US Middle East policy often seemed similar to Putin’s Plot on America via Trump
Climate Emergency: Heat Trapping Gases make largest Jump in recorded history
TeleSur | (Informed Comment) | – – Carbon dioxide or CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere have reached unprecedented high levels, a United Nations watchdog group reports, warning that urgent measures are needed to achieve the targets set by the Paris climate agreement and avoid cataclysmic changes in the earth’s climate conditions. “Concentrations of carbon dioxide […]
How Fox & Murdoch paved way for Putin Election Ploy
Reprint edn. Update: Reuters reports that “Facebook says 126 million Americans may have seen Russia-linked political posts” By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – In Edgar Allan Poe’s “Purloined Letter,” detective C. Auguste Dupin discovers a stolen letter in the thief’s own apartments after police searches had failed to turn it up. It […]
A mid-6th Century (Christian?) proto-Arabic Inscription from N. Arabia Mentioning Al-Ilah
(Politically oriented readers of IC please excuse this reprint of a path-breaking but extremely technical discussion in Arabian religious and linguistic history. It is highly important for the study of the beginnings of Islam, since it discusses an inscription from al-Jawf, Saudi Arabia dated to 548 CE, i.e. some sixty years before the beginning of […]
Top Six Trump Admin. Crimes that ought to bring Indictments
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – 1. Jeff Sessions lied under oath, saying he never met with any Russian official during the Trump presidential campaign. He met the Russian ambassador twice. The GOP impeached Bill Clinton for perjury in what was a minor personal matter, but stand by Sessions despite his perjury […]
Barzani gambled it all and Lost– Kurdistan Pres. ending Career
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Kurdistan President Massoud Barzani has written a letter to the parliament of Iraq’s Kurdistan Regional Government announcing that he will not run for president again and will go out of office on November 1 as his much-extended term of office ends. Barzani had taken heart from […]
Scotland Wind Revolution: First Offshore floating Turbines power 20,000 Homes
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The BBC reports that five massive floating wind turbines off the coast of Aberdeenshire in Scotland have gone operational. They generate enough electricity to power 20,000 homes. This “Hywind” project was built by the Norwegian firm Statoil. It is an exciting development, since a lot of […]
Iraq: How Youtube & Facebook Fake News Raised Kurdish-Shiite Tensions
By Histyar Qader | Erbil | (Niqash.org) | – – After clashes in northern Iraq this week, hundreds of fake pictures have flooded Iraqi social media. Some are real, some not, but leaders on both sides say it’s leading to a dangerous escalation of tensions. Given the partisan nature of much of the media funding […]
Continued Conflict: Iraqi PM rejects Kurdish offer, insists Referendum be Annulled
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Iraqi Prime Minister Haydar al-Abadi was in Tehran on Thursday for consultations with the Iranian government (no, Abadi isn’t afraid of Trump.). During his meeting with Iranian vice president Ishaq Jahangiri, his office released a statement replying to Massoud Barzani. Barzani is the president of the […]
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