The Countdown to Iran’s Day Zero: A Crisis of Water, not War

April 22, 2025

Reza Talebi

( Global Voices ) – My grandfather was a farmer near Lake Urmia in northwestern Iran. Once the largest lake in Iran, it is now a salt-ridden desert. When the water vanished, his wheat fields dried up. Salt crept over the land, swallowing everything. He died — not suddenly, but slowly. 

 

 Lake Urmia, Iran. Public Domain. NASA.

Forgive Me, Gaza…

April 21, 2025
Jamal Kanj
I write forgive me, not forgive us, because this guilt is deeply personal. It’s a burden I carry in the comfort of my home, sipping clean water while the children of Gaza drink from brine water wells mixed in sewage—their small bodies wracked with dehydration and disease—if they even find water at all.

Najwa refused to leave her village so Israeli troops shot her in her home

April 21, 2025
Hanna Davis

The 70-year-old woman survived the war in south Lebanon, only to be found killed two months after it ended

LIVE BLOG: Mounting Civilian Deaths in Gaza | Israelis Protest for Prisoner Deal – Day 562

April 20, 2025

Killed   Wounded  Missing

51,065   116,505      14,000 

The Israeli settlers quietly waging war on the Palestinian countryside

April 19, 2025

Jessica Buxbaum

Israeli settlers are taking over Palestinian land by creating "farming outposts" with the goal of ethnically cleansing Palestinians. This strategy complements the Israeli state's broader plans for annexing the West Bank.

 

EPA Deletes Pollution Tracking Tools as It Offers Exemptions to Polluters

April 19, 2025

Mike Ludwig

A new lawsuit is challenging the Trump administration’s removal of environmental justice maps and datasets.

 

 Marti Blake looks out her front window at the smokestack of the Cheswick coal-fired power plant in Springdale, Pennsylvania, on October 27, 2017. Blake says the amount of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide and coal particles originating from the plant has impacted her health as well as those in the surrounding area. Robert Nickelsberg / Getty Images

They’re Coming For Us: Media Censorship in the Age of Palestinian Genocide

April 18, 2025

Joshua Frank

Recall those feverish days leading up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq when Colin Powell presented his dubious evidence to the United Nations Security Council, claiming Saddam Hussein possessed WMDs. The result of those bogus lies was The Iraq Resolution, which authorized the use of force against the sovereign state, and passed the Senate by a decisive 77-23 margin, with only 23 dissenting votes. Support crossed party lines as Hillary Clinton and many other prominent Democrats consistently reached into George W. Bush’s basket of lies, repeating the neocons’ WMD propaganda. The New York Times, fulfilling its usual perfunctory role, ran Judith Miller’s series of bogus articles parroting the same falsehoods. Outrage grew, and we took to the streets as the U.S. invasion loomed.

 

Diego Garcia: ethnically cleansed for US forever wars

April 18, 2025

Aidan J. Simardone

As Trump threatens war on Iran, Washington weaponizes Diego Garcia – a Chagos island in the Indian Ocean built on ethnic cleansing, British colonialism, and military adventurism.

 

A Message from Bernie Sanders

Sisters and Brothers:

Under the oligarchic and authoritarian regime of Donald Trump, we find ourselves living in an unprecedented moment in modern American history. As a result, we’ve got to respond in an unprecedented way.

‘They told my brother I was dead’: inside Israel’s psychological warfare against Palestinian prisoners

April 17, 2025

Shatha Hanaysha

Palestinian prisoners in Israeli detention are subjected to conditions of torture, starvation, and torment that are the worst they have been since 1967. My brother has been imprisoned amid these conditions for over a year.

 

Demonstrators carry posters and portraits of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails during a gathering to commemorate Palestinian Prisoners’ Day in the city of Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank on April 17, 2025. (Photo: Mamoun Wazwaz/APA Images)

Saudi defence minister visits Tehran before Iran-US talks

April 17, 2025

Iran and the US are set to hold a second round of talks in Rome about Tehran’s nuclear programme.

