Articles by Al Jazeera
We found 980 results.
Spain: Justice Chases a Human-Rights Judge
Jonah Hull – Al Jazeera,
23 Jan 2012
The darling of human-rights groups – and victims – in Spain and around the world, Balthasar Garzon stepped on many toes in his long career. Members of both the ruling Popular Party and the previous Socialist government resent indictments handed down implicating officials in corruption and state-sponsored death squads. He’s no friend of extant elements of old regimes in Latin America, where amnesties for war crimes have successively been tested and repealed in Guatemala and Argentina after Garzon’s indictment of Chile’s General Augusto Pinochet in the late 1990s.
→ read full articleRivers Must Flow: The Case against Big Dams
Lori Pottinger – Al Jazeera,
16 Jan 2012
Large dams threaten the planet’s riverine lifelines and action must be taken soon. More than 50,000 large dams now choke about two-thirds of the world’s largest rivers. The consequences of this massive engineering programme have been devastating. Large dams have wiped out species; flooded huge areas of wetlands, forests and farmlands; displaced tens of millions of people, and affected close to half a billion people living downstream.
→ read full articleThe End of the Keynesian Era
Nathan Lewis – Al Jazeera,
9 Jan 2012
The beginning of the Keynesian Era can be dated, perhaps, to September 1931 – the year when Britain intentionally devalued the pound, throwing the world into turmoil and currency conflict. Today, we are again in an extended period of economic crisis. However, I suspect that this will turn out to be the end of the Keynesian Era – the time when it is, in fact, Keynesianism itself which destroys us.
→ read full articlePrivate Security and ‘the Israelites of Latin America’
Belen Fernandez – Al Jazeera,
9 Jan 2012
An Israeli defence consultancy is assisting with dirty work in Colombia previously monopolised by the United States. A pet factoid wielded by self-appointed experts on the matter is that it is currently possible to travel by air from Caracas to Tehran with only one stop in Damascus. Lest policymakers and the general public fail to respond with adequate alarm to such news, the severity of the threat is underscored via invented links between Muslims in Latin America and every potentially unfavourable regional trend, resulting in a spectre of Islamo-narco-socialist crime cartels menacing the southern border of the US.
→ read full articleIsrael’s Radical Settlers: A Fifth Column?
Roxanne Horesh – Al Jazeera,
9 Jan 2012
Oz Zion, West Bank – Heroic youth. Righteous Jews. Hill top kids. Crazy folks. Nationalist criminals. Vigilantes. Terrorists. The price tag movement. Countless names exist for a group of settlers in the occupied West Bank that exact retribution against Palestinians and the Israeli army in response to policies targeting the settlement movement. The group has burned and desecrated mosques, destroyed olive groves on private Palestinian land, harassed people and property, and most recently confronted an Israeli army base.
→ read full articlePushing Iran towards a Nuclear Bomb
Patrick Disney – Al Jazeera,
9 Jan 2012
For the US, the current dynamic with Iran contains a real danger of sleepwalking toward disaster. The goal of Western policy toward Iran is to delay Iran’s actual acquisition of a bomb through sabotage, assassinations, cyber attacks and other covert activities. But this is tragically misaligned with the reality of Iranian decision-making.
→ read full articleWhy Latin America Calls On Philosophers
Santiago Zabala – Al Jazeera,
9 Jan 2012
Similar to the World Social Forum of Brazil, both the prize and forum aim to reflect not only upon the social progress that characterises these nations, but also the progress taking place in rest of the world; this is why only thinkers whose position is essentially leftist are invited, that is, those in the service of the weak, marginalised, and oppressed sectors of society.
→ read full articleFallujah Babies: Under A New Kind of Siege
Dahr Jamail – Al Jazeera,
9 Jan 2012
While the US military has formally withdrawn from Iraq, doctors and residents of Fallujah are blaming weapons like depleted uranium and white phosphorous used during two devastating US attacks on Fallujah in 2004 for what are being described as “catastrophic” levels of birth defects and abnormalities.
→ read full article
Philosopher Slavoj Zizek on World Affairs
Al Jazeera – TRANSCEND Media Service,
9 Jan 2012
The Slovenian philosopher and critical theorist talks to Al Jazeera about the momentous changes taking place in the global financial and political system.
→ read full articleWestern Oil Firms Remain As US Exits Iraq
Dahr Jamail – Al Jazeera,
9 Jan 2012
The end of the US military occupation does not mean Iraqis have full control of their oil. While the US military has formally ended its occupation of Iraq, some of the largest western oil companies, ExxonMobil, BP and Shell, remain.
→ read full articleExxon ‘Loses’ Venezuela Nationalisation Case
Chris Arsenault – Al Jazeera,
9 Jan 2012
Hugo Chavez must be smiling. In the latest showdown between western oil companies and Venezuela’s populist president, Exxon Mobil is widely seen as the loser, after the Paris-based International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) ruled that the world’s biggest oil company would not be entitled to most of the damages it demanded after its fields were nationalised. “The ICC only awarded Exxon ten per cent of what they wanted,” Chavez said recently. “You can make your own conclusions.”
