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 […]
Israeli Airstrike on Syria ups the Ante, Draws Iran Threats
The Syrian response to Sunday’s Israeli air strike on Damascus, which killed 42, was twofold. Beleagured President Bashar al-Assad announced that soldiers manning the country’s anti-aircraft batteries may now fire at will (the Baath Party system is slow because subalterns have to ask permission for every battle action, and initiative on the ground is usually […]
Alabina, “Habibi ya Nour el Ain” (Music Video)
Some Spanish lyrics, some Arabic. In medieval Arabic poetry this genre was called mulamma`at. Alabina, “Habibi ya Nour el Ain,” rare version As This source points out, “The mulamma’, “patch-work,” or “macaronic” poem, composed in alternate lines or couplets in two or more different languages, has no separate form, and will be more suitably considered […]
China and the Israel-Palestine Conflict: Enter the Dragon?
This video report on China’s new interest in Middle East diplomacy begins by pointing out that the Obama administration has announced a pivot toward Asia (i.e. US interests lie more in the Pacific Rim than the Middle East.). At the same time, China (which dislikes this pivot, fearing it is aimed against Beijing) is moving […]
UN has strong suspicions Syrian Rebels used Sarin Gas
A UN commission unvestigating the situation in Syria has strong, concrete suspicions that Syrian rebels used sarin gas, but does not have firm proof, according to investigator Carla del Ponti. Euronews reports The announcement landed like a bombshell because during the past week Israeli and European officials have levelled the same charge against the Syrian […]