Category Archives: middle east
Turkey attacks Kurdish forces in Syria
Here’s a thing. Following Turkey’s sudden but unsurprising move yesterday to attack Kurdish YPG forces in Syria, compare Guardian coverage with that of the centrist middle east outlet, al-Monitor. A little background. Before Daraa 2011, Erdogan used to call Assad … Read More »
Monbiot Cooked
Am I obsessed by Syria? I see egregious injustice done in our name to its people. I see risk of escalation in America’s refusal to leave a country it, unlike Russia, has not been invited into. I see corporate media … Read More »
Graun trashes White Helmet doubters
this post also features on offguardian In today’s Guardian a Spotlight piece by Olivia Solon – her profile calls her “a senior technology reporter for Guardian US in San Francisco” – carries the header, How Syria’s White Helmets became victims … Read More »
Waters and Eno on Israel and Nick Cave
This from the Pitchfork music site two weeks ago: In a recent press conference, Nick Cave explained his decision to play concerts in Tel Aviv … He said he “loves Israel”, noting that musicians performing there all “have to go through a public … Read More »
Monbiot, Syria and Universalism
I’m worried about George. An admirer of many years standing of his excellent columns charting capitalism’s destruction of nature, I’m dismayed both by his stance on Syria and manner of defending it. His latest Guardian piece, yesterday – A lesson … Read More »
Inappropriate behaviour over Yemen
Steel City Scribblings coverage of Yemen has been sparse but this excellent piece by Media Lens – so excellent we’ve nicked its opening lines for our masthead – appeared today. The truth of corporate journalism, and the great irony of … Read More »
If you read nothing else on Syria ..
… read this. Aidan O’Brien, a Dublin hospital worker, writing today in CounterPunch. It’s not the most elegant prose. It overuses inverted commas and Aidan can for sure expect a visit from the apostrophe taliban, but his words have a … Read More »
Spare a thought for Yemen
This appeared a few minutes ago in posts selected for me by Facebook. Am I an extremist to note the absence here of any reference to war crimes commited in Yemen by our friends in Riyadh? Am I an extremist, … Read More »