There's nothing like being pleasantly surprised for the holidays: The U.N. Security Council will vote on Friday on a resolution demanding an end to Israeli settlements, defying pressure from U.S. President-elect Donald Trump as well as Israel and several U.S. senators who urged Washington to use its veto. The United States is likely to abstain … Continue reading A Real Festivus Miracle

Here's a fun story. Rodrigo Duterte, president of the Philippines, is a bit of a controversial character. One particular reason why he's controversial is because he has this little policy about drug users, which is that he feels it's OK for people to just kill them, whatever, no big deal. Last week, Duterte said something … Continue reading Philippine President Dexter

We've learned a bit more about the man who assassinated the Russian ambassador to Turkey since the last time I was able to post. He was apparently an off-duty Ankara police officer named Mevlut Mert Altıntaş, who shouted “God is great!” and “don’t forget Aleppo, don’t forget Syria!” during the attack. I have to say … Continue reading It was a bad day all around

Hey, how have you been? My travels are over for now and our family medical emergency seems to be heading in a positive direction, so that's nice. I'm still on limited posting here because I'm editing LobeLog into early January (and because of the holidays, of course), but we shouldn't have any more totally quiet … Continue reading Back into the suck

Today (actually beginning at sundown yesterday) is, on the Islamic calendar, the date traditionally identified as Muhammad's birthday, or Mawlid al-Nabi. While your immediate assumption might be to equate Mawlid with Christmas, they're really not analogous (just as Muhammad's role in Islam is not analogous to Jesus's role in Christianity), and Mawlid is not a … Continue reading Muhammad’s birthday mob

According to the National Center for Health Statistics, in 2015 average life expectancy in the United States dropped, from 78.9 years to 78.8 years, the first time that's happened since 1993. We know that the drop in 1993 had a few particular causes (AIDS and high homicide and accidental death rates, for example), and while … Continue reading Cause of death: late-stage capitalism

Shortly after the year 2016 went live, I wrote about how one of the growing fears related to the Middle East was that the Palestinian Authority might fall apart. This is not because anybody has any great love for the Palestinian Authority--seriously, does anybody?--but because of the potential for chaos that could follow the PA's … Continue reading Abbas and Fatah keep on keeping on

If you're the kind of person who pays attention to oil prices, then first of all I share your pain and alienation, but second of all, you may have noticed that it's been doing a lot of rising and falling lately around a midpoint of about $48-$49/barrel. We seem to be in the middle of … Continue reading Worst roller coaster ever

The title, get it? Those are lyrics from the song "Donna," and this post is about "Ghana" and...oh whatever. Apologies for being away from the blog. Alhurra asked me to do a show today and there went my afternoon. I'll be back with some conflict news tonight. Meanwhile, where was I? Oh, right, Ghana. Yes, … Continue reading Now that you’re gone, I’m left all alone

Lots of political news worth mentioning today. First, Austria's second attempt at a presidential runoff produced a victory for left-wing ex-Green candidate Alexander Van der Bellen, with somewhere around 53% of the vote, and a defeat for far right-wing populist Norbert Hofer. The margin was considerably wider than Van der Bellen's very slim initial runoff … Continue reading Politics was a little nuts today