Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – On Monday, the prime minister of Lebanon and his entire cabinet resigned en masse, reports Bassem Mroue at the Associated Press. Last week an enormous explosion destroyed Beirut’s port and part of the city, killing over 200 persons and wounding thousands, and leaving 300,000 homeless. The explosion came about after […]
- Africa (248)
- Asia (1,246)
- Australasia (35)
- Authoritarianism (384)
- Canada (7)
- Culture (557)
- Economy (1,051)
- Agriculture (3)
- Banking (67)
- Carbon Footprint (6)
- Corporations (52)
- Cryptocurrency (2)
- Debt (21)
- Degrowth (1)
- Democratic Socialism (20)
- Demographic Decline (1)
- Development (26)
- Downward Mobility (1)
- Employment (118)
- Food Insecurity (21)
- Homelessness (16)
- Industry (5)
- Inequality (425)
- Inflation (5)
- infrastructure (10)
- Insurance (1)
- Investment (92)
- Market Crash (10)
- Middle Class (61)
- Monopolies (8)
- Neoliberalism (203)
- Plutocracy (621)
- Poverty (206)
- Poverty (13)
- Regulation (3)
- Retirement (1)
- Sanctions (4)
- Taxes (37)
- Technology (3)
- Trade (114)
- Weapons sales (7)
- Education (174)
- Energy (1,735)
- Batteries (52)
- Coal (139)
- Electricity Cost (2)
- Fossil Fuels (326)
- Fracking (50)
- Geothermal (7)
- Green ammonia (5)
- Green Energy (416)
- Green Hydrogen (8)
- Heat Pumps (6)
- Hydroelectric (15)
- Mining (1)
- Natural Gas (107)
- Nuclear Energy (158)
- Petroleum (300)
- Power Grid (12)
- Pumped Hydro (6)
- Solar Energy (414)
- Tar Sands (13)
- Wave Energy (9)
- wind energy (340)
- Environment (2,682)
- Climate Change (1,656)
- Acidification of Oceans (54)
- Agriculture (26)
- Biodiversity (12)
- Climate Refugees (3)
- CO2 (127)
- Dehydration (5)
- Denialism (147)
- Desalinization (4)
- Desertification (160)
- Divestment (2)
- Dust Storms (6)
- Environmental Investment (1)
- Extreme Heat (392)
- Extreme Weather (297)
- Flooding (138)
- Food Supply (3)
- Forests (18)
- Green New Deal (41)
- Green Recycling (2)
- Greenwashing (3)
- Mass Extinction (62)
- Methane (20)
- Net Carbon Zerio (8)
- Nitrous Oxide (2)
- Rainforests (19)
- Rivers (11)
- Sea Level (338)
- Soil Carbon Release (14)
- Super Storms (265)
- wildfires (240)
- Wood Buildings (1)
- Climate Crisis (1,322)
- Drought (295)
- Ecology (1)
- Ecology (10)
- Environmentalism (393)
- Green Transportation (253)
- Ice Melt (135)
- Invasive Species (2)
- Islands (1)
- Oceans (103)
- Oil Spills (8)
- Pollution (233)
- Water (95)
- wildlife (21)
- Climate Change (1,656)
- Europe (1,375)
- Featured (4,146)
- Haiti (1)
- Health (700)
- History (357)
- Human Rights (1,598)
- Apartheid (263)
- censorship (306)
- Death Penalty (30)
- Disappeared (3)
- Displaced and Refugees (579)
- Food Insecurity (29)
- Gay rights (29)
- Genocide (59)
- Human Rights Watch (90)
- Indigenous Rights (1)
- Migrants (4)
- privacy (21)
- Rights (89)
- Slavery and Trafficking (16)
- Starvation (4)
- Torture (102)
- Trans Rights (3)
- Transgender Rights (4)
- Unlawful Imprisonment (103)
- Unlwful Killing (80)
- War Crimes (416)
- War Rape (9)
- International Politics and Economy (2,108)
- Arms Sales (73)
- BRICS (3)
- Corruption (265)
- Crime (131)
- Democracy (332)
- Dissent (439)
- Domestic Terrorism (15)
- Drones (113)
- G20 (1)
- Guns (9)
- Hacking (8)
- Immigration (21)
- Immigration (4)
- Islamophobia (383)
- Migrants (2)
- military (125)
- nationalism (117)
- NATO (37)
- Neocolonialism (1)
- Peace (142)
- Policing (2)
- Politics (306)
- Politics&Culture (21)
- Propaganda (13)
- Smuggling (1)
- Juan Cole (270)
- Latin America (102)
- media (484)
- Middle East (9,848)
- Arab World (5,266)
- Iran (1,333)
- Israel (946)
- Israel/ Palestine (3,541)
- Israel/Palestine (9)
- Kurds (293)
- Turkey (597)
- Turkiye (124)
- Patriarchy (10)
- racism (468)
- religion (1,504)
- robots (3)
- Romance (1)
- science (171)
- Secular (West) (9)
- Secularism (30)
- Spirituality (22)
- Statelessness (15)
- Stranded Assets (1)
- Surveillance (280)
- Terrorism (1,096)
- Tolerance (6)
- Uncategorized (8,082)
- United Nations (175)
- Urbanization (4)
- US Foreign Policy (1,353)
- US politics (5,379)
- Anti-War Movement (13)
- Campaign Finance (31)
- Censors (22)
- Central Intelligence Agency (63)
- Charity (1)
- Civil Rights (96)
- Congress (80)
- Conspiracy Theories (23)
- Constitution (401)
- Courts (15)
- crime (12)
- Democratic Party (974)
- Democratic Socialists of America (22)
- Domestic Terrorism (20)
- Drone Warfare (27)
- Espionage (124)
- Ethnicities (389)
- Far Right (392)
- FBI (48)
- Foreign Policy (204)
