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Juan Cole

Domestic Surveillance
No, NSA snooping didn't foil 50 Terrorist Attacks (Elliot & Meyer)

No, NSA snooping didn’t foil 50 Terrorist Attacks (Elliot & Meyer)

Juan Cole

Claim on “Attacks Thwarted” by NSA Spreads Despite Lack of Evidence Justin Elliot and Theodoric Meyer write at ProPublica Two weeks after Edward Snowden’s first revelations about sweeping government surveillance, President Obama shot back. “We know of at least 50 threats that have been averted because of this information not just in the United States, […]

Energy
Why the US needs Electric Cars:  Saudi Arabia threatens Pivot away from US

Why the US needs Electric Cars: Saudi Arabia threatens Pivot away from US

Juan Cole

The royal family of Saudi Arabia, an absolute monarchy with no constitution and no elected legislature, is in a snit about US foreign policy. King Abdullah doesn’t like even the mild American criticism of the Sunni Bahrain monarchy’s brutal crackdown on the majority Shiite community in that country. He is furious that President Obama went […]

Drones
Rights Groups: Some US Drone Strikes are War Crimes (Oldroyd)

Rights Groups: Some US Drone Strikes are War Crimes (Oldroyd)

Juan Cole

Rachel Oldroyd writes at The Bureau of Investigative Journalism: Leading human rights groups Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have raised serious concerns about the legality of drone strikes in Pakistan and Yemen. The two organisations have conducted separate investigations into specific strikes to highlight how civilians are being killed. Such killings, they claim, are […]

Christianity
Egypt's Coptic Christians Protest Killing by Fundamentalists of 4 at Church

Egypt’s Coptic Christians Protest Killing by Fundamentalists of 4 at Church

Juan Cole

Coptic Christians in Egypt staged a big demonstration on Monday to protest the shooting deaths of four church-goers at the Church of the Virgin in the working class al-Warraq district in Cairo on Sunday. Two of the victims were children. Assailants came in on motorcycles with guns blazing. Many Coptic Christians blamed the deposed Muslim […]

Afghanistan
America may Shutter the Gov’t, but not the Gov’t’s Wars (Astore)

America may Shutter the Gov’t, but not the Gov’t’s Wars (Astore)

Juan Cole

William J. Astore writes at Tomdispatch: There is a new normal in America: our government may shut down, but our wars continue.  Congress may not be able to pass a budget, but the U.S. military can still launch commando raids in Libya and Somalia, the Afghan War can still be prosecuted, Italy can be garrisoned […]

Uncategorized
Israeli Settlers Chop down more Palestinian Olive Trees (having destroyed 800,000 since 1967)

Israeli Settlers Chop down more Palestinian Olive Trees (having destroyed 800,000 since 1967)

Juan Cole

Israeli settlers over the weekend used chain saws to destroy some 100 Palestinian olive trees in Qaryut village near the West Bank city of Nablus. Construction of new homes by Israeli squatters on the Palestinian West Bank has increased by 70% in 2013, encouraged by the far-right Likud government. There are now 515,000 Israeli squatters […]

al-Qaeda
Sanders: Climate Change more Menacing than Terrorism (Germanos)

Sanders: Climate Change more Menacing than Terrorism (Germanos)

Juan Cole

Andrea Germanos writes at Commondreams.org: In a newly published interview, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) blasts the "unfettered capitalism" that has collapsed the middle class, and the corporate power fueling climate change, which poses a "far more serious problem than Al Qaeda." Sanders speaking about the government shutdown’s impacts. (Photo: AFGE/cc/flickr) Speaking with economics writer Jonathan […]

Energy
Top Ten Climate Change Threats being ignored by your Television News

Top Ten Climate Change Threats being ignored by your Television News

Juan Cole

Since many mainstream media outlets in the US are burying the dramatic climate change stories from all around the world, either by not reporting them or by reporting incidents with no context, it is important for the progressive alternative press to keep this subject in the public eye. 1. Many observers believe climate change is […]

Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia in Unprecedented Withdrawal from UN Security Council over Syria, Palestine

Saudi Arabia in Unprecedented Withdrawal from UN Security Council over Syria, Palestine

Juan Cole

Saudi Arabia mysteriously withdrew, after having campaigned for and won a seat on the UN Security Council. They said it was over Western inaction on Syria and the the Palestinians. The UN Security Council consists of 5 permanent members (China, Russia, US, Britain and France), essentially the victors in WW II. These 5 get a […]

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