→ read full articleEuropean Shame over the Roma Question
Julian Popov – Al Jazeera,
2 Jan 2012
European strategies to ‘integrate’ Roma populations have failed due to a lack of inclusiveness. Earlier this year, the European Commission published one of those beautiful documents called a “Communication” under the title “An EU Framework for National Roma Integration Strategies up to 2020”. The question of whether the national strategies for Roma integration will work has a simple answer: they will not. The question of whether the European funds for Roma integration will be absorbed also has a simple answer: they will.
→ read full articleThe Eagle, the Bear and the Dragon
Pepe Escobar – Al Jazeera,
26 Dec 2011
Here’s a new Cold War fable for an emerging multipolar world. Once upon a time in the young 21st century, the eagle, the bear and the dragon took their (furry) gloves off and engaged in a New Cold War.
→ read full articleNo Justice for Bradley Manning
Charles Davis – Al Jazeera,
26 Dec 2011
Other young soldiers thinking of telling the truth about America’s wars must by now have surely gotten the message: if you see something, don’t say something. Meanwhile, Manning couldn’t be faulted for wondering why he did not just take a cue from his commander-in-chief and kill some innocent foreigners like a good American boy. Instead of facing a lifetime in prison, he might have been up for a medal.
→ read full articleA Forgotten Invasion, a Forgotten Dictator
Mike Allison – Al Jazeera,
26 Dec 2011
On Sunday [18 Dec 2011], former strongman Manuel Noriega returned to Panama following twenty-plus years in US and French prisons. However, the return to his native country remains as clouded in mystery as the reasons for his initial departure. Noriega had been involved in the drug trade for many years, and at the same time that he was on both CIA and the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) payrolls. I would also argue that, like President Ronald Reagan’s invasion of Grenada in 1983, President Bush likely believed that an operation to remove Noriega would be an easy foreign policy success. While Noriega was neither the most repressive dictator nor the most corrupt, he was the most vulnerable to US military force.
→ read full articleWestern Hunger for Myanmar’s ‘Cleansed’ Lands
Francis Wade – Al Jazeera,
19 Dec 2011
Recent reforms in Myanmar don’t address the country’s brutal wars against ethnic minorities. A 15-year-old boy told staff from Physicians for Human Rights how he had been forced to walk in front of a Burmese army patrol, ensuring that he and not they took the full blast from any landmine hidden along the path.
→ read full articleStateless Finally Arrive On the World Political Map
Davinder Kumar – Al Jazeera,
19 Dec 2011
The political drive to tackle statelessness has finally found a foothold on the global platform, writes the author.
→ read full articleWhat’s the Harm of Cluster Munitions?
Naj Taylor – Al Jazeera,
19 Dec 2011
Proposed legislation in Australia undermines the international Convention on cluster munitions. This is the third part of a three-part essay. Here, I examine the problem of institutional investment in cluster munitions producers.
→ read full articleLatin America’s Message to the Arab World
Pepe Escobar – Al Jazeera,
12 Dec 2011
Take a good look at this 1970 photo. The 22-year-old woman in the photo is about to be examined by a bunch of subtropical inquisitors. She has just been tortured, electrocuted and waterboarded – what Dick Cheney dismisses as “enhanced interrogation” – for 22 days. Yet she didn’t break down. Today this woman, Dilma Rousseff, is the President of Brazil.
→ read full articleBuilding Truth in Brazil
Manuela Picq – Al Jazeera,
12 Dec 2011
Some things take time. Dilma Rousseff, once a political prisoner who survived repeated torture at the hands of the military dictatorship, is now, a quarter of a century later, Brazil’s commander-in-chief. President Rousseff, Brazil’s first female head of state, pushed forward the creation of a Truth Commission to unveil crimes committed during the country’s military regime.
→ read full articleSaving Shambala from a Russia-China Pipeline
Jon Letman – Al Jazeera,
12 Dec 2011
Opening a remote border region to development threatens to destroy Central Asian wilderness and culture. The plot is familiar – giant multinational corporations want to develop a controversial gas pipeline – but the setting is anything but familiar. As Jennifer Castner, director of The Altai Project, dedicated to protecting the natural and cultural heritage of Altai says, “Gazprom wants to build this pipeline. I don’t think they care what they have to do in order to do it.”
→ read full articleDrones: A Deeply Unsettling Future
Trevor Timm – Al Jazeera,
12 Dec 2011
The rapid expansion of a drone arms race has emerged both domestically and abroad, leaving everyone vulnerable. Whether they are being used for surveillance or all-out combat, drones will soon pose serious risks for all of the world’s citizens. They can offer governments, police departments, or private citizens unprecedented capabilities for spying, and given their security vulnerabilities, the potential consequences could be endless.
→ read full articleThe Paradox of a ‘Responsible’ Arms Maker
Naj Taylor – Al Jazeera,
12 Dec 2011
The negative impact of arms manufacture calls for a closer look at corporate social responsibility. This is the first in a three-part essay that explores an often neglected aspect of corporate responsibility: the paradox of being a “responsible” arms maker.
→ read full articleFamine as a Crime against Humanity
Abdi Ismail Samatar – Al Jazeera,
5 Dec 2011
Several months ago, I wrote an essay entitled “Genocidal Politics and the Somali Famine”. It appears that the coordinator of the UN’s Monitoring Committee for Somalia agrees with the essay’s proposition that nature is not to blame and that powerful human actors are responsible for the catastrophe.
