Economy

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) I think I’m one of the few Americans who has been to both Iran and Israel. I like both countries and have a lot in common with thinkers in both. I love What I know of Tel Aviv’s cafe culture and the searing honesty and high ethics of the […]

Central Asia

Modern Silk Roads and China’s Brave New World

contributors

By Pepe Escobar | (Tomdispatch.com) – BEIJING — Seen from the Chinese capital as the Year of the Sheep starts, the malaise affecting the West seems like a mirage in a galaxy far, far away. On the other hand, the China that surrounds you looks all too solid and nothing like the embattled nation you […]

Health

Cigarettes to Kill 1 Billion this Century Despite Global Treaty (+ John Oliver)

contributors

By Laurent Huber | – GENEVA (IPS) – February 27 will mark the 10th anniversary of the World Health Organisation Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), the first global public health treaty. Today the FCTC has 180 Parties, making it among the most widely-adopted international instruments. About 90 percent of the world’s population falls under […]

Banking

Putin on the Nile: an Isolated Russia Seeks friends in Egypt w/ offer of Nuclear Plant

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – President Vladimir Putin of the Russian Federation paid a state visit to Cairo on Tuesday, consulting with President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi on a range of economic and foreign policy issues. The meeting was seen by many observers as underlining the desire of Egypt to become less dependent […]

Culture

Huge Win for the Open Internet! FCC Officially Embraces Title II

contributors

By Corynne McSherry | Electronic Frontier Foundation | — Well done, Team Internet. After a year of intense activism, we may have finally convinced the Federal Communications Commission to change course and craft clear, bright-line rules to protect the open internet, based on legal authority that will actually survive the inevitable legal challenge. According to […]

Economy

Attn. Tea Party: ‘How Immigrants (yes, Muslims and Latinos) can save Detroit & other Cities’

contributors

The Economist | — “From Detroit to Philadelphia to Baltimore, policy makers in America’s old industrial metropolises are struggling with the same problem: how to reverse the fortunes of decaying cities. Decades of economic decline and suburbanisation have left their city centres depressed and dangerous. But immigrants – whether students, migrants or refugees – could […]

Economy

Egypt bets on Suez Canal Expansion to combat Economic Crisis

contributors

CCTV America | – “Egyptian president Abdel Fattah El Sisi said he hopes the Suez Canal expansion project will increase his country’s foreign cash reserves during his meetings while on an official visit to China earlier this week. Egypt expects the expanded canal will bring in more $100 billion annually. CCTV’s Adel EL Mahrouky reported […]

Apartheid

Israel ‘systematically mistreats’ Palestinian children in custody

contributors

BETHLEHEM (Ma’an News Agency) — Some 700 Palestinian children per year are arrested and face “ill-treatment” by Israeli forces, according to a new report by a children’s rights group. (MaanImages/file) In the report, Child Rights International Network said that “during 2014, an average of 197 children were held in military detention every month, 13 per […]

Corruption

Koch Bros To Spend Nearly A Billion Buying The 2016 Elections

contributors

Cenk Uygur | (The Young Turks) – “”The Koch brothers’ operation intends to spend $889 million in the run-up to the 2016 elections — a historic sum that in many ways would mark Charles and David Koch and their fellow conservative megadonors as more powerful than the official Republican Party. The figure, which more than […]