By Peter Van Buren | (Tomdispatch.com) — The current American war in Iraq is a struggle in search of a goal. It began in August as a humanitarian intervention, morphed into a campaign to protect Americans in-country, became a plan to defend the Kurds, followed by a full-on crusade to defeat the new Islamic State […]
Learning from Paris: Are you Charlie Hebdo? (Juan on Radio w/ C. Lydon)
Christopher Lydon | Radio Open Source ” Learning from Paris The story of the massacre at Charlie Hebdo has gone everywhere in the past week: into meditations on free speech and blasphemy, into declarations of cultural and actual war, and high-wire geopolitics. It’s a fresh attack, meaning high emotion and demands for ‘moral clarity‘ — […]
Muslim-Jewish Coexistence: Mark Cohen on its History and Relevance Today
by JOSEPH RICHARD PREVILLE for ISLAMiCommentary Professor Mark R. Cohen delivering a lecture to a seminar room full of professors and graduate students at King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. (December 2014)Cohen gave two lectures there: “What is the Geniza and What Does it Tell Us?” and “The Importance of the Geniza for Islamic History” […]
‘State of War’ & Surveillance won’t help Press Freedom after ‘Charlie’
By A. D. McKenzie | PARIS (IPS) – In the wake of last week’s attack on French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo that left 12 people dead, a heated battle of opinion is being waged in France and several other countries on the issue of freedom of expression and the rights of both media and the […]
Fox ‘News’ Schooled By French ‘Daily Show’ On Muslim ‘No-Go Zones’
AJ+ | — “The host of France’s “Le Petit Journal,” Yann Barthès, asked his audience to flood Fox News with claims about Parisian “no-go zones.” Since the Charlie Hebdo attack, several Fox guests have asserted that parts of England and France are Muslim-run, with non-Muslims and police not welcome. But Barthès did some fact-checking on […]
Sea Level Rising Faster in Threat to Coasts: Study
The Times of India | — “A study said on Wednesday that sea level rise in the past two decades has accelerated faster than previously thought in a sign of climate change threatening coasts from Florida to Bangladesh. ” Times of India “Sea Level Rise Quickens More Than Thought in Threat to Coasts”
Gaza – reduced to Rubble by Israel – suffers cold, hungry winter: ‘conditions catastrophic’
RT | — “Many thousands of Gazans face a freezing winter living in tents pitched amid the rubble of their ruined homes – as the UN is urging half a billion dollars in emergency aid for shelter to the war-battered region.” RT: “Cold, dark & hungry: Gaza suffers through winter, ‘conditions catastrophic’”
Civilization’s Advance has depended on “Blasphemy” of Thinkers & Mystics
By Farhang Jahanpour The Wednesday edition of Charlie Hebdo (a week after the barbaric attack by two deranged terrorists on its premises) carried a cartoon of Prophet Muhammad, with a caption “Je Suis Charlie”, with a tear drop on his face announcing, “all is forgiven”. It is not clear who is forgiven and for what, […]
Boko Haram Menaces Cameroon Schoolchildren after Massacre in Nigeria
By Ngala Killian Chimtom MAROUA, Far North Region, Jan 14 2015 (IPS) – “I’d quit my job before going to work in a place like that.” That is how a primary school teacher responded when IPS asked him why he had not accepted a job in Cameroon’s Far North region. James Ngoran is not the […]