Arab World

Manama (Special to Informed Comment) – Change is coming, I promise. Even as the pace of modernization in the Arab world shows some signs of acceleration, we all must recognize that deep-rooted cultural norms around women’s roles and rights are slow to evolve. Guess who is going to change that? The women of Generation Z. […]

Featured

Zelensky says Russia is the new ISIL: Top 3 Ways he may be Right

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – In an address on Tuesday to the United Nations Security Council, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky compared Russia to the ISIL (ISIS, Daesh) terrorist group that took over eastern Syria and northwestern Iraq 2014-2018. His immediate comparison was of the brutality of Russian troops toward the civilian population in Bucha and […]

Bashar al-Assad

Yes, Bucha is a War Crime: Putin Told us who He was in East Aleppo

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Russian withdrawal from the small town of Bucha near the capital of Kyiv left behind a raft of murdered civilians in the streets and bombed buildings the way an ebbing tide leaves behind flotsam and driftwood after a violent tsunami. The Russian government is attempting to escape blame for […]

History

The Dangers of Assaulting Fortress Kyiv: The Peril Putin’s Troops Now Face was Shown by the Battles of Stalingrad, Grozny, and Mosul

Brian Glyn Williams

Brian Glyn Williams (University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth) and Aaron Rawley. Aaron Rawley is Volunteer Personnel Coordinator at the Gore Place Historical Museum, Waltham Mass. Dartmouth, MA (Special to Informed Comment) – At first glance Russia’s widely lambasted thrust from Belorussia down to the Ukrainian capital appears to have stalled due to logistic issues that have […]

Batteries

Developing Morocco, which already gets twice as much of its Electricity from Renewables as US, plans new 800 MW Hybrid Solar Facility

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Morocco hosted a big energy conference with 19,000 attendees recently, at which it celebrated its partnership with Masdar, the green energy company based in the UAE, which is committed to a new solar farm that will generate 800 megawatts of electricity. Attendee Sultan bin Ahmed Al Jaber, the UAE minister […]

Counter-Terrorism

US could have done more to prevent civilian casualties in Raqqa, report says

Middle East Monitor

( Middle East Monitor ) – The United States could have done more to eliminate the chances of killing civilians in the campaign to capture the city of Raqqa in northern Syria three years ago, a newly-released report by the RAND Corporation has stated. The report released on Thursday acknowledged the impact of the US-led […]

Human Rights

Syrian Government, the World’s Great Torturer, outlaws Torture: If it is a Joke, it isn’t Funny

Human Rights Watch

By Sara Kayyali | Syria Researcher, Middle East and North Africa Division | ( Human Rights Watch ) – This is not an April Fools’ joke. Syria, where torture is routine and pervasive, has passed a law criminalizing the practice. In an announcement that might have appeared as satire, the Syrian State News Agency (SANA) […]

Climate Crisis

Even Oil-Rich UAE admits its Green Energy saved it nearly $200 billion, as it builds World’s Largest Solar Farm

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Even the energy minister of the United Arab Emirates, the world’s eighth largest oil producer, has admitted that the steps so far taken in the small Gulf country toward green energy have saved it $191 billion. The UAE gets about 7% of its electricity from solar panels, saving on the […]

Arab World

Climate Crisis: Middle East is Heating up Twice as Fast as Global Average

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Christoph Duenwald et al. at the International Monetary Fund have a new report out that finds that temperatures in the Middle East and Central Asia have already risen by 2.7 degrees F. (1.5C) over the past century, at a rate twice as fast as that of the rest of the […]