Afghanistan
Afghan opium boom again breaks record
For a second consecutive year, Afghan opium cultivation broke all previous records, according to the latest report from the UN Office on Drugs and Crime.
Author: Bill Weinberg
Southeast Asia
Worldwide despots: Orwell still dangerous
Protesters in military-ruled Thailand have been silently reading 1984 in public to outwit a ban on gatherings—leading to the book itself being banned. Egypt could be next.
Iraq
Rojava revolution speaks in New York City
A forum at New York's City College featured a Skype link to Saleh Muslim, political leader of the Kurdish resistance at Kobani, and vividly described life in the besieged autonomous zone.
Central America
Nicaragua: opposition mounts to canal scheme
With work about to begin on an inter-oceanic canal through Nicaragua, campesinos who stand to be evicted for the mega-scheme pledge resistance and warn of a "massacre."
Iraq
Kurdish revolution: what odds for survival?
Will the anarchist-oriented Rojava Kurds ultimately be crushed in deference to Washington's NATO ally Turkey—or coopted into imperial clients? Is a third revolutionary option possible?
South Asia
India sterilization abuse: genocide by other means
The death of at least a dozen peasant women in a Chhattisgarh sterilization program comes in the context of a brutal counterinsurgency campaign against the Naxalite guerillas.
Palestine
Eschatology escalates at Temple Mount
Amid new unrest at the Temple Mount, Israeli Housing Minister Uri Ariel alarmingly said that Israel will eventually replace al-Aqsa Mosque with a Jewish temple.
East Asia
Hong Kong: paradoxes of dissent
As protests continue in Hong Kong, a new film profiles Joshua Wong and other young leaders of the movement, highlighting contradictions—including in their stance towards the West.
North Africa
Tunisia boots jihadi ‘godfather’ Bernard Henry Levy
French philosopher Bernard Henri Levy was expelled from Tunisia following mass demonsrations that accused him of coming to the country to plot with Libyan jihadists.
Greater Middle East
Peshmerga come to aid of Kobani: strings attached?
Peshmerga fighters have joined the battle for Kobani, with Turkish acquiescence. But will Ankara and the West wrest a political price for this aid from Syria's Kurdish resistance?
Iraq
Kurds as pawns in Turko-Russian game?
An alarming confrontation between Turkish and Russian warplanes over the Black Sea ironically comes as both Ankara and Moscow seek to divide Kurds from the Syrian rebels.
Iraq
Turkey plays FSA off against Kurds
Turkey insists the FSA must take control of Kobani if ISIS is defeated—but fails to say how this will be accomplished without fomenting war between the FSA and Kurdish forces.