Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – In a surprise development, Iranian foreign minister Javad Zarif suddenly flew to Biarritz on Sunday for meetings on the sidelines of the G7 summit. He clearly was invited at the instance of French President Emannuel Macron, who is still attempting to salvage what he can of the 2015 Iran nuclear […]
Archives for August 2019
Iran: The 14 Defiant Women Who Want To end Gender Apartheid in The Islamic Republic
(RFE/RL) – Iranian human rights lawyer Guity Pourfazel wants to see change in her country and believes Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei should step down and the ruling clerical establishment be replaced with a democratic system. Pourfazel is one of 14 women activists in Iran who have publicly called for Khamenei to resign and for […]
Plants Provide our Food, Medicine & Oxygen: We’re Driving them Extinct 350x Faster than Normal
Plants are going extinct up to 350 times faster than the historical norm By Jaco Le Roux, Florencia Yanelli, Heidi Hirsch, José María Iriondo Alegria, Marcel Rejmánek, and Maria Loreto Castillo | – Earth is seeing an unprecedented loss of species, which some ecologists are calling a sixth mass extinction. In May, a United Nations […]
China: How the Republican Imperial Presidency Led to Trump’s Trade National Socialism
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Trump has put US companies on alert that he might force them to withdraw from China, where they have $256 billion invested. He says he is given this power by the 1977 law called the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, or IEEPA. The Republican Party has spent over a century […]
Former Iraqi PM Threatens Military action against Israel after Tel Aviv Bombed Shiite Militia Base
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Former prime minister of Iraq, Nouri al-Maliki, responded to news that Israel had bombed Shiite militia bases in Iraq with threats that if it continued, Iraq would take strong defensive measures and would carry the fight to Israel itself, forming a multinational coalition and backed by Iran. Al-Maliki has been […]
Jazz Great John Coltrane and the Enchantment of Islam
(Informed Comment) – In his childhood and youth in rural North Carolina John Coltrane absorbed the musical traditions of African-American worship. His parents were active in the local African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church. John’s paternal grandfather was a minister in that church and John’s mother sang and played piano in the gospel choir. In 1943 […]
Yemen: fierce fighting as UAE-Backed Separatists & Saudi-backed Gov’t clash over oil fields
(Al-Bab.com) – Intense fighting broke out in Yemen on Thursday as southern separatists and pro-government forces battled for control of the city of Ataq. Both sides in the conflict are officially members of the Saudi-led coalition against the Houthis who control the capital, Sanaa, and much of northern Yemen. The separatists are backed by the […]
A Politics of Hope: How we Can go completely to Green Energy
By David Timmons | – The main solution to climate change is well known – stop burning fossil fuels. How to do this is more complicated, but as a scholar who does energy modeling, I and others see the outlines of a post-fossil-fuel future: We make electricity with renewable sources and electrify almost everything. That […]
This Time, the World Is Watching in Kashmir
By taking over Kashmir at gunpoint, India has set itself up to reap the whirlwind