In the aftermath of a preliminary agreement from the European Union to ban oil from Iran in response to its nuclear program, Iran has blasted the EU while being careful not to encourage popular unrest. Aj Jazeera reports.
If the crime of apartheid associated with Israeli oppression of the Palestinians is to be exposed in a convincing manner, it will depend on an extraordinary procedure of inquiry, writes Richard A. Falk.
It's been a bad year for dictators, especially in the Middle East. There they were, cruising along comfortably for 30 or 40 years, terrorising their subjects and stashing billions in Switzerland, and suddenly it all fell apart, writes Paul Barry.
When Tahrir Square was violently evacuated last weekend following the December 16 clash between protestors and the army journalist and academicAntonio Castillo went back to the iconic plaza to find a semi-blinded man who days earlier had told him of Egypt’s uncertain future.
"They say they are here to protect us, but they are stripping us naked," chanted thousands of Egyptian women who, surrounded by a protective ring of men, have marched through the streets of Cairo protesting against military abuse, reports The Wall Street Journal.
Citizens of Iraq have had good reason to flee their homes in recent years, but many chose to stay and build their lives there despite war and decaying infrastructure. Andrea Bruce offers a beautiful gallery of Iraqi pride.
The whole process had been an imaginary projection of US power in any case -- removing the Iraqi people from the picture meant that all attention could be focused on American suffering and the meaning of the war in American life.
It's not quite over yet, but the Iraq war is in its last days. US president Barack Obama yesterday welcomed home American troops, saying "the final work of leaving Iraq has been done."
Amid mounting local and international pressure, expectations are building that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad will soon be overthrown. Defence Minister Ehud Barak says it will be a matter of weeks, not months, reports Joel Greenberg.
With Israel a state that even more brazenly boasts a fundamentalist Jewish minority as representing true Zionism, BDS is an essential tool to harm Israel’s economic and moral fibre, writes Antony Loewenstein.
