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If imprisoned Palestinian leader, Marwan Barghouti, becomes the President of the Palestinian Authority (PA), the status quo will change substantially. For Israel, as well as for the current PA President, Mahmoud Abbas, such a scenario is more dangerous than another strong Hamas showing in the upcoming Palestinian parliamentary elections.

The long-delayed elections, now scheduled for May 22 and July 31 respectively, will not only represent a watershed moment for the fractured Palestinian body politic, but also for the Fatah Movement which has dominated the PA since its inception in 1994. The once revolutionary Movement has become a shell of its former self under the leadership of Abbas, whose only claim to legitimacy was a poorly contested election in January 2005, following the death of former Fatah leader and PA President, Yasser Arafat.

A new report, published on 14 March, 2021 in the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences' journal Ambio, points out that humanity is hurtling towards destruction unless we have the collective wisdom to change course quickly. Here is a link to the article:

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13280-021-01544-8

The Ambio article was written as part of the preparation for a meeting of Nobel Prize winners to discuss the state of the planet. The virtual meeting will be held on April 26-28, 2021.

We must achieve a steady-state economic system

A steady-state economic system is necessary because neither population growth nor economic growth can continue indefinitely on a finite earth. No one can maintain that exponential industrial growth is sustainable in the long run except by refusing to look more than a short distance into the future.

merican policy toward Iran has long been stupid and self-defeating. Anyone here not see that? Anyone here think that’s a necessary state of affairs?

OK, it’s true that stupid, self-defeating policy toward Iran is an American tradition of more than 70 years standing. And yes, it has had some short-term benefits, enriching the Shah’s thugocracy and its American supporters like the Rockefellers and other oil interests. That’s a plus in some books, just not in Iranian books. There it looks more like colonial exploitation laced with crimes against humanity.

BANGKOK, Thailand -- Oil and other cargo on ships sailing between the
Middle East and East Asia, will arrive much faster than today's route
past Singapore, when Thailand constructs a short overland connection
linking the Andaman Sea to the Gulf of Thailand, officials said.

"This future transport and cargo exchange gateway will bring down
transport costs, by bypassing heavy traffic in the Malacca Strait,"
Transport Minister Saksayam Chidchob said.

Government survey crews and engineers are plotting a sleek, upside
down L-shaped route more than 70 miles long coast-to-coast, with a
railway and highway side-by-side the entire way.

"If built with the help of China, it could fit within the Belt and
Road Initiative, linking to Chinese-backed railways and making Beijing
less reliant on the Strait of Malacca," ASEAN Today said in an
editorial on March 20.

"Thailand has made it clear that -- while it’s happy to build a close
relationship to Beijing -- it doesn’t want to be seen as beholden to
foreign influence.

The anniversary of his assassination always brings a flood of tributes to Martin Luther King Jr., and this Sunday will surely be no exception. But those tributes -- including from countless organizations calling themselves progressive -- are routinely evasive about the anti-militarist ideals that King passionately expressed during the final year of his life.

You could call it evasion by omission.

The standard liberal canon waxes fondly nostalgic about King’s “I have a dream” speech in 1963 and his efforts against racial segregation. But in memory lane, the Dr. King who lived his last year is persona non grata.

Boris Johnson’s March 16 speech before the British Parliament was reminiscent, at least in tone, to that of Chinese President Xi Jinping in October 2019, on the 70th anniversary of the founding of the Republic of China.

Will Joe Biden end the endless wars or won’t he?

I have serious doubts that he has the will or political acumen to do so. But that’s only a fragment of the question that needs to be asked, as we approach the twentieth anniversary of our global “war on evil.” A far, far bigger question looms, a question with answers scattered across the global landscape: Can we learn to wage peace? Can we create a united world, free of borders and scapegoats? Can we transcend our alienation from and exploitation of the planet that is our home and our nurturer? Can we stop being afraid of people we don’t know, people who are “different” from us? Can we let go of our need for an enemy?

A ‘major setback’ was the recurring term in many news headlines

Last week’s outbreak of rhetorical hostilitiesbetween the White House and the Kremlin has heightened the urgent need for a summit between Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin. The spate of mutual denunciations is catnip for mass media and fuel for hardliners in both countries. But for the world at large, under the doomsday shadow of nuclear arsenals brandished by the United States and Russia, the latest developments are terribly ominous.