By IMEMC | – – The Israeli Interior Ministry and Land Administration Agency, in cooperation with the Regavim NGO and the Jewish National Fund (JNF), have been demolishing 1,000 Arab homes in Al-Naqab every year, under the pretext that they were built without permits. Days of Palestine reports that this has been revealed by Amichai […]
Archives for June 2015
Iran Talks Down to the Wire: Diplomatic Breakthrough or Prelude to War?
By Jasmin Ramsey | — WASHINGTON (IPS) – A final deal on Iran’s nuclear programme wouldn’t only make non-proliferation history. It would also be the beginning of a better life for the Iranian people—or at least that’s what they’re hoping. Iranians, who are keeping a close eye on the talks which will resume Saturday in […]
Top 6 Achievements of Obamacare: (Hint, millions more insured)
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Now that the Affordable Care Act (ACA, Obamacare) has beaten back all judicial challenges, it is worth revisiting its vast success. A single-payer system would have been far preferable. But the present system is substantially better than nothing. As Jay Bookman pointed out in early May […]
Why Boycotting Israel will Backfire, just as Netanyahu’s Blockade of Gaza Has
By Guy Laron | (Informed Comment) | – – Many people who support a peaceful solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict believe that the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement has a good argument. With the recent elections in Israel renewing Binyamin Netanyahu’s mandate to pursue hardline policies vis-à-vis the Palestinians and the lack of will […]
As Kobane comes under ISIL attack, Kurds Encircle, cut off “caliphate”
By Amy Austin Holmes | (Informed Comment) | – – (Kobane, Syria) The liberation of Kobane in late January led to jubilant celebrations almost everywhere. It was both a turning point in the war against Islamic State militants and the beginning of an emancipatory grassroots democratic experiment known as the Rojava Revolution. Now, IS militants […]
Journalists Pay the Price in Egypt’s Crackdown on Dissent
By Kitty Stapp | – – NEW YORK (IPS) – The Egyptian government is holding a record number of journalists in jail, a press freedom group said Thursday, despite promises to improve media freedoms in the country. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry meets then Egyptian Minister of Defence General Abdul Fatah Khalil al-Sisi in […]
Top Five ways for Washington to Fail in Iraq
By Peter Van Buren | (Tomdispatch.com) | – – In one form or another, the U.S. has been at war with Iraq since 1990, including a sort-of invasion in 1991 and a full-scale one in 2003. During that quarter-century, Washington imposed several changes of government, spent trillions of dollars, and was involved in the deaths […]
America’s Homegrown Extremists Twice as Deadly as Muslim Radicals
AJ+ | (Video report) | – “Homegrown groups with no connection to Islam have killed almost twice as many people as Muslim groups, according to a study by New America . The study looked at “terror” attacks that took place after 9/11 – but what else does the data tell us?” AJ+: “Non-Muslims More Deadly […]
Humans Causing the Sixth Great Extinction of other Life Forms, on which we Depend
By Gerardo Ceballos | (The Conversation) | – – Vitus Bering, the famous explorer, led perhaps the most ambitious scientific expedition ever in the 1730s. Commanding 10,000 people, he was in charge of exploring the vast lands of Siberia and the unknown sea between Siberia and Alaska. In 1741, he was forced to land on […]