Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – On April 2, the Republican Party more or less joined the Organization of Petroleum Exporting States Plus (OPEC+). That is the upshot of reporting by Timothy Gardner, Steve Holland, Dmitry Zhdannikov, and Rania El Gamal for Reuters that Trump threatened de facto Saudi ruler crown prince Mohammed Bin Salman with […]
- Africa (253)
- Asia (1,260)
- Australasia (36)
- Authoritarianism (391)
- Canada (9)
- Culture (568)
- Economy (1,074)
- Agriculture (3)
- Banking (67)
- Boycotts (1)
- Carbon Footprint (6)
- Corporations (55)
- Cryptocurrency (2)
- Debt (21)
- Degrowth (1)
- Democratic Socialism (20)
- Demographic Decline (1)
- Development (26)
- Downward Mobility (1)
- Employment (118)
- Food Insecurity (21)
- Homelessness (16)
- Industry (5)
- Inequality (428)
- Inflation (5)
- infrastructure (10)
- Insurance (1)
- Investment (93)
- Market Crash (12)
- Middle Class (61)
- Monopolies (8)
- Neoliberalism (204)
- Plutocracy (634)
- Poverty (209)
- Poverty (16)
- Regulation (3)
- Retirement (1)
- Sanctions (5)
- Tariffs (4)
- Taxes (38)
- Technology (3)
- Trade (119)
- Weapons sales (8)
- Education (192)
- Energy (1,761)
- Agrovoltaics (1)
- Batteries (53)
- Coal (140)
- Electricity Cost (2)
- Fossil Fuels (329)
- Fracking (50)
- Geothermal (7)
- Green ammonia (5)
- Green Energy (424)
- Green Hydrogen (8)
- Heat Pumps (6)
- Hydroelectric (16)
- Hydroelectric (2)
- Mining (1)
- Natural Gas (107)
- Nuclear Energy (160)
- Petroleum (303)
- Power Grid (12)
- Pumped Hydro (6)
- Solar Energy (425)
- Tar Sands (13)
- Wave Energy (9)
- wind energy (350)
- Environment (2,729)
- Climate Change (1,669)
- Acidification of Oceans (54)
- Agriculture (26)
- Biodiversity (14)
- Climate Refugees (4)
- CO2 (129)
- Dehydration (5)
- Denialism (149)
- Desalinization (4)
- Desertification (161)
- Divestment (2)
- Dust Storms (6)
- Environmental Investment (1)
- Extreme Heat (399)
- Extreme Weather (299)
- Flooding (138)
- Food Supply (3)
- Forests (18)
- Green New Deal (41)
- Green Recycling (2)
- Greenwashing (3)
- Mass Extinction (63)
- Methane (20)
- Net Carbon Zerio (8)
- Nitrous Oxide (2)
- Rainforests (19)
- Rivers (12)
- Sea Level (339)
- Soil Carbon Release (14)
- Super Storms (265)
- wildfires (241)
- Wood Buildings (1)
- Climate Crisis (1,360)
- Drought (296)
- Ecology (2)
- Ecology (12)
- Environmentalism (393)
- Green Transportation (257)
- Ice Melt (139)
- Invasive Species (2)
- Islands (2)
- Oceans (104)
- Oil Spills (8)
- Pollution (234)
- Water (97)
- wildlife (22)
- Climate Change (1,669)
- Europe (1,389)
- Featured (4,287)
- Haiti (1)
- Health (710)
- History (367)
- Human Rights (1,642)
- Apartheid (263)
- censorship (326)
- Death Penalty (30)
- Disappeared (4)
- Displaced and Refugees (581)
- Food Insecurity (30)
- Gay rights (29)
- Genocide (67)
- Human Rights Watch (91)
- Indigenous Rights (1)
- Migrants (4)
- privacy (21)
- Rights (91)
- Slavery and Trafficking (16)
- Starvation (4)
- Torture (102)
- Trans Rights (4)
- Transgender Rights (5)
- Unlawful Imprisonment (111)
- Unlwful Killing (82)
- War Crimes (424)
- War Rape (9)
- International Politics and Economy (2,128)
- Arms Sales (73)
- BRICS (3)
- Corruption (268)
- Crime (132)
- Democracy (336)
- Dissent (449)
- Domestic Terrorism (15)
- Drones (113)
- G20 (1)
- Guns (9)
- Hacking (8)
- Immigration (5)
- Immigration (22)
- Islamophobia (383)
- Migrants (2)
- military (125)
- nationalism (118)
- NATO (37)
- Neocolonialism (1)
- Peace (144)
- Policing (2)
- Politics (309)
- Politics&Culture (21)
- Propaganda (13)
- Race (1)
- Smuggling (1)
- Juan Cole (270)
- Latin America (104)
- media (487)
- Middle East (10,092)
- Arab World (5,324)
- Iran (1,366)
- Israel (957)
- Israel/ Palestine (3,702)
- Israel/Palestine (9)
- Kurds (294)
- Red Sea (1)
- Turkey (603)
- Turkiye (130)
- Patriarchy (10)
- racism (475)
- religion (1,524)
- robots (3)
- Romance (1)
- science (176)
- Secular (West) (9)
- Secularism (30)
- Spirituality (22)
- Statelessness (15)
- Stranded Assets (1)
- Surveillance (282)
- Terrorism (1,096)
- Tolerance (6)
- Uncategorized (8,083)
- United Nations (178)
- Urbanization (4)
- US Foreign Policy (1,389)
- US politics (5,518)
- Anti-War Movement (13)
- Campaign Finance (31)
- Censors (22)
- Central Intelligence Agency (63)
- Charity (1)
- Civil Rights (96)
- Congress (80)
- Conspiracy Theories (24)
- Constitution (412)
- Courts (15)
- crime (12)
- Democratic Party (976)
- Democratic Socialists of America (22)
