An exclusive Newsweek interview with the wife of Dr. Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi, the suicide bomber in Afghanistan who killed himself and 7 CIA agents, reveals a chilling anti-American sentiment. During the interview, Defne Bayrak, 31, spent more than an hour at the offices of NEWSWEEK Türkiye in Istanbul talking about her husband and his […]
Because Iranian director Bahman Ghobadi uses non-actor children in this movie, the viewer is given a sense of watching a documentary. The film takes place in Iraqi Kurdistan near the border with Turkey. It is set right before the American invasion in 2003. One of the main characters is called Satellite because he sets up […]
Of the seven new films reviewed in this space in the past year, the best by far is “Sin Nombre”. It is a harrowing tale of desperation and consequences. The movie follows the lives of a Honduran woman named Sayra who rides on top of trains hoping to reach Texas through Mexico and Casper (a.k.a. […]
2009 was an unusually dramatic year in the journalism world. But not because of ongoing corporate changes, which translated as the further downsizing of media companies. Lost jobs and denigrated institutional memory at major news outlets was an important part of what happened to reporters and their kin in the past year. However, the most […]
This film is solid. Not amazing, not incredible, but solid. It is about newly elected South African President Nelson Mandela and his relationship with the country’s rugby team captain. Mandela (played by Morgan Freeman) understands that post-apartheid South Africa needs to rally – black and white – behind a common cause. And that cause is […]
At first glance, this is a classic science fiction film. However, it is much more. “District 9” is a study in xenophobia and intolerance. Stranded on Earth, aliens are confined to a ghetto in modern South Africa. The suspicion of and hostility toward the aliens is reminiscent of the attitudes held by many whites about […]
Danny Schechter does his best to dissect the mainstream media’s treatment of the approach to war with Iraq in 2003. By poring over hundreds of broadcasts, it is Schechter’s conclusion that the mainstream media merely regurgitates what the government feeds them. However, that is not the case worldwide. [kml_flashembed movie=”http://www.youtube.com/v/kVrobidTnoo” width=”425″ height=”350″ wmode=”transparent” /] Take […]
The Committee to Protect Journalists reported earlier this week that two prominent journalists, Hengameh Shahidi and Saeed Laylaz were sentenced to extended prison terms of up to six yeas and three months, and no less than 9 years respectively, after being arrested earlier this year. Shahidi, who is an adviser to defeated presidential candidate Mehdi […]
Following the shocking, graphic, and horrific accounts of the murders of dozens of people in late November in the Philippines–31 of whom were journalists–advocacy groups are rallying for justice. The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) is calling for a global day of solidarity for the 31 journalists murdered in the Philippines. The Global Day of […]
This documentary focuses on three young men – Daniel, John, and Panther – who escaped civil war in their native Sudan. In the late 1980s, as many as 27,000 young men – known as “The Lost Boys” – trekked across the desert into Ethiopia. When that government failed they were forced to walk again, this […]
In late November 2008, 10 armed Pakistani men – little more than boys – went on a killing spree in the Indian city of Mumbai. Members of Lashkar-e-Taiba, or “Army of the Righteous,” the youths carried out the attacks in order to spur the “liberation” of Muslims living under Indian rule in Kashmir. Fareed Zakaria, […]
The Washington Post once again parades its profound ignorance of the European Union in an editorial reacting to the appointment of new EU leaders in Brussels. Starting with the ultra-hackneyed, apocryphal cliché about Henry Kissinger supposedly wanted a single telephone number for Europe (he didn’t), the Post announces that after eight years of labor, European […]
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