Instability, Poverty and Nuclear Weapons

October 25, 2020

The President of the United States has the power to fire off thousands of nuclear weapons and destroy the world. As succinctly explained by William Perry and Tom Collina in the New York Times, “Mr. Tr…

The French Schoolteacher Terrorist Attack Raises Questions About Self-Censorship

October 25, 2020

Opinion

The terrorist attack that was committed by a religious extremist against a French schoolteacher who showed his students cartoons mocking the Prophet Muhammad as part of a free speech lesson raises que…

Surprise in October, or What We Saw at the Military Parade in Pyongyang

October 25, 2020

Opinion

On October 10, 2020, the DPRK held a massive celebration for the 75th anniversary of the Workers’ Party of Korea. It is one of the most important national holidays, and the milestone anniversary was m…

Walking Into a Nuclear Nightmare

October 25, 2020

Opinion

The world faces the very real prospect of a nuclear war. That this can be said after a century of world and regional wars, most of them begun or instigated by the USA and its puppet states, and 75 yea…

People Need to Reclaim the Internet

October 25, 2020

Opinion

No matter how much you dislike Trump, only a fool can fail to see the implications for public access to information of the massive suppression on the internet of the Hunter Biden leaks. This blog has …

Follow the Money: Banking, Criminality and the US FinCEN Files

October 25, 2020

Opinion

It was all a fitting reminder of Bertolt Brecht’s remark that bank robbery lies in the province of amateurs. The real professionals of plunder establish banks. Last month, the labours of B…

Two Deep Mysteries of the 1973 Arab-Israeli War

October 25, 2020

History

Forty-seven years ago, Egypt and Syria launched a massive surprise attack on Israeli forces dug into fortifications along the Suez Canal and Golan Heights. The ‘limited’ Arab objective was to recaptur…

How Saudi Arabia Obliterated Its Rich Cultural History

October 25, 2020

Opinion

In late 2009, I began traveling regularly from Riyadh to Mecca. I was in Saudi Arabia to conduct archival, ethnographic and oral history research on the production of Saudi Arabian history and memoria…