Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Israeli newspaper Arab 48 reports that on Tuesday evening, Israeli security forces cracked down on Palestinian protesters in Silwan just south of the Old City of Jerusalem when the latter engaged in protests against the demolition by Israel of a commercial complex, including a butcher shop, in the region. […]
Archives for June 2021
America wants to be known in Mideast as Champion of Free Speech, so Why is it Censoring Iranian Websites?
Oxford (Special to Informed Comment) – The Bureau of Industry and Security, an agency of the United States Department of Justice, in a statement on Tuesday 22 June announced that it had seized 33 websites and news outlets used by the Iranian Islamic Radio and Television Union (IRTVU), and another three run by the “Iran-backed” […]
Nuclear energy isn’t a safe bet in a warming world – here’s why
By Paul Dorfman | – ( The Conversation) – The overwhelming majority of nuclear power stations active today entered service long before the science of climate change was well-established. Two in five nuclear plants operate on the coast and at least 100 have been built just a few metres above sea level. Nuclear energy is, […]
What Price “Defense”? America’s Nearly $1.3 Trillion National Security Budget Isn’t Making Us Any Safer
By Mandy Smithberger and William Hartung | – ( Tomdispatch.com ) – President Biden’s first Pentagon budget, released late last month, is staggering by any reasonable standard. At more than $750 billion for the Defense Department and related work on nuclear weapons at the Department of Energy, it represents one of the highest levels of […]
Iraqi Shiite Militias hit back at US Bases in Syria after Biden Air Raids; Why does US have Bases in Syria? Why Hasn’t it Left Iraq?
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Al-Quds reports that Shiite militias in Syria fired several rockets or artillery shells at the US military base in the al-`Umar oil field in Deir al-Zor province in southeastern Syria on Monday evening, in response to Sunday’s US bombing raids on Iraqi Shiite militias on the Syria-Iraq border. There were […]
Dear National Public Radio: The Stock Market is not the Economy– Tell us about Hunger and the Real Unemployment Rate
Southwest Harbor, Maine (Special to Informed Comment) – I have a pet peeve with NPR. Why do so many of its top- of- the- hour five minute newscasts begin and end with short stock market updates? Is there no more important factoid its news editors could be passing along to us? NPR likes to portray […]
Israel’s damage of the healthcare system in the Gaza Strip
By Rasha Kaloti ” – ( Middle East Monitor ) – Last May, Israel launched a series of airstrikes on the Gaza Strip following weeks of increased violence towards Palestinians in Jerusalem and the West Bank. The violence by Israeli police was towards Palestinians who were demonstrating the decision to forcibly evict 28 Palestinian families […]
How colonialism’s legacy makes it harder for countries to escape poverty and fossil fuels today
By Patrick Greiner | – ( The Conversation ) – While fossil fuels were powering wealthy nations’ economic growth in the 19th and 20th centuries, many countries across the Global South remained largely impoverished. Today, all that burning of oil, coal and natural gas has warmed the planet toward dangerous levels, and science shows that […]
A Litany of Failure: Nearly 20 Years Later, the US is Still Bombing Iraq, and Iraq is Still Condemning Israeli Occupation of Palestine
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – When the architects of the illegal 2003 Bush Administration war on Iraq imagined the country nearly twenty years later, they did not foresee that the US would still be bombing it in 2021 in revenge for Iraqi militia attacks on US troops. In fact, Paul Wolfowitz, the deputy secretary of […]