If Donald Trump wins the U.S. presidential election in November, all sorts of hell will break loose. Mexico will face a huge border crisis. China will be hit with a new wave of tariffs. Ukraine will begin preparing itself for abandonment. And Milorad Dodik will tear apart Bosnia. Perhaps you’ve never heard of Milorad Dodik. He is the leader of Republika Srpska, the predominantly ethnic Serbian entity inside Bosnia. For years, he has threatened to declare his enclave an independent state. In December, in an interview to a Serbian TV station, he said that he’d intended to make this move when Don ..read more

Violent crackdowns on student protesters across the United States have brought to light an uncomfortable truth that goes unacknowledged by universities, the White House, and the mass media: the United States is an obstacle to peace in Gaza. As Israel has directed an unrelenting military assault against Gaza, the United States has enabled it every step of the way. Among its most significant moves, the United States has provided Israel with offensive weapons, opposed a permanent ceasefire, and cracked down on student protesters. “What we are doing today is very bad policy,” Senator Bernie Sander ..read more

African political leaders and religious zealots (both Christian and Muslim) have used homophobia as a tool for political and religious power for many years. They say that same-sex relations and gay rights are imports from the west. They have used homophobia to portray themselves as nationalists and defenders of African and religious values. They have used homophobia to frighten and divide people to mobilize popular support and votes. But it is homophobia, as others have said before me, that is the real import from the West. And the whole panoply of weapons employed by the homophobes in Uganda ..read more

The process of crafting congressional legislation is often likened to sausage-making. Best not to look behind the scenes at the mechanics of the process, which is a bloody mess. But the analogy is not apt. Sure, sausage-making can be ugly. The end product, however, is presentable and usually quite tasty. The legislation that emerges from the U.S. Congress, on the other hand, is often as ugly and unappetizing as the process that created it. Consider the recent bill that bundled military assistance to Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan along with a fourth provision covering more sanctions on Iran, the ..read more

Something must be up. Otherwise, why would scientists keep sending us those scary warnings? There has been a steady stream of them in the past few years, including “World Scientists’ Warning of a Climate Emergency” (signed by 15,000 of them), “Scientists’ Warning Against the Society of Waste,” “Scientists’ Warning of an Imperiled Ocean,” “Scientists’ Warning on Technology,” “Scientists’ Warning on Affluence,” “Climate Change and the Threat to Civilization,” and even “The Challenges of Avoiding a Ghastly Future.” Clearly, there’s big trouble ahead and we won’t be able to say that no one saw it ..read more

“To this day I feel humiliation for what was done to me… The time I spent in Abu Ghraib — it ended my life. I’m only half a human now.” That’s what Abu Ghraib survivor Talib al-Majli had to say about the 16 months he spent at that notorious prison in Iraq after being captured and detained by American troops on October 31, 2003. In the wake of his release, al-Majli has a myriad of difficulties, including an inability to hold a job thanks to physical and mental-health deficits and a family life that remains in shambles. He was never even charged with a crime — not exactly surprising ..read more

Haiti has descended into chaos. It’s had no president or parliament — and no elections either –for eight long years. Its unelected prime minister Ariel Henry resigned recently when gang violence at the airport in Port-au-Prince made it impossible for him to return to the country after a trip to Guyana. Haiti is the poorest country in the region, its riches leached out by colonial overlords, American occupying forces, corporate predators, and home-grown autocrats. As if that weren’t enough, it’s also suffered an almost Biblical succession of plagues in recent years. A coup deposed its first de ..read more

Last September witnessed what used to be a truly rare weather phenomenon: a Mediterranean hurricane, or “medicane.” Once upon a time, the Mediterranean Sea simply didn’t get hot enough to produce hurricanes more than every few hundred (yes, few hundred!) years. In this case, however, Storm Daniel assaulted Libya with a biblical-style deluge for four straight days. It was enough to overwhelm the al-Bilad and Abu Mansour dams near the city of Derna, built in the 1970s to old cool-earth specifications. The resulting flood destroyed nearly 1,000 buildings, washing thousands of people out to sea ..read more

I’ve always known my Arab culture is worth celebrating. I heard it in Syrian tenor Sabah Fakhri’s powerful voice reverberating in my mom’s car on the way to piano lessons and soccer practice during my youth. I smelled it in the za’atar, Aleppo pepper, allspice, and cumin permeating the air in the family kitchen. I saw it in the intricate embroidery on my grandma’s silk robe. And in the determination etched in the faces of my immigrant parents, who raised seven children in Southern California without relinquishing our rich Syrian traditions. April is National Arab American Heritage Month. It sh ..read more

Former Soviet republics directly feel the threat from Putin’s Russia. Ukraine is currently occupied, but the Baltic nations of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia worry that they’ll be next. Former Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev reasserted last year that the Baltic countries belong to Russia. More recently, in Vilnius, an associate of recently deceased Russian dissident Alexey Navalny was assaulted with a hammer. The Baltic countries are already members of NATO, but it’s a sign of the intensity of regional anxiety that Finland and Sweden have recently joined NATO—to strengthen capabilities to respo ..read more