Syria

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Five years ago this week, protests began in Damascus and Deraa (mainly Deraa) in Syria, on the heels of the overthrow of dictators in Tunisia and Egypt. Syria’s government was even more repressive than those of the other two countries, however, much more of a Stalinist […]

Human Rights

Syrian Family Talks About Living In Besieged Town (AJ+)

Nicholas Kolenda

Al Jazeera+ gives a glimpse into the daily horror that civilians and their families face in the Syrian conflict

Children

Thousands of Children Under Siege in War-Torn Syria

contributors

By Valentina Ieri | (Inter Press Service) | – – UNITED NATIONS (IPS) – Seeing children dying due to a lack of doctors and medicines, and seeing them grow up in a society with no food, schools or text books, is the reality of the daily life of more than 250,000 Syrian children currently under […]

Europe

Has The Gateway to Europe Been Shut To Refugees? (AJ+)

Nicholas Kolenda

AJ+ Reports on a tentative deal between countries of the EU and Turkey

Syria

Disillusioned Volunteer Says Syria A Battle For War Booty, Territory

contributors

By Luljeta Krasniqi Veseli and Charles Recknagel | ( RFE/RL | – – “In the beginning, when I went [to Syria], everybody was greeting us. But later, they were looking at us differently. They were scared of us,” Arben tells RFE/RL correspondent Luljeta Krasniqi Veseli.” Ideals give way to disillusionment easily in Syria, where foreign […]

Displaced and Refugees

As EU pays Turkey billions to stop migrants, Anger over ‘unconscionable’ border closures

contributors

By Lauren McCauley, staff writer | ( Commondreams.org ) | – – As EU and Turkey barter over migrant lives, campaigners decry pay-outs and border closures as ‘unconscionable’ Leaders from the European Union and Turkey on Monday held negotiations over what to do with the unprecedented wave of migrants fleeing war and violence in the […]

Featured

As Bomb Kills 60, is Iraq Army Preparing for Armageddon with ISIL?

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – A truck bombing in the largely Shiite city of Hilla killed 60 on Sunday, one of the worst terrorist attacks in that city. Daesh (ISIS, ISIL) claimed responsibility for the attack. The bombing, which killed and injured policemen at a checkpoint (though 3 dozen of the […]

Syria

Has Western intervention prolonged the Syrian Civil War? & has our Press Covered it up?

contributors

By Ian Sinclair | ( Open Democracy ) | – – The media keeps saying that the West isn’t involved in Syria. This isn’t true. “The sinister fact about literary censorship in England is that it is largely voluntary”, George Orwell noted in his censored preface to his 1945 book Animal Farm. “Unpopular ideas can […]

Climate Change

Refugees Sew Lips As Calais Jungle is Demolished (AJ+)

Nicholas Kolenda

Refugees sew at the Calais refugee camp in France sew their lips shut in protest of poor living conditions.