Arab World

Chickens coming home to Roost: Liz Cheney’s Father Pioneered the GOP Big Lie and Authoritarian Tactics in Iraq War

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Rep. Liz Cheney has emerged as a voice for truth-telling in Trump’s Republican Party, standing up to the Big Lie that Trump won the 2020 election and denouncing her fellow representatives who sought to prevent the certification of Joe Biden’s victory and who thus helped provoke the Capitol Insurgency. Cheney […]

Arab Americans

Yemeni people are being starved — so this Detroit organizer went on hunger strike in solidarity

Waging Nonviolence

By Loretta Graceffo | – ( Waging Nonviolence) – During the early days of the war, when Iman Saleh called her family in Yemen, they would lie to reassure her they were safe. “They would always say, ‘Don’t worry, it’s happening far from us,’” Saleh said. “It felt like I was becoming a burden to […]

Egypt

How Renewables could Forestall an Egypt-Sudan-Ethiopia War over the Grand Renaissance Nile Dam

Sustainability Times

By Laureen Fagan | – ( Sustainability Times) – Renewable sources have the power when it comes to the energy future of East Africans, but they also may prove a solution to a complicated diplomatic and geopolitical problem. That’s according to scientists at Belgium’s Vrije Universiteit Brussel, who say that adding solar and wind energy […]

Featured

Syrian Missile strikes Near Israel’s Nuclear Facility at Dimona, Which could have Turned into a Dirty Bomb

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Israeli site i24 reports that on early Thursday morning, a Syrian missile slammed into the desert very near to the Israeli nuclear reactor at Dimona, which Israeli authorities have used to produce an arsenal of an estimated two hundred nuclear bombs. Air raid sirens sounded in southern Israel. Explosions […]

Feminism

Blocked from Civil Dissent, Women in Saudi Arabia are turning to business as ‘quiet’ Feminist activism

The Conversation

By Sophie Alkhaled | – Prominent Saudi women’s rights activist Loujain al-Hathloul was released from prison on February 10 2021 after 1,001 days in custody. Al-Hathloul, a leading campaigner for women’s rights in Saudi Arabia, had been sentenced to five years and eight months in prison in 2018 for pushing a foreign agenda and using […]

Arms Sales

US Resuming Arms Sales to United Arab Emirates is Disastrous, Given its Wars on Yemen, Libya

Human Rights Watch

By Afrah Nasser | – Yemen Researcher, Middle East and North Africa Division | – ( Human Rights Watch) – United States President Joe Biden called in early February for “ending all American support for offensive operations in Yemen, including relevant arms sales.” At the time, I, like many human rights advocates who have been […]

Human Rights

The Saudi Lobby is Coming for You, Small Town America

Juan Cole

By Ben Freeman, Brian Steiner and Leila Riazi | – ( Tomdispatch.com) – Princess Reema bint Bandar Al-Saud, Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the U.S., was on the hot seat. In early March 2020, as the Covid-19 pandemic swept the world, oil prices collapsed and a price war broke out between Saudi Arabia and Russia, leaving […]

al-Qaeda

What will be the Mideast Crises facing Biden in the Coming Year? US Intelligence Threat Assessment

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Annual Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence Community is out. It has a Middle East section and a report on Afghanistan in the South Asia section. Although the threat assessment aims at highlighting potential threats to the US and US interests, I am struck by how little their analysis […]

Egypt

The Ever Given’s Blockage of the Suez Canal and World Trade showed the Downsides of Monopoly Capitalism

John Buell

Southwest Harbor, Maine (Special to Informed Comment) – News media, maritime experts, and a curious public could hardly take their eyes off the Ever Given, the mega cargo ship as long as the Empire State Building is tall. Viewers were stunned to see the ship swung sideways to the canal and thus blocking transit in […]