Uncategorized

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The Republican presidential candidates are virtually unanimous that human-caused climate change is a hoax and burning fossil fuels is good for us; that Obamacare is evil and must be repealed; and that the UN Security Council’s deal with Iran restricting its nuclear enrichment program must be […]

Acidification of Oceans

“We’re talking Survival”: Pacific Islanders call out Australia on Coal

contributors

The Tree | – – Pacific Island nations have stepped up pressure on their reckless neighbours, warning Australia and New Zealand that their inadequate action on climate change will doom island states – especially if they continue to ignore the call for a moratorium on new coal and the call to keep warming below 1.5DegC. […]

Haredim

‘Bibi in Bible Land’: The Likud Party Miscalculates and loses on Iran Deal

contributors

By Shalom L. Goldman | (Informed Comment) | – – Now that the Democratic senators have blocked a challenge to the Iran deal, pundits are looking at what the most persuasive arguments in the presentations to Democratic members of Congress were. What persuaded most Democrats to back the Iran deal, despite the well-funded campaigns against […]

African-Americans

What if Kim Davis Refused to License Marriages of Inter-Racial Couples?

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Kentucky court clerk Kim Davis was released from prison on Tuesday after having been jailed for 5 days for contempt of court because she will not issue marriage licenses to her gay constituents. Her release was turned into a circus by Mike Huckabee, seeking a way […]

Displaced and Refugees

Why some European countries do more than others to help refugees

contributors

By Tim Hatton | (The Conversation) | – – Not since World War II has Europe faced a refugee crisis comparable with the situation unfolding at its borders at the moment. The European response has been, to put it mildly, ambivalent. On one hand there has been a mass outpouring of sympathy in the media […]

Alawites

Can a Loose Federal system save Syria and Iraq?

contributors

By Jerome Joffe | (Informed Comment) | – – In recent months, prospects for applying the principles of federation and constitutional protection for minorities as a basic political solution for the conflicts in Syria and Iraq have dramatically improved. On the foundation of state restructuring, coordination of military force to degrade ISIS and the Nusra […]

Israel/ Palestine

Palestinian Christians Clash with Israeli Soldiers after Sunday Mass over Bethlehem Confiscations

contributors

by IMEMC News | – – Palestinian Christians clashed with Israeli forces, following mass on Sunday, when priests and demonstrators marched to protest renewed work on the apartheid wall in the Christian majority town of Beit Jala, in the occupied West Bank. The march, the most recent in a string of protests, moved through neighborhoods […]

Syria

ISIL’s Assault on History: Blows Up 1st Century Baal Shamin Temple in Palmyra

Juan Cole

RFE / RL | – – Gunmen from the Islamic State (IS) militant group have blown up a first century A.D. temple in the ancient city of Palmyra, Syrian government officials and a monitoring group have said. However, there is confusion over when the detonation is thought to have taken place. Syria’s directorate-general of antiquities […]

Coal

Coal Industry Collapsing in Appalachia, leaving behind Blighted Landscape

Juan Cole

By Laura Gottesdiener. | (Tomdispatch.com) | – – In Appalachia, explosions have leveled the mountain tops into perfect race tracks for Ryan Hensley’s all-terrain vehicle (ATV). At least, that’s how the 14-year-old sees the barren expanses of dirt that stretch for miles atop the hills surrounding his home in the former coal town of Whitesville, […]