→ read full article‘Bugsplat’: The Ugly US Drone War in Pakistan
Jennifer Robinson – Al Jazeera,
5 Dec 2011
It’s time for the US to re-examine the consequences of its dehumanising, deadly attacks in Pakistan. This weekend [27 Nov 2011], Pakistan ordered the closure of the US drone base after a US attack killed 26 Pakistani soldiers near the Afghan border. This news will be welcomed by the people of Waziristan, where communities have borne the brunt of the “collateral damage” of the US covert drone war.
→ read full articleUK: Who Are You Going To Believe? The Media?
Daniel Hind – Al Jazeera,
5 Dec 2011
The Leveson inquiry is asking questions of society that mainstream media must not be allowed to answer. Commentators have paid much less attention to the questions Leveson considers to be central. The media don’t want to host a discussion that is framed in constitutional terms. They don’t want their audiences to think too hard about what is meant by “the public interest” and they are frantic to ensure that any debate about checks and balances leaves their privileges unnoticed and intact.
→ read full articleA Mental and Physical Hell
Renee Lewis – Al Jazeera,
5 Dec 2011
The majority of the world’s trafficked people are in Southeast Asia, and about half of those are forced into sex work. The life of a sexually trafficked woman in Southeast Asia is almost unimaginable. The majority of victims are between 18 and 24 years old. Sexually trafficked women are often forced to have sex with as many as five to 15 men each night – and in most places they are not allowed to refuse potential “clients” for any reason.
→ read full articleObama Projects Pacific Power
Pepe Escobar – Al Jazeera,
28 Nov 2011
What’s the real story behind Washington sending a bunch of marines to Australia? US Air Force fighter jets will also be in the house, with the Marines on six-month tours starting in the summer of 2012 up to an eventual rotation of 2,500 troops. Then comes the whopper. The marines will be conducting war games on Australian soil “out of the reach of Chinese ballistic missiles”. Now imagine if Beijing decided to set up a base, say, in Catalina Island off the coast of California, or even in Hawaii, to patrol the Eastern Pacific.
→ read full articleFor Bulgaria, It’s Survival of the Weakest
Julian Popov – Al Jazeera,
28 Nov 2011
Bulgaria is the poorest country in the eurozone, yet could escape from the current financial crisis unscathed. Deep mistrust between government and citizens, uncaring authorities, low taxes and low spending, emigrants growing in numbers and affluence, European subsidies, no borrowing, dilapidated hospitals, small plots of fertile land for most families, beautiful nature and Balkan stubbornness doesn’t exactly sound like the sort of economic recipe that you might hear from the World Bank, the IMF or the European Commission. But it seems to work. For now.
→ read full articleJust How Dangerous Are ‘Non-Lethal’ Weapons?
Mujib Mashal – Al Jazeera,
28 Nov 2011
From Egypt, to Athens, to Oakland, police have employed “non-lethal weapons” to break down recent protests and disperse protesters. As crowds have swelled to express discontent, variations of tear gas, rubber bullets, water cannons, and stun grenades have been fired back at them. The US defence department describes non-lethal weapons as “primarily employed to immediately incapacitate targeted personnel or materiel, while minimising fatalities, permanent injury to personnel … in the target area or environment.
→ read full articleIntervention without Responsibility
Tarak Barkawi – Al Jazeera,
28 Nov 2011
The Libyan ‘no-fly’ zone of intervening may have paved new way for treating symptoms without addressing the problem. In 2006, the UN Security Council affirmed its support for the doctrine of “responsibility to protect”. This is the idea that if a member state cannot protect its own citizens from crimes against humanity, it is the responsibility of the international community to do so. “R2P”, as this doctrine is known, would have been a wonderful justification for intervention and liberal imperialism if only the UN were an effective organisation.
→ read full articleThe World Joe Pa Made
Dave Zirin – Al Jazeera,
28 Nov 2011
Sympathies for Joe Paterno, former Penn State coach, are blinded by the real issue of overlooking child abuse. I don’t doubt the emotions in Happy Valley are genuine. I don’t doubt the searing shock and pain that must be coursing through campus. But this is the pain of self-pity not reflection. It’s the pain of the exposed not the penitent. Words ring as false as the apologists for the Vatican, Wall Street, the military command at Abu Ghraib and any industry deemed “too big to fail”.
→ read full articleTobacco Giant Sues Australia over Package Law
Al Jazeera – TRANSCEND Media Service,
21 Nov 2011
Philip Morris, one of the world’s largest tobacco companies, has announced that it is suing the Australian government over a new law requiring all cigarettes to be sold in plain packages. “We are left with no option,” Anne Edwards, a Philip Morris Asia spokesperson, said in a statement on Monday [21 Nov 2011].
→ read full articleTime for OWS to Embrace the Co-Op Movement?
Nikolas Kozloff & Joe Holtz – Al Jazeera,
21 Nov 2011
Are Americans finally to the point where they are tired of corporations owning everything?
