Middle East

By Frud Bezhan | ( RFE/RL) | – – Stunning landscapes, famous hospitality, and numerous World Heritage sites. Iran’s potential as a holiday destination is vast, but foreign tourists have largely avoided the country ever since the Islamic Revolution in 1979. The reasons are numerous. The visa process can be lengthy and complex. Some female […]

Israel/ Palestine

Israel: 50 Years of Occupation Abuses

contributors

Human Rights Watch | – – Ramp Up Pressure for Accountability on all Sides (Jerusalem) – Fifty years after Israel occupied the West Bank and Gaza Strip, it controls these areas through repression, institutionalized discrimination, and systematic abuses of the Palestinian population’s rights, Human Rights Watch said today. At least five categories of major violations […]

Donald Trump

US faces risks as Trump misreads the Middle East

contributors

Francis Ghilès | (OpenDemocracy.net) | – – Militarising the region further and taking sides in a recently concocted sectarian conflict will likely end in tears. Egyptian president Abdel Fattah al-Sissi, Saudi King Salman Bin Abdelaziz Al Saud, US First Lady Melania Trump, and US president Donald Trump. Picture by Balkis Press/ABACA/ABACA/PA Images. All rights reserved.The […]

art and photography

Painting of the Day: Girl w/ Wine Cup, Isfahan, Iran, 1650

contributors

British Museum | Persian Watercolor in style of Muhammad Qasim | – – “Girl with a wine cup Style of Muhammad Qasim Safavid Iran, Isfahan, 1640-50 Ink and opaque watercolour on paper By 1650 drawings of young men or women holding wine cups in the countryside had become standard rather than hackneyed fare in Persian […]

Epidemics

Saudi-Trump War on Yemen: Cholera Cases could Reach 130,000 in Two Weeks

contributors

TeleSur | – – “It is time for parties to the conflict to prioritize the boys and girls of Yemen and put an end to the fighting,” said UNICEF official Geert Cappelaere. Nearly 600 fatalities have already occurred among a total of 70,000 cholera cases in Yemen. Now, the United Nations Children’s Fund, UNICEF, has […]

Israel/ Palestine

‘There Is No Holiness in an Occupied City’: Jewish Activists Protest Israel’s ‘Jerusalem Day’

contributors

Written by Maya Schkolne | Written by Joey Ayoub | (Globalvoices.org) | – – For many Palestinians, the Israeli national holiday of Jerusalem Day, or Yom Yerushalayim (יום ירושלים) in Hebrew, is a bitter reminder of Israel’s systemic impunity. Following the capture of East Jerusalem by the Israeli Defence Forces during the 1967 Six Day […]

Donald Trump

Saudi-US War on Yemen: No Victory, but Cholera, Famine, State Collapse

contributors

Sophia Dingli | (The Conversation) | – – Yemen and its people are engulfed by utter devastation. In the two-plus years of the conflict between the Houthi movement and its allies, including ex-president Ali Abdullah Saleh, and an interim government supported by a Saudi-led military coalition, more than 10,000 people have died – and not […]

Iran

The Mystery of Washington’s Iran Derangement Syndrome

contributors

By Danny Sjursen | ( Tomdispatch.com) | – – “Everywhere you look, if there is trouble in the region,” Secretary of Defense James Mattis told reporters on a mid-April visit to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, “you find Iran.” I must admit that when I stumbled across that quote it brought up uncomfortable personal memories. East Baghdad, […]

Featured

Baghdad and Manchester: Let’s Commemorate ISIL Victims in Both

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – ISIL (ISIS, Daesh) lashed out at the civilian population in Iraq on Tuesday with three bombings and over 60 casualties. With its signature warped sadism, the organization sent a suicide bomber with a truck into a crowded square in the upscale, largely Shiite shopping district of […]