2019

As India’s Hindu Supremacist Gov’t Moves to deprive 1.5 mn Assamese Muslims of Citizenship, a Solidarity Network Emerges

By Anuradha Sen Mookerjee | – The state of Assam in India is currently burning with violent protests against a new citizenship law passed by both houses of the Indian parliament in early December. The Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) will ease the Indian citizenship process for undocumented migrants in India who come from Pakistan, Afghanistan […]

Climate Crisis

Actually we are implicated in the World’s 7th Mass Extinction of Life on Earth

The Watchers

By Julie Celestial | – (The Watchers) – The biodiversity crisis we experience today– defined by the rapid loss of species and rapid degradation of ecosystems– is believed to be the sixth mass extinction. However, some scientists say it should perhaps be called seventh, suggesting the inclusion of the End Guadalupian in the Big Five […]

Israel/ Palestine

Born Without Civil Rights: Israel’s Use of Draconian Military Orders to Repress Palestinians in the West Bank

Human Rights Watch

(Human Rights Watch The Israeli army has deprived generations of Palestinians in the West Bank of their basic civil rights, including the rights to free assembly, association and expression, regularly drawing on military orders issued in the first days of the occupation. Even if such restrictions could have been justified then to preserve public order […]

Democracy

Bush Falsely Promised a New Iraq, but now it is being Forged by Crowds in Baghdad’s Tahrir Square

Open Democracy

After the death of hundreds of people since the eruption of Iraq’s revolution in October, there is no return to the old system.

Christianity

Would Refugee Baby Jesus have been Torn from Mary’s Arms by Trump?

Juan Cole

Revised Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) | – – In this political season in which refugees have become a political football, it is worthwhile remembering that baby Jesus is depicted by the Bible as being a political refugee not once but twice. NBC reports, “Officials at Customs and Border Protection, the DHS agency responsible for separating […]

Brazil

Statistic of the decade: The massive deforestation of the Amazon

The Conversation

By Liberty Vittert | – This year, I was on the judging panel for the Royal Statistical Society’s International Statistic of the Decade. Much like Oxford English Dictionary’s “Word of the Year” competition, the international statistic is meant to capture the zeitgeist of this decade. The judging panel accepted nominations from the statistical community and […]

Featured

That’s not Good. Popular ToTok App is Emirates Spyware

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – ( Lily Hay Newman at Wired explores the implications of the revelation that the ToTok app is actually spyware for the United Arab Emirates. The app is fiendishly clever in the sense that there is nothing virus-like about it. It is just a communications application that wants to know who […]

Solar Energy

Germany’s Solar Power Revived by Home Batteries, Hopes for Skyscraper Rooftop PV

Clean Energy Wire

By Benjamin Wehrmann | – ( Clean Energy Wire ) – Solar power in Germany has bottomed out from its breakdown a few years back and looks ahead at 2020 full of confidence that the odds are in its favour in the country thanks to the introduction of carbon pricing in the buildings sector and […]

Uncategorized

The US Gov’t Lied About Success in the Afghanistan War . . . and in Vietnam

The Conversation

By Gordon Adams | – The Washington Post has, after more than two years of investigation, revealed that senior foreign policy officials in the White House, State and Defense departments have known for some time that the U.S. intervention in Afghanistan was failing. Interview transcripts from the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, obtained by […]

Archives for 2019