2019

( RFE/RL) – Amid escalating tensions with the United States and mounting sanctions pressuring Iran’s economy, a former senior commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) says Tehran should not rule out holding talks with Washington. “We can’t leave aside talks, but how to talk is another issue,” said ex-IRGC naval commander Hossein Alaei. […]

Iran

Iranians are not our Enemies: Can Public Diplomacy Work?

Foreign Policy in Focus

When foreign policy as we know it isn’t working, creative citizen diplomacy can step in to humanize the real people who would be most impacted by war.

Climate Change

Vanishing Tropical Rainforests are the Lungs of our Planet: We can Still Save them (and Ourselves)

The Conversation

By Robin Chazdon | The green belt of tropical rainforests that covers equatorial regions of the Americas, Africa, Indonesia and Southeast Asia is turning brown. Since 1990, Indonesia has lost 50% of its original forest, the Amazon 30% and Central Africa 14%. Fires, logging, hunting, road building and fragmentation have heavily damaged more than 30% […]

Sudan

As Sudan Crowds Demand Civilian Rule, Was Al-Bashir’s Overthrow just another Military Coup?

Middle East Monitor

By Khalil Charles | @khalilcharles | – According to well-informed sources, on the night of 22 February this year, as the invited guests in Sudan’s presidential palace gardens and television crews waited for the President to arrive and address the nation, the country’s former head of intelligence was also waiting. Enraged by President Omar Al-Bashir’s […]

Immigration

Atrocity: American Concentration Camps for Immigrant Children

OtherWords

By By Lizet Ocampo | – Children are suffering and dying. Enough is enough. By Lizet Ocampo | July 3, 2019 Over the past several weeks, the brutal terror that immigrants face at the hands of our government has come into even sharper focus. As reports surface about immigrant children sleeping on concrete floors and […]

Climate Change

What Happens when Climate Emergency Drowns Whole Nations?

The Conversation

By Sarah M. Munoz | – Global climate change is endangering small island countries, many of them developing nations, potentially harming their ability to function as independent states. As international environmental co-operation stalls, we must ask what consequences climate change will have on the statehood of vulnerable countries. This is especially important because sovereignty is […]

Colonialism

Israel Systematically Hiding Documents Proving Expulsion, Oppression of Palestinians

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Hagar Shezaf at the Israeli newspaper of record, Haaretz [“The Land”], reveals that a secretive Israeli agency has been systematically going through the country’s archives, including local repositories, and removing and classifying documents having to do with repressive and embarrassing Israeli actions toward Palestinians and Palestinian-Israelis. One such disappeared document […]

Iran

Can Trump’s Impending War on Iran be Stopped?

Waging Nonviolence

Eric Stoner | – ( Waging Nonviolence) – Since coming to power, the Trump administration has had Iran in its crosshairs. The United States unilaterally pulled out of the 2015 nuclear deal last year and reimposed harsh economic sanctions on Iran. With the other signatories doing little to cushion the blow, Iran now says it […]