By Frank Gardner Ever since he led a mutinous march on Moscow in late June Yevgeny Prigozhin was described by Russia watchers as “a dead man walking”. Commenting recently on the mercenary boss’s life expectancy the CIA Director William Burns even said: “If I were Prigozhin I wouldn’t fire my food taster”. If it is… Read More Was Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin a dead man walking?
Sounds of gunfire keep Modina Khatun awake every night in Cox’s Bazaar Bangladesh – the world’s largest refugee camp. She fears that spiralling gang violence there will make a widow of another Rohingya woman like herself, with young children to feed. By Anbarasan Ethirajan Ms Khatun’s husband, Bashir Ullah, became a grim statistic last June… Read More Rohingya: Gang violence stalks world’s largest refugee camp
NB: This is one of the most moving tributes to Albert Camus that I have read. It is also crystal clear. DS He had succeeded in saying in his fevered way and in an argument as taut as a bow why, despite the fury and horror of history, man is an absolute; and he had… Read More ALBERT CAMUS: by Nicola Chiaromonte
In the wake of the July 26 coup in Niger, the world’s spotlight has once again turned to the expansion of private military and security companies (PMSCs) across Africa. Following the removal of the relatively pro-Western government, Niger’s new military rulers asked Russian PMSC Wagner to help defend against a possible military intervention by the Economic Community of… Read More Private military companies continue to expand in Africa
Tim Adams A few days after he announced he would sell his Nobel peace prize medal at auction – and give the millions of dollars raised to Ukrainian refugees – the Russian newspaper editor Dmitry Muratov was sitting on a train bound for the city of Samara. Just before the train pulled away from Kazansky station in… Read More Nobel peace laureate Dmitry Muratov won’t be silenced by Putin
With the new Netanyahu government, the anti-Palestinian violence (the pogrom in Huwara, the attacks on the Stella Maris Monastery in Haifa, etc.) is no longer even formally condemned by the state. To a Western European with a vague knowledge of Italian, “Manipur” automatically associates with “mani pulite” (pure hands), the big anti-corruption campaign in the… Read More Slavoj Žizek: Manipur is not only in India
Saudi border guards are accused of the mass killing of migrants along the Yemeni border in a new report by Human Rights Watch. By Paul Adams The report says hundreds of people, many of them Ethiopians who cross war-torn Yemen to reach Saudi Arabia, have been shot dead. Migrants have told the BBC they had… Read More Hundreds of migrants killed by Saudi border guards – report
(Special to Informed Comment: Feature) – On August 19, seventy years ago, the legitimate government of Dr. Mohammad Mossadegh was toppled in a coup jointly orchestrated by U.S. and British intelligence agencies and their Iranian collaborators. This article was first published in Persian in Iran in the journal Iran-e-Farda in February 1981. Every year, on the… Read More 70 Years ago, the CIA overthrew the government of Mosaddegh in Iran. Washington has been Complaining about Iran ever Since
NB: Communalised religion is not love of God, but love of violence and a surrender to bestiality. DS Thousands of Muslims in a city in Pakistan have set fire to churches and vandalised homes belonging to Christians over claims that two men had desecrated the Quran, police say By George Wright The attacks took place… Read More Pakistan: Mob burns churches over blasphemy claims
First posted August 11, 2012 Closing the Circle I look at the world and I notice it’s turningWhile my guitar gently weepsWith every mistake we must surely be learningStill my guitar gently weeps George Harrison and Ravi Shankar at the Concert for Bangladesh; August 1, 1971 Introduction I look at the world and I notice it’s… Read More Closing the Circle (Frontier, August 2012)
After the truth-shower 