By Motasem A. Dalloul | – Former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu invited himself for a security meeting with Israeli caretaker Prime Minister Yair Lapid last month to discuss Iran’s nuclear programme. Afterwards, he said that Lapid and Defence Minister Benny Gantz did not live up to their responsibilities for preventing a new nuclear deal […]
Archives for September 2022
Fourth Day of Anti-Veil Protests Shake Iran
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – On Tuesday Iran saw a fourth day of protests kicked off by the death in custody last week of Mahsa “Zhina” Amini, 22, a Kurdish young woman visiting Tehran who was arrested for imperfect veiling. Her father said her corpse showed bruising on her legs. Some women have burned their […]
Roots of White Rage
Vancouver (Special to Informed Comment) Recent development show just how divided the United States of America really is. The latest polling shows that 72% of Americans believe that democracy is in serious danger. Even more strikingly, 43% said civil war was at least somewhat likely in the next 10 years. Robert Reich, a former US […]
Will the United Nations ever deliver Justice for Palestine?
( Middle East Monitor ) – In his anticipated speech at the United Nations General Assembly on 23 September, Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas is expected to, once more, make a passionate plea for the recognition of Palestine as a full member. Abbas’ ‘landmark speech’ would not be the first time that the President of the […]
Donald Trump’s Document Grab and the Dismantling of Democracy
( Tomdispatch.com ) – Thanks to Donald Trump, secrecy is big news these days. However, as political pundits and legal experts race to expose the layers of document-related misdeeds previously buried at his Mar-a-Lago estate, one overlooked reality looms large: despite all the coverage of the thousands of documents Trump took with him when he […]
Scientists Conclude Climate Change Contributed to 1/3 of Pakistan being Under Water; Calls for Debt Relief
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The massive monsoon floods that affected 33 million people in Pakistan, destroyed 1.3 million homes, turned the southern province of Sindh temporarily into a new inland sea nearly 70 miles across, and killed off 80% of the country’s livestock was in part fueled by the human-caused climate emergency. So argues […]
The US-Iran Conflict: Review of “Republics of Myth”
Barcelona (Special to Informed Comment) – Review of Hussein Banai, Malcolm Byrne, and John Tirman, Republics of Myth: National Narratives and the US-Iran Conflict (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 2022.) The enmity between the United States and Iran following the 1978-79 Iranian Revolution constitutes one of the most studied international rivalries. This notwithstanding, the recently […]
Climate Emergency: Typhoon Merbok, fueled by unusually warm Pacific Ocean, pounded Alaska’s vulnerable coastal Communities at a critical Time
By Rick Thoman, University of Alaska Fairbanks | – The powerful remnants of Typhoon Merbok pounded Alaska’s western coast on Sept. 17, 2022, pushing homes off their foundations and tearing apart protective berms as water flooded communities. Storms aren’t unusual here, but Merbok built up over unusually warm water. Its waves reached 50 feet over […]
“Cheb Macron’s” ode to Algerian gas: French President’s Arab Pop Music Reference Backfires
Written by Mariam Abuadas مريم أبو عدس and Faizah Falah فايزة فلاح | – ( Globalvoices.org) – On August 29, French President Emmanuel Macron concluded his three-day visit to Algeria with a historic stopover in the city of Oran, during which he visited the fortress and the Church of Santa Cruz, two of the country’s […]