Portside

Last October, Saudi Arabia’s Special Criminal Court sentenced Sheikh Nimr Baqir al-Nimr, a popular Shi’ite cleric and outspoken political dissident, to death. Now the fate of this Shi’ite cleric hangs over the Gulf like a sword of Damocles. Demonstrations demanding the death sentence be revoked have been held in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Yemen, and the United Kingdom, underscoring the international sensitivity surrounding al-Nimr’s imprisonment and death sentence.

Even as Israel is aggressively seeking to recruit French Jews to move to Israel, France is undertaking measures to stem the flow of young Muslims to the Middle East to fight with Islamist extremists in Syria and Iraq. There is much talk of restoring authority and “republican values” to the schoolroom. But French leaders need to take a hard look at their own totally incoherent foreign policy, and there is no sign as yet of that happening.

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) issued a Director’s Decision Friday rejecting an appeal by environmental watchdog groups to suspend operations at the nearly two dozen reactors in the United States that have the same containment system as the ill-fated Fukushima nuclear reactors in Japan. Greenpeace charges the NRC is “backing off post-Fukushima fixes at reactors around the country due to fear that added regulatory costs would topple more nuclear plants."

It always looks bad when you criticize a soldier for doing what he's told. It's equally dangerous to be seduced by the pathos and drama of the individual soldier's experience, because most wars are about something much larger than that.

Anti-vaxxers are quite literally turning back the clock on decades of public health progress.

The state’s experts lied—and they got caught.

Increasing inequality and poverty are very far from inevitable. They’re the result of political and economic decisions.

Rhiannon Giddens -- She's Got You. Love Letters to Richard Dawkins. 'Alabama' John Coltrane and Martin Luther King. The History of Vaccines. Majority Retort.

Reader Comments- Jobs and Higher Wages; Boehner, Netanyahu, Israel, Iran; Martin Luter King - radical anti-capitalist; Charlie Hebdo - racism, nationalism, free speech; Broken Criminal Justice system; Social Security, Disability; Erosion of Collective Bargaining = Income Inequality; Podemos; Solidarity Forever; Selma; Guantanamo protest; Roe v. Wade Anniversary; Announcements- Forums- Ending the Embargo of Cuba; After The Greek Elections; March Delegation to Venezuela

The historic resumption of diplomatic relations with Cuba could be (and should be) a precedent for a new approach to North Korea - a country three times larger than Cuba, perhaps more strategically sensitive than the latter and involving a nuclear potential that demands serious diplomacy.