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Blog Posts

Waq al-Waq

Friday papers

Missing
about 4 years ago

A YSP leader and his son were killed in Amran. The details are a little sketchy but it seems as though the two came under gunfire and were killed. Husayn al-Jarabani has his report on al-'Ujayri. The al-Jarabani report also mentions in a very confusing manner the arrest of another 18 individuals ...

Eruptions

Details on the Tongan Eruption

Missing
about 4 years ago

Now that people have been able to get a better look at the are about Hunga Tonga Hunga Ha'apai, we've been able to get a better idea of what sort of eruption occurred. The explosions and ash/tephra from the eruption have all but wiped out life on Hunga Ha'aapai, as the island contains one of ...

Daylight Atheism

A World in Shadow VI

Dabanner
about 4 years ago

In 2006 and 2007, I wrote several entries in a series called A World in Shadow, bolstering the atheist's argument from evil by describing particularly shocking or egregious instances of natural and moral evils. However, I haven't written any new entries for this series in some time. To be honest ...

Eruptions

M7.9 earthquake in Tonga

Missing
over 4 years ago

This falls under the category of "when it rains, it pours". A M7.9 earthquake struck today in the Tongan arc. It doesn't appear to be related to the Hunga Tonga Hunga Ha'apai eruption as it occurred a few hundred kilometers to the SSE of the volcano (remember folks, correlation does not mean ...

Think, See, Feel

Ideas Have Consequences and Words Matter

Words
over 4 years ago

As Noah Feldman shows us in "A Prison of Words," his Times Op-Ed piece yesterday, "refinements" filed recently by the Justice Department regarding the Guantanamo Bay lawsuits showcase the subtlety with which the Obama Administration employs editorial prowess—and restraint. Words mattered in the ...

Waq al-Waq

Thursday Papers

Missing
over 4 years ago

I made the mistake of listening to bin Laden's newest tape, which comes with English sub-titles and both an Arabic text and an English translation, before my coffee this morning. The Washington Post has a bit more on the tape, which focuses on Somalia. Al-Quds al-Arabi leads with the news about ...

Waq al-Waq

Third Time for the ID

Missing
over 4 years ago

The third time is the charm. 26th of September and a number of other newspapers are now reporting that Sunday's suicide bomber has been identified as Abd al-Rahman Mahdi Ali Qasim al-'Ujayri. (I'm following the Yemen Observer's vowelling on the name, maybe mistakenly.) The 26th of September ...

Eruptions

Rooster tails and new islands (and video, too)

Missing
over 4 years ago

Mixing volcanoes and oceans seem to always produce exciting results. Whether it is something as simple as the ocean entry of a lava to something as impressive as a new island emerging, formed by volcanic eruption. Back in the 1960s, a previous unknown undersea volcano off the coast of Iceland ...

Waq al-Waq

Press Freedom? What Press Freedom?

Missing
over 4 years ago

So here I am sitting at home on Spring Break, writing up a report on Yemen, and just as I come to the section on press freedoms in the country I read this report from Marib Press on how its editor and his camera man were arrested. I particularly like the part where they ask for their quick release ...

Waq al-Waq

Does al-Qaeda permit Qat?

Missing
over 4 years ago

One really never knows what one will find cruising around the jihadi forums. The other day I came across a pretty interesting thread asking who was the true Amir al-Mu'minin. Earlier today it seemed like most were waiting for some sort of statement of responsibility from al-Qaeda about the latest ...

Eruptions

Redoubt back to Yellow Alert

Missing
over 4 years ago

Image from AVO Hut webcam for Redoubt After an exciting few days ... well, OK ... after an exciting few hours on Sunday, AVO has decided to lower the alert level at Redoubt in Alaska to Yellow/Advisory. The alert level was lowered last week after seismicity at the volcano returned to normal ...

Think, See, Feel

The New Machiavellianism

Mac_0924
over 4 years ago

Les Gelb, President Emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, has written a new book, Power Rules: How Common Sense Can Rescue American Foreign Policy. One piece of advice: Read it! Gelb has—as the New Yorker's George Packer puts it bluntly in a recent blurb—“as much foreign policy experience ...