2021

Blocked from Civil Dissent, Women in Saudi Arabia are turning to business as ‘quiet’ Feminist activism

By Sophie Alkhaled | – Prominent Saudi women’s rights activist Loujain al-Hathloul was released from prison on February 10 2021 after 1,001 days in custody. Al-Hathloul, a leading campaigner for women’s rights in Saudi Arabia, had been sentenced to five years and eight months in prison in 2018 for pushing a foreign agenda and using […]

Arms Sales

US Resuming Arms Sales to United Arab Emirates is Disastrous, Given its Wars on Yemen, Libya

Human Rights Watch

By Afrah Nasser | – Yemen Researcher, Middle East and North Africa Division | – ( Human Rights Watch) – United States President Joe Biden called in early February for “ending all American support for offensive operations in Yemen, including relevant arms sales.” At the time, I, like many human rights advocates who have been […]

China

Despite Hawks Seeking new Cold War, the US and China can only Confront Climate Emergency by Cooperating

Juan Cole

( China Dialogue ) – They say don’t mess with Texas, but Mother Nature didn’t get the memo. A surprise winter storm killed at least 111 people in March, when rolling blackouts left several million Texans without power for several freezing days. Their misery came just a few years after Hurricane Harvey put a US$125 […]

Afghanistan

US spent $2.261 Trillion on Afghanistan War, in which ~240,000 Have Died; We could have Greened Half the Grid Instead

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Costs of War Project at Brown University has just brought out a new report on Afghanistan. The September 11, 2001 attacks were launched from Khost and Qandahar in Afghanistan by al-Qaeda, though it is not clear that this organization of Arab expatriates informed their Taliban hosts of what they […]

Employment

For Workers struggling to Unionize at Amazon, it is a Matter of Life and Death

John Buell

Southwest Harbor, Maine (Special to Informed Comment) – That unions lost the battle to organize Amazon’s Bessemer, Alabama plant should and did come as no surprise. The workers were up against one of the world’s most affluent and powerful corporations. Yet despite the 2 to 1 loss, the organization effort did help to reveal Amazon’s […]

Immigration

The Real Trauma at the Border: Hundreds of Trump’s Separated Children Still can’t Find their Families

Michael Slager

Chicago (Special to Informed Comment) – Media outlets consistently describe flight from Central America and Mexico as a “crisis,” suggesting that migrants’ proximity to our national space is a problem for us, not for them. Fleeing from violence back home and enduring possible assault on their journey here are often construed as threats to the […]

Human Rights

The Saudi Lobby is Coming for You, Small Town America

Juan Cole

By Ben Freeman, Brian Steiner and Leila Riazi | – ( Tomdispatch.com) – Princess Reema bint Bandar Al-Saud, Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the U.S., was on the hot seat. In early March 2020, as the Covid-19 pandemic swept the world, oil prices collapsed and a price war broke out between Saudi Arabia and Russia, leaving […]

Displaced and Refugees

Biden to reverse Trump’s White Supremacist, Sadistic near-ban on Refugees, but US still Lags, Sweden, Germany other OECD Countries

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – About one quarter of one percent (0.25 percent) of the US population consists of refugees — some 838,000. This minuscule number was too much for the white supremacist Trump administration, which drastically cut back refugee admissions from an average of 70,000 to 80,000 per year earlier in this century to […]

Israel/ Palestine

The “Real” Apartheid: “There’s no Such Thing as a Palestinian Person”

Asa Winstanley

( Middle East Monitor) – “This is the real apartheid,” Jewish American lawyer Brooke Goldstein tweeted last week. “The fact that Jews can’t enter into ‘Palestinian territory’,” she claimed, “I reject that some places are dangerous for me to enter because I AM A JEW.” Goldstein accompanied her tweet with a photo of a large […]

Archives for 2021