Physicist Stephen Hawking’s decision to boycott the annual President’s Conference in Jerusalem this year has been confirmed by Cambridge University. The university initially attempted to deny a political motive and said Hawkings was not going because of his health. It acknowledged the political motive when the Guardian newspaper provided it with a copy of Hawking’s […]
Russia Warns Israel: Hands off Syria, as PFLP threatens Guerrilla Strike
The Iranian press is reporting that Russian President Vladimir Putin has vehemently warned Israel against further airstrikes on Syria. Putin is said to be accelerating shipments of anti-aircraft batteries to Syria. Meanwhile Syrian leader Bashar al-Asad’s decision to permit guerrilla attacks on Israel from Syrian soil was welcomed by the Popular Front for the Liberation […]
Another view of Baghdad: Timelapse Video
Baghdad timelapse
ReOrienting the Veil (Gökariksel)
Banu Gökariksel writes for for ISLAMiCommentary Fatih neighborhood of Istanbul, 2009. photo by Banu Gökarıksel Banu Gökarıksel The veil is a piece of fabric that is politicized like no other. It is the persistent topic of fiery political debates and possibly the most stigmatized, praised, banned, and enforced article of clothing. And it continues to […]
A Million Newborns die the Day they are Born, every Year: Save the Children
Save the Children reports that a million newborns every year die the same day they are born. Most of these babies die of infections and could be treated with inexpensive antibiotics. Video report:
Fisk on Syria and Stenography “Journalism” (Democracy Now! Video)
Veteran Middle East correspondent Robert Fisk is interviewed by Amy Goodman on his experiences in Syria. In the course of the interview, he denounces the increasingly common stenography approach in Western journalism, where articles are written citing unnamed government intelligence analysts and security officials, with no fact-checking and no reporting from the ground:
On how Rightwing Israel-firsters don’t actually like Jews: Glenn Beck’s Nazi Bloomberg
The wingnut psychopathology of Glenn Beck and many other hyper-conservatives doesn’t prevent them from being lionized in the media, turned into millionaires by media corporations, and having their own media (“The Blaze”) taken seriously on television. Meanwhile, we ordinary everyday liberals are considered by the corporate media to be too controversial to put on the […]
Unsustainable: The American Empire Project and the Health of the Planet (Engelhardt)
Tom Engelhardt writes at Tomdispatch.com It stretched from the Caspian to the Baltic Sea, from the middle of Europe to the Kurile Islands in the Pacific, from Siberia to Central Asia. Its nuclear arsenal held 45,000 warheads, and its military had five million troops under arms. There had been nothing like it in Eurasia since the Mongols conquered […]
The Worst Places to be a mother– Save the Children
Save the Children has issued its annual report on mothers and newborns. The best place to be a mother? Finland! The worst? The Congo. Save the Children issued a video on motherhood in Mozambique: The US only ranks 30th, with the worst infant mortality rate in the industrialized world. Every year here, 11,500 newborns die […]