Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

Film exposes London's sex industry underworld

Moroccan fish canner DOHA drops charges against union leader - now the company must reinstate 540 dismissed workers!

Some good and valid arguments, including facts. I wonder though why investment (the engine for growth) and the rate of profit (the life blood of capitalism) are totally absent in the article. Has western-style democracy become too expensive for capitalism?

"Syria and the crisis of global liberal democracy"

Saudi palace coup: the sequel

An act of social murder and Flats acquired for survivors But a few are not happy at all " Speaking to  The Guardian,  one woman said: “We paid a lot of money to live here, and we worked hard for it. “Now these people are going to come along, and they won’t even be paying the service charge."

"Other critics, especially on the left, complain that Morton’s conception of the Anthropocene glosses over issues of race, class, gender and colonialism by blaming the entire species for the damage inflicted by a privileged minority. The focus on the human enshrined in the term Anthropocene is a particular target for critics. By referring to humans as a unified whole, they argue that Morton effaces distinctions between the affluent west and the other members of humanity, many of whom were living in a state of ecological catastrophe long before the notion of the Anthropocene became trendy on campuses in Europe and North America. Others say that Morton’s notion of politics is too woolly, or that the last thing we need when facing ecological challenges are abstract musings about the nature of objects."

According to a U.S. army strategist: "In sum, U.S. policy in the Middle East is confused, contradictory, counterproductive, and dangerous. It could leave Washington involved in a war with Iran. (And given our recent wars in the region, imagine where that’s likely to land us.)" The worry is what would a war with Iran cost the U.S. Who cares of what would cost the Iranians? There are some interesting arguments though by this enlightened mind in the most dangerous imperialist army on earth. "America's Iran hysteria"

The movement of every refugee on earth since the year 2000

From December 2010 Cities for the rich

When the Roman "barbarians" met the Asian enlightenment

Egypt removes 25 January 2011 and 30 June 2013 events from school curriculum

How Western civilisation could collapse   (BBC)

France There are plenty of colourful characters in the Macron camp, ranging from a retired bullfighter in Arles, Marie Sara, to Rwandan refugee Hervé Berville, éclair entrepreneur Brigitte Liso and horror film producer Laurent Zameczkowski. One of the better known figures is mathematician Cédric Villani, known for his unique dress sense including large spider brooches. Having won over 47% of the vote in the first round, he looks unbeatable. "They tend to be very middle-class, very white on the whole, and half are absolute newcomers to politics," says Prof Marlière. (The BBC online) The politice of celebrities, of media image-making. " A physician, in order to be admitted to practice, must demonstrate his theoretical and practical knowledge of medicine. A politician, on the other hand, who, unlike the physician, purposes to decide the fate not of hundreds of people, but of millions, does not have to show such proof of knowledge. This fact seems to be one of t

17 June 1953

The destruction of the Yezidis

Kurds seeks to expand reach in northern Syria

"The coming together of Qatar, Iran and Turkey against Saudi Arabia and its allies, showed that coalitions now forming to compete with each other are not strictly based on the Shi’a-Sunni divide.  The alliances currently confronting each other are fighting over the control of the region, its capital,  and aim  to repress any movements for social justice." The threat of wider wars in the Middle East

"Take a step or two further back in the production process, and the picture gets bleaker still. To function at all, the smartphone—like all electronic devices—requires raw materials that have been wrested from the Earth by ruthlessly extractive industries. The cobalt in its lithium-ion batteries was mined by hand in the Congo, often by children; the tin in the soldered seams that bind it together most likely comes from the Indonesian island of Bangka, where the water table is irreparably fouled, 70 percent of the coral reefs have been destroyed by mine runoff, and on average one miner a week is killed on the job. The damage caused by the processes of extraction fans out across most of a hemisphere, mutilating lives, human communities and natural ecosystems beyond ready numbering. And so the polluted streams, stillborn children and diagnoses of cancer, too, become part of the way in which the smartphone has transformed everyday life, at least for some of us. Though these facts

"As a reporter on British politics and economics, I haven’t seen the ruling class of England in a panic like this for a long time." The British ruling class is in full panic mode