Middle East

AFP | – “Nazar Sarani’s village in southeast Iran was once an island. It is now a desert, a casualty of the country’s worsening water crisis. Climate change is blamed, but so too is human error and mismanagement. A voiced AFPTV report.” AFP: “As lakes become deserts, drought is Iran’s new problem”

Palestine

Palestinian Women: The Oppressed of the Oppressed

contributors

By Mel Frykberg | – GAZA CITY (IPS) – Israel’s siege of Gaza, aided and abetted by the Egyptians in the south, has aggravated the plight of Gazan women, and the Jewish state’s devastating military assault on the coastal territory over July and August 2014 exacerbated the situation. In a resolution approved by the U.N. […]

Featured

Yemen Bombing: It’s not ISIL and it’s not Sunni-Shiite Conflict

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) – The massive twin bombings at mosques in the capital that shook Yemen on Friday, killing over 100 and wounding many more, were immediately claimed by Daesh (ISIS, ISIL). Since the mosques were largely attended by members of the Houthi movement in Zaidi, Shiite Islam and Daesh is ultra-Sunni, […]

Iraq

Even if they can Defeat ISIL/ Daesh, Can Iraqi Politicians Get together? The Surprising Answer

contributors

By Mustafa Habib | Baghdad | (Niqash.org) – Former political enemies are forming new, non-sectarian alliances to prepare for an extremist-free future. Shiites are partnering with Sunnis and Kurds to support progressive decision-making. Can it work? There have been some quiet negotiations going on in Iraq’s Parliament for some time now. Members of the Ahrar […]

Barack Obama

Obama might stop vetoing UNSC Resolutions re: Israel after Netanyahu rejected Palestinian state

contributors

RT | – The US is “evaluating” its policy towards Israel in the wake of Benjamin Netanyahu’s re-election and campaign statements. This could involve passing a UN resolution condemning Israeli settlements. President Obama called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday to congratulate him on winning the March 17 election, and used the opportunity to […]

International Criminal Court

Will Palestine now take Israel’s Netanyahu to Int’l Criminal Court for War Crimes?

contributors

By Kate Shuttleworth and Joe Dyke | JERUSALEM/BEIRUT (IRIN) – Shortly before Israel’s elections on Tuesday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared that as long as he remained in power there would be no independent Palestinian state. “Whoever moves to establish a Palestinian state or intends to withdraw from territory is simply yielding territory for radical […]

Displaced and Refugees

Iraq: Shiite Militia atrocities During Fight Against ISIL & Iraq’s Response

contributors

Human Rights Watch | (New York) – Militias, volunteer fighters, and Iraqi security forces engaged in deliberate destruction of civilian property after these forces, following US and Iraqi air strikes, forced the retreat of Islamic State fighters (also known as ISIS) from the town of Amerli and surrounding areas in early September 2014, Human Rights […]

Featured

Tom Friedman & funding ISIL: Israel/Iran Derangement Syndrome

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) – Being a liberal Zionist was always a tough thing to pull off, but it is becoming increasingly just impossible. The intrinsic contradiction between wanting social justice and equity at home and supporting a militaristic and Apartheid Israel abroad produces what psychologists call cognitive dissonance. It is hard to […]

Democracy

Mideast Reacts with Horror: “Israel has elected Extremism and Racism”

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) – Observers in the Arab press who contemplated the victory of far right Likud leader Binyamin Netanyahu in the Israeli elections express emotions from “concern and anxiety” to out and out horror at the potentially destructive impact it will have on the region. Barhoum Jaraisi writes in the Jordanian […]