Middle East

Leila Alikarami | (Open Democracy) | – – The problem was the Guardian Council, a body which has veto authority over any legislature, which in this case rejected all 33 bills introduced by women deputies. Parvaneh Salahshouri in the conference of elected moderates and reformists of Iran, March 2016. Wikicommons/ Hamed Malekpour. Some rights reserved.Seventeen […]

Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia: Foreign Workers Burn Buses After Massive Layoffs

contributors

TeleSur | – – The workers set at least seven buses on fire to protest Binladen construction group firing of at least 70,000 laborers after six months of no pay. Foreign workers at one of Saudi Arabia’s largest construction companies, Binladin group, set fire to at least seven buses in protest of being fired from […]

Bashar al-Assad

Russia declines to ask Syria to halt Bombardment of East Aleppo

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s recent interview with Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter gives some idea of thinking in Moscow about the Syrian civil war. Question: Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel has voiced criticism over the airstrikes carried out by Russia in Syria, leaving the impression that relations […]

Barack Obama

After Obama-Salman Summit, will Saudi finally rein in Wahhabi Radicalism?

contributors

Christopher R. Hill | Project Syndicate | – – DENVER – US President Barack Obama supposedly “cleared the air” with Saudi King Salman before the latest meeting of the Gulf Cooperation Council in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia’s capital. Given how strained the bilateral relationship is – a situation long in the making – that was probably […]

Israel/ Palestine

Israel’s cement ban prevents hundreds of Gaza families from rebuilding homes

contributors

Ma’an News Agency | – – BETHLEHEM (Ma’an) — Israel’s punitive ban on cement imports into the Gaza Strip has prevented hundreds of families from rebuilding their homes devastated by the 2014 war, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in a press release Thursday. As a result of the debilitating […]

Featured

The End of American Iraq: Poor Shiites invade Parliament over corrupt Spoils System

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Baghdad is under a state of emergency on Sunday a day after members of the Sadr Trend stormed the Green Zone and invaded the parliament building, briefly imprisoning parliamentarians in the chamber (and some in a basement) before letting them go. Some apparently were beaten as […]

Internet

ISIL to Trapped people of Mosul: No TV or Internet for You!

contributors

Niqash.org | (Mosul) | – – The Islamic State has issued orders banning satellite TV because it spreads false news. They’re also demanding all Internet users’ names to find spies sending information for airstrikes. He began his conversation on Facebook in an unusually serious way. Abdul Hamid*, a man living in Mosul, the northern Iraqi […]

Human Rights Watch

UN must hold Perpetrators accountable for War Crime of Hospital Bombings: HRW

contributors

Human Rights Watch | – – An airstrike on April 27, 2016, that hit al-Quds Hospital and surrounding areas, killed 58 civilians, including medical staff and many patients, according to the Syrian Civil Defense, an opposition search-and-rescue volunteer group. On April 29, another airstrike hit a clinic in the opposition-held al-Marja neighborhood, injuring 10 people, […]

Featured

‘Monstrous’ violence in Aleppo as ‘Regime of Calm’ begins in rest of Syria

Juan Cole

by Juan Cole: The US and the Russian Federation agreed Friday that from Saturday there would be a “regime of calm” in most of Syria. Two areas where clashes have broken out in the past week are East Ghouta east of Damascus and the northern countryside of the Mediterranean province of Latakia (72 hours), and […]