military

By Charlie Hoyle | (Inter Press Service) | – – The rubble of twisted concrete and metal bakes in the hot Mediterranean sun of a regional heat wave. A year on from Israel’s 51-day military operation in 2014, not a single one of the 11,000 destroyed homes in Gaza has been rebuilt. Photo credit: UNRWA […]

Bahrain

After Vienna, Arabs, Israel seek massive conventional Arms Deals: US ready to Sell

contributors

By Thalif Deen | – – UNITED NATIONS (IPS) – The nuclear agreement concluded last week between Iran and six big powers, the United States, Britain, France, Russia, China and Germany, is threatening to trigger a new Middle East military build-up – not with nuclear weapons but with conventional arms, including fighter planes, combat helicopters, […]

Featured

Turkey’s new “war on terror” mainly targeting Kurds

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – What was at first announced as a new Turkish turn toward attacks on Daesh (ISIS, ISIL) on Friday has quickly become largely a campaign against Kurds instead. It is being alleged that the Turkish Air Force launched dozens of strikes against bases of the Kurdistan Workers […]

Apartheid

Israeli forces destroy 450 olive trees, Roman-era well in Hebron, Palestine

contributors

HEBRON (Ma’an) — Israeli forces on Wednesday destroyed 450 olive trees, leveled land, and demolished a Roman-era water well in the village of Beit Ula in northwestern Hebron, after claiming the Palestinian land [which is in the Occupied West Bank] belonged to Israel, locals said. h/t Ma’an Photos (File) Issa al-Imla, the coordinator of a […]

Children

Wars targeting Children: 20 mn Homeless, 300K Conscripted & now Mass Abductions by ISIL

contributors

By Beatriz Ciordia | (Inter Press Service) | – – UNITED NATIONS (IPS) – Whether in Palestine, Ukraine or Somalia, wars result in millions of children threatened by the brutality of armed conflict. The numbers speak for themselves: more than 300,000 child soldiers are currently exploited in situations of armed conflict and six million children […]

Apartheid

The Next Gaza War

contributors

By Max Blumenthal | (Tomdispatch.com) | – – “A fourth operation in the Gaza Strip is inevitable, just as a third Lebanon war is inevitable,” declared Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman in February. His ominous comments came just days after an anti-tank missile fired by the Lebanon-based guerrilla group Hezbollah killed two soldiers in an […]

Afghanistan

Afghanistan: The First Rule of Counter-Insurgency is that it Doesn’t Ever Work

contributors

By William R. Polk | (Informed Comment) | – – The people of Afghanistan at least since the time of Alexander the Great had repeatedly and violently demonstrated their determination not to be ruled by foreigners. In 1842 they inflicted the worst defeat the British army suffered in the Nineteenth century. Soberly, the British then […]

Afghanistan

Pushtun Female Commandos Ready to Take on the Taliban

contributors

By Ashfaq Yusufzai | (Inter Press Service) | – – PESHAWAR, Pakistan (IPS) – For years, Robina Shah has dreamed of joining the police force. Ever since her father, a police constable, was killed in a 2013 Taliban suicide attack in Peshawar, capital of Pakistan’s northern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, she has longed to carry on […]

Authoritarianism

2 Years after Coup, will Assassination of Egypt’s Att’y General be Pretext for More Repression?

contributors

By MariaGloria Polimeno | (The Conversation) | – – Hisham Barakat, Egypt’s most senior prosecutor, has been killed by a car bomb that hit his motorcade in Cairo. The attack came just a month after Islamic State (IS) urged its followers to attack Egypt’s judges and its “deep state” in revenge for their jailing scores […]