→ read full articleWorld’s Oceans in Peril
Dahr Jamail – Al Jazeera,
21 Nov 2011
Climate change is causing our oceans to become increasingly acidic, threatening to alter life as we know it. What to do? Despite grave concerns there is something that can be done. If ocean 1.0 is the pristine natural ocean, 2.0 is the ocean we have now under the petroleum product regime of 100 years of use, and 3.0 is the future ocean, it can either be a dead ocean, or we can come up with some very innovative solutions that right now people aren’t even talking about.
→ read full articleNuclear Israel Revisited
Joseph Massad – Al Jazeera,
14 Nov 2011
How many times must this story be retold? The international press has been reporting on it since the late 1960s. In 1953, President Dwight Eisenhower gave Israel its first small nuclear reactor at Nahal Sorek; in 1964, the French built for Israel its much larger and major Dimona nuclear reactor in the Naqab (Negev) Desert; in 1965, Israel stole 200 pounds of weapons-grade uranium from the United States through its spies at the Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corporation company in Pennsylvania; in 1968, Israel hijacked a Liberian ship in international waters and stole its 200-ton shipment of yellowcake.
→ read full articleThe West’s Tragedy of Capital
Pepe Escobar – Al Jazeera,
14 Nov 2011
The name of the game – Marx revisited by Occupy the World – is class struggle. It’s casino capitalism, aka finance turbo-neoliberalism, as practiced by a liquid modernity elite of one per cent, versus the have-a-little-something, have-nots and have-nothing, aka the 99 per cent. So the crucial fight is against these “private proprietors of politics” – and their one per cent masters, be it in Cairo or Manhattan, Madrid or Lahore. G20? Forget it; it’s more like G7 billion. If we are truly indignados towards a system that must be toppled, we are all responsible.
→ read full articleA Vision of the Whole Human Race
Tarak Barkawi – Al Jazeera,
14 Nov 2011
Here and there, in our time, Westerners, Christians and Muslims may find common cause – as in the Palestinian solidarity movement; or whites, blacks and mixed race people, as in the resistance to the apartheid regime in South Africa. But in a jingoistic age, when Westerners, Asians and Muslims are all convinced of their own superiority, a multi-racial, multi-regional, multi-cultural resistance movement on the model the Despards cooked up is almost unthinkable.
→ read full articleBrazil Court Approves Building of Amazon Dam
Al Jazeera – TRANSCEND Media Service,
14 Nov 2011
Contentious Belo Monte dam project in the north to proceed without additional consulation with indigenous communities. A Brazilian court has said that construction of one the world’s largest hydroelectric dams can proceed without additional consultation with indigenous communities in the region, despite a mass movement opposed to the project.
→ read full article
Lessons from Iceland (VIDEO OF THE WEEK)
Al Jazeera, Counting the Cost – TRANSCEND Media Service,
14 Nov 2011
13-min Interview with Iceland President Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson – Can the Eurozone learn any lessons from Iceland’s 2008 meltdown? Iceland apparently succeeded in letting the banks, not the people, go bust. Is anyone paying attention?
→ read full articleHacking Palestine: A Digital Occupation
Helga Tawil-Souri – Al Jazeera,
14 Nov 2011
Israel controls all Palestine’s digital infrastructure, limiting the use of phones, mobiles and internet at any time.
→ read full article
A Call against Arms
Al Jazeera – TRANSCEND Media Service,
14 Nov 2011
The tiny South Korean island of Jeju has been called the ‘Island of Peace’, but could a new naval base endanger that? The entire community is taking on the might of the South Korean navy. The village of Gangjeong on the island of Jeju has fewer than 2,000 inhabitants but the 480,000 m2 military facility will house up to 20 US warships. The mayor is serving a prison sentence for opposing the construction and studies have revealed a dramatic increase in psychological problems among the villagers. This once peaceful village is now clinging on for its survival.
→ read full articleYou Can’t Bank On Free Speech
Kristinn Hrafnsson – Al Jazeera,
14 Nov 2011
The banks, payment and credit card companies support extremist organisations by authorising transfers and donations to them. You can use VISA and MasterCard to donate to the Ku Klux Klan and the English Defence League. You can donate to Aryan Nations, a white supremacist organisation, despite being designated a “terrorist threat” by the FBI. VISA and MasterCard do not mind if you decide to use your cards to buy pornography on the internet or a rifle identical to the one used by the right-wing extremist Andreas Breivik to murder 69 people in Norway. The extrajudicial banking blockade imposed upon WikiLeaks by VISA, MasterCard, Bank of America, Western Union and PayPal is unique and has been in place for almost a year.
→ read full articleApartheid and the Occupation of Palestine
John Dugard – Al Jazeera,
7 Nov 2011
As the Russell Tribunal convenes to discuss apartheid, Israel has already surpassed South Africa’s racist era. This week, the Russell Tribunal on Palestine will consider the question of whether Israel’s practices in the occupied Palestinian territory (OPT) constitute the crime of apartheid within the meaning of the 1973 International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid.
→ read full articleChina and the US: The Roadmaps
Pepe Escobar – Al Jazeera,
7 Nov 2011
While Beijing tries to address the West’s concerns, Hillary Clinton has a conflicting vision for the 21st century. Inquiring minds scattered across the world have been pondering whether Washington elites are sneakily slouching towards Beijing – as in eventually focusing on China as the ultimate bogeyman and catalyst of the Pentagon-denominated Long War.
