Juan Cole

(By Juan Cole) Two large explosions at the state security building in downtown Mansoura, Dahqaliya Province, killed at least 14 persons and wounded 130 on Monday, reducing some of the edifice to rubble and damaging its facade. The head of the directorate of security was among the wounded. [Photos via Mansouracity.com] Crowds immediately gathered to […]

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The End of the Turkish Model? Erdogan’s Paranoia and Authoritarian Streak Threaten his Legacy

Juan Cole

(By Juan Cole) Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan is sounding more and more hysterical, and less and less like a statesman as 2013 ends. If you thought Barack Obama had a tough twelve months, you should consider Erdogan. A major corruption scandal has broken out in his government, with 24 persons implicated including the sons […]

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Top Five Differences between Duck Dynasty’s Phil Robertson and Miley Cyrus

Juan Cole

(By Juan Cole) Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal last week defended Duck Dynasty star Phil Robertson and slammed pop diva Miley Cyrus. He said, “The politically correct crowd is tolerant of all viewpoints, except those they disagree with. I don’t agree with quite a bit of stuff I read in magazine interviews or see on TV. […]

Domestic Surveillance

NSA bribed Encryption Companies to Install Back Doors: Was the Law Broken? Did Obama Know?

Juan Cole

(By Juan Cole) Reuters gets the scoop: the National Security Agency gave internet security firm RSA some $10 million to use an NSA encryption formula in its BSafe software. RSA is now a subsidiary of the EMC corporation, and they have urged customers not to use BSafe since the revelations by Edward Snowden made clear […]

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Obama will Veto new Iran Sanctions, Israel War Mandate pushed by AIPAC Senators

Juan Cole

(By Juan Cole) In his end-of-the-year press conference, President Obama had to defend his Iran negotiations in the face of a revolt within his own party. Thirteen Democratic senators and thirteen Republican senators banded together to try to derail President Obama’s negotiations with Iran by slapping new sanctions on that country in the middle of […]

Climate Change

Scotland is going 100% Green by 2020; shame on Dirty America

Juan Cole

(By Juan Cole) Glasgow is the city of the future, not Phoenix. Scotland has a population of about 5.3 million, a little more than the US state of Arizona. But the resemblance stops there. Arizona’s state government is backward-looking, roiled by racial politics, contemptuous of higher education, and a climate laggard, dirtying up the atmosphere […]

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Congress cuts Food Stamps, maintains Estate Tax Loophole worth $100 bn to the Rich

Juan Cole

(By Juan Cole) You know how the Tea Party House of Representatives obsessed with cutting food stamps to working families and veterans and children this fall? They were trying to save $4 bn. At the same time, they have kept in place a piece of fatally flawed legislation regarding estate taxes that has cost the […]

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India Flap derives from America’s Gulag Practices and Far-Right Supreme Court

Juan Cole

(By Juan Cole) The militarization of American police and humiliating practices of routine strip and cavity searches are the real culprits in the current diplomatic dispute between the United States and India. Police not only arrested the Indian deputy consul, Devyani Khobragade, who claims diplomatic immunity, on a minor visa and domestic labor charge, they […]

Climate Change

Top Ten Ominous Signs about Last Month being the Hottest November on Record

Juan Cole

(By Juan Cole) The The National Climatic Data Center of the National Oceanic and Aeronautics Administration has announced that if you take the average land surface temperature and the average sea surface temperature, November of 2013 was the warmest November since records began being kept in 1880. Here are some of the ominous statistics they […]