Asia

By Dilip Hiro | ( Tomdispatch.com) | – – In his State of the Union address, Donald Trump warned grimly of “rivals like China and Russia that challenge our interests, our economy, and our values.” In response, he demanded that Congress give even more money to “our great military” and fund the growth and modernization […]

Colonialism

British Empire’s hidden workings in India and Iran revealed in remarkable new film footage

contributors

By Jonathan Westaway | The Conversation | – – In a basement office at the Royal Geographical Society in London’s South Kensington, grainy 16mm film footage flickers silently across the screen, one of over a hundred expeditionary and travel films digitised recently by the society and the British Film Institute. They are now free to […]

Afghanistan

US Pentagon will Keep fighting in Syria until they win the Vietnam War

contributors

By Danny Sjursen | ( Tomdispatch.com) | – – Vietnam: it’s always there. Looming in the past, informing American futures. A 50-year-old war, once labeled the longest in our history, is still alive and well and still being refought by one group of Americans: the military high command. And almost half a century later, they’re […]

Afghanistan

Afghanistan: Taliban Massacres nearly 100, wounds150 in Kabul

contributors

TeleSur | – – The explosion took place in an area near many embassies and government buildings. A bomb hidden in an ambulance killed at least 40 people and wounded about 140 at a police checkpoint in the Afghan capital Kabul Saturday, in an area near foreign embassies and government buildings, officials said. The Taliban […]

China

Is China coming into Syria for its “One Belt, One Road”?

Neil Thompson

By Neil Thompson | (Informed Comment) | – – As the Syrian civil war begins to wind down after six and a half years of bitter fighting, a new phase is emerging in the battered country’s political life — plans for country’s postwar reconstruction are already being laid even as the fighting between Islamist rebels […]

North Korea

A Second Korean War, this Time with Nukes?

Rajan Menon

( Tomdispatch.com) | – – Most people intuitively get it. An American preventive strike to wipe out North Korea’s nuclear bombs and ballistic missiles, or a commando raid launched with the same goal in mind, is likely to initiate a chain of events culminating in catastrophe. That would be true above all for the roughly […]

Afghanistan

12 Strong. The Inside Story on the Making of a (Refreshingly Accurate) Hollywood War Epic

contributors

By Brian Glyn Williams (with Julie Romei) | (Informed Comment) | – – When I received a phone call from a representative for famed producer Jerry Bruckheimer to visit the remote mountains of New Mexico to see the filming set for the forthcoming Afghan war movie, 12 Strong: The True Declassified Story of the Horse […]

China

Is China’s dominance of Green Energy Markets a path to Global Dominance?

contributors

By Chris G. Pope | (The Conversation) | – – If there is to be an effective response to climate change, it will probably emanate from China. The geopolitical motivations are clear. Renewable energy is increasingly inevitable, and those that dominate the markets in these new technologies will likely have the most influence over the […]

Environment

EVs are Better: Iranian oil tanker in East China Sea could burn for a month

contributors

Middle East Monitor | – – The stricken Iranian oil tanker in the East China Sea could burn for as long as one month, South Korea’s Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries told Reuters on Wednesday, as the blaze raged for a fourth day following a collision with a freight ship. Dozens of rescue boats battled […]