By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The White House’s announcement on Friday that the US will keep “less than 50” special ops troops at an HQ of the Kurdish YPG in northeast Syria for the purposes of training and strategic counseling raised concerns in some quarters that Russia might inadvertently bomb US […]
Archives for October 2015
Will Turkey’s Elections bring Peace or More Conflict with Kurds?
By Peter O’Connor | Diyarbakr | (Informed Comment) | – – Tomorrow, on November 1, Turkish voters will return to the polls for the second time in 5 months. At the core of this election is a conflict that’s been eating away at the country’s east: The “Kurdish question”. In Diyarbakir, the unofficial capital of […]
Unlike Florida, India’s Tamil Nadu State Requires Solar Panels on New Multistory Buildings
Smitha TK | (NDTV Video Report) | – – “The Tamil Nadu Government makes Solar Power generation mandatory in buildings, but is it doing enough to crease out the implementation challenges? Smitha TK gets us this story.” Tamil Nadu’s population is 67 million, more than either Britain or France. NDTV: ” Mandatory solar panels for […]
Autopsy as Vienna Syria Summit concludes: Did US let its hard Line Saudi Ally run Wild?
By Carlyn Meyer | (Informed Comment) | – – Deep contradictions in the Administration’s Syria policy are on full display as the US, Russia, Iran and assorted other Middle Eastern states meet in Vienna in search of a political process to solve the Syrian conflict. It’s deja vu all over again – with some adjustments. […]
Israeli soldiers tell Palestinians: ‘We will gas you until you die’
By Megan Hanna | (Ma’an News Agency) | – – On October 29, Israeli military forces issued a disturbing message to residents of Aida refugee camp in Bethlehem, telling them that unless they stopped throwing stones “we will gas you until you die.” Israeli military forces raided the camp and fired tear gas and flash […]
Syria: On eve of Vienna Summit, Has Russia changed the facts on the Ground?
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Writing in al-Hayat [Life] this week, columnist Walid Choucair outlined the successes he sees Russia to have had in its Syria campaign, and the goals for which it is reaching. Choucair is the Lebanese affairs bureau chief of this pan-Arab, Saudi-owned London daily, which has a […]
Why Russia Fears ISIL: Panic over Domestic Terror Plots & Wave of Arrests
By Joanna Paraszczuk | ( RFE/ RL ) | – – Russia appears to be cracking down on Muslims and labor migrants in response to what it says are domestic terror threats from the Islamic State (IS) extremist group with reports of mass arrests of “IS-linked suspects” last week. The apparent crackdown comes amid heightened […]
More of Iraq’s Kurdish Women Training to Fight Extremists
Shalaw Mohammed | Erbil | ( Niqash.org ) | – – Increasing numbers of Iraqi Kurdish women are training to become soldiers; they want to join their men in the fight against the extremist Islamic State group. Silaf Muslih doesn’t believe there should be any difference between males and females on the battlefields of Iraq. […]
2016 Campaign and Forever War: Electorate gone to Disney World
By Tom Engelhardt | ( Tomdispatch.com ) | – – You may not know it, but you’re living in a futuristic science fiction novel. And that’s a fact. If you were to read about our American world in such a novel, you would be amazed by its strangeness. Since you exist right smack in the […]