- Gay Rights (17)
- Guns (97)
- Immigration (240)
- Israel Lobbies (130)
- Marijuana (4)
- Militarization (274)
- National Security State (476)
- Native Americans (40)
- Nuclear arsenal (7)
- penitentiaries (6)
- Pentagon (568)
- Police (43)
- prison reform (9)
- Private Prisons (2)
- Progressive Politics (13)
- Puerto Rico (30)
- Religious Right (15)
- Reproductive Choice (68)
- Republican Party (3,002)
- Supreme Court (133)
- Voter suppression (36)
- Whistleblowers (7)
- Xenophobia (9)
- Veterans (35)
- Voting Rights (16)
- War (614)
- White Supremacists (230)
- wikileaks (8)
- women (561)
- workers (232)
- Writing (5)
- Youth (215)
Featured
How did Americans become such Wimps? Silence as Trump kills tens of Thousands, Destroys Social Security and Post Office, Plots Election Fraud
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Nicole Winfield and Lisa Marie Pane at the Associated Press write at the unbelief with which Europeans are staring at the United States, as we head for 300,000 dead from the coronavirus and our economy shrank 33% on an annualized basis last quarter, and we just appear to be all […]
Beirut: ‘Day of Judgment’ Protesters Occupy Gov’t Buildings, Banking Assn., Forcing New Elections
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Lebanese Prime Minister Hassan Diab announced snap elections after a huge crowd of thousands gathered in downtown Beirut Saturday, confronting security forces and taking over government buildings and the Banking Association. Angry about the criminal government negligence that led to the destruction of Beirut’s port and part of the city […]
Will Trump’s Maximum Pressure on UNSC against Lifting Iran Arms Embargo Backfire Big Time?
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Peter Hutchison at AFP reports that the Trump administration may be set to shoot itself in the foot at the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) next week by pressing for an over-ambitious resolution against lifting the arms embargo on Iran. The 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action signed by the […]
American ISIS? Trumpies Threaten life of Scientists like Dr. Fauci, just as ISIS Killed Archeologist Dr. Al-Asaad
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Trump prides himself for being in office when the US military and its Muslim allies in Iraq and Syria polished off the phony “caliphate” of ISIS or ISIL. When the US military tracked down the ersatz “caliph” Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and he detonated his suicide vest, Trump crowed, “Terrorists who […]
Beirut’s Destruction was a Crime of Evil Negligence, the same Crime being Committed Against our Climate
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Some 300,000 people in Beirut have been left homeless by the enormous explosion at the city’s port on Tuesday, which left it without a means of importing by sea. Half of the city has been damaged. 80% of Lebanon’s grain is imported, and the grain silos were destroyed. Thousands of […]
Trump nearly provokes International Incident, Wrongly saying Beirut Explosion a “Bomb”
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – A massive ammonium nitrate explosion rocked Beirut’s port on Tuesday, sending up a mushroom cloud that reminded some of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, damaging buildings, blowing out windows, overturning cars, wounding over 3,000 people at least, and leaving dozens dead. Flying glass and debris were responsible for many of the injuries. […]
A Warning Signal for US? Corruption, Gov’t Gridlock, Pandemic, drive half a Million Lebanese Children into Hunger
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Lebanon, a small country of 4.7 million citizens and another 1.5 million Syrian refugees and 400,000 Palestinian refugees, is facing a perfect storm. Its corrupt political elite has permitted a near-collapse of a once-solid banking system. Government services are paralyzed and there are electricity outages. The country, which is a […]
Elon Musk may have been Joking, but the Flaky Theory that Aliens built the Pyramids is Faintly Racist
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Egyptian scientists and archeologists replied in a level-headed but firm way to billionaire Elon Musk’s tweet that aliens built the pyramids. It isn’t clear whether Musk was just joking around, though he sometimes talks about the possibility that advanced aliens are watching us, and thinks it statistically possible that alien […]