Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – News corporations think good news does not sell, which is why you see so little of it on television or on the front page of news web sites. Executives at for-profit news believe their corporations benefit, just as do social media platforms, from provoking your fight or flight reflexes– making […]
Archives for December 2021
Is China challenging the U.S. in the Gulf? Beijing aids Saudi Arabia’s Ballistic Missil Program
By Necmettin Acar | ( Middle East Monitor) – Last week, US intelligence agencies shared information revealing that Saudi Arabia is developing a ballistic missile with the support of China. Shortly afterwards, the fact that Iran launched an exercise called “The Great Prophet 17”, in which it also used ballistic missiles, put the Gulf back […]
Top Three Ways Israeli Policies Caused the Oslo Peace Accords to Collapse – According to former Shin Bet director Ami Ayalon
By Jeffrey Rudolph | – ( Detailed Political Quizzes) – Ami Ayalon, a former director of Israel’s Shin Bet security agency, explains why Oslo failed in his 2020 memoir (co-authored with the academic Anthony David), Friendly Fire: How Israel Became Its Own Worst Enemy and the Hope for Its Future. Essentially, Ayalon argues that while […]
The Unbearable Double Standard of the US Press, judging Biden Harshly and Abruptly Forgetting Trump’s Bizarre Antics
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – I am not the only analyst to see an extraordinary set of double standards applied in the US media to Joe Biden in comparison with Donald Trump. It is almost as if reporters and anchors are willing to forget every one of Trump’s perfidies but never willing to forget even […]
Asians, other Minorities fear Attacks because of Race, Survey finds
By Breanna Isbell | – ( Cronkite News ) – PHOENIX – One in four Asian households in the U.S. report fearing physical attacks and threats because of their race, according to a recent survey by NPR, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health. The survey, taken Aug. 2 […]
Saudi feminist Loujain Alhathloul Sues UAE Hackers DarkMatter, Run by US Expats, For Spying on Her
( Electronic Frontier Foundation) – Portland, Oregon—The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) filed a lawsuit today on behalf of prominent Saudi human rights activist Loujain AlHathloul against spying software maker DarkMatter Group and three of its former executives for illegally hacking her iPhone to secretly track her communications and whereabouts. AlHathloul is among the victims of […]
Libya 10 Years after Gaddafi: Anger, Protests over Delay to Much-Awaited Presidential Vote and Political Gridlock
By Dahlia Kholaif | – (Globalvoices.org) – Protesters in the eastern city of Tobruk demand that elections be held no later than January 24, and that those who delayed the vote be held accountable. A screenshot from video on Twitter of the protests on December 24. Hundreds of Libyans have taken to the streets and […]
From Palestine to Afghanistan, Top 6 Ways our World Changed in 2021
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – It is time to look back at 2021 and consider the most consequential developments, as covered here at Informed Comment. 1. The most important change was that the Republican Party has abandoned democracy, as witnessed by its reaction to the attempted Trump coup of January 6, 2021. The GOP has […]
How Tutu, de Klerk, and Mandela would end Israeli Apartheid
( Mondoweiss) – What does the end of South African apartheid tell us about how Israeli apartheid can end? That sanctions on Israel are required, and that a civil society mass movement is the only way to get there. By Jeff Warner | – With the December 26, 2021, death of Bishop Desmond Tutu, six […]
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