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Enduring America reports that the funeral procession for Grand Ayatollah Husain Ali Montazeri began at 9:30 am in Iran. The initial regime announcement of the senior cleric’s death omitted his titles. Once in line to succeed Imam Ruhollah Khomeini as Iran’s supreme leader, he broke with the regime in 1988 over massacres of dissidents, and […]

Gershon Shafir writes in a guest column for Informed Comment: The Obama Administration, like every other American administration, has failed to convince Israel to freeze the expansion of its settlements on the occupied West Bank. It has belatedly extracted a 10-month long moratorium, but only after Netanyahu has excluded Jewish neighborhoods in east Jerusalem and […]

DAWN.COM | Pakistan | PPP to fight ‘plots’ against mandate Dawn reports that a meeting of high officials of the Pakistan People’s Party produced a resolution to remain in power, retain existing cabinet members, and simply fight each corruption case brought against PPP officials on a case-by-case basis. On the advice of the reformist wing […]

The Associated Press: ML APNewsAlert AP is reporting that Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri of Iran is dead, according to his grandson. Montazeri, 87, had been a close associate of Imam Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran in 1979. He then became Khomeini’s hand-picked successor, but broke with him in 1988 […]

Just to let all the Informed Comment readers who use iPhones know that there is now a dedicated app for it. Search ‘Juan Cole’s blog’ in iPhone apps and it comes right up. It lets you favorite posts and share them on Twitter and facebook. It was generated by Motherapp.com, to whom many thanks. – […]

In honor of the approaching season, some evangelical Christian Arab comedy from the Gaza Strip— just as a reminder that not everyone being half-starved by the Israeli blockade there is Hamas. End/ (Not Continued)

From the Realnews network, an intelligent discussion of how lack of US leadership contributed to the failure of the Copenhagen climate conference. Features Adele Morris of Brookings and Kurt Davies of Greenpeace. – Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Al-Sharq al-Awsat [The Middle East] reports in Arabic that 11 Iranian troops occupied a small oil well on the Iraqi side of the border in Maysan province east of Amara, and raised the Iranian flag over it. Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki called the Iranian ambassador on the mat about this action, demanding an explanation and […]

The USG Open Source Center translates Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s speech at Copenhagen on consumerism, hydrocarbon imperialism, massive military budgets, and obscene profit-seeking as the drivers of global climate change. Ahmadinejad earned top grades at Tehran Polytechnic in math and science; why didn’t he stick to what he knew instead of venturing into the history […]