By Balsam Mustafa, University of Warwick | – (The Conversation) – Iranian authorities have cracked down on protests which erupted after the death in custody of a 22-year-old woman who was arrested by the morality police for not wearing the hijab appropriately. The death of Mahsa Amini who was reportedly beaten after being arrested for […]
Archives for September 2022
The Nightmare of Military Spending on an Overheating Planet: A Big Carbon Bootprint and a Giant Sucking Sound in the National Budget
By Stan Cox | – ( Tomdispatch.com) – On October 1st, the U.S. military will start spending the more than $800 billion Congress is going to provide it with in fiscal year 2023. And that whopping sum will just be the beginning. According to the calculations of Pentagon expert William Hartung, funding for various intelligence […]
Top Six Astounding Signs of Solar Progress in US, as this Source accounts for 45% of New Power Installations in 2021
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Berkeley Labs has brought out its report on utility-scale solar power in the United States during 2021. Here are some headlines from the report: 1. Utility-scale solar and distributed solar came to 45% of all new electricity-production capacity added to the US grid in 2021. In contrast, wind was 32% […]
Mahsa, a National Iranian Symbol of Resistance
Newark, Del. (Special to Informed Comment) – In the summer of 1993, I went to Iran to visit my parents who at the time were living in Tehran on and off. We had left Iran six months after the Iranian Revolution of 1979 and I had not returned until 1993. I remember the atmosphere at […]
Iranian Government Websites Go Dark; ‘Anonymous’ Hacker Collective Claims Responsibility
By Ardeshir Tayebi | – ( RFE/RL ) – Several Iranian government and state-owned websites have been taken down by Anonymous, the international activist hacker group says, in a move of support for nationwide protests that followed the death of a 22-year-old woman following her arrest by the morality police. The website of the Iranian […]
Desalinating Seawater sounds Easy, but there are cheaper and more sustainable Ways to meet people’s Water Needs
By Gregory Pierce, University of California, Los Angeles | – (The Conversation) – Coastal urban centers around the world are urgently looking for new, sustainable water sources as their local supplies become less reliable. In the U.S., the issue is especially pressing in California, which is coping with a record-setting, multidecadal drought. California Gov. Gavin […]
Tlaib calls out “Progressive except on Israel,” and Wasserman Schultz inadvertently makes Her Point for Her
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Ursula Perano at the Daily Beast reports on the controversy among the Progressive Democratic Caucus in Congress over remarks on Wednesday by Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI). She attacked the syndrome of “progressive except on Israel” within her caucus and observed at an online seminar, “that among progressives, it has become […]
Can the UN be Reformed? Turkish President Erdogan’s “A Fairer World is Possible.” – A Review
Mt. Berry, Ga. (Special to Informed Comment) – I avoid reading books written by politicians. They are all too often nothing more than exercises in annoying self-promotion disguised in improbably high-minded language. Yet circumstance tempted me beyond the powers of resistance to buy a copy of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s 2021 book A Fairer […]
Ukraine war: Putin calls up more Troops and threatens Nuclear Option – But is it a Sign of Weakness?
By Stefan Wolff, University of Birmingham and Tatyana Malyarenko, National University Odesa Law Academy | – Declaring a partial mobilisation and threatening the use of “lots of Russian weapons” in response to alleged western nuclear blackmail, Russia’s president Vladimir Putin has upped the ante once more in his war against Ukraine. Indeed, Putin nearly went […]