By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – BBC Arabic reports that Turkey has launched a land invasion of the Kurdish-majority Afrin canton in northern Syria, home to some 500,000 Kurds. Turkey has also flooded Arab fundamentalist fighters into the region, calling them “Free Syrian Army.” The move comes after some 72 Turkish F-16s […]
Archives for January 2018
Trump’s deeming Jerusalem Israeli Capital Portends Fiercer Mideast, Iran Conflicts
By Kenneth Brown | (Informed Comment) | – – As a visiting student in Jerusalem I witnessed the 1956 Suez war against Egypt, the attempt by Israel, France and the U.K. to bring down Nasser and undermine the Algerian revolution. I heard then P.M. Ben Gurion declare to an excited crowd in Zion Square that […]
Is China coming into Syria for its “One Belt, One Road”?
By Neil Thompson | (Informed Comment) | – – As the Syrian civil war begins to wind down after six and a half years of bitter fighting, a new phase is emerging in the battered country’s political life — plans for country’s postwar reconstruction are already being laid even as the fighting between Islamist rebels […]
Pence starts Middle East tour in Egypt, pledges ‘shoulder-to-shoulder’ support
Middle East Monitor | – – US Vice President Mike Pence kicked off a trip to the Middle East on Saturday with a visit to Egypt, where he pledged firm US backing to President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in the nation’s fight against militants. Pence said ties between the two countries had never been stronger after […]
The worst thing about Year One of Trump: Fascistization of Cable News
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – American mass media journalism is broken. There are some simple elements of US journalistic practice that have proved easy for special interests to hack, and the editors at least have allowed themselves to be used by sinister forces. (I am speaking primarily of television news here, […]
Thousands protest for Women’s Rights in Los Angeles, around Country (Video)
May Lee | (CGTN) | – – The rally in Los Angeles last year dwarfed those in most other cities. Did the City of the Angels outdo itself again this year? Thousands rally in Los Angeles at Women’s March for gender rights NB May Lee @mayleetv May Lee joined CGTN-America as the Los Angeles based […]
European Parliament backs Zero Carbon Emissions by 2050
By Frédéric Simon | (EURACTIV.com) | – – Green lawmakers have hailed a “great victory for the climate” as a proposal to bring down to zero the amount of greenhouse gases that can be emitted in the atmosphere by 2050 received unexpected backing from the European Parliament last Wednesday (17 January). Plenary session week 3 […]
10,000 Deaths Later Germany Bars Arms Sales to Yemen Attackers
TeleSur | – – Only in the third financial quarter of 2017 German arms sale to Saudi Arabia accounted for US$550 million. Spokesperson for German Chancellor Angela Merkel announced Friday the country will “immediately” stop all arms exports to countries involved in the ongoing war in Yemen, which began in March 2015 and has so […]
Syria: Turkey Begins Military Operation against US-Allied Kurds in Afrin
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Reuters reports that on Friday, Turkey began cross-border shelling of the Kurdish-majority Afrin canton in northern Syria. There are also reports of busloads of Sunni Arab guerrillas of the rebel Free Syrian Army, who had been sheltered in Turkey, being sent into Afrin. The region is […]