Europe

By Jonathan Parry | – The week-long blockage of the Suez canal by the Ever Given container ship has reminded us that the canal, though immensely important to the world’s commerce, is also very vulnerable. Since its completion in 1869, it has symbolised global interconnectedness. But it has also demonstrated how fears, rivalries and bottlenecks […]

Climate Crisis

Scotland is First Industrialized country to generate 97.4% of Electricity From Wind and Solar

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – In 2011, Scotland’s government, urged on by visionaries like Richard Dixon, set itself the ambitious goal to get 100% of its electricity from renewables by 2020. At that time, it only only got about a fourth from clean energy sources, and a lot of that was hydro. The report card […]

censorship

International Statement of Solidarity with Decolonial Academics and Activists in France

contributors

By Paola Bacchetta (Professor, University of California, Berkeley), Azeezah Kanji (Legal Academic and Journalist, Toronto) and David Palumbo-Liu (Professor, Stanford University) | – Earliest Signatories: 1. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, University Professor, Columbia University, USA 2. Gina Dent, Associate Professor, Feminist Studies, History of Consciousness, and Legal Studies. University of California, Santa Cruz 3. Angela Y […]

Afghanistan

Biden branded Putin a Murderer, but can he get out of Afghanistan without Russian Help?

Nikola Mikovic

Belgrade (Special to Informed Comment) – Russia and the United States may be bitter geopolitical rivals, but sometimes, when they have a common interest they manage to act like partners. Even though the US President Joe Biden recently said that he believes his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin is “a killer”, it did not prevent the […]

European Union

European Union backs Int’l Criminal Court Probe of War Crimes in Veiled rebuke of Israel, US

Middle East Monitor

( Middle East Monitor) – The European Union has backed the International Criminal Court (ICC) over its decision to open a formal investigation into war crimes committed in occupied Palestine in comments that appear to rebuke Israel and its key ally the US. Both have condemned The Hague for ruling that it has jurisdiction over […]

censorship

Reporters without Borders Files German ‘Crimes against Humanity’ Case against Saudi’s Bin Salman for Khashoggi Murder

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The France-based Reporters without Borders (RSF) has filed a criminal complaint with the Prosecutor-General of the Federal Court of Justices in Karlsruhe, Germany, against crown prince Mohammed Bin Salman and other Saudi officials for the murder of Washington Post columnist and US resident Jamal Khashoggi in 2018. The filing alleges […]

Batteries

Number of residential solar batteries increases by 50% in Germany

Juan Cole

By Sören Amelang | – The number of battery storage systems linked to a residential solar pv array rose by around 50 percent in Germany in 2020 for the third year in a row. The country’s solar association BSW estimates there were 88,000 new residential installations, taking the total number of solar batteries in Germany […]

Armenia

In Challenge to U.S., Putin’s Eurasian Union seeks to Incorporate Iran

Nikola Mikovic

Belgrade (Special to Informed Comment) – Iran is hoping to join Russia-dominated Eurasian Union by the end of February. The Islamic Republic could also soon get a new rail connection with the Russian Federation, and such an action would additionally strengthen economic and political ties between the two countries. Such a major infrastructural project would […]

Culture

How Spanish Can Help Us Survive Viral Times: A Journey into the Heart of a Language We Need Now More Than Ever

Ariel Dorfman

“Una nación bajo Diós, indivisible, con libertad y justicia para todos.” ( Tomdispatch.com) – When Jennifer López shouted out that last line of the Pledge of Allegiance in Spanish during Joe Biden’s inauguration ceremony, like so many Spanish-speaking Latinos in the United States I felt a sense of pride, a sense of arrival. It was […]