In addition to being the 36th anniversary of the Iranian seizure of the US embassy in Tehran, today is also the 20th anniversary of the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin by a right-wing Israeli named Yigal Amir in Tel Aviv. There are remembrances of Rabin all over the place, many/most of them wondering if his death … Continue reading Mythologizing and demonizing the deceased

The British government announced today that it's "delaying" flights from Egypt's Sharm el-Sheikh airport to the UK on account of how that Russian jet that crashed in the Sinai over the weekend "may well have been brought down by an explosive device." The two most obvious explanations for this move are panic and prudence. You … Continue reading US, UK both suggesting that Kogalymavia Flight 9268 was bombed (UPDATED)

Even if the latest attempt at negotiating and end to Syria's civil war don't make any progress, at least Iran's inclusion has upped the entertainment factor. First, the Iranians are making noises about walking away from the talks because Saudi Arabia is being too "negative": Iran said on Monday it would quit Syria peace talks … Continue reading Negotiating games

This wasn't only a good weekend for Tayyip Erdoğan's Justice and Development Party in Turkey; Azerbaijan's ruling New Azerbaijan Party also won big in that country's parliamentary elections yesterday, taking a majority of the seats in the parliament. New Azerbaijan (Yeni Azərbaycan Partiyası in Azeri, a close-ish linguistic relative of Turkish) is the party of … Continue reading This weekend’s other Turkic national elections

A Russian plane, Kogalymavia Flight 9268, carrying 224 people from Sharm el-Sheikh, the Egyptian Red Sea resort destination, to St. Petersburg, Russia, crashed in the Sinai on Saturday, killing everyone on board. ISIS immediately claimed responsibility, and several international air carriers quickly changed their routes to avoid Sinai airspace, but it's unlikely that ISIS shot this … Continue reading What happened to Kogalymavia Flight 9268? (UPDATED)

Well, it looks like today's Turkish snap poll was conclusive after all, and I should have listened harder to that nagging feeling I had yesterday that was telling me not to completely discount polling that showed Tayyip Erdoğan's AKP having regained enough support to put itself back in the majority. The preliminary results look like … Continue reading Confounding expectations again

Tomorrow is the big day, when Turkey's voters will go out to the polls to most likely, uh, repeat what happened back in June, when nobody won a parliamentary majority. Brookings' Markaz blog runs through the four possible outcomes of tomorrow's vote: One of three scenarios is likely to emerge in the wake of the … Continue reading Are you ready for some (more) inconclusive elections?

Al Jazeera has put together a remarkable investigation into the Burmese government's complicity in the ongoing genocide of the Rohingya people in Myanmar's Rakhine State, a genocide that a report from the International State Crime Initiative at Queen Mary University of London says is entering its "final stages," with the Rohingya on the verge of … Continue reading You need to watch this investigation into the Rohingya genocide

Arthur C. Brooks, the head of the American Enterprise Institute, is worried that American universities are getting this whole "diversity" thing wrong: Scholarly studies have piled up showing that race and gender diversity in the workplace can increase creative thinking and improve performance. Meanwhile, excessive homogeneity can lead to stagnation and poor problem-solving. Unfortunately, new … Continue reading On “true diversity”

In other Syrian news, the Committee to End the Syrian War Without Talking to Any Syrians met today in Vienna and failed to end the war: Major powers meeting in Vienna have failed to reach an agreement on Syria, especially the future role of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, but found enough "common ground" to meet … Continue reading At least they agreed to keep talking