Europe

Michael Kenny and Jack Sheldon discuss how Boris Johnson should approach intergovernmental matters in relation to Scotland and Northern Ireland. ( British Politics and Policy) – Boris Johnson used his [post-election] victory speech to restate his intention to lead a ‘one nation’ government. But, rather notably, he made no direct reference to either Scotland or […]

Featured

The Great Turko-Russian World War for the Middle East: From Syria’s Idlib to Libya’s Tripoli

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The campaign to retake parts of Idlib province in northwest Syria by the Russian Aeronspace Forces and the Damascus government of Bashar al-Assad picked back up on Saturday. Two days of cloudy, foggy weather had grounded the Russian Su-24 jet bombers, but yesterday saw clear skies. The Syrian Arab Army […]

Climate Crisis

The Anti-Trump: Merkel’s Germany dumps 20% of Its Coal Use, CO2 Falls 7%, Renewables at 40%

Clean Energy Wire

By Julian Wettengel | – ( Clean Energy Wire) – Germany has seen a second year of significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions in 2019, as coal use fell by more than 20 percent and energy production from renewables increased, preliminary calculations by energy research group AG Energiebilanzen show. While the country’s overall energy use […]

Featured

Fossil Fuels cause Climate Crisis and Wars: Turkey forces Israeli Ship to leave research on Cyprus Undersea Gas

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Daily Sabah is reporting that a couple of weeks ago the Turkish navy made an Israeli research vessel leave the territorial waters off Turkish Cyprus. The island has been divided politically into a Greek-speaking Cyprus and a Turkish province since the 1974 Turkish invasion. Since 2011 there have been […]

United Kingdom

The Disunited Kingdom

Farhang Jahanpour

The General Election in the United Kingdom on Thursday 12 December produced a major earthquake in British politics. Although opinion polls had shown either a narrow majority for the Conservative Party or a hung parliament, and the gap between the Conservative and the Labor parties had narrowed during the last few days of the campaign, […]

European Union

Britain Votes Overwhelmingly to Leave Europe Now with Boris Johnson Landslide

The Conversation

By Laura Hood | – Results are still rolling in but it looks as though Prime Minister Boris Johnson has secured a big victory in the British general election. He looks set to have gone from a minority government to a very large parliamentary majority. Projections based on exit polling and early results indicate his […]

Germany

Green Democracy: This small German town took back the power – and went fully renewable

The Conversation

By Bertie Russell | – The case for ambitious and transformative environmental policy is being made with increasing fervour and a series of “Green New Deals” – a reference to Roosevelt’s economic reform programme in the 1930s – have been proposed over the past 12 months in the US, Europe, and the UK. Such policies […]

Featured

At NATO, Trump irrelevant as France’s Macron Confronts Turkey on Invasion of Syrian Kurds

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The 70th anniversary of NATO was commemorated with a low-key meeting rather than a summit and was not the united show of success hoped for by Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, reports Al Jazeera. Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan made waves. And a CBC camera crew caught some NATO leaders, including Canada’s Justin […]

Donald Trump

An Illustrated Guide to the Impeachment of Donald Trump

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – In a nearby place and very recently, Donald J. Trump, Rudy Giuliani, Rick Perry, Mick Mulvaney and Mike Pompeo among others hatched a plot against Joe Biden, whom they fingered as the likely Democratic standard bearer in 2020. The plot was to make sure Biden was smeared as a corrupt […]