International Politics and Economy

“I asked myself about the present: how wide it was, how deep it was, how much was mine to keep.” — Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five (1969) ( Tomdispatch.com ) – Kurt Vonnegut’s famous novel about the World War II bombing of the German city of Dresden appeared the year I graduated from West Point. While dimly […]

Democracy

Iran: Overseer of Mass Executions Elected President: Further Erosion of Political Rights, Accountability

Human Rights Watch

Human Rights Watch – (Beirut) – The victory of Ebrahim Raeesi, Iran’s judiciary chief, on June 19, 2021, in a presidential election that was neither free nor fair raises serious concerns about human rights and accountability in the country, Human Rights Watch said today. Raeesi has had a long career in the country’s judiciary and […]

Joe Biden

Could Putin woo Turkey from Biden and NATO?

Nikola Mikovic

Belgrade (Special to Informed Comment) – The Turks seem to be weary of the alliance with the United States. Although it is still a NATO member, and has the second largest army in the organization, Turkey is strengthening military, political and economic ties with the US “major geopolitical rival” – Russia. According to a recent […]

Arab World

Biden wants to end America’s 20-Year War on the Middle East: But Can He?

Foreign Policy in Focus

By Walden Bello | – ( Foreign Policy in Focus ) – Next September, when the last C-130 cargo aircraft and Chinook transport helicopters take off from the infamous Bagram Air Force Base in Afghanistan that has doubled as a CIA torture center for suspected jihadists, they will not only be leaving behind the site […]

Elections

Why Iranians won’t vote: new survey reveals massive political disenchantment

The Conversation

By Pooyan Tamimi Arab and Ammar Maleki | – The Islamic Republic of Iran has never organised free and fair elections since its establishment in 1979. By definition, the combination of modern totalitarianism and Iran’s Islamic theocracy, with a supreme leader, cannot allow for more than a voting spectacle, rather than elections in the normal […]

Islam

Muslim family killed in truck terror attack: Islamophobic violence surfaces once again in North America

The Conversation

By Jasmin Zine | – A Pakistani-Canadian family out on a stroll on a warm weekend evening was murdered in a horrific act of Islamophobic violence in London, Ont. A nine-year-old boy, hospitalized with serious injuries, is the only survivor of a terror attack that killed his sister, father, mother and grandmother. How will he […]

Elections

With Little Hope for Change through the Ballot Box, Iranian Civil Society Debates Strategy

Human Rights Watch

By Tara Sepehri Far | Iran Researcher | – ( Human Rights Watch) – Twenty days before Iran’s presidential election, the Guardian Council, which vets the candidates, sent shock waves through the political elite and public by disqualifying two prominent figures: the former speaker of parliament, Ali Larijani, and the current vice president, Eshagh Jahangiri. […]

Israel/ Palestine

‘When they take 100 trees, we plant 4,000’ — a conversation with Mubarak Awad on nonviolence in Palestine

Waging Nonviolence

By Nonviolence Radio Team | ( Waging Nonviolence ) – Subscribe to “Nonviolence Radio” on Apple Podcasts, Android, Spotify or via RSS. This week, Nonviolence Radio hosts Mubarak Awad, founder of the National Youth Advocate Program, which provides alternative foster care and counseling to “at risk” youth and their families. He is also the founder […]

Democracy

Democracy: On the Precipice?

John Feffer

( Foreign Policy in Focus) – If we extrapolate from the current trend lines, democracy will be gone in a couple decades, melted away like the polar ice. But although down, democracy is not out. By John Feffer | June 2, 2021 Alexander Lukashenko, the Belarussian dictator, snatches a dissident from midair. Military strongman Assimi […]