- Domestic Terrorism (20)
- Drone Warfare (27)
- Espionage (124)
- Ethnicities (394)
- Far Right (399)
- FBI (48)
- Federal Government (1)
- Foreign Policy (204)
- Gay Rights (17)
- Guns (97)
- Immigration (255)
- Israel Lobbies (130)
- Marijuana (4)
- Militarization (274)
- National Security State (477)
- Native Americans (41)
- Nuclear arsenal (7)
- penitentiaries (6)
- Pentagon (578)
- Police (43)
- prison reform (10)
- Private Prisons (3)
- Progressive Politics (13)
- Puerto Rico (30)
- Religious Right (15)
- Reproductive Choice (69)
- Republican Party (3,110)
- Supreme Court (133)
- Voter suppression (36)
- Whistleblowers (7)
- Xenophobia (9)
- Veterans (35)
- Voting Rights (16)
- War (622)
- White Supremacists (238)
- wikileaks (8)
- women (568)
- workers (234)
- Writing (5)
- Youth (218)
Featured
Stop Saying more have died from Coronavirus than in Vietnam: US War Killed a Million There
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The rash of headlines blaring that the coronavirus has now killed more than died in the Vietnam War betrays an incredible amnesia and national tunnel vision that takes the breath away. Implicitly, these comparisons are with the 58,220 US military personnel who died fighting in Vietnam. But somehow the over […]
Lowest Solar bid in World History for new Abu Dhabi Facility, as expensive Coal, backed by Trump, declines further
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Abu Dhabi has accepted a historically low bid of 1.35 cents a kilowatt hour for a new giant 1.5 gigawatt solar farm, to be built at al-Dhafra by the largely government-owned French consortium Électricité de France (EDF) and China’s Jinko. The price is 44% less than was paid for the […]
Trump Narrative of Iran Meddling in Yemen dashed by Secession of Emirates-Backed Southerners in Aden
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Al-Jazeera reports that the Southern Transitional Council (STC) in the Arabian Sea port of Aden has declared independence. Aden is a little more populous than Philadelphia inside city limits, at about 1.7 million, which makes it about 5 percent of Yemen’s 28 million population. The STC maintains that the Riyadh […]
Netanyahu confident Trump will Let him Annex vast Swathes of Palestinian Territory
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu said Sunday that he is confident that the Trump White House will sign off on his planned annexation of vast swathes of Palestine this summer. Netanyahu secured agreement on the illegal annexation, reminiscent of Mussolini’s annexation of Nice from France during World War II, from […]
Trump’s Buddies in Saudi Arabia abolish Flogging, but Dissidents are Still Dying in its Jails and Journalists being Threatened
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Middle East Online reports that Saudi Arabia has abolished flogging as a punishment. Henceforward, offenders will be fined or jailed instead. It had been one of some 29 countries that still apply corporal punishment. Most of these countries are formerly British colonies that have retained older British penal laws from […]
Israel’s Occupation Policies may Contribute to deaths of Many Elderly Palestinians, But Palestinian Youth are Poised to Flourish
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The age bias of the novel coronavirus has geopolitical implications. Although it is not true that it leaves children and youth alone, it is true that their symptomatic infection rate and mortality is tiny compared to that of the elderly. In Europe, WHO reports that up to half of coronavirus […]
Trump goes Peak Batshit Crazy, Urging UV Irradiation and Chlorine Injections, and Cable TV Greedily Broadcasts it
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Jeff Zucker, the CEO of the Cable News Network, has a Harvard B.A. in American History and his father is a cardiologist, so he definitely knows better. So too does Steve Burke, the CEO of Comcast / NBC Universal. Suzanne Scott at Fox Fable News probably doesn’t know better, but […]
Trump failed to vanquish Coronavirus with Hot Air, now wants to “shoot down” tiny Iranian Skiffs
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The diarist and attorney James Boswell recorded that the writer Samuel Johnson remarked on the evening of April 7, 1775 that “Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.” He wasn’t condemning a healthy love of country but the manipulation of public opinion for narrow sectional purposes. Johnson might observe […]