Ethiopia intends to increase its power generation from 2000 megawatts to 10,000 MW. That goal is not unusual for a developing country. What is distinctive is that its government wants to achieve as much as possible of this increase in power through green energy (hydro, wind, solar and geothermal). AFP reports on “Ethiopia spearheads green […]
Archives for December 2013
Syria spills over on Lebanon: Beirut Bombing Kills Sunni Critic of Syria’s al-Assad
(By Juan Cole) Respected Lebanese politician and former ambassador to the United States, Muhammad Shatah, was assassinated by a massive car bomb near the parliament building on Friday. He was on his way to a meeting of the Future Party. He was an adviser to former prime minister Saad Hariri of Future, whose own father […]
The mother of all wars
What has happened in Turkey in the past 10 days is just mind-boggling.
EU welcomes annulation of controversial regulation lifting investigation secrecy
European Commissioner for Enlargement Stefan Füle welcomed the annulation of the bill obliging those carrying out investigations to inform superiors
EU warns Israel of backlash for settlement building
Unnamed diplomat tells Israeli TV that European governments would have little sympathy for construction announcements during talks
The other Victim of Israeli settler vigilantism is Israeli Society Itself
(By Shirin Rubin) Israeli society will pay the ‘price’ for settler vigilantism, rights group warns (via The Christian Science Monitor) When Ahmad Milhem heard earlier this month that Jewish extremists had scrawled “Mohammad is a pig” on the walls of his local mosque, he feared for both his Arab and Jewish neighbors. “If our young […]
Increasingly, all Roads run through Iran (Damascus, Baghdad, Asia)
(By Marianna Charountaki) “While Iran’s importance for regional politics was always there, it has only now become apparent, especially for the foreign policies of international players, writes Dr. Marianna Charountaki.” In the aftermath of Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu’s unsuccessful ‘zero problems’ policy with his neighbours followed by the rapprochement between the KRG and Ankara, […]
Locusts & Climate Change Plague Yemen on top of al-Qaeda, Drones, Huthis (Video of the Day)
Yemen has suffered flash floods and unusual amounts of rainfall recently. These phenomena are not new, but they may be increasing because of climate change, which increases water vapor in the atmosphere. Locusts flourish in wetter top soil. Yemen is an agricultural society and much of the population is food insecure to begin with. Climate […]
Yezidi Kurdish Family in Syria, 1899 (Photo of the Day)
A Kurdish Yezidi Family of the Mount Simeon district of northern Syria, at a village near Aleppo, circa 1899 (From Gertrude Bell, Syria: The Desert and the Sown, 1908) The Kurdish population of northeast Syria is roughly 10 percent of the population. At that time, there were about 3 million people in what is now […]
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