(By Mustafa Habib) NIQASH visits Fallujah and finds a city in flux. While armed militias control the city and the Iraqi army stands guard outside, markets and shops are still open and everyday life is relatively calm. However it won’t stay this way: more Sunni militants are entering the city, relishing a chance to fight […]
Descent into Bigotry: 21st Century Americans increasingly negative toward Muslims, Minorities
(By Charles Kurzman via IslamiCommentary) Islamic terrorism has proved to be a relatively small threat to public safety in America since 9/11. Isolated individuals have engaged in sporadic violence such as the Boston Marathon bombings, but radicalization has remained far more limited than security officials feared. A report issued this month by the Triangle Center […]
Donkeys on the Nile: The Egyptian Gov’t’s Problem with Journalists
(By Jonathan Moremi) “While Cairo was exploding, Egypt’s State TV aired pictures of a donkey pulling its cart peacefully along the banks of the river Nile” Three years after the revolution, the donkey seems to have become the metaphor for how Egypt’s military rulers spell the word ‘truth’ and intend to tell the story of […]
Game Over for Earth: Big Carbon’s Fatal, Scorching Triumph over Greens
(By Michael T. Klare) Listening to President Obama’s State of the Union address, it would have been easy to conclude that we were slowly but surely gaining in the war on climate change. “Our energy policy is creating jobs and leading to a cleaner, safer planet,” the president said. “Over the past eight years, the […]
Planet, Oceans Burning Up: There is no “Pause” in Global Warming
(By Jon Queally) Climate change has not hit a "speed bump." The planet's temperature is not remaining steady and it certainly isn't cooling. Earth, especially its ocean, are heating up… and rapidly. Those are the findings and the consensus of the global scientific community. And a new study shows that the detectable slowdown of global […]
UN: Civilian drone deaths triple in Afghanistan
(By Alice K. Ross) Civilian drone deaths in Afghanistan tripled last year, according to a report by a UN agency. Forty-five civilians died in drone strikes in 2013. The report, by the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (Unama), found that drone strikes accounted for at least a third of all civilian deaths in air […]
Can Obama make a grand bargain with Iran over Syria?
(By Shahram Akbarzadeh) The last round of talks to bring some relief to the humanitarian disaster in Syria achieved remarkable nothing. The anti-Assad delegation traded barbed insults with the Syrian government delegation and all left the meeting with the reaffirmed conviction that the other side cannot be trusted. But something peculiar happened on the side […]
False Dawn: The 35th Anniversary of Iranian Revolution
(By Farhang Jahanpour) The Iranian revolution succeeded exactly 35 years ago this week. After 37 years of rule, Mohammad Reza Shah left Iran on 16 January 1979, never to return. His nemesis, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who had waged a campaign against him mainly from his exile in Najaf in Iraq for 14 years returned in […]
Assassination by Leak: US floats Trial Balloon of Droning an American to Death
(By Tim Cushing) Administration Officials Perform Some Very Public Handwringing Over Extrajudicial Drone Killing (via Techdirt) The administration has sort of painted itself into a corner with its new rules on drone strikes. It’s apparently seeking to take out a US citizen who has joined al-Qaeda and is “actively plotting” against the US. Multiple issues […]
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