→ read full articleOccupy Demands: Let’s Radicalise Our Analysis
Robert Jensen – Al Jazeera,
7 Nov 2011
The crisis we face is caused by failed systems – replacing leaders while keeping the old system intact will not help. There’s one question that pundits and politicians keep posing to the Occupy gatherings around the country: What are your demands? I have a suggestion for a response: We demand that you stop demanding a list of demands.
→ read full articleActivists on Gaza-Bound Vessels Detained
Al Jazeera – TRANSCEND Media Service,
7 Nov 2011
Israeli authorities have detained pro-Palestinian activists on board two “Freedom Waves to Gaza” vessels, foiling the latest attempt to break the four-year Israeli blockade of the territory. The ships were forced to sail into the Israeli port of Ashdod, where all 27 passengers were handed over to the authorities and taken to an Israeli detention facility near Tel Aviv. Al Jazeera’s Casey Kauffman was among a group of journalists arrested late Friday [4 Nov 2011] when the Israeli navy boarded two ships sailing toward Gaza, he has since been released.
→ read full articleUS Condemns UNESCO over Palestine Vote
Gregg Carlstrom – Al Jazeera,
7 Nov 2011
The US government has cut off tens of millions of dollars in annual funding to the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) after it voted to admit Palestine as a full member. Victoria Nuland, the US state department spokeswoman, said payments to the Paris-based organisation would be stopped immediately. She said Washington would refrain from making a $60m payment it planned to deliver in November.
→ read full articleIsrael Orders New Building in East Jerusalem
Al Jazeera – TRANSCEND Media Service,
7 Nov 2011
Binyamin Netanyahu has ordered the building of 2,000 new housing units for Israelis, mainly in illegally occupied East Jerusalem, an area Palestinians claim as the capital of their future state. Israeli settlements built on occupied Palestinian land are considered illegal under international law. Israel also decided on Tuesday [1 Nov 2011] to freeze the transfer of tax revenues owed to the Palestinian Authority, as a punitive measure after Palestine was granted full membership of UNESCO.
→ read full article
Slavery – Child slaves
Al Jazeera – TRANSCEND Media Service,
7 Nov 2011
There are at least 8.4 million child slaves in the world today, many of them held as forced labour.
→ read full articleAmerica’s Animal Farm
Cliff Schecter – Al Jazeera,
31 Oct 2011
Deregulation mania has led to unsafe drugs, a financial crisis, and even a mass escape of dangerous animals in Ohio.
→ read full article‘Occupy’: A Path to Non-Violent Revolution?
Nikolas Kozloff – Al Jazeera,
31 Oct 2011
In setting up their own self-governing community, protesters echo sentiments from the Seattle general strike in 1919.
→ read full articleThe Solutions Generation
Robert Constanza – Al Jazeera,
31 Oct 2011
The next generation will have to bring about major transitions in order to build a more sustainable future. The Arab Spring, and now the “Occupy Wall Street” movement, are indications of growing unhappiness with the state of the world, especially in the younger generation. As Paul Krugman has pointed out, Americans are finally getting angry at the right people – the financial and corporate elites that currently govern the United States, and who have caused the ongoing economic crisis.
→ read full articleBattle for ‘Birthplace of the Sun’ In Mexico
Tracy L. Barnett – Al Jazeera,
31 Oct 2011
To the native Wixarika of Mexico, better known as the Huicholes, the mountains of Catorce and the desert at their feet are the centre of the world, a temple of prayer on the level of the Vatican. To a pair of Canadian mining companies, it’s a mother lode of gold and silver in a market hungry for both.
→ read full articleThe Lost Bases of the US Empire
Tarak Barkawi – Al Jazeera,
31 Oct 2011
The US maintains more than 700 military facilities on foreign soil that may not be as sustainable in the near future. While the world’s attention was fixated on Gaddafi’s corpse, President Obama announced what seems to be the end of the ill-fated US project in Iraq. It is hampered also by the animosities aroused by US violence and policy, in Iraq and elsewhere. We are perhaps one financial crisis away from the moment when the idea of maintaining even established bases abroad – when the iron web of empire since 1945 will itself be called into question.
→ read full articleUS Sweep Nets Private E-Mail Addresses
D. Parvaz – Al Jazeera,
17 Oct 2011
In a quest to nail WikiLeaks on espionage charges, the US targets private data belonging to the outfit’s volunteers.
→ read full article
Meltdown – Paying the Price
Al Jazeera – TRANSCEND Media Service,
17 Oct 2011
As the toll of the financial crisis continues to mount, many are looking for its true causes – and finding a crime.
→ read full articleDalai Lama Slams China’s ‘Immoral Censorship’
Al Jazeera – TRANSCEND Media Service,
10 Oct 2011
Statement comes as Chinese government is accused of blocking him from traveling to South Africa.
→ read full articleAid Blackmail in Palestine
Rachel Shabi – Al Jazeera,
10 Oct 2011
It happened before in 2006, when they took part in what was deemed to be the wrong kind of democracy and picked the wrong (Hamas) government. That mistaken execution of free will caused the cutting of Palestinian aid and salaries. Now, there are penalties for taking another ‘wrong’ turn: US congress is blocking US $200 million intended for the Palestinian Authority (PA), which persisted with its UN statehood bid in the face of US disapproval.
