Middle East

By Michael T. Klare | ( Tomdispatch.com) | – – Within months of taking office, President Donald Trump is likely to face one or more major international crises, possibly entailing a risk of nuclear escalation. Not since the end of the Cold War has a new chief executive been confronted with as many potential flashpoints […]

Israel/ Palestine

Israeli Soldiers Uproot Hundreds Of Olive Trees For Illegal Colonialist Road

contributors

IMEMC | – – Israeli soldiers started, on Monday morning, the illegal uprooting of hundreds of olive trees, as part of a plan to uproot hundreds of Palestinian trees to pave a new road for an illegal colony, east of Qalqilia, in the northern part of the occupied West Bank. The WAFA Palestinian News Agency […]

Israel/ Palestine

The Pope Says Yes to Palestine: Embassy Opens in Vatican

contributors

TeleSur | – – On Saturday Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas will meet Pope Francis to inaugurate Palestine’s first embassy to the Holy See ahead of Paris peace talks. On Saturday Palestine will open its first embassy in the Vatican, a diplomatically significant development in the midst of ongoing threats by President-elect Donald Trump to illegally […]

Foreign Policy

Is the next big US-Iran Conflict control of Iraq-Syria Border?

contributors

Mustafa Habib| (Niqash.org) | – – The border of Syria and Iraq looks likely to be the next testing ground for the newly conciliatory – yet unsteady – relationship between Iran and the US. Various powers are already jockeying for position on the frontier. As the fight against the extremist group known as the Islamic […]

Israel/ Palestine

Israeli Parliament self-boycotts by seeking to Ban BDS Supporters from Israel

contributors

Ma’an News Agency | – – BETHLEHEM (Ma’an) — A Knesset committee approved on Wednesday a first reading of a bill that would ban supporters of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement from entering Israel, Israeli media reported. According to The Jerusalem Post, the Internal Affairs and Environment Committee of Israel’s parliament approved the […]

Donald Trump

The Iranian Connection in the Age of Trump

contributors

By Rajan Menon | ( Tomdispatch.com | – – Stack up the op-eds and essays on the disasters that await the world once Donald Trump moves into the White House and you’ll have a long list of dismaying scenarios. One that makes the lineups of most pundits involves a crisis with Iran. So imagine this. […]

Israel/ Palestine

If Trump moves US Embassy to Jerusalem, all Hell will Break Loose

contributors

By Phyllis Bennis | (Institute for Policy Studies) | – – If the U.S. goes ahead with the GOP plan, says Phyllis Bennis, “all bets are off.” In of the very first moves as the U.S. Senate began its term in 2017, three Republican senators — including former presidential candidates Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio […]

Dissent

As Trump guns for Iran Deal, can its Reformists survive death of Hashemi-Rafsanjani?

contributors

By Farhang Jahanpour | (Informed Comment) | – – Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani’s death on Sunday January 8 in Tehran at the age of 82 marks the end of an era in Iran’s post-revolutionary history. After the death of Ayatollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic, in 1989, Hashemi-Rafsanjani’s death will have the most significant […]

Authoritarianism

Turkish President Erdogan Sees Better Ties with US Under Trump

contributors

TeleSur | – – “I believe we will accelerate dialogue when Mr. Trump takes office,” Erdogan said. Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on Monday he believed relations with Washington would improve under President-elect Donald Trump and that the two NATO allies would reach an easier consensus on regional issues. Ties between the United States and […]