Mehrdad Mirdamadi | RFE/RL Welcome back to The Farda Briefing, an RFE/RL newsletter that tracks the key issues in Iran and explains why they matter. I’m Mehrdad Mirdamadi, a senior editor and journalist at RFE/RL’s Radio Farda. Here’s what I’ve been following and what I’m watching out for in the days ahead. The Big Issue […]
- Africa (191)
- Animals (1)
- Asia (1,147)
- Australasia (7)
- Australia (22)
- Authoritarianism (345)
- Canada (2)
- Cats (1)
- Celtic Religion (1)
- Culture (485)
- Dehydration (1)
- Democracy (300)
- Dissent (394)
- Economy (952)
- Agriculture (2)
- Banking (66)
- Carbon Footprint (6)
- Corporations (30)
- Cryptocurrency (1)
- Debt (20)
- Democratic Socialism (20)
- Demographic Decline (1)
- Development (25)
- Employment (115)
- Food Insecurity (18)
- Homelessness (14)
- Industry (1)
- Inequality (392)
- Inflation (2)
- infrastructure (8)
- Investment (91)
- Market Crash (10)
- Middle Class (61)
- Monopolies (7)
- Neoliberalism (184)
- Plutocracy (575)
- Poverty (188)
- Regulation (1)
- Sanctions (3)
- Taxes (33)
- Technology (1)
- Trade (112)
- Weapons sales (4)
- Education (95)
- Elderly (3)
- Electricity Cost (2)
- Energy (1,552)
- Batteries (30)
- Coal (125)
- Fossil Fuels (285)
- Fracking (50)
- Geothermal (6)
- Green ammonia (5)
- Green Energy (373)
- Green Hydrogen (6)
- Heat Pumps (3)
- Hydroelectric (8)
- Natural Gas (96)
- Nuclear Energy (150)
- Petroleum (270)
- Power Grid (10)
- Pumped Hydro (5)
- Solar Energy (340)
- Tar Sands (13)
- Wave Energy (9)
- wind energy (279)
- Environment (2,283)
- Climate Change (1,365)
- Acidification of Oceans (52)
- Agriculture (19)
- Biodiversity (4)
- CO2 (72)
- Dehydration (5)
- Denialism (133)
- Desalinization (4)
- Desertification (150)
- Dust Storms (3)
- Extreme Weather (261)
- Flooding (95)
- Forests (8)
- Green New Deal (39)
- Mass Extinction (53)
- Methane (20)
- Net Carbon Zerio (8)
- Nitrous Oxide (2)
- Rainforests (17)
- Rivers (4)
- Sea Level (287)
- Soil Carbon Release (14)
- Super Storms (181)
- wildfires (161)
- Wood Buildings (1)
- Climate Crisis (955)
- Drought (216)
- Environmentalism (373)
- Green Transportation (226)
- Ice Melt (111)
- Invasive Species (2)
- Islands (1)
- Oceans (79)
- Oil Spills (6)
- Pollution (213)
- Water (82)
- wildlife (15)
- Climate Change (1,365)
- Europe (1,213)
- Featured (3,484)
- fiction (5)
- Food (13)
- G20 (1)
- Guns (9)
- Health (615)
- History (308)
- Human Rights (1,223)
- Immigration (18)
- International (725)
- Islamophobia (356)
- Juan Cole (270)
- Latin America (87)
- Latinos (4)
- leisure (21)
- media (445)
- Middle East (8,545)
- Arab World (4,987)
- Iran (1,190)
- Israel (822)
- Israel/ Palestine (2,541)
- Israel/Palestine (8)
- Kurds (287)
- Turkey (542)
- Turkiye (68)
- military (111)
- Modernism (2)
- nationalism (108)
- NATO (32)
- Natural Disasters (12)
- nuclear weapons (88)
- Patriarchy (8)
- Peace (116)
- Persian mythology (1)
- Pete Buttigieg (1)
- Planetary Exploration (1)
- Popular Culture (24)
- Poverty (11)
- privacy (21)
- racism (434)
- Rape (7)
- religion (1,387)
- Rights (136)
- robots (3)
- Romance (1)
- science (133)
- Secular (West) (9)
- Secularism (29)
- Sexual Assault (2)
- South Pacific (2)
- Spirituality (21)
- Statelessness (15)
- Stranded Assets (1)
- Surveillance (276)
- Terrorism (1,074)
- Tolerance (6)
- Uncategorized (8,068)
- United Nations (117)
- Urbanization (4)
- US Foreign Policy (1,090)
- US politics (4,931)
- Anti-War Movement (10)
- Campaign Finance (31)
- Censors (21)
- Central Intelligence Agency (61)
- Civil Rights (94)
- Congress (69)
- Conspiracy Theories (18)
- Constitution (371)
- Courts (2)
- crime (9)
- Democratic Party (870)
- Democratic Socialists of America (20)
- Domestic Terrorism (20)
- Drone Warfare (26)
- Espionage (120)
- Ethnicities (357)
- Far Right (350)
- FBI (47)
- Foreign Policy (203)
- Gay Rights (17)
- Guns (92)
- Immigration (229)
- Israel Lobbies (110)
- Marijuana (4)
- Militarization (263)
- National Security State (451)
