan to BRICs and the Global South

The Conversation

By Stefan Wolff, University of Birmingham | – As the war in Ukraine escalated on and beyond the existing battlefields with intensified air, drone and ground operations, more than 40 countries met in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, over the weekend of August 5-6 2023, to discuss peace. The talks in Jeddah were the latest effort to […]

Food Security

Russia’s Agricultural Warfare: Bomb and Blockade Strategy Imperils World’s Hungry

John Feffer

( Foreign Policy in Focus ) – Saudi Arabia is pissed off at Russia. It’s not as if the Gulf state has released any angry statements to the press. Rather, Riyadh has made clear its displeasure in an indirect way. It has offered to host a “peace summit” next week that Ukraine will organize. Brazil, […]

Climate Crisis

Could Solar Panel Arrays in Earth Orbit provide all the Clean Electricity We’d Ever Need?

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The European Space Agency isn’t as well known in the U.S. as NASA or even Roscosmos, the Russian space agency. The $7 bn.-a-year agency funded by 22 European states, however, has what could turn out to be a game-changing idea for solar power. ESA is contemplating installing a solar panel […]