Health

By Ann Jones | (Tomdispatch.com) Americans who live abroad — more than six million of us worldwide (not counting those who work for the U.S. government) — often face hard questions about our country from people we live among. Europeans, Asians, and Africans ask us to explain everything that baffles them about the increasingly odd […]

Epidemics

Another Terror: Do Taliban stand in the Way of Eradication of Polio Scourge?

contributors

By Inter Press Service Correspondents | KATHMANDU/PESHAWAR, Pakistan (IPS) – The goal is an ambitious one – to deliver a polio-free world by 2018. Towards this end, the multi-sector Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) is bringing out the big guns, sparing no expense to ensure that “every last child” is immunised against the crippling disease. […]

Barack Obama

We have so much to Learn from Cuba

contributors

By Robert F. Kennedy Jr In this column, Robert F. Kennedy – son of Robert F. (Bobby) Kennedy and nephew of President John F. Kennedy – looks behind the U.S. embargo against Cuba which, he argues, has been a “monumental failure” and is loaded with powerful ironies that make the United States look hypocritical to […]

Displaced and Refugees

The Yezidi Minority, Daesh/ISIL, and Iraq’s Human Rights Catastrophe

contributors

by Patrick Ball Patrick Ball with Yezidi boys at an informal camp in Sharya, Iraq. Farhad (not his real name) got the call from ISIS on his personal cell phone just after lunch: we have your sister, and we will give her back if you pay us $6000, plus $1500 for the driver. Carrying little […]

Free Syrian Army

The Israeli Hospital Admitting Syrian Fighters: The War Next Door

contributors

Vice News | — “In August, al Nusra Front jihadists took control of Syria’s side of the border crossing with Israel and kidnapped over 40 United Nations peacekeepers — who have since been released. But al Nusra Front, an al Qaeda-affiliate, isn’t Israel’s only threat from Syria. President Bashar al-Assad’s military, in a possible effort […]

Climate Change

Climate Change: The last Time California had a Drought this bad Charlemagne Ruled Europe

contributors

By Nadia Prupis | (Commondreams.org) Scientists warn that prolonged, historic droughts may recur in the future The California drought is the worst its been in 1,200 years—and it’s not getting better, a study has discovered. The last three years of drought in California were the worst that the state has experienced in 1,200 years, a […]

Egypt

Egypt’s Female Genital Mutilation Shame and the Failure of Prosecution

contributors

Human Rights Watch | — (Beirut) – Egyptian authorities need to take clear action to end the practice of female genital mutilation (FGM) following the country’s first trial on the crime ending in acquittals, Human Rights Watch said today. A trial this month in Egypt centered on the death of a 13-year-old girl in 2013. […]

Economy

Iraq Famine Threat? IS Daesh/ ISIL Stealing Wheat, Preventing Farmers from Providing Food?

contributors

JURF-AL-SAKHAR/DUBAI (IRIN) | — November is usually a busy month for farmers in the Iraqi town of Jurf al-Sakhar as they sow their seeds ahead of the bitter winter months. Yet this year fields lie unplanted and untethered goats and cows wander aimlessly among slayed palm trees. Months of fighting have taken a heavy toll […]

Climate Change

Thanksgiving was always about Climate and Adaptation: Let’s Make it Green Again

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | — The popular story about Thanksgiving is an environmental parable that we would do well to remember today. It was a harvest festival in 1621, participated in by the 50 (out of 100) survivors at Plymouth Plantation and 90 Native Americans. Some of these latter, such as Squanto, had shared with […]