By Nick Turse | ( Tomdispatch.com) | – – “We don’t know exactly where we’re at in the world, militarily, and what we’re doing,” said Senator Lindsey Graham, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, in October. That was in the wake of the combat deaths of four members of the Special Operations forces […]
Archives for December 2017
Muslim Countries call for E. Jerusalem as Palestine Capital, reject US as Honest Broker
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The Organization of the Islamic Conference, a regular meeting of the foreign ministers of 57 Muslim-majority countries, held an extraordinary session in Istanbul on Wednesday, in which they rejected US President Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. In a communique they called […]
Now Diptheria besets Yemen, along with Saudi Bombs and Blockade
Middle East Monitor | – – Yemen, ravaged by war, hunger and disease, is seeing a spike in diphtheria cases that will inevitably erupt into a larger, deadly outbreak because so few people have been immunized, aid officials said on Wednesday. At highest risk are children, who account for many of the more than 280 […]
Saudi Arabia: The Coming Crisis in the Kingdom
By Pierce Gootee | (TeleSur) | – – The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has, in recent months, tightened their blockade on the war-ravaged country of Yemen. The justification for this tightening was the launch of a long-range ballistic missile by Houthi rebels towards the capital city of Riyadh in November. Despite these heavy-handed tactics in […]
“Solar+Batteries” = the Cheapest Energy, as S. Korea powers past Coal
By Frank Rijsberman | (Inter Press Service) | – – SEOUL, Dec 13 2017 (IPS) – Renewable energy became the cheapest form of electricity in 58 emerging economies last year. This year, the 11th Lazard’s Levelized Cost of Energy Analysis (LCOE 11.0) showed that solar and wind energy generation costs (at $46 to $53 per […]
What’s the Difference between Roy Moore and a Muslim extreme Fundamentalist? A Cowboy Hat
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Both Christianity and Islam as religions comprise large numbers of people and contain a spectrum of believers from the secular to the moderate to the extreme. At the far right fringes of the Muslim extremists you get al-Qaeda. At the far right fringes of Christian extremists […]
The Unlikely Industry Empowering Women in Afghanistan
By Ruchi Kumar | (Yes! Magazine) | = = In this deeply conservative society, these women are busting stereotypes every day. The typical depiction of an Afghan woman looks like this: Timid and fearful, she is a victim of her extremely conservative and regressive society, unable to move around or do much without a man. […]
Saudi Prince who Bought da Vinci Painting could have given Sight to 9 Million Instead
By Peter Singer | (Project Syndicate) | – – A Saudi prince has been revealed to be the buyer of Leonardo da Vinci’s “Salvator Mundi,” for which he spent $450.3 million. Had he given the money to the poor, as the subject of the painting instructed another rich man, he could have restored eyesight to […]
The Fempire Strikes Back: #MeToo and the Man-Monsters
By Ann Jones. | ( Tomdispatch.com First, for the record, let me tell you my story about another of those perversely creepy Hollywood predators, a sort of cut-rate Harvey Weinstein: the screenwriter and film director James Toback. As I read now of women he preyed upon year after year, I feel the rage that’s bubbled […]