- Native Americans (37)
- Nuclear arsenal (7)
- penitentiaries (6)
- Pentagon (513)
- Police (41)
- prison reform (7)
- Private Prisons (2)
- Progressive Politics (7)
- Puerto Rico (27)
- Religious Right (11)
- Reproductive Choice (52)
- Republican Party (2,805)
- Supreme Court (107)
- Voter suppression (35)
- Whistleblowers (4)
- Xenophobia (9)
- Veterans (33)
- Voting Rights (16)
- War (423)
- White Supremacists (196)
- wikileaks (8)
- women (497)
- workers (211)
- Writing (5)
- Youth (185)
Shiites
In Final Slap to Bush-Era Neoconservatives, Iraq Criminalizes Contacts with Israel
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Neoconservatives who pushed for the Bush-Cheney war on Iraq in 2003 hoped that by toppling the Arab nationalist dictator Saddam Hussein they could recreate Iraq as a country friendly to US interests and regional allies like Israel. I was told by one military officer that he was in the […]
Foes of a new Nuclear Agreement Demonize Tehran, but what is Iranian Society really Like Today?
Eau Claire, Wi. (Special to Informed Comment) – The nature and the parameters of power relations in the state-society relations in Iran since the 1978-79 revolution have radically changed. The revolution ended the twenty-five-hundred-year-old monarchical rule in Iran and gave rise to a Shi’a ‘ulema-dominated rule. The demise of the old Pahlavi regime saw the […]
In Irrational COVID Policy, is there any Difference between Republicans and Iran’s Ayatollahs?
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – David Axe at the Daily Beast reports on what he says is very bad news for the US red states whose Republican governors are depending on herd immunity to get us past the COVID-19 pandemic. Some Iranian provinces have, since its beginning, reported more cases of the coronavirus than they […]
Afghanistan: Taliban Forcibly Evict Minority Shia — Hazaras Targets of Collective Punishment
Human Rights Watch – (New York) – Taliban officials in several provinces across Afghanistan have forcibly displaced residents partly to distribute land to their own supporters, Human Rights Watch said today. Many of these evictions have targeted Hazara Shia communities, as well as people associated with the former government, as a form of collective punishment. […]
Why the Hazara Minority of Afghanistan is now Imperiled
By Iqbal Akhtar | – The land we now call Afghanistan has been a place of constant migration through its mountainous passes. Its linguistic, cultural and religious diversity is a result of millennia of trade along the Silk Road. More than a dozen ethnic groups are mentioned in the country’s constitution. Afghanistan’s fall to the […]
Deja Vu all over Again: The last Time Mazar-i Sharif Fell to the Taliban, there were Massacres
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – In May, 1997, the Taliban swept into Mazar-i Sharif, the capital of the northern Balkh Province. Horrible events ensued, which I’ll tell you about. Right now, it is important to say that Al Jazeera reports that Mazar fell to the Taliban again on August 14, 2021, as the Afghanistan National […]
Meet The New Boss: Iran’s Raisi In His Own Words And Those Of Others
( RFE/RL ) – Hard-line cleric Ebrahim Raisi has been declared the presumptive winner of Iran’s June 18 presidential vote, which was marred by the disqualification of prominent moderates that paved the way for Raisi’s path to presidency. Concerns have been raised that Raisi’s rise to power could bring more social and political restrictions for […]
Disgruntled Iranians Say ‘No Way,’ Call For Boycott Of June Presidential Election
( RFE/RL ) – Less than a month before Iran’s June 18 presidential election, there are few signs of enthusiasm about the vote. For many Iranians, voting in the Islamic republic has often been a choice between bad or worse. Elections in Iran are tightly restricted, with candidates being preselected by hard-liners on the country’s […]