THE BOOK OF CURIOSITIES A reader passed an article along--I thought it might be of interest to some of you, and it's nice to not talk about something other than people killing each other for a minute, isn't it? Anyway, it's a look at the world map included in an 11th century Arab geography called The Book … Continue reading Middle East update: October 7-8 2017

EUROPE RUSSIA Moscow has started warning that it could retaliate for any harsh treatment its media outlets receive in the US by doing likewise to US outlets in Russia. RT is apparently being asked by the Trump administration to register as a foreign agent and disclose information on its employees, so you might expect to … Continue reading Europe/Americas update: October 6 2017

ASIA AFGHANISTAN Several Obama-era foreign policy officials wrote a piece for Foreign Policy today arguing that closing up the Taliban office in Qatar--as the Trump administration seems inclined to ask Doha to do--would be a mistake. They acknowledge that having a Taliban office in Qatar has done pretty much nothing to further the cause of a … Continue reading Asia/Africa update: October 6 2017

SYRIA We haven't talked much about Raqqa in recent weeks, as the potential for an Assad-Kurd--and, therefore, Russia-America--throwdown in Deir Ezzor has stolen most of the attention, but the Syrian Democratic Forces appear to be in the last phase of their campaign, with estimates putting the number of remaining ISIS forces in the city at … Continue reading Middle East update: October 6 2017

ISIS I don't want to spend a lot of time on the Vegas shooting unless/until some actual evidence emerges that ISIS was behind it, but I feel like this kind of thing needs to be rebutted: Just hours after Stephen Paddock unleashed a hail of bullets on a country music festival in Las Vegas, the … Continue reading Europe/Americas update: October 4-5 2017

ASIA PAKISTAN At least 20 people were killed on Thursday in Jhal Magsi, a small village in southwestern Pakistan, when an ISIS suicide bomber struck a local Shiʿa/Sufi shrine. The Pakistani military spent part of the day on Thursday parsing the difference between "having connections to" and "supporting" terrorist groups. Which seems like an excellent … Continue reading Asia/Africa update: October 4-5 2017

IRAQ Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said Thursday that Iraqi forces have liberated the town of Hawijah itself, leaving just a small enclave of villages east of the town still in ISIS's hands. You can kind of see where things are at in the Iraqi Joint Operations Command's map, below: https://twitter.com/wmciqa/status/916001057880334337 Reza Marashi has a … Continue reading Middle East update: October 4-5 2017

EUROPE RUSSIA The Russian government says that American authorities "broke in" to locked residential areas in its now-abandoned San Francisco consulate. The State Department says its people were just walking through the facility to make sure it had been vacated by the October 1 deadline it had given the Russians to clear out. This probably … Continue reading Europe/Americas update: October 3 2017

ASIA UZBEKISTAN Uzbekistan seems to be going through a bit of an identity crisis these days. Since taking over as president last year, Shavkat Mirziyoyev has been taking steps to loosen up the country's ultra-repressive political environment, for example by releasing political prisoners like activist Azam Farmonov, who was freed on Tuesday. He's presumably doing this to … Continue reading Asia/Africa update: October 3 2017

IRAQ Former Iraqi President Jalal Talabani died on Tuesday about a month shy of his 84th birthday. A high-ranking member of the Barzani family's Kurdistan Democratic Party, Talabani split from the KDP in 1975 to found the leftist Patriotic Union of Kurdistan. While they're currently collaborating in a unity government of sorts, the PUK remains … Continue reading Middle East update: October 3 2017