Sky News | (Video News Report) | – – “Huge fire in Dubai building thought to be a hotel, close to planned New Year’s Eve fireworks display and Burj Khalifa skyscraper” Sky News: “Huge Fire Engulfs Dubai Building Near New Year’s Eve Fireworks”
Archives for December 2015
How his Syria Intervention brought Putin in from the Cold in 2015
By Carl Schreck | ( RFE/ RL | – – In December 2014, U.S. President Barack Obama fielded a question about Russia while addressing a group of American business leaders in Washington. President Vladimir Putin’s incursion into Ukraine and “backward-looking” policies, Obama said, are “isolating Russia completely internationally.” If it was Russian expansionism last year […]
Israeli police detain 5 after Israeli wedding incited murder
Ma’an News Agency | – – JERUSALEM (Ma’an) — Israeli police have arrested five Israelis involved in a Jerusalem wedding ceremony that incited violence towards Palestinians, Israeli media reported Tuesday. The groom of the wedding — reportedly a well-known member of the radical right — was arrested in addition to an Israeli soldier and two […]
Most important Neglected Middle East Stories of 2015
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The past 12 months saw enormous political, economic and military changes in the Middle East, which have left its geopolitics changed for the foreseeable future. The US coverage of the area has focused on Syria, Iraq, Daesh (ISIS, ISIL), Turkey, Russia and Iran in a big […]
Why Americans Should Support Boycott, Divestment & Sanctions of Israeli Squatter Settlements
By Thomas Buonomo | (Informed Comment) | – – It is clear that the Israeli government under the leadership of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has no intention of entering into serious negotiations with the Palestinians on a two-state solution to their decades-long conflict. Netanyahu has stated explicitly that Jerusalem will remain the undivided capital of […]
In Retrospect: A Year of Sharpening Contradictions
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) Reprint, revised Note: The horrific murder of 12 persons and the wounding of 11 in the attack on the staff of the satirical weely Charlie Hebdo by terrorists on January 7 this year was followed on the evening of 13 November by six coordinated attacks, killing 130 people, including […]
What It Takes To Defeat ISIL’s Ideology
By Charles Recknagel | RFE/RL Daniel Koehler is among a handful of people in the West who work with Islamist militants returning from Syria in an effort to reintegrate them into normal life. A native of Germany, he works with such former fighters and their families in countries across Europe and in North America and […]
Year in Review: Paris Attacks must not become Pretext for a new ‘Global War on Terror’
Petra Gümplová | (Open Democracy) | – – It will only exacerbate the causes of terrorist attacks, diminish society’s capacity to cope rationally with risks, and permanently damage freedom, democracy, and international law. For more than a decade, European societies have criticized and resisted the American approach to terrorism. France, once one of the most […]
Rare victory for Freedom of speech in Turkey, as Pianist allowed to quote Omar Khayyam
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – In a rare victory for freedom of speech in Turkey, the country’s Supreme Court of Appeals has completely overturned a lower court ruling that sentenced world-famous pianist Fazil Say to a suspended sentence of 10 months in prison. Say’s crime? To tweet out passages from the […]