Ma’an News | – – BETHLEHEM (Ma’an) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised his far-right government on Sunday that he would lift all restrictions on settlement construction in occupied East Jerusalem, Israeli media reported. Netanyahu’s announcement came as Israel’s Jerusalem municipality approved permits for the construction of at least 566 new illegal Israeli settlement […]
Your Presidency Sucks: The Republican Party and its Orange Bunny
By David Faris | (Informed Comment) | – – When the late Roger Ebert saw director Vincent Gallo’s film The Brown Bunny at the Cannes Film Festival in 2003, he gave it one of the most savage appraisals that ever appeared under his byline. Ebert, who was known to end reviews of aggressively terrible movies […]
Oil-Rich Arab States Quietly Join Israel in Cheering for Trump
TeleSur | – – Saudi Arabia and its Persian Gulf Arab allies are happy to see Obama leave office as President Donald Trump would be “very, very tough” on Iran. While the world watched with horror as Donald Trump delivered his aggressive “America First” speech on the day of his inauguration, Saudi Arabia and its […]
Will Saudi Reforms be enough to Forestall big Trouble ahead?
By Bernard Haykel | (Project Syndicate) | – – In 2017, Saudi Arabia will continue to pursue two key goals: to reduce its economy’s dependence on oil revenues and government spending; and to position the Kingdom as a regional hegemon that can meet any threat. The country’s transformation will be difficult, but it is necessary, […]
Kurds Will Come Together to Discuss Independence With Baghdad
TeleSur | – – Kurdish independence “is a reality that will come true,” said Masoud Barzani, President of the Kurdistan Region in northern Iraq. Kurdish parties will meet with the Iraqi government to discuss independence, reported Kurdish media on Saturday. The delegation will include five Kurdish parties, who will meet with Turkmen, Chaldean and Assyrian […]
Dispatch from DC: On the National Mall, the state of a nation
By Lisa Benton-Short | (The Conversation) | – – On Jan. 20, Americans focused their attention on Washington, D.C., as the presidential inauguration ceremony took place on the National Mall, a place that urban scholars, geographers and historians refer to as a “stage for democracy.” As an urban geographer, I study the important role of […]
Protesters Face Increasing Criminalization in Trump Era
TeleSur | – – Changes aim to hit protestors with criminal records and beefed up fines and impunity for police who accidentally kill them. Donald Trump was officially sworn in Friday as one of the most unpopular U.S. presidents in recent history, sparking off widespread protests around the world. Resistance through protest and mass organization […]
Thousands of Palestinian-Israelis rally after Israel Razed Bedouin Village
Ma’an News Agency | – – ARARA (Ma’an) — Thousands of demonstrators took to the streets Saturday in the town of Arara in northern Israel, in the wake of a demolition campaign in the Bedouin village of Umm al-Hiran on Wednesday, when Israeli police shot local math teacher Yacoub Abu al-Qian to death under widely-contested […]
The left’s response to Trump and US Neofascism must be international
By Sayantan Ghosal | (The Conversation) | – – With Donald Trump’s inauguration as American president, one more event considered by many to be beyond the realm of possibility has come to pass. Protests may have been taking place in America and around the world, but the crisis of the left is all too apparent. […]