By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – China produced 680,000 electric vehicles last year, as much as the rest of the world combined. But by 2020 the Chinese hope to make and sell 2 million EV’s a year, and to go on up from there. The Chinese Communist Party is determined to reduce […]
Archives for March 2018
What is Missing in our Sunni-Shi’a Conflict Narrative?
Ali R. Abootalebi | (Informed Comment) | – – The Sunni-Shi’a schism provides for different narrative and prescriptions for arriving at the ‘utopian Islamic society’ and the incoming of the Messiah, al-Mahdi. The theological, doctrinal and jurisprudential differences between the two main branches of Islam has translated into two different visions on the role of […]
Our High Schoolers as Assault Weapon Guinea Pigs
By Belle Chesler | ( Tomdispatch.com) | – – “It was no surprise to anyone who knew him to hear that he was the shooter.” — Emma Gonzalez, Senior, Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Over the past three weeks, the impassioned voices and steadfast demands of the students of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School have […]
5 things we Know about People who live Longest, and their Communities
By Megan Wildhood | ( Yes! Magazine | – – How communities are using longevity research to ensure everyone has a long, healthy life. The average lifespan in the U.S. is about 78 years, and for the first time since the 1990s, it’s getting shorter. Despite spending much more on health care, Americans are sicker […]
How Maine climate activists found their power potential by moving past one-off protests
By George Lakey | ( Waging Nonviolence | – – Rob Levin, a Quaker attorney in Portland, Maine, has been concerned about the growing climate crisis for years. Recently, he came to see that using nonviolent direct action could increase his effectiveness on the issue. When President Trump withdrew the United States from the Paris […]
Syria’s war at home is giving way to dangerous proxy conflicts
By Moritz Pieper | (The Conversation) | – – As Syrian government forces crush the country’s largest remaining rebel strongholds and with Bashar al-Assad apparently here to stay, Syria is turning into an arena for three new proxy conflicts. In the south, Israel is facing off against Iran; in the northern region of Afrin, Turkey […]
Tower of Jello: The Struggle of Russia and UAE over Tillerson’s helming of State Department
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The New Yorker reports that there was a further Steele memo, prepared by the same ex-MI6 intelligence officer who authored the notorious “golden shower” dossier, which reported Russian foreign ministry boasts that they had blocked Trump from appointing Mitt Romney as secretary of state. Romney had […]
Ignoring White Supremacists, Trump Smears Immigrants as Terrorists
By Arnold R. Isaacs | ( Tomdispatch.com) | – – When you see an immigrant or a foreign visitor, especially from a Muslim country, should your first thought be that you might be looking at a possible terrorist? Clearly, that’s how the Trump administration wants Americans to react. It was the message in the president’s […]
Netanyahu & Trump, both under Investigation, Meet on phony ‘Deal of the Century’
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Far right Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu will meet Monday with far right white nationalist president Donald J. Trump in an apparent effort to hurry up Trump’s announcement of the “Deal of the Century” between Israel and the Palestinians. The Arabic press is speculating that Netanyahu, […]