Human Rights

Last November Israel announced that it had arranged to relocate 38,000 Eritrean and Sudanese refugee claimants to an African nation

Central Intelligence Agency

How the CIA’s secret torture program sparked a citizen-led public reckoning in North Carolina

contributors

By Alexandra Moore | (The Conversation) | – – President Donald Trump’s nominee for CIA director, Gina Haspel, is reported to have overseen a U.S. site in Thailand where torture of a suspected terrorist took place. Later she allegedly helped destroy evidence of torture. Her nomination, pending congressional approval, is viewed by many as further […]

Syria

Syria: would a new foreign military intervention be legal?

contributors

By James Sweeney | (The Conversation) | – – Just days after an alleged chemical attack killed and injured scores of civilians in Douma, Syria, the US, UK and France agreed in principle that international action is needed to hold the perpetrators to account. But they didn’t make clear what form their action would take […]

censorship

Egypt fines Press for alleging Sisi vote-buying

contributors

Breaking News added by Informed Comment: Egyptian Security Police have raided the website of the offices of Masr al-Arabia and arrested its editor, apparently over the newspaper’s reporting of Sisi vote-buying. – JC By Brian Whitaker | (Al-Bab.com | – – Not content with securing 97% of the votes in Egypt’s presidential “election”, the Sisi […]

Displaced and Refugees

Tens of Thousands Actually dead in Saudi War on Yemen

contributors

By Helen Lackner | (OpenDemocracy.net) | – – . . . [Saudi Crown Prince] Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) was the brain behind the coalition originally intended to return to power [in Yemen] the transitional regime established after the 2011 popular uprisings, a regime which can roughly be described as intended to shift power from one […]

Donald Trump

Trump’s Fascination with appointing War Criminals to High Office

Rebecca Gordon

San Francisco (Tomdispatch.com) – A barely noticed anniversary slid by on March 20th. It’s been 15 years since the United States committed the greatest war crime of the twenty-first century: the unprovoked, aggressive invasion of Iraq. The New York Times, which didn’t exactly cover itself in glory in the run-up to that invasion, recently ran […]

censorship

Before phony polls, Egypt arrests, expels Times reporter Bel Trew

contributors

Middle East Monitor | – – Egypt has deported a British journalist working for The Times, the newspaper said on Saturday, describing an “increasingly oppressive environment” for media in the country ahead of next week’s presidential election. The Times said its correspondent, 33-year-old Bel Trew who had been based in Cairo for several years, was […]

Displaced and Refugees

Turkey: Mass Deportations of Syrians to dangerous Areas

contributors

Human Rights Watch | – – EU Should Raise Issue, Pledge Aid at Conference (Brussels) – Turkish security forces have routinely intercepted hundreds, and at times thousands, of asylum seekers at the Turkey-Syria border since at least December 2017 and summarily deported them to the war-ravaged Idlib governorate in Syria, Human Rights Watch said today. […]

Chemical Weapons

From Dead Spies to Dead Syrian Villagers, Russian Denialism on Chemical Attacks

contributors

By Brian Whitaker | ( Al-Bab.com) | – – Russia’s RT links the Skripal poisoning to British jealousy over hosting of the World Cup There’s something uncannily familiar about Russia’s propaganda antics over the poisoning of double agent Sergei Skripal in Britain. We’ve seen them before in Syria where Russia has steadfastly defended the Assad […]