Middle East

By Harry Blain | (Foreign Policy in Focus) | – – A famously anti-Semitic movement has come to admire modern Israel’s “ethnonationalism.” That speaks volumes about the ascent of the far right in the country. Much of the “alt-right” literature in the United States is exactly what you would expect. Images of George Soros using […]

Featured

Syrian Kurds allied with US stream into Afrin, Rally against Turkish Offensive

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The Arabic daily Elaph reports that hundreds of Kurds who came into Afrin from other Kurdish cantons in northern Syria staged a demonstration in the city Tuesday evening against the Turkish invasion. Kurds drove from the northeast, from Qamishli and Hasaka, and from Kobane, through Kurdish-held […]

Colonialism

British Empire’s hidden workings in India and Iran revealed in remarkable new film footage

contributors

By Jonathan Westaway | The Conversation | – – In a basement office at the Royal Geographical Society in London’s South Kensington, grainy 16mm film footage flickers silently across the screen, one of over a hundred expeditionary and travel films digitised recently by the society and the British Film Institute. They are now free to […]

Displaced and Refugees

UN: 47,000 displaced By Saudi-led war on Yemen since December

contributors

Middle East Monitor | – – Up to 47,000 Yemenis have been displaced to Aden as a result of rising military tensions in Taiz and the Red Sea port governorate Hudaydah, the Anadolu Agency reported today. “Escalating conflict in Taiz and Hudaydah since December 2017 has displaced nearly 47,000 people to Aden and other governorates […]

Israel/ Palestine

Turkey & Vatican tag team Trump over Jerusalem

contributors

Middle East Monitor | – – Both Erdogan and Pope Francis are opposed to US President Donald Trump’s decision to recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, which many US allies say could doom Middle East peace efforts. Tayyip Erdogan made the first visit by a Turkish president to the Vatican in 59 years on […]

Feminism

The ‘Girls of Revolution Street’ Protest Iran’s Compulsory Hijab Laws

contributors

By Mahsa Alimardani | ( GlobalVoices.org ) | – – A spate of defiant Iranian women have taken to the streets of Tehran to protest against compulsory veiling. Photos of their demonstrations have been widely circulated online under the hashtag #دختران_خیابان_انقلاب (translated to #Girls_of_Enghelab_Street). As of the afternoon of January 29, at least two women […]

Syria

Turkey/Syria: Border Guards Shoot, Block Fleeing Syrians

contributors

Exposes Asylum Seekers to Further Risk, Abuse

Featured

Russia Mounts intensive Syria Air Campaign in Response to Downed Jet

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The Russian side of the story, presented in the Syrian press, is that an al-Qaeda-linked group in Idlib, a northwestern province of Syria, used a shoulder-mounted missile launcher to shoot down a Russian fighter jet. The pilot ejected and landed, but then was attacked by ground […]

Israel/ Palestine

Young US Jews Write 700 Letters of Solidarity to Ahed Tamimi

contributors

TeleSur | – – Two left-wing groups in the U.S. organized the letters campaign and protests marking the the 17th birthday of the imprised Palestinian teen. More than 700 Jewish young people from the U.S. wrote letters of solidarity to Ahed Tamimi, the iconic Palestinian 17-year-old who was arrested by Israeli authorities last month and […]