→ read full article
Hundreds Held In Anti-Wall Street Protests
Al Jazeera – TRANSCEND Media Service,
3 Oct 2011
New York City police say about 500 protesters have been arrested after they swarmed the Brooklyn Bridge and shut down a lane of traffic for several hours. Police say some demonstrators spilled onto the roadway Saturday night [1 Oct 2011] after being told to stay on the pedestrian pathway.
→ read full articleBehind the Scenes of #OccupyWallStreet
Danny Schechter – Al Jazeera,
3 Oct 2011
The protests on Wall Street are growing larger, despite police using pepper spray and making arrests.
→ read full articleAlgeria: A View from the Forest
Muriam Haleh Davis – Al Jazeera,
3 Oct 2011
The suspicion that Algeria may be “immune to the Arab Spring” is related to the lack of “Tahrir-style” mass protests, its willingness to offer refuge to members of the Gaddafi clan, and its failure to recognise the Libyan National Transitional Council (NTC).
→ read full article
Protesters Arrested in Anti-Wall Street Rally
Barbara Benitez - Al Jazeera,
26 Sep 2011
Dozens of people have been arrested in New York after police shut down a protest against Wall Street financial firms. The organiser of the demonstration, a group calling itself “Occupy Wall Street”, used social media to call for peaceful protests against what they describe as corporate greed in America. They had hoped to turn the sit-in into an American version of Tahrir Square – a reference to the centre of the largely peaceful uprising in Egypt – before they say the police cracked down.
→ read full articleDebating the UN Bid for Palestinian Statehood
Roxanne Horesh – Al Jazeera,
26 Sep 2011
Experts discuss what may happen with the Palestinian bid for UN statehood and what it means for all concerned.
→ read full articlePalestine & UN: History of a Double Standard
Marwan Bishara – Al Jazeera,
26 Sep 2011
Failure to resolve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and Israel’s 40-year occupation, in the words of UN former Secretary General Kofi Annan, would “continue to hurt the reputation of the United Nations and raise questions about its impartiality”. No cause has consumed as much UN paper work as the plight of the displaced and occupied Palestinians. But hundreds of its resolutions on Palestine have not been respected let alone applied for over half a century.
→ read full articleBRICS Plan To Revive the Global Economy
Pepe Escobar – Al Jazeera,
26 Sep 2011
We interrupt this programme to announce the end of two centuries of Western domination. Well, not yet. At least not this Thursday, in Washington, when finance ministers and central bank governors of the BRICS group of emerging powers – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – get together on the margins of a G-20 meeting.
→ read full articleLiberating Nations from Public Debt
Mohamed Rabie – Al Jazeera,
26 Sep 2011
An alternative solution to the financial crisis is to create a single global currency to manage debt requirements. The near collapse of the international financial system in September 2008, and the Great Recession which followed, have highlighted the need for economic, political, social and cultural change around the world.
→ read full article‘Liberticidal Anti-Terror Laws Must Go’
Asad Hashim – Al Jazeera,
19 Sep 2011
International rights advocacy group says laws used pretext of fighting “terror” to legalise discrimination and torture. As the United States positioned itself to respond to the September 11, 2001 attacks, it began by rearranging more than just military assets, but legislative ones, too. It went on to pass the infamous USA PATRIOT Act, which greatly reduced the restrictions on law enforcement and intelligence agencies. Other countries followed suit, and the last 10 years have seen a raft of new anti-terrorism legislation put in place, from Pakistan to Britain, from India to the Philippines.
→ read full articleThe Pursuit of Happiness
Robert Constanza – Al Jazeera,
19 Sep 2011
In Bhutan, progress is measured by how happy people are, not how much wealth people have. An oil spill, for example, increases GDP because someone has to clean it up, but it obviously detracts from well-being. More crime, more sickness, more war, more pollution, more fires, storms and pestilence are all potentially positives for GDP because they can cause an increase in economic activity. GDP also takes no account of how the national income is distributed among people, ignoring the fact that a dollar’s worth of income produces more well-being for a poor person than a rich one.
→ read full articleNarco Elite vs Oligarchy: Guatemala Votes
Chris Arsenault – Al Jazeera,
19 Sep 2011
Drug cartels allegedly finance political parties during an election in one of Latin America’s most violent countries. As candidates square-off in Guatemala’s presidential election, a broader political battle is transpiring away from the campaign signs and populist rhetoric: the old oligarchy is fighting to maintain its privileged position against an increasingly powerful “narco elite”.
→ read full articleNo End in Sight for Oil in the Gulf of Mexico
Dahr Jamail – Al Jazeera,
19 Sep 2011
Fifteen months after BP’s crippled Macondo Well in the Gulf of Mexico caused one of the worst environmental disasters in US history, oil and oil sheen covering several square kilometers of water are surfacing not far from BP’s well. Al Jazeera flew to the area on Sunday, September 11, and spotted a swath of silvery oil sheen, approximately 7 km long and 10 to 50 meters wide, at a location roughly 19 km northeast of the now-capped Macondo 252 well.
