By Tom Engelhardt | ( Tomdispatch.com ) | – – A record? Come on! Don’t minimize what’s happening. It’s far too unique, too unprecedented even to be classified as “historic.” Call it mega-historic, if you wish. Never from Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar to Soviet despot Joseph Stalin, from the Sun King Louis the XIV to President […]
Palestine: 17% increase in Israel’s squatter settlements under Trump
Middle East Monitor | – – Construction of settlements in the occupied West Bank surged 17 per cent during the first year of US President Donald trump’s presidency, Israeli monitoring group Peace Now has said. According to data released by the group, Israel began construction of 2,783 settlement homes in 2017, 17 per cent more […]
Yemen: Thousands Protest 3 Years of West-backed Saudi War
TeleSur | – – in Since the military offensive began 10,000 people have been killed, and 53,000 wounded. In Yemen‘s capital Sanaa, tens of thousands took to streets Monday to protest “three years of aggression” by Saudi Arabia and its allies in a war that has been backed by several western governments. This March 26 […]
Trumpism: Why having US Ambassadors in 1/3 of Countries & Spec Ops in 3/4s is Bad
Monica Duffy Toft | (The Conversation) | – – A strong legacy of U.S. leadership and engagement in global politics has been reduced today to what I call kinetic diplomacy – diplomacy by armed force. As of March 2018, the Trump administration has appointed only 70 of 188 U.S. ambassadors. At the same time, it […]
Trump v. the World: Is Diplomacy Dead?
By John Feffer | ( Tomdispatch.com) | – – Donald Trump has a plan to solve America’s drug crisis: kill the drug dealers. “We have pushers and drugs dealers, they are killing hundreds and hundreds of people,” Trump said at a recent White House summit on opioid abuse. “Some countries have a very, very tough […]
The March for Our Lives in Pictures: Massive Crowds Mourn Victims, Condemn Complicit Politicians
By Julia Conley, staff writer | (Commondreams.org ) | – – “Who here is going to vote in the 2018 election? If you listen real close, you can hear the people in power shaking.” Taking the stage on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. on Saturday, high school student David Hogg offered hundreds of thousands […]
For World Poetry Day, Verses Straight From Persia’s Heart
By Salam Aleik | ( GlobalVoices.org) | – – How might someone in Tajikistan, the only Persian-speaking republic in the former Soviet Union, describe a beautiful and lively night spent in the company of family and friends? Perhaps he or she would use the word dilafruz, which literally means ‘firing the heart’. Azerbaijani folk art […]
Can Isolationist Trump and Neocon NSC Pick Bolton really Get Along?
By Carl Schreck | ( RFE/RL) | – – While U.S. President Donald Trump has previously denounced “regime change” and “nation-building,” John Bolton, his choice for national-security adviser, has been a vocal proponent of American intervention abroad. In selecting former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton as his new national-security adviser, U.S. President […]
Before phony polls, Egypt arrests, expels Times reporter Bel Trew
Middle East Monitor | – – Egypt has deported a British journalist working for The Times, the newspaper said on Saturday, describing an “increasingly oppressive environment” for media in the country ahead of next week’s presidential election. The Times said its correspondent, 33-year-old Bel Trew who had been based in Cairo for several years, was […]