Story Archives - Page 591 of 661

Heartbreak Hotel in Gaza

Remi Kanazi August 22, 2005 Remi Kanazi

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, military man gone peace-loving hippy, is unilaterally "disengaging" from the Gaza Strip. The hardships Israel is enduring are plastered all over the television, play by play. Scenes of Israeli soldiers, emotionally and physically struggling to remove