(By Juan Cole) It can only be called an Escherian Mobius Strip foreign policy. The Obama administration is sending hellfire missiles and surveillance drones to the Shiite Islamic Mission Party-dominated government of Iraq to help in the latter’s struggle against radical Sunni rebels who have increased their bombings and attacks this year. If the helicopter […]
Freed Pussy Riot Band Members call for ‘Russia without Putin’ (Video of the Day)
Channel 4 News reports: On this occasion of their release, it is worthwhile reprinting excerpts from the translation of an interview by Elena Masyuk with Maria “Masha” Alyokhina and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova from last January that appears on the Free Pussy Riot web site: Masyuk: “— I attended almost every single day of your [Maria’s} trial […]
Snowden’s Christmas Message on Privacy: Does NSA threaten 9th, 14th Amendments, ‘Inviolate Personality’?
(By Juan Cole) Edward Snowden’s Christmas address, carried by the British Channel 4, concentrated on the disappearance of privacy. He said that a child born today might “never know what it means to have a private moment to themselves, an unrecorded, unanalyzed thought.” People walk around with a tracking device in their pockets, he noted, […]
Egyptian Junta designates Muslim Brotherhood as “Terrorist Organization” in Attempt to Crush Dissent
(By Juan Cole) In Egypt, the interim appointed government of Prime Minister Hazem Biblawi, backed by the military junta that made the coup of July 3, on Wednesday formally categorized the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization. The decree was published by the feared Interior Ministry (kind of like US FBI but with torture) on […]
Wounded by Apartheid Wall, Occupied Bethlehem Hopes for Pilgrimage Revival
(Agence France Presse) Bethlehem eyes tourist boom after dark decade (via AFP) After a decade of unrest, Bethlehem has seen a surge in visits to Christ’s traditional birthplace, raising hopes of a tourism bonanza in the West Bank town despite Israel’s separation barrier. The Palestinian territories’ top tourist destination is… —- Related Video AFP: […]
The Flight to Egypt – Coptic Artwork (Picture of the Day)
h/t osjusa.org Attributed to the Coptic Museum, Cairo, Egypt Coptic Christians probably came to predominate in Egypt by the 600s when Muslim Arabs conquered it. As late as 1200, some historians think that Egypt was half Christian and half Muslim. For the past two hundred years, the Coptic Christian population has been estimated at around […]
Birth of Hope: Top Ten Solar Energy Stories 2013
(By Juan Cole) The story of a doomed race who need to be saved by a messiah is on people’s minds today. It functions at a spiritual level. There is an analogous story at the physical level. Humankind is facing the biggest crisis in its 120,000-year-long existence, the physical equivalent of original sin. It is […]
Chief Rabbi of Yazd, Iran, 1903 (Photo of the Day)
The Chief Rabbi of Yazd, Iran, in the center Iran’s population in 1900 was around 10 million. There were roughly 100,000 Jews in Iran at that time. Lord Curzon wrote in the late nineteenth century of different treatment of Jews in different parts of the country: “In Isfahan, where they are said to be 3,700 […]
The Iraqization of Egypt: Two Large Bombs Rock Security Bldg in Mansoura, kill 14, wound 130
(By Juan Cole) Two large explosions at the state security building in downtown Mansoura, Dahqaliya Province, killed at least 14 persons and wounded 130 on Monday, reducing some of the edifice to rubble and damaging its facade. The head of the directorate of security was among the wounded. [Photos via Mansouracity.com] Crowds immediately gathered to […]
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