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Juan Cole

al-Qaeda
Why there Were no CIA Torture Black Sites in Latin America (Grandin)

Why there Were no CIA Torture Black Sites in Latin America (Grandin)

Juan Cole

Greg Grandin writes at Tomdispatch.com: The map tells the story.  To illustrate a damning new report, “Globalizing Torture: CIA Secret Detentions and Extraordinary Rendition,” recently published by the Open Society Institute, the Washington Post put together an equally damning graphic: it’s soaked in red, as if with blood, showing that in the years after 9/11, […]

Egypt
Christian woman in Egypt Shoe-whacks Salafi Fundamentalist for Calling her a Harlot (Photo)

Christian woman in Egypt Shoe-whacks Salafi Fundamentalist for Calling her a Harlot (Photo)

Juan Cole

Last December at a protest against Egyptian president Muhammad Morsi in Egypt, it is alleged that an unveiled Christian woman was standing with other demonstrators when a hard-line Salafi fundamentalist came up to her and said “Cover your face you harlot!” She immediately reached down, took off her shoe, and slapped him across the face […]

Energy
Holding Obama’s Feet to the Fire:  Protest against Climate Change Draws Thousands to Washington

Holding Obama’s Feet to the Fire: Protest against Climate Change Draws Thousands to Washington

Juan Cole

The ‘Forward on Climate’ protest drew some 40,000 demonstrators to Washington, DC, on Sunday. Although the press tended to cast it as mainly a rally against the Keystone XL pipeline project, which would allow export of Canadian oil produced from tar sands via the Gulf of Mexico, the rally was against policies that accelerate climate […]

Iran
Iran Leader:  Having Nukes is ‘Crime Against Humanity’ – US Sanctions Actually Target Fuel Enrichment

Iran Leader: Having Nukes is ‘Crime Against Humanity’ – US Sanctions Actually Target Fuel Enrichment

Juan Cole

The USG Open Source Center translated the entirety of Iran Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s speech in Tehran to Tabrizis on Saturday. In it, Khamenei for the nth time called nuclear weapons a ‘crime against humanity’ and affirmed that Iran does not want them. Although this speech was covered by US media such as the New […]

Uncategorized
Libya Marchin' On, 2 years Later

Libya Marchin’ On, 2 years Later

Juan Cole

Marchin’ On in honor of the second anniversary of the beinning of the Libyan uprising:

Arab World
Formerly Liberal Kuwait has started Jailing Dissident Bloggers (Kinninmont)

Formerly Liberal Kuwait has started Jailing Dissident Bloggers (Kinninmont)

Juan Cole

    Jane Kinninmont writes for ISLAMiCommentary Kuwait has traditionally had the greatest freedom of speech of all the Gulf monarchies, as well as having the most powerful parliament. Yet, like all its Gulf neighbours, it has started to crack down on criticism of the ruler since the onset of the Arab spring. At least […]

Israel
Israel Spy Scandal and Press Censorship

Israel Spy Scandal and Press Censorship

Juan Cole

Russia Today reports on the scandal surrounding the mysterious death in prison of Ben Zygier, an Australian who had been recruited into Israeli intelligence, Mossad. Rumors swirl that he had had a crisis of conscience about the assassination in Dubai of suspected Hamas operative Mahmoud Mabhouh, in which Mossad field officers used passports of living […]

Uncategorized
Big Money is buying our Politics, and how to Fight Back (Bill Moyers video)

Big Money is buying our Politics, and how to Fight Back (Bill Moyers video)

Juan Cole

Bill Moyers explores the subversion of American democracy by big money, and what could be done by it. A third of campaign donations in the past election were ‘dark money,’ i.e. from anonymous rich people. Some 150 persons had an outsized impact with their $9 million each. The blurb for the show: “Full Show: The […]

Uncategorized
The Crisis of Urdu (Farouqui)

The Crisis of Urdu (Farouqui)

Juan Cole

Open letter from Ather Farouqui in New Delhi on the Crisis of Urdu Dear Friends, I am writing this note as the General Secretary of the Anjuman Taraqqi Urdu (Hind) to all allies who can help rescue Urdu from the grave quagmire it is currently confined in, branded as a ‘Muslim language’, ‘language of terrorists’, […]

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