Nick Turse | ( Tomdispatch.com ) | – – The tabs on their shoulders read “Special Forces,” “Ranger,” “Airborne.” And soon their guidon — the “colors” of Company B, 3rd Battalion of the U.S. Army’s 7th Special Forces Group — would be adorned with the “Bandera de Guerra,” a Colombian combat decoration. “Today we commemorate […]
Turkey’s Erdogan: Saudi demand he close Qatar base is ‘Disrespectful’
TeleSur | – – Erdogan told journalists after Eid al-Fitr prayers that “It (the list of demands from Qatar’s neighbors to lift the ban) is a breach of Qatar’s sovereignty rights.” On Sunday, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan declared that he supported Qatar’s response to a list of demands issued by the Arab states that boycotted […]
Trump’s Folly: Oil is a Worthless Commodity and Saudi’s Crown Prince Knows It
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Crude oil prices are cratering, down 20% this year, in the biggest 6-month free fall in years. As Annie Pei of CNBC notes, Investment guru Dennis Gartman admitted in an interview with the network that petroleum is “a worthless commodity.” Gartman said that prices could rally […]
The World Is Burning (Stop burning Fossil Fuels, Stupid!)
By IPS World Desk | (Inter Press Service) | – – Record high temperatures are gripping much of the globe and more hot weather are to come. This implies more drought, more food insecurity, more famine and more massive human displacements. In fact, extremely high May and June temperatures have broken records in parts of […]
How Soon until we’re Using More Than The Earth Can Provide?
By David Korten | ( Yes! Magazine ) | – – Forget the GDP, it’s time for our leaders to pay attention to metrics that matter. Four days after President Trump announced the United States would withdraw from the Paris climate agreement, the Global Footprint Network (GFN) reported that Earth Overshoot Day 2017 will fall […]
Tense Eid for 1.2 mn Syrian Refugees in Lebanon
By Billie Jeanne Brownlee | (The Conversation) | – – For Syrian refugees in Lebanon marking the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, it has been a struggle to find enough food to break their fast each evening after sunset. This is not what Ramadan and Eid al-Fitr, the festival at its end, should be about. […]
Trump’s attack on a Fair Internet Threatens Free Speech
By Corynne McSherry | Electronic Frontier Foundation | – – Several US senators spoke out this week on the importance of net neutrality to innovation and free speech. They are right. The Internet has become our public square, our newspaper, our megaphone. The Federal Communications Commission is trying to turn it in something more akin […]
4 Nations twist Qatar’s arm, to close down Aljazeera
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – In a bid completely to return the Middle East to the old system of strict government media censorship, four countries have demanded that Qatar close down the Aljazeera television channel. Egypt, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates made the demands formally via Kuwait, which […]
Was ISIL’s destruction of Mosul’s Nuri Mosque Grand Strategy?
By Benjamin Isakhan and Jose Antonio Gonzalez Zarandona | (The Conversation) | – – On June 29 2014 – nearly three years ago to the day – Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi took the pulpit at the Great Mosque of Al-Nuri in Mosul in northern Iraq. He announced the creation of a new Islamic State that stretched […]