Failed Rescue — An attempt to rescue two men held captive by the Nigerian militant group Boko Haram failed Thursday, the Guardian reports. The hostages, Briton Chris McManus and Italian Franco Lamolinara, had been held by the al-Qaeda-linked group since May 2011. Their deaths came hours after U.K. Prime Minster David Cameron authorized a rescue mission, and Italian authorities are [...]
The members of K-Pop Fans Kuwait seem a little blue. The angsty poem attached to their tower of fan rice at the kickoff of Big Bang’s world tour in Seoul was a bit of a downer for a pop show. The fan rice paid for by a club in Indonesia, on the other hand, was [...]
Treaty Talk – A fiscal compact aimed at capping euro-zone debt was signed by 25 of the 27 European Union states on Friday. The Guardian reports that the new measures will be put to the test immediately, as Spain and the Netherlands have announced they will miss their deficit-cutting targets. Both nations will face fines for [...]
This 12 minute interview with economist Shir Hever of the Alternative Information Center starts at 12:45. I recommend it in its entirety. At 21:39 in the video, he says: “Military government in the West Bank, the Israeli military government, is not interested in creating infrastructure for the Palestinians which would allow them to live in [...]
Transcripts released this week by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) reveal an atmosphere of confusion in the U.S. agency in the first days after the nuclear disaster at Japan’s Fukushima Dai-ichi power station last year. Over 3,000 pages, dated March 11-20 and detailing the agency’s response to the March 11 triple catastrophe, were released on [...]
I want to relate a very small moment from my visit to the West Bank. Last Thursday morning, a friend and I took a cab out of Nablus to the Jewish settlement of Ariel. Nablus is of course a legendary Palestinian city, and our driver was a Palestinian, driving a yellow Palestinian cab, and as [...]
The organization Veterans for Peace has issues a memorandum to President Obama over the threat of war with Iran and what he can do to stop it. An excerpt: Needed: Presidential Action We believe that you have the power to nip the current warmongering in the bud by taking essentially two key steps: 1. Announce [...]
A Palestinian mansion in Jerusalem seized during the Nakba My first day in Jerusalem, I discovered that my roommate in the institute where I stay is a Palestinian-American scholar I’d met 5 years ago in New York. He made me tea and we sat outside in the sun, and he described the explosive feelings of [...]
I know how chefs feel about Ferran Adrià, musicians about Bruce Springsteen, economists about Amartya Sen. I felt that way about Anthony Shadid: total and utter awe. In an era blessed with more than its fair share of brilliant foreign correspondents, he was the best of the breed. And his death, at just 43, leaves [...]
Settlement construction. (Photo:B’tselem) Last weekend a bill was passed giving a 35% tax break to organizations “strengthening Zionism and encouraging Zionist settlement.” Though the legislation does not state the specifics of what constitutes a Zionist settlement, Haaretz’s Jonathan Lis finds, “in practice it most likely means giving assistance to organizations that promote settlement beyond the [...]