Below you'll find a list of all posts that have been categorized as “Middle East”
In Moscow, the preparations for the May 9th Victory Day parade began in the middle of the final week of April. Heavy equipment including mobile ICBM carriers and the latest battle tanks, together with troop formations passing through Red Square, carry on the long tradition established in Soviet times of demonstrating the nation’s military might on this day for televised dissemination across …
Only when we combine our concern for the planet with spiritual practice will we have the tools to make the profound personal transformations necessary to address the coming environmental crisis. Thich Nhat Hanh offers us the guiding principles for a new ecospirituality of mindful living. We are like sleepwalkers, not knowing what we are doing or where we are heading. Whether …
Iran says the deduction of around USD two billion in frozen Iranian assets recently authorized by a US court ruling is “highway robbery,” vowing that the Islamic Republic will retrieve the sum. According to Press TV, last Wednesday, the US Supreme Court ruled that the money had to be turned over to the American families of the people killed in …
Americans are not used to reading investigative pieces of journalism. We like to tweet and text in small bites. But here’s the thing. Sometimes, the most important things can’t be explained in 15 bites or less. Sometimes, it takes more space and time. And so I ask everyone who is reading this blog to please read it in its entirety …
In Israel’s evermore tribal politics, there is no such thing as a “good” Arab — and the worst failing in a Jew is to be unmasked as an “Arab lover.” Or so was the message last week from Isaac Herzog, head of Israel’s so-called peace camp. The shock waves of popular anger at the recent indictment of an Israeli army …
Since the granddaddy of all housing bubbles popped in Spain between 2008 and 2009, unleashing one of the deepest recessions in living memory, the nation’s public debt has more than doubled, from just over 40% of GDP to almost exactly 100% today. Last year, despite the fact that Spain grew faster than almost any other European economy, the government managed …
The allegations against the man were serious indeed. * Donald Rumsfeld said he was “if not the number two, very close to the number two person” in al-Qaeda. * The Central Intelligence Agency informed Assistant Attorney General Jay Bybee that he “served as Usama Bin Laden’s senior lieutenant. In that capacity, he has managed a network of training camps… He also acted as al-Qaeda’s …
The U.S.-led regime change in Libya failed to create a new regime, but did succeed in killing thousands of people and destroying the economy and infrastructure of Africa’s most prosperous society. “Imperialism’s Libya debacle ignited chaos throughout the region that it can no longer control.” Obama’s “mistake” was his failure to harness the events he set in motion. “Obama wasn’t …
Xenophobia has been on the rise in the last two decades in the Western World and it has influenced the political arena not just of conservative parties moving toward a more right wing course, but even centrist ones under pressure to “protect” the nation from perceived external threats. Is rising xenophobia a reflection of rising nationalism and conservatism in the …
The radical Israeli settlers in the West Bank city of Hebron present what is certainly a candidate for being the ugliest face of Israel’s creeping annexation of the West Bank. And, the expansion of settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem has reached a point that renders the so-called Two State Solution an impossibility. The situation also recalls what General Yigael Yadin, Israel’s …
