No country imprisons more journalists than Turkey. Ragip Zarakolu understands well. He's a prominent human rights activist/publisher. He's a former Nobel Peace Prize nominee. He's been maliciously targeted for years.

Canadian war industries are flogging their wares at IDEX, the largest weapons bazaar in the Middle East and North Africa. Over 1,000 exhibitors from 52 countries and over 60,000 attendees have converged on the United Arab Emirates (UAE) for IDEX 2013. This huge arms show is a golden opportunity for Canadian military exporters to schmooze with procurement officials from the US client states that dominate this oil-rich region.

By Conn Hallinan - February 20, 2013

Now that the dust has settled — literally and figuratively — from Israel’s Jan. 29 air attack on Syria, the question is, why? According to Tel Aviv, the bombing was aimed at preventing the transfer of sophisticated Russian SA-17 anti-[air]craft missiles to Hezbollah in Southern Lebanon, which one former Israeli military intelligence officer said would be “a game-changer.” But there are major problems with that story.

February 14 marked the second anniversary of Bahrain's uprising. Earlier protests erupted sporadically. In mid-February 2011, major ones did nonviolently. They continue virtually daily. At issue is King Sheikh Hamad bin Isa Al-Khalifa's tyranny.

By YVES ENGLER - February 13, 2013

In response to hotly contested claims that Hezbollah was responsible for bombing Israeli citizens in Bulgaria last July, immigration minister Jason Kenney called the Lebanese group a “vile anti-Semitic terrorist organization” and urged the European Union to “follow Canada’s lead in listing Hezbollah as a proscribed and illegal terrorist organization.”

Israel and America are longstanding imperial partners. Washington OK's naked aggression on Syria. Doing so declared war. Admitting it may or may not follow later.

It shouldn't surprise. Washington and Israel are longstanding imperial partners. Significant regional operations are jointly planned. It's done well in advance. It's for strategic advantage. Operations are part of a greater regional agenda.

He's conspiratorially involved in Western crimes. His overall silence, inaction, and support for wrong over right speak volumes.

Regional states and humanity have reason for concern.

By Bill Van Auken - 1 February 2013

Wednesday’s bombing of a Syrian military site by Israeli warplanes has ratcheted up the danger that the Western-backed civil war in Syria will spill over into a broader regional conflagration...The Syrian government...said that air strikes were directed against a military research center in Jamraya, in the Qasioun mountain range about three miles west of Damascus. It said that two workers at the center were killed in the bombing and five others were wounded.

By Oliver Campbell - 30 January 2013

The US, NATO and the Turkish government claim that the missile batteries are purely defensive — aimed at protecting civilians in southern Turkey from Syrian missiles. In reality, the deployment of the missiles is a preparation for the imposition of a no-fly zone and a campaign of aerial bombardment to support anti-Assad militias — along the lines of the Libyan regime-change operation.

Israel regularly violates Lebanese air space. Doing so is longstanding. It's also illegal. Incursions sometimes happen multiple times daily.

Regional uprisings achieved nothing. Daily life reflects poverty, unemployment, and despotism. Tens of oppressed millions suffer.

By Bill Van Auken - 16 January 2013

Nothing serves as a more searing indictment of US imperialism’s predatory policy in the Middle East than the conditions of the overwhelmingly migrant and semi-enslaved working class in these countries and the ultra-reactionary and medieval character of the regimes that rule them...The foundations upon which this imperialist policy rests are utterly rotten and must produce, sooner rather than later, revolutionary explosions.

By Kumaran Ira - 11 January 2013

Three female Kurdish nationalist activists were found dead early Thursday morning in the Kurdistan Information Centre in Paris...The victims were the co-founder of the Kurdistan Workers’ party (PKK), Sakine Cansiz, close to jailed PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan; Fidan Dogan, a member of the Brussels- based Kurdistan National Congress; and a young woman, Leyla Soylemez.