Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Biden-Harris White House announced Wednesday that The Department of the Interior is offering a lease sale for offshore wind in the New York Bight, off the coast of New York and New Jersey. The sale will allow companies to put in enough wind turbines to generate 7 gigawatts (GW) […]
Archives for January 2022
Saving the Iran Nuclear Deal: Here’s how to ensure that a new agreement isn’t so easily cancelled
By Abolghasem Bayyenat | – ( Foreign Policy in Focus ) – As talks for reviving the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), or the Iran nuclear deal, resume in Vienna, it has become increasingly evident that restoring the JCPOA is extremely challenging without ensuring its durability. The developments of the past several years—mainly Trump’s […]
Promoting Hatred of Muslim Americans is a Billion Dollar Industry: Can the New Congressional Envoy Combat it?
By Nasim Ahmed | – ( Middle East Monitor) – US lawmakers voted, last month, in support of a bill to create a State Department office tasked with monitoring and combating Islamophobia across the globe. With members of the House of Representatives casting their vote along party lines, a ten-seat majority held by the Democrats […]
The North Atlantic Put up most Heat-Trapping Gases but Africa has to Deal with the Climate Emergency
By Margaret Kadiri | – The UN climate summit COP26, held in November 2021, focused the world’s attention on the urgent need to tackle climate change and concluded with 197 countries agreeing to the Glasgow climate pact. But opinions on the summit’s success are polarised. We owe a profound gratitude to the developing nations – […]
US Maximum Pressure Foiled as Iran’s new Best Friend, China, imports as much as 18 million barrels a month of its Oil
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – China continues to rescue Iran from Washington’s financial and trade blockade on Iran, which by May, 2019, had reportedly reduced its petroleum exports from 2.5 million barrels a day to only about a tenth of that. Petroleum is a major source of income for Iran, and benefits the government and […]
Israel’s Response to Human Rights NGOs’ finding that it practices Apartheid has been to Shoot the Messenger
( ) – While Palestinians have been calling out Israeli apartheid for years, it was the non-governmental organisation B’Tselem that made the headlines a year ago with its designation of Israel as an apartheid state. Twelve months later, Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid has expressed concerns that the label will stick, for no other reason […]
America’s Bombing Wars Haven’t Ended, with 1,178 dropped under Biden
The Pentagon has finally published its first Airpower Summary since President Biden took office nearly a year ago. These monthly reports have been published since 2007 to document the number of bombs and missiles dropped by U.S.-led air forces in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria since 2004. But President Trump stopped publishing them after February 2020, […]
Which Way America? Confronting Christian Nationalism in the Spirit of Desmond Tutu
( Tomdispatch.com) – “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.” — Archbishop Desmond Tutu The world lost a great moral […]
We are so F*cked unless we act Now: The 7 Hottest Years on Record were the last 7 Years
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service reports that the seven hottest years on record “by a clear margin” were the past seven years. This finding underlines the way global heating is speeding up, as we put more and more heat-trapping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Global temperatures fluctuate with […]