Arab World

Dismissal of “Scapegoat” Libyan Foreign Minister for Meeting with Israel shows Limits of US “Abraham Accords”

The United States pressured Libya to meet with Israel in order to prepare the way for recognizing it and joining the Abraham Accords. After the secret meeting of Libyan Foreign Minister Najla El-Mangoush in Rome with Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen last week, Cohen publicly announced the meeting. A firestorm of protest followed, as a […]

Featured

Putin’s Assassination of Prigozhin Decapitates Wagner’s Empire in Libya, Sudan, Syria and E. Europe, and Puts Oligarchs on Notice

Dan Dinello

Chicago (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – Russia confirmed Tuesday that Yevgeny Prigozhin, ex-convict oligarch and leader of Russia’s Wagner mercenaries, died in a plane crash last week. Prigozhin had, in fact, been a dead man walking ever since he masterminded an aborted mutiny against Russia’s military leadership on June 23 of this year. His […]

Propaganda

Saudi Arabia’s Pro League is taking Advantage of Football’s Greed and Inequality

The Conversation

By Alan McDougall, University of Guelph | – (The Conversation) – For Liverpool supporters like me, Jordan Henderson was one of football’s good guys. He was the club captain who fundraised for the UK’s National Health Service during the COVID-19 pandemic and vocally supported Liverpool’s LGBTQ+ community. However, in July 2023, after 12 years at […]

Afghanistan

How War Divides Us: All the Ways our 21st Century Wars have Polarized Americans

Andrea Mazzarino

( Tomdispatch.com ) – Blame Donald Trump and all too many of his followers, but don’t just blame him or them. Yes, he was indeed responsible for the nightmare of January 6, 2021, and, in his own fashion, for the incitement of right-wing militia (terror!) groups like the Proud Boys. (“Stand back and stand by!”) […]

Ethiopia

Mass Killings of Ethiopian Migrants By Saudi Arabia at Yemen Border May Amount to Crimes Against Humanity

Human Rights Watch

Saudi border guards have killed at least hundreds of Ethiopian migrants and asylum seekers who tried to cross the Yemen-Saudi border between March 2022 and June 2023. Saudi officials are killing hundreds of women and children out of view of the rest of the world while they spend billions on sports-washing to try to improve […]

Kurds

Amid growing Tension between Russia, Iran and the US, Syria’s Kurds have been Sidelined

The Conversation

By Scott Lucas, University College Dublin | – In north-east Syria, the 12-year conflict is far from over. Russian fighter jets buzz US surveillance drones, threatening to bring them down. Iranian-backed militias occasionally fire rockets at US positions. The Assad regime maintains that it will “regain every inch” of Syria, ending Kurdish autonomy in the […]

Brazil

Why did China attend MBS’s Ukraine Peace Conference in Saudi Arabia? Breaking with Moscow or Keeping Options Open?

Neil Thompson

London (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – China has come out in favour of a third round of talks to design a peace framework for the conflict in Ukraine following its attendance at an international forum in the Saudi city of Jeddah earlier this month. China’s attendance and active participation in the summit was seen […]

Featured

Trouble for Abraham Accords: Saudis Try to establish E. Jerusalem Consulate for Palestinians, but Extremist Israeli Gov’t says, “No!”

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Quds Press reports that Saudi Arabia has given its ambassador to Jordan, Nayef al-Sudairi, an extra portfolio of consul in East Jerusalem. He presented his credentials to Majid al-Khalidi, an adviser to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. The Saudis did not coordinate this appointment with the Israelis, and it is the […]

History

How Lebanon was shaped by its Great Famine in WW I

Marc Martorell Junyent

Brand, Tylor. Famine Worlds: Life at the Edge of Suffering in Lebanon’s Great War. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2023. Review of Tylor Brand, Famine Worlds: Life at the Edge of Suffering in Lebanon’s Great War (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2023). Munich (Special to Informed Comment) – Suez, Gallipoli, Kut al-Amara, and Jerusalem saw […]