Middle East

TeleSur | – – The Coptic cathedral explosion has reportedly killed 25 people and injured dozens more. A crowd gathered outside Cairo city’s biggest Coptic Christian cathedral Sunday morning chanting, “Tell the sheikh, tell the priest, Egyptians’ blood is not cheap!” after a deadly bombing killed at least 25 people in the worst attack on […]

Displaced and Refugees

Why is the US at War in Yemen and will Trump Escalate?

Rebecca Gordon

San Francisco ( Tomdispatch.com) | – The long national nightmare that was the 2016 presidential election is finally over. Now, we’re facing a worse terror: the reality of a Trump presidency. Donald Trump has already promised to nominate a segregationist attorney general, a national security adviser who is a raging Islamophobe, a secretary of education […]

Energy

Is Bruited Sec. of State Tillerson allied with Iran & at war with Iraq?

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – A couple of years ago an oil tanker showed up off the Texas coast with cargo from Iraqi Kurdistan. The problem? Iraqi Kurdistan is a province of Iraq, and the central government in Baghdad claims that petroleum discovered in Iraqi Kurdistan is under the control of […]

Iran

In Iran, Women’s militia Leader Demands Persecution Of Gender-Rights Activism

contributors

By Golnaz Esfandiari | ( RFE/RL) | – – Minou Aslani, head of the Women’s Basij organization in Iran, has condemned efforts to increase the number of women in parliament and opposed campaigns to curb domestic violence as perceived assaults on Iranian society and traditional family values. Minou Aslani, head of the Women’s Basij organization […]

Israel/ Palestine

Amnesty International calls on Israel to drop ‘baseless’ charges against activists

contributors

Ma’an News Agency | – – BETHLEHEM (Ma’an) — Human rights organization Amnesty International released a statement Friday demanding Israel to drop the “baseless” charges against two Palestinian “human rights defenders” Farid al-Atrash and Issa Amro, who both currently face charges in an Israeli military court relating to their activism. Both locals of the southern […]

Children

2016 ‘One of worst Years in History for Children’: UNICEF

contributors

By Matthew Tempest | ( EurActiv.com ) | – – Syria: Abdulaziz (in red), 10, whose father was killed in the continuing conflict, spends time with his friends at the ‘Land of Childhood’ – two basements linked with a tunnel to create an underground playground that gives children a relatively safe place to have fun […]

Iraq

The Fate of Iraq’s Minorities After Mosul

contributors

By Tyler Fisher and Kamal Kolo | ( OpenDemocracy.net) | – – The liberation of Mosul offers the international community a unique opportunity to permit the region’s most vulnerable minorities to exercise self-preservation and self-determination. Prayer cloths on Mount Arafat in the Yezidi holy site of Lalish, Kurdistan Region. Picture by Levi Clancy. Creative Commons […]

Israel/ Palestine

Barghouthi: Israel’s Legitimizing Squatter Settlements a Declaration of War on Palestinians

contributors

By IMEMC | – – Palestinian lawmaker Mustafa al-Barghouthi, on Tuesday, said the legitimization of settlement outposts, by the Israeli Knesset, is “a war on the Palestinian people.” In a press statement, the leader of the Palestinian National Initiative said that the misappropriation of private Palestinian land in favor of illegal settlements amounts to “a […]

Featured

Syria unlikely to be Partitioned: The Resilience of Colonial Borders

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Whenever a country falls into civil war, there are always observers who suggest that the problem could be resolved by a partition of that country. It is as though they think the parties to the war are like squabbling children in the back seat of the […]