2021

UN Security Council to meet with Iran without the US in quest to Restore 2015 Nuclear Deal breached by Trump

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The European Union announced yesterday that today, Friday, Iran will meet by video with the current signatories to the 2015 nuclear deal or Joint Collective Plan of Action (JCPOA) with a view toward returning the parties to compliance. The US under Trump withdrew in May, 2018. The Biden administration welcomed […]

Israel/ Palestine

The Biden Administration is back to calling Palestinians ‘Occupied,’ but can’t see them being Colonized

Ramona Wadi

( Middle East Monitor) – In another move that shows US President Joe Biden is navigating between the Trump administration’s era and the return to the two-state politics, the US State Department’s 2020 Country Reports on Human Rights presented two facets of the current administration’s policy. The title reads, as it did during former US […]

Egypt

Suez canal: what the ‘ditch’ meant to the British empire in the 19th century

The Conversation

By Jonathan Parry | – The week-long blockage of the Suez canal by the Ever Given container ship has reminded us that the canal, though immensely important to the world’s commerce, is also very vulnerable. Since its completion in 1869, it has symbolised global interconnectedness. But it has also demonstrated how fears, rivalries and bottlenecks […]

China

Stumbling into War? Could the U.S. and China Face an Unintended Blowup in the Western Pacific in the Biden Years?

Michael T. Klare

( Tomdispatch.com) – The leaders of China and the United States certainly don’t seek a war with each another. Both the Biden administration and the regime of Chinese President Xi Jinping view economic renewal and growth as their principal objectives. Both are aware that any conflict arising between them, even if restricted to Asia and […]

Egypt

Egypt’s Sisi threatens ‘Instability that no one Can Imagine”: Will the Next Mideast War be over Water?

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The closure of the Suez Canal for a week by the Ultra Large Container Ship, the Ever Given, signaled the importance to world commerce and energy supplies of the canal, through which some 12 percent of world trade passes. Another danger to that world artery, which connects the Indian Ocean […]

Haredim

Israel’s Latest Election produces no Clear Winner, except the far Right and the Occupation

Ramzy Baroud

( Middle East Monitor ) – A “major setback” was the recurring theme in many news headlines reporting on the outcome of Israel’s General Election last week. While this referred specifically to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s failure to secure a decisive victory in the country’s fourth election in two years, it is only part of […]

Uncategorized

The US lost the Afghanistan War and is finally Leaving, but can Biden win the Peace?

John Feffer

( Foreign Policy in Focus) – In October 1944, with the end of World War II in sight, Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin passed a note back and forth to each other at a conference in Moscow. On the piece of paper, Churchill had assigned percentages to several Eastern European countries. Stalin amended the numbers, […]

Joe Biden

Biden’s Commitment to powering 20 mn Homes with Offshore Wind is a US Energy Revolution

The Conversation

By Erin Baker and Matthew Lackner | – The United States’ offshore wind industry is tiny, with just seven wind turbines operating off Rhode Island and Virginia. The few attempts to build large-scale wind farms like Europe’s have run into long delays, but that may be about to change. The Biden administration announced on March […]

Featured

US Church Membership falls under 50%; Are Republicans, anti-Gay Evangelicals driving Youth away?

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Since about 2000, Americans have begun abandoning religion in droves, especially but not only the younger generations (Millennials and younger). Now a Gallup poll finds that for the first time in seven decades, only 47% of Americans say they belong to a church, synagogue or mosque. That figure was 70% […]

Archives for 2021