→ read full articleThe Imperial Delusions of the United States
Robert Jensen – Al Jazeera,
12 Sep 2011
Ten years ago, critics of the United States’ mad rush to war were right, but it didn’t matter. Ten years later, we are still right and it still doesn’t matter. Empires rarely learn in time, because power tends to dull people’s capacity for critical self-reflection. While ascending to power, empires believe themselves to be invincible. While declining in power, they cling desperately to old myths of remembered glory. Today, the United States is morally bankrupt and spiritually broken. The problem is that we are still operating on delusional notions about manifest destiny, American exceptionalism, the right to take more than our share of the world’s resources by whatever means necessary.
→ read full articleWikiLeaks’ Obvious Truth
Naj Taylor – Al Jazeera,
12 Sep 2011
People must seek to protect not only WikiLeaks, but also the mechanism by which the information enters into our purview.
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Colin Powell Regrets Iraq War Intelligence
Al Jazeera – TRANSCEND Media Service,
12 Sep 2011
Former US secretary of state says information he provided leading to the invasion of Iraq is a “blot” on his record and regrets providing misleading intelligence that led the US to invade Iraq, believing it had weapons of mass destruction.
→ read full articleThe Crime of Apartheid
Frank Barat – Al Jazeera,
12 Sep 2011
In order to keep Israel a “Jewish” state, racist policies amounting to apartheid have been used against Palestinians.
→ read full article9/11’s Forgotten Victims
Imran Khan – Al Jazeera,
12 Sep 2011
Tahira’s words are a poignant reminder that the effects of 9/11 have been felt most acutely not in the West, but on the dusty alleyways of Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Daily bombings, murderous intent and religious rhetoric have turned the events of that fateful Tuesday into what Tahira calls a “horrific reality”. I’d like to think that somewhere, someone will mention those Pakistanis, Iraqis and Afghans that have also died alongside the victims in America.
→ read full articleInternational Community Fails in Haiti, Again
Mark Weisbrot – Al Jazeera,
12 Sep 2011
The cholera outbreak in Haiti may have been caused by UN peacekeepers. How is it that more than 6,200 people have died in Haiti from cholera in just the past 10 months, and yet resources to fight the disease were reduced earlier this year before the rainy season, which predictably led to an upsurge in infections and fatalities? Furthermore, this is a country where international donors had pledged $5.6bn since the January 2010 earthquake.
→ read full article‘The Worst Crisis I Have Ever Seen’
Azad Essa – Al Jazeera,
12 Sep 2011
The head of a South African aid group discusses famine in East Africa, working in Mogadishu and engaging al-Shabab. As concerns grow over the mishandling of food aid and corruption by third-party contractors inside the country, there remains little understanding of the conditions inside the capital. Despite this, a small number of aid groups have refused to delegate their work there to third-party organisations.
→ read full articleWhat Will Palestinian Statehood Mean?
Abdel Razzaq Takriti – Al Jazeera,
5 Sep 2011
The recent release of an authoritative legal opinion highlighting certain unexpected, unintended, and serious political and legal dangers in the September initiative, has created useful popular discussion and public debate.
→ read full articleIntricacies of Bahrain’s Shia-Sunni Divide
Shirin Sadeghi – Al Jazeera,
5 Sep 2011
In Bahrain, the problem is colonialism, not sectarianism. Bahrain [is] a geostrategically important island nation right in the middle of the Persian Gulf where the largest base for the US Navy exists, outside of the US itself. Bahrain, like so many other countries in the region and in the world, is just another victim of British mapmaking, American business interests and the seedy intersection of these forces.
→ read full articleRacism on the Rise in Europe
Billy Briggs – Al Jazeera,
5 Sep 2011
In Norway, England, the Netherlands, Russia, and especially Austria, racist and Islamophobic movements are on the rise. In the wake of the atrocities in Norway perpetrated by Anders Behring Breivik, it is still unclear whether he was part of a wider conspiracy, but alarm bells are now ringing across Europe about the threat from far-right extremist groups.
→ read full articleIn Sri Lanka, a ‘Negative Peace’ Prevails
Kate Mayberry – Al Jazeera,
29 Aug 2011
The civil war is over in Sri Lanka, but many men suspected of being Tamil Tiger fighters continue to be detained.
→ read full articleFamine in the Horn of Africa: Malthus Beware
William G. Moseley – Al Jazeera,
29 Aug 2011
In the Horn of Africa, population growth is not the main cause of famine.
→ read full articleNATO Nations Set To Reap Spoils of Libya War
Rachel Shabi - Al Jazeera,
29 Aug 2011
As rebels take Tripoli, foreign powers are eyeing the prize of Libya’s high quality crude oil.
→ read full articleAn Initial Libyan Scorecard
Mark LeVine – Al Jazeera,
29 Aug 2011
Rebuilding Libya, which is blessed with such a wealth of resources, will take massive efforts on the part of Arab, African and international civil societies, to ensure that the Libyan people aren’t sacrificed at the altar of oil profits and special ops bases for deepening US involvement in Africa; that as has happened in so many other countries, the “oil curse” doesn’t doom the country to another four decades of corrupt and kleptocratic rule.
→ read full articleThree Questions on Libya
Marwan Bishara – Al Jazeera,
29 Aug 2011
Al Jazeera’s chief political analyst interprets what the fall of Tripoli means for Libya, the Arab Spring and the West. A six month NATO-aided rebellion in Libya has advanced on the capital, Tripoli, in an effort to oust 42-year leader Muammar Gaddafi.
