UAE

Should a repressive petrostate get to host UN climate talks? The UAE Plans for a Fossil Fuel Friendly COP28

By Joey Shea | – ( Foreign Policy in Focus) – In recent weeks, grave concerns have emerged about the conflicts of interest posed by the United Arab Emirates as host of the upcoming United Nations Climate Change Conference known as COP28, as well as fears about the safety and security of participants in the […]

Children

UN: 11,000 Boys and Girls have been Killed or Wounded in the Yemeni War that the US backed

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – UN News reports that 11,000 boys and girls are estimated to have been killed or wounded by direct violence in the Yemen War that has been going on since the Saudi air assault of spring 2015. The figure was released by Catherine Russell, the head of the UN children’s fund, […]

Campaign Finance

Emirates has Spent $154 mn on Lobbying US since 2016, and has Illegally Influenced US Politics: Intel Report

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The UAE has spent more than $154 million on lobbyists since 2016, according to Justice Department records. It has spent hundreds of millions of dollars more on donations to American universities and think tanks, many that produce policy papers with findings favorable to UAE interests. The intrepid John Hudson at […]

Agriculture

The Saudis depleted their Own Aquifers: now they’re emptying Arizona’s and Getting Sweetheart Deals to do So

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Ella Nilsen at CNN has done an excellent deep dive on the shrinking aquifers of the Southwest and how Arizona has allowed a Saudi and a United Arab Emirates company to establish water-hog farms to grow crops to be shipped back to the Middle East. Saudi Arabia is a country […]

Afghanistan

A Different World is Possible: From Yemen War to Afghan Starvation, Our Tragedies are Exacerbated by Letting the US Military-Industrial Complex Run Wild

Peter G. Prontzos

Vancouver (Special to Informed Comment) – Right now, we have more than enough knowledge, wealth, and the capacity to create a just and prosperous world, but we are nowhere near realizing this dream. One reason is that we are constantly told about so-called “scarcities”, and how expensive it would be actually to help people and […]

Houthi

UN Rights Body Fails Yemeni People, Again: Zero Accountability for War Crimes

Human Rights Watch

By Joey Shea Acting Researcher, Yemen and Bahrain | – ( Human Rights Watch ) – On October 7, the Human Rights Council adopted, without a vote, a toothless resolution on Yemen that fails to establish a credible independent and impartial monitoring and accountability mechanism. This means that grave human rights violations, including apparent war […]

Eritrea

Why does the Ukraine War overshadow the Middle Eastern Wars?

John Feffer

( Foreign Policy in Focus ) – The war in Ukraine has dominated the headlines in U.S. and European newspapers, not to mention outlets in other parts of the world. The explosion this weekend that destroyed part of the bridge connecting Crimea to the Russian mainland, along with Russia’s retaliatory missile attacks on Ukrainian cities […]

Arab World

Does Mideast Panopticon — Urban Surveillance and Digital Identities — foretell our Dystopian Future?

Middle East Monitor

By Muhammad Hussein | – ( Middle East Monitor) – It has forever been the dream of almost every state, intelligence agency, empire and totalitarian regime to oversee the doings of all of their subjects, to detect any hint of dissent, to control their movements, to influence their thinking and even to peer into their […]

Featured

Taken for a Ride: Saudi-led OPEC+ snubs Biden with tiny Oil Increase, Despite Arms Sales, Fist Bump

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – At its meeting in Vienna yesterday, the enlarged “+” version of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting States (OPEC+) decided to increase output by only 100,000 barrels per day, a vanishingly small amount that will have no impact on lowering gasoline prices and which does US President Joe Biden virtually no […]