By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, the real power center for the American government, has issued licenses to Airbus and Boeing allowing them to sell commercial airliners to Iran. President Obama ordered the licenses, defying the Republican-controlled Congress, which doesn’t want […]
Archives for September 2016
Montazeri recording surfaces condemning mass killings that Haunt Iran’s Revolution
By Golnaz Esfandiari | ( RFE/RL) | – – Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, once in line to become Iran’s supreme leader, has come back from the grave to haunt the Islamic establishment that punished him for openly criticizing the regime’s mass killing of political opponents in the late 1980s. The release of an audio […]
Stopping the War on Children
Kevin Watkins | ( Project Syndicate ) | – – On the twentieth anniversary of the Machel report, the international community must draw a line and stop the war against children. That war takes many forms. In some cases, children are front-line targets. Rape, forced marriage, enslavement, and abduction have become standard tactics for groups […]
US College Course on Palestine Reinstated after Cancellation under pressure from Israel Lobbies
By IMEMC | – – University of California, Berkeley, has reinstated a course on Palestine that was cancelled under pressure from pro-Israel groups, according to a press release. Palestine Legal said, according to WAFA, that the university reinstated the student-led course titled “Palestine: A Settler-Colonial Analysis”, following an outcry from students and faculty describing the […]
Top Six US Problems worse than Terrorism
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Every time a person of Middle Eastern heritage who ought to have been committed to an insane asylum but wasn’t (because rich people who don’t want to pay taxes successfully lobbied to get rid of insane asylums) commits violence, our press and politicians hit the panic […]
Welcome to Masdar City: the ultimate experiment in sustainable urban living
By Susan Lee | (The Conversation) | – – Ten years ago in the United Arab Emirates, a new settlement was started from scratch, with the aim of becoming “the world’s most sustainable city”. Masdar City was designed to be zero-carbon and zero-waste, home to a population of 40,000 people, with an additional 50,000 commuters, […]
Native American Rights and Health versus Pipeline Cowboys
By Chip Ward | ( Tomdispatch.com ) | – – Americans who don’t live in the West may think that the historic clash of Native Americans and pioneering settlers is long past because the Indians were, after all, defeated and now drive cars, watch television, and shop at Walmart. Not so. That classic American narrative […]
Obama: End terrorism like that in New York by Destroying ISIL in Mosul, Iraq
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – President Obama met yesterday with Iraqi Prime Minister Haydar al-Abadi and discussed the coming campaign to take the northern Iraqi city of Mosul away from Daesh, entirely destroying the terrorist organization’s territorial power in Iraq. Obama expects the campaign to be launched before the end of […]
Mr. Robot’s Rami Malek: First Minority Awardee for Best Actor in a Drama in 18 Years
TeleSur | – – It took nearly two decades, but the the first [minority] actor to win an Emmy for the role of Best Actor in a Drama has just been named. Egyptian-American Rami Malek swooped the award Sunday night, for his demiurgic role as Elliott Alderson in the drama-thriller television series, Mr. Robot. Malek […]