Middle East

By John Feffer | (Foreign Policy in Focus) | – – The Middle East is hardly a cheery place these days. But there’s one silver lining: The Iran deal is paying off big. In 1748, as part of the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, France regained Cape Breton from Great Britain. The island, off the coast of […]

Arms Sales

US Response to Saudi Wars & Human Rights Violations? $49 Bn. in new Arms Sales

contributors

By Thalif Deen | (Inter Press Service) | – – UNITED NATIONS (IPS) – The West continues its strong political and military support to one of its longstanding allies in the Middle East – Saudi Arabia –- despite withering criticism of the kingdom’s battlefield excesses in the ongoing war in neighbouring Yemen. A Saudi-led coalition […]

Israel/ Palestine

Human Rights Watch: Businesses must cut off Israeli squatter settlements

contributors

Human Rights Watch | – – (Jerusalem) – Businesses should stop operating in, financing, servicing, or trading with Israeli settlements in order to comply with their human rights responsibilities, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. Those activities contribute to and benefit from an inherently unlawful and abusive system that violates the rights […]

Featured

Israeli PM Netanyahu Still trying to derail Iran Nuclear Deal

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – BBC Monitoring reports that over the weekend, even as the great Powers were certifying that Iran was in compliance with the UNSC deal permitting only civilian enrichment of uranium, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, who had attempted to derail the negotiations, continued to try to derail […]

Israel/ Palestine

Israeli Squatters scrawl hate graffiti on Jerusalem Church

contributors

Ma’an News Agency | – – JERUSALEM (Ma’an) — Suspected Israeli extremist wrote threatening hate speech on the doors of an ancient church in the Old City of Jerusalem >overnight Saturday, Wadie Abu Nassar, a senior advisor to the Catholic Church who is considered close to the Vatican, told Ma’an. Abu Nassar said the doors […]

Iran

Jubilation in Iran on “Implementation Day” ending Sanctions

contributors

By Mahsa Alimardani | ( Globalvoices.org) | – – Share this: The Sunday January 17 cover for Iranian reformist newspaper Ghanoon states: “Hello to a Iran without sanctions: We are relieved.” This past Saturday was implementation day for the removal sanctions agreed upon during the nuclear negotiations between Iran, the P5+1 and […]

Featured

Daesh/ ISIL carries off 400 Women & Children from Deir al-Zor to a fate worse than Death

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Daesh (ISIS, ISIL) on Sunday attacked an isolated outpost of the Syrian Arab Army in a few neighborhoods in the north of the city of Deir al-Zor, which are surrounded by Daesh from every side. The SAA also still controls a military airfield just north of […]

Iraq

Iraq: Ethnic Fighting endangers Civilians; now it’s Kurds and Shiites

contributors

Human Rights Watch | – – (Beirut) – Kurdish and Shia Turkmen armed groups have repeatedly harmed and endangered civilians in clashes in Iraq’s Tuz Khurmatu district, in Salah al-Din province, since October 2015. The armed groups have killed, wounded, and abducted civilians and destroyed scores, if not hundreds, of homes and shops. “Some of […]

Druze

Israeli plan for minorities slammed as bid to ‘divide and conquer’

contributors

By: Chloe Benoist | (Ma’an News Agency) | – – BETHLEHEM (Ma’an) — A plan approved by Israel’s cabinet last week to provide half a billion dollars worth of assistance to Israel’s Druze and Circassian minorities has been denounced by leaders of Israel’s Palestinian community as a “divide and conquer” tactic. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin […]