Understanding ISIS in the Philippines

For about a month the government of the Philippines has been fighting a group who has pledged allegiance to ISIS. The battle is in Marawi City, about an hour from my family’s city, where I have built a house and live part-time. We have relatives in Davao City, where...

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Who Tried to Kill Putin – Five Times?

Oliver Stone’s series of interview with Russian President Vladimir Putin – conducted between July 2015 and February 2017 – has garnered a lot of attention, albeit in most cases not for the right reasons. In a much-noted appearance of Stephen Colbert’s comedy show, the...

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A Wide World of Winless War

Originally posted at TomDispatch. If you want a number, try 194. That’s how many countries there are on planet Earth (give or take one or two). Today, Nick Turse reports a related number that should boggle your mind: at least 137 of those countries, or 70% of them,...

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When the Detainee Is American…

The corpses pile up like sandbags along the planet’s geopolitical borders. “Perhaps his condition deteriorated and the authorities decided it was better to release him in a coma than as a corpse.” So said an expert on North Korea recently, quoted in the New York Times...

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Peace Is a Four-Letter Word

When a Briton or American speaks about a "four-letter word", he means a vulgar sexual term, a word not to be mentioned in polite society. In Israel we also have such a word, a word of four letters. A word not to mention. This word is "Shalom",...

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