Open Democracy

People have been bigging up Open Democracy. It is one of those websites which carries articles by noted people about stuff happening in the world.

Some recent articles include:

Cyprus’s risky stalemate by Fred Halliday, a handy primer to what's been happening over the last while in Cyprus, reminding me yet again that letting (Southern) Cyprus join the EU in advance of a deal on the island was an act of most dreadful folly.

Arab Christians: a lost modernity by Tarek Osman, on the retreat of Arab Christians from the mainstream of their countries. People tend to forget how many Christians there are in the Middle East, with Egypt having a Christian population of some 15% and Syria, Palestine, Iraq, and Lebanon all having substantial and ancient Christian communities of their own.

Indonesia: the biofuel blowback by James Painter. All that biofuel shite is leading to farmers in Indonesia being kicked off their land so that car people in Europe and North America can keep on driving. Mentioned in passing is the threat to the Orangutang's continued existence by the turning of jungle into palm oil plantations.

The recurring anniversary of wilderness by Jim Gabour, an evocative article on what New Orleans is getting up to these days.

Open Democracy has its own RSS feed: http://www.opendemocracy.net/xml/rss/home/index.xml