 

 Iran's Armed Forces Chief of Staff Major-General Mohammed Bagheri, right, receiving Saudi Arabia's Defence Minister Prince Khalid bin Salman in Tehran [Iranian Army Office/AFP]

Gordon G. Chang et al: Shut up about Donald J. Trump, North Korea, China and everything else NATO pay you to prattle on about

April 17, 2025

Declan Hayes

Although you may not have read Chang’s latest screed, if you have ever perused the offerings of any airport book store, you will be familiar with this genre that is full of scary and lurid headlines regarding world domination.

Israeli War Crimes in Gaza Continue: Bombardment, Water Deprivation, Burning People Alive in Tents

April 16, 2025

( IMEMC ) – In the 28th straight day since obliterating the ceasefire agreement on March 18th (the day that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was set to testify in his trial for corruption), Israeli forces continued to bombard the terrified residents of the Gaza Strip, who have no place to go and no shelter from the bombs.

Judge blocks deportation of Columbia protest organizer Mahdawi

April 16, 2025

Juan Cole

A federal judge on Monday blocked the deportation of a detained Columbia University protest organizer, Mohsen Mahdawi, a green card holder from Palestine, court records show.

Europe was Hottest Ever Recorded last Year, and is Heating up Faster than any other Continent

April 16, 2025

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Copernicus Climate Change Service (abbreviated as C3S) has just issued The European State of the Climate for 2024.

 

زندانی افکار

یکی‌ بود یکی‌ نبود، غیر از خدا هیچ کس نبود. در زمان‌های پیشین، و در شهر کوچکی سالها بود که مردم شهر از خشک‌سالی‌ رنج می‌بردند، و زندگی‌ مردم شهر به دلیل وجود این خشک‌سالی‌ بسیار دشوار شده بود. چون روزگار مردم این شهر از کشاورزی می‌گذشت، بدون آب هیچ کار کشاورزی نمی‌توانستند بکنند، چرا که هیچ دریائی، دریاچه‌ای، جویباری در این شهر نبود و دیگر چاه‌های شهر هم خشک شده بودند. نخست آذوقه‌هائی را که در انبارهای شهر باقی‌ مانده بود بین مردم تقسیم کردند، و سپس درخت‌ها را بریدند و تقسیم کردند و بعد هرچه گیاه بود، حتّی علف‌ها را نیز تقسیم کردند. دیگر هیچ آذوقه‌ای در شهر پیدا نمی‌شد، چرا که مردم تمام آذوقهٔ شهر را خورده بودند و هر چه حیوان بود کشته بودند، و حتّی سگ و گربه‌های این شهر هم نسل‌شان را برانداخته بودند.ا

Palestinians fear Gaza’s largest cemetery has been destroyed. Not even our dead can have peace.

April15, 2025

Nadera Mushtha

Al-Sharqiya Cemetery, near Gaza City, is the largest cemetery in Gaza. It has been inaccessible since the genocide began and many fear it has been bulldozed and destroyed, along with the remains of our loved ones.

 

Palestinians visit the graves of their relatives after Eid al-Fitr prayers at Sheikh Radwan Cemetery in Gaza City on March 30, 2025. (Photo: Omar Ashtawy/APA Images)

Appalled at Funding Genocide, Over 2,000 US Taxpayers Turn to the UN for Redress

April 15, 2025

Marjorie Cohn

With no recourse in US courts or Congress, the Taxpayers Against Genocide movement pivots to UN Human Rights Council.

In New York City, a coalition of anti-war groups gathered outside the IRS offices in Manhattan demanding no taxes for war and militarism, on April 15, 2024. Erik McGregor / LightRocket via Getty Images

‘Death Sentence’ – Israel bombs Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital, again

April 14, 2025
An Israeli airstrike early Sunday morning targeted a building inside the Baptist Hospital (Al-Ahli Hospital) in Gaza City, Al-Jazeera reported.

 

Israel bombed the Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in Gaza. (Photo: via social media, QNN) 

Iran Is Not Building a Nuclear Bomb: A Fact Sheet

April 14, 2025
Ted Snider
“You know, it’s not a complicated formula,” U.S. President Donald Trump said. “Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. That’s all there is.” So, negotiations should be successful because Iran neither has, nor are they pursuing, a nuclear weapon.