nationalism

T. Deniz Erkmen | (Informed Comment) | – – It has been a month since the government of Turkey has ended the tenuous peace process with the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), by bombing Qandil mountains in Iraq and rounding up Kurdish activists. What instigated the resumption of the conflict was the killing of two […]

Authoritarianism

Turkey’s Snap Elections: Erdoğan is forcing his people to take sides

contributors

By Bahar Baser and Ahmet Erdi Öztürk | (The Conversation) | – – Ever since the June 2015 elections, which thwarted the proposed presidential system that President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has long craved, Turkey has been hurtling into one of its most turbulent periods in decades. And with a snap election called for November 2015, […]

Climate Change

Water Being Used as Weapon of War in Syrian Conflict, UN Warns

contributors

By Lauren McCauley, staff writer. | (Commondreams.org) | – – Compounded by scorching heat wave, Syrians are experiencing ‘deliberate’ water cut-offs, often for weeks at a time The United Nations on Tuesday said it has reason to believe that groups in the Syrian conflict are using the country’s scarce water supply as a weapon of […]

Authoritarianism

How Islamic State is moving its Egyptian battle from Sinai to Cairo

contributors

By Natasha Ezrow | (The Conversation) | – – Islamic State (IS) has claimed responsibility for a powerful car bomb detonated outside a state security building in northern Cairo which injured 29 people, including six policemen. The Egyptian ministry claimed that: “A man suddenly stopped his car in front of the state security building, jumped […]

Apartheid

Gaza: Managing the Disaster isn’t Enough; not one of 11,000 buildings repaired

contributors

By Charlie Hoyle | (Inter Press Service) | – – The rubble of twisted concrete and metal bakes in the hot Mediterranean sun of a regional heat wave. A year on from Israel’s 51-day military operation in 2014, not a single one of the 11,000 destroyed homes in Gaza has been rebuilt. Photo credit: UNRWA […]

Environment

Why Israelis have cut down 800,000 Palestinian Olive Trees

contributors

Text by Elle Kurancid, photos by Bryony Dunne | (Jadaliyya) | – – Olive tree felling is a longtime strategy of Israel’s occupation regime in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Since 1967, an estimated 800,000 Palestinian olive trees have been destroyed by Israeli authorities and settlers. In February 2015, Irish-born filmmaker and photographer Bryony […]

Bahrain

After Vienna, Arabs, Israel seek massive conventional Arms Deals: US ready to Sell

contributors

By Thalif Deen | – – UNITED NATIONS (IPS) – The nuclear agreement concluded last week between Iran and six big powers, the United States, Britain, France, Russia, China and Germany, is threatening to trigger a new Middle East military build-up – not with nuclear weapons but with conventional arms, including fighter planes, combat helicopters, […]

Islam

Jerusalem: Ultra-Right Israelis again invade Aqsa Mosque compound; UN condemns provocation

contributors

Ma’an News Agency | – – JERUSALEM (Ma’an) — Right-wing Israelis broke into the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound on Monday for the second day in a row, as the UN expressed concern over “religious provocations” in and around holy sites in the Old City of East Jerusalem. Witnesses said that 70 right-wing Jews entered the compound […]

Featured

Turkey’s new “war on terror” mainly targeting Kurds

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – What was at first announced as a new Turkish turn toward attacks on Daesh (ISIS, ISIL) on Friday has quickly become largely a campaign against Kurds instead. It is being alleged that the Turkish Air Force launched dozens of strikes against bases of the Kurdistan Workers […]