Siavush Randjbar-Daemi

Exactly the right point. They pandered and grovelled while Zelensky stood his ground.

A great result for Linke in the German elections. A bright, radical party led by a young, combative woman leader who wears her political DNA on her left arm. Hopefully Linke’s new generation will build on this result and remain the home on all opposed to fascism and xenophobia.

The American half of me sincerely apologizes for the completely unhinged conduct of our president. Gaining insufficient attention for his attempts to dismantle the state and bully all of our allies, he wants to know if mass ethnic cleansing might get you to take him seriously.

YouTube video by PianoJFAudioSheet Liszt - Hungarian Rhapsody No. 15 "Rákóczi March" (Audio+Sheet) [Cziffra]

Gyorgy Cziffra was possibly the best interpreter of Franz Liszt's fiendish piano solo compositions. His rendition of the Rakoczy March (Hungarian Rhapsody No.15) truly stands out. www.youtube.com/watch?v=vo6e...

“For the past 15 months, #Israel media has focused on a narrative of inevitable victory against #Hamas -- but footage from #Gaza today is plastered across media, showing well-equipped #Hamas fighters in charge.

“It's like a bad dream," per one contact in #Israel.”
@charleslister1.bsky.social

Through kind courtesy of all those around the world who aided and abetted this mattanza - perfect Italian term to describe it - vocally, logistically and politically in past 18 months.

The short and not very sweet gist of most Western media and political figures, including Starmer, to Gaza today: the three living Israeli hostages are only worth mentioning. The hundreds of Palestinian civilians killed by IDF after the ceasefire was supposed to take effect can be safely ignored.

So there *are* crimes against humanity that Baerbock isn’t comfortable with. Interesting

...but solidarity in the face of the sheer brutality in Gaza and revulsion for the Western govt indifference, together with convinced support for civil societies across the region, particularly Lebanese, Syrian and Iranian, should remain high on our agendas.

... or finally put its own people's welfare and aspirations first, and whether Syria can overcome the current myriad challenges, reduce foreign interference and charter a part to statehood bereft of coups and strongmen. 2024 was bad, 2025 is not necessarily better...

Will we have better things to write in 12 months? Depends on the extent to which Israeli aggression and expansionism continues, whether Lebanon can finally turn a new page and stand on its own feet,whether the Islamic Republic will decline further...

The hope is that political parties can step into the open and be active in 2025. Syria needs a transition towards a vibrant, pluralist polity, not one which is dominated by battleground victors. It also needs to revisit opposition to federalism, which might be a good antidote to further strife.

- Syria took a big step into the unknown after the rapid collapse of the decrepit, corrupt and venal Assad regime. What kind of step is too early to tell. Jolani's claim that it will take four years to have a const. referendum quite ominous and in practice means autocratic rule till then.

- More misery, destruction and pain for Gaza. International law, human rights openly mocked by Israel and its Western backers. Despite the brush of anti-semitism ready to tar anyone who says "genocide", Amnesty International and others now deploy it. Will the West keep being complacent in 2025?

ME Highlights of 2024, in no particular order:
- Annus Horribilis for Iran, with loss of Syria, much of Hezbollah top brass, Raisi. Putative new beginnings with Pezeshkian, but so far achievements have been cosmetic and minimal. Major reckoning over what to do in Trump era beckons.

Why did it take so long to confirm what 972mag reported a year ago? When Ronen Bergman (one of the NYT authors) was asked in May about Israel’s use of AI in mass killing,he mocked the claims as something from a Netflix show.
We've long known about the AI-enabled genocide👇 jacobin.com/2024/12/term...

Colossal, historic crimes are underway in Gaza. And the true, full toll — all the mortality not just from bullets and bombs but from disease and exposure and hunger and debilitation — is utterly unknown yet dreadfully enormous.

The Embassy crisis undid Carter and severely damaged Iran. While Carter certainly redeemed himself with his peacebuilding efforts and allowing his conscience to guide his views on themes such as Palestine, the hostage takers who derailed his presidency have produced no gain and much pain for Iran.

The harsh, uncompromising anti-American attitude of much of the post-revolutionary emerging elite scuttled efforts to endear and build diplomatic bridges, leading to the major clamity of the US Embassy takeover, certainly undeserved given Carter’s balance in dealing with the post-Shah authorities.

He could and should have done more to convince the Shah to give full opportunity to the dissident but reformist community to assert itself and be given political space. Instead the Shah repressed it thoroughly after the famous Goethe nights in November 1977, and Jimmycracy gave way to the revolution

Carter’s presidency was irredeemably shaped by the Iranian Revolution. His early human rights agenda contributed to the dire prison conditions of political detainees improving in mid-1977, so much that they started owing it to “Jimmicracy”.

Zain Samir · ‘Death is not a stranger in our house’: In Lebanon Israel’s goal of ending the threat to its northern population is as elusive as ever. What set this war apart was its...

Skilful blending of the human story with the politics of a Shia Lebanese family, the South, and Hezbullah:

‘Death is not a stranger in our house’ www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

The hoarding of foreign currency creates scarcity, driving up exchange bureau prices for those who need to convert before travelling abroad and more importantly comes as a stark confirmation of the collective lack of any trust in productive investment of savings.

Beyond spacing issues, the current government is grappling with the same predicament as its predecessors : the constant crash in the value of the Riyal, due to Iran’s protracted crises, which has led to citizens stuffing as much as 30 billion USD’s worth of for currency under their mattresses.

The continuous crash of the Iranian currency riyal has created design issues for the main rate-reporting website Bonbast, which started activities when the Pounds was 4-5000 tomans. Six figures were likely not predicted in the original design.

Return of normal life to #Damascus #Syria 💚

Very good, informative and cautionary analysis on the current state of Syria. Well worth the read.

Airwars Gaza Patterns of Harm Airwars monitors, assesses and preserves civilian casualty claims resulting from explosive weapons use in multiple conflicts.

"By almost every metric, the harm to civilians from the first month of the Israeli campaign in Gaza is incomparable with any 21st century air campaign. It is by far the most intense, destructive, and fatal conflict for civilians that Airwars has ever documented."
gaza-patterns-harm.airwars.org

I would certainly preserve/avoid destroying the building itself, and turn it into a permanent museum on the regime's repressive methods and mechanisms.