Ma’an News Agency | – – BETHLEHEM (Ma’an) — The United Nations (UN) High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) released a report on Wednesday identifying 206 companies from around the world that are doing business linked to Israeli settlements, which are built in the occupied West Bank in violation of international law. The long-delayed report […]
Cherry-Picking Intel, Nunes and the Iraq War Disaster
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Here is a caution against the Nunes memo that the Republican Party intends to release: it is the sort of thing that got us into the disastrous Iraq War. Cherry-picking raw intelligence is one of the ways the hawks around Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld bamboozled Washington […]
Egypt: Sisi Warns Opposition After Call for Elections Boycott
TeleSur | – – Opposition parties and leaders are calling for a boycott of Egypt’s presidential elections after other candidates were arrested or intimidated. Egypt’s president Abdel Fattah al-Sisi warned its political opponents after a boycott on next presidential elections was announced. “Be warned. What happened seven or eight years ago, will not happen again […]
The Fascist underpinnings of Trump’s State of the Union
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Trump’s State of the Union address had all the elements of fascism except brownshirts marching in the street beating people up (and he veered toward even that in his praise of the Klan and Neo-Nazis at Charlottesville). Fascism pretends to incorporate the good of the masses […]
Egyptian opposition call for boycotting presidential elections
Middle East Monitor | – – Egyptian former presidential candidate Hamdeen Sabahi called today for boycotting the country’s upcoming presidential elections due in March. Speaking at a press conference held at the opposition Dignity Party headquarters in the capital Cairo, Sabahi called for the formation of a “unified coalition” to boycott the elections. “These are […]
Trump declines to Sanction Russia, Spurring Speculation about Putin Hold
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The Trump administration has refused to implement new sanctions on the Russian defense sector, as mandated by Congress’s “Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act,” or CAATSA. Congress passed the bill last year and it was reluctantly finally signed by Trump in August. It is vaguely worded […]
Is The Internet A Luxury Or A Right? (Video)
AJ+ | – – “Ten percent of people in the U.S. don’t have broadband internet, and the number is much higher among rural communities and the urban poor. “ Is The Internet A Luxury Or A Right? | AJ+
No, Trump, Ice isn’t growing at Poles, and Yes, we are Boiling the Earth
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The Associated Press did a useful fact check of Trump’s bizarre assertions on climate change in the interview with his friend Piers Morgan. Since Trump is not good with reading books and the like, it may be helpful to reply to his falsehoods with graphs. TRUMP: […]
In the Age of Big Climate Change we have to stop Farting Carbon
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – This past year is what the era of Big Climate Change looks like. We are only at the beginning of the massive changes we are making to our environment by farting 41 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide (a heat-trapping gas) into our atmosphere every year, […]