2021

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Al-Quds al-`Arabi [Arab Jerusalem]’ reports that at least seventeen fighters were killed in U.S. air strikes on Thursday night on small bases on the Syrian border with Iraq. The bases south of Al-Bu-Kamal belong to the Brigades of the Party of God [Kataeb Hezbollah] and the Brigades of the Prince […]

censorship

Saudi Arabia: Proposed Reforms Neglect Basic Rights: Ongoing Repression, Absence of Civil Society Impede Progress

Human Rights Watch

( Human Rights Watch) – (Beirut) – Saudi Arabia recently announced a series of important and necessary reforms, but ongoing repression and a lack of respect for basic rights are major barriers to progress, Human Rights Watch said today. The repression of independent civil society and critical voices that can provide objective feedback decreases the […]

China

Biden, Climate Change, and China: A New Cold War equals A Scalding Planet

Michael T. Klare

( Tomdispatch.com ) – Slowing the pace of climate change and getting “tough” on China, especially over its human-rights abuses and unfair trade practices, are among the top priorities President Biden has announced for his new administration. Evidently, he believes that he can tame a rising China with harsh pressure tactics, while still gaining its […]

CIA

Biden’s New Mideast: In Nadir of US-Saudi Relations, release planned of CIA report Accusing Crown prince of Murder

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Biden administration will release a Central Intelligence Agency report concluding that crown prince Mohammed Bin Salman, 35, of Saudi Arabia, masterminded the assassination on October 2, 2018, of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi. I’m not sure even an old foreign policy hand like President Biden understands how explosive this […]

censorship

Why Google’s Plans for a Saudi-Based Cloud are So Dangerous: Riyadh may demand Private Customer Data

Global Voices

By Dahlia Kholaif | – ( Global Voices ) – Tech giant Google plans to establish a new Google Cloud region in Saudi Arabia. Access Now, a nongovernmental digital rights organization, has raised alarm and requested the immediate halting of the plan, referring to the country’s “appalling human rights record.” The organization issued a statement […]

Donald Trump

The Claudius Presidency

John Feffer

(Foreign Policy in Focus ) – Caligula was by all accounts a nasty piece of work. During the nearly four years that he ruled over the Roman empire in the first century CE, Caligula was notorious for sexual predation and extravagant spending. Never one to sell himself short, he proclaimed early on that he was […]

Economy

Texas blackouts show why energy should be a universal right

The Conversation

By Gordon Walker | – An unprecedented cold wave in the US state of Texas recently left several million households without power for days on end, as temperatures dropped well below freezing. Dozens of people died from hypothermia, car crashes, house fires or carbon monoxide poisoning from running cars or generators simply to keep warm. […]

African-Americans

Is Harvard denying Tenure to Cornel West over his views on Palestine?