Joseph Benzekri | ( Your Middle East | – – “Claiming to fight ISIS can serve as a valuable pretext for defending one’s own interests” The difficulties facing Saudi Arabia and its proxies in Syria should not be conflated with any significant new advantage being enjoyed by their rivals in Iran, writes Joseph Benzekri. Saudi […]
The Evolution of Social Media use in Mideast 5 years after the Youth Revolts
By Damian Radcliffe | (The Conversation) | – – In 2011, the Arab Spring rocked many parts of the Middle East. Regime change in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya saw the departure of long-established – seemingly untouchable – political leaders and inspired ripples of protest and disquiet in many neighboring Arab nations. The tumultuous ramifications are […]
Turkey’s Elections no longer for Democracy but for Nationalist-Conservative Domination
By Umit Cizre | ( OpenDemocracy) | – – Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s readiness to circumvent elections, illustrates that promises to end the conflict were contingent on securing a mathematically permanent conservative-nationalist electoral bloc. Two historic general elections were held in Turkey over the course of four months in 2015. The desperate losers in the first […]
How to Empower the Women and Girls rescued from ISIL
Leanne K Simpson | (The Conversation) | – – Violence against women, especially in war, is so pervasive around the world it’s often not considered news. But the barbaric treatment of women by the group known as Da’esh or Islamic State [group] (IS) has for once managed to attract some specific attention. When IS overran […]
Elections in Iran, a Test for the Regime
By Farhang Jahanpour | (Inter Press Service) | – – Farhang Jahanpour is a former professor and dean of the Faculty of Foreign Languages at the University of Isfahan. Prior to that he was a Senior Research Fellow at Harvard University. Currently he is a tutor in the Department of Continuing Education and a member […]
Anti-Orientalism: Artists 3-D Scan looted Egyptian treasure in German museum
By Cory Doctorow | ( Boing Boing | – – Nora Al-Badri and Jan Nikolai Nelles, an Iraqi/German artistic duo, covertly scanned a famous looted Egyptian treasure, the Bust of Queen Nefertiti, from its contested perch in Berlin’s Neues Museum. The hi-rez 3D file is now free to download and print — the artists have […]
Great Barrier Reef Endangered: Ocean turning Acidic from our Our Coal, Oil, Gas emissions
By Mathieu Mongin, Andrew Lenton, Jennifer Skerratt & Mark Baird | (The Conversation) | – – Those of us who have been fortunate enough to have travelled to spectacular coral reefs marvel at their colour and biodiversity. At around 2,000 km long, the Great Barrier Reef is the largest coral reef system in the world. […]
The $10 Billion Contest: Money and the 2016 US Presidential Elections
By Jack Rasmus | ( TeleSur ) | – – Poll after public opinion poll in the US today consistently show that US voters overwhelmingly share the opinion that big money billionaires and their corporations were increasingly dominating US elections. As the United States election cycle began to ramp up last summer, for example, the […]
Arbitrary: Egyptian Military Court Sentences 3-Year-Old to Life
Human Rights Watch | – – (Beirut) – A life sentence apparently handed down by mistake to a 3-year-old boy on February 16, 2016, exemplifies the arbitrariness of Egyptian courts that are used to punish political opponents of the government. A Cairo military court presiding over a mass trial of 116 defendants, including Ahmed Mansour […]