→ read full articleKafka at the Rafah Border
Diane Shammas – Al Jazeera,
22 Aug 2011
What should have been a simple border crossing turns into a four-month odyssey through the iron curtain of Gaza.
→ read full articleWhy Boycott Israel?
Lisa Taraki and Mark LeVine – Al Jazeera,
15 Aug 2011
A founding member of the campaign for the academic and cultural boycott outlines the motivation behind the movement. Author and history professor Mark LeVine speaks with sociologist Lisa Taraki, a co-founder of the Palestinian campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel.
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Injured Malaysian Man Mugged in UK Riots
Al Jazeera – TRANSCEND Media Service,
15 Aug 2011
Online footage of an injured student being brazenly robbed has shocked the nation. A video posted online depicting a group of youths appearing to help a young Malaysian student who was mugged during the London riots, and then stealing the contents of his bag, has been widely circulating. The footage is just one moment captured on video in recent days showing an ugly side to a city often considered as civilised or forward-looking.
→ read full articleNuclear Safety: A Dangerous Veil of Secrecy
Dorothy Parvaz – Al Jazeera,
15 Aug 2011
Who can the public trust on nuclear safety – the anti-nuclear camp, the nuclear lobby or academics funded by the latter? There are battles being fought on two fronts in the five months since a massive earthquake and tsunami damaged the Daiichi nuclear power plant in Fukushima, Japan.
→ read full articleFrom the Arab Spring to Liverpool?
Yasmine Ryan – Al Jazeera,
15 Aug 2011
The UK riots have unique roots, but British youths’ alienation is similar to the disenfranchisement behind Arab revolts. “These are children who have no purpose. Society does not seem to see them as a significant enough group to invest in.” — Malik Al-Nasir, a poet and social commentator from Liverpool
→ read full articleGlobal South Key to African Economies
Global development agencies – Al Jazeera,
8 Aug 2011
“South-south” cooperation will help both African countries and other emerging economies.
→ read full articleFamine Continues to Ravage East Africa
Alan Fisher – Al Jazeera,
1 Aug 2011
During the worst drought in 60 years, over 11 million people across the Horn of Africa are at risk of dying. As one delegate told me: “People are dying in the drought in the Horn of Africa because the rains failed. The international community can’t afford to do the same.”
→ read full articleAmerica’s own Taliban
Paul Rosenberg – Al Jazeera,
1 Aug 2011
Prior to 9/11, the Taliban government in Afghanistan did not register very much on American radar screens, with one notable exception: when it blew up two colossal images of the Buddha in Bamiyan province in early 2001. But destruction of treasured artifacts isn’t just limited to the Taliban. There’s a right-wing politico-religious presence centred in the US, but with a global reach, engaging in similar practises, destroying religious and cultural artifacts as a key aspect of its ideology of “strategic level spiritual warfare” (SLSW).
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Palestinian Minors Jailed for Throwing Stones
Al Jazeera – TRANSCEND Media Service,
25 Jul 2011
Palestinian minors are being detained for throwing stones at Israeli forces. Children under the age of fourteen have been jailed for the offence, an Israeli a human rights group, says.
→ read full articleNorway, Islam and the Threat of the West
Ibrahim Hewitt – Al Jazeera,
25 Jul 2011
Dismissing this murderous act as the work of “a lone madman” ignores a more detailed study of the killer’s motivation.
→ read full articleEast Jerusalem Suffers Heroin Plague
Kieron Monks – Al Jazeera,
11 Jul 2011
Activists fight to save addicts in towns without prospects or security. In the town of Al Ram, pressed up against Israel’s Separation Barrier, degradation has set in. Once a lively suburb of Jerusalem, since 2006 it has been locked out by the Barrier, which surrounds it on three sides. The effect of this sudden disconnection from the city has been devastating. One-third of all businesses have been forced to close, 75 per cent of youths under 24 are unemployed, and around half of the town’s 62,000 residents have been denied the ID they require to enter Jerusalem.
→ read full articleHonduras’ Very Own War on Terror
Belen Fernandez – Al Jazeera,
11 Jul 2011
The state uses propaganda to justify eliminating civil rights because of the threat of ‘terrorism’. When in doubt, start a war on terror.
→ read full articleStraddling Kashmir’s Infamous Line of Control
Ben Piven – Al Jazeera,
11 Jul 2011
Luv Puri is a political analyst who has won a Fulbright scholarship and European Commission Award for Human Rights and Democracy and recently wrote Across the Line of Control, which focuses on life in Pakistan-administered Jammu & Kashmir – to be published by Columbia University Press in Fall 2011. Puri explains why the long-running Kashmir dispute between India and Pakistan remains so intractable.
→ read full articleIndigenous Resistance Is the New ‘Terrorism’
Manuela Picq – Al Jazeera,
11 Jul 2011
In Ecuador, protesting for the rights of the Earth and trying to preserve natural resources may make you a “terrorist”. If you thought there was anything romantic about environmental activism or indigenous rights, think twice. Socialist ideas about nature – such as keeping water a public good – can get you facing charges of sabotage by a leftist government. In the land of the Incas, if you protect the pachamama [“Mother World”], you might just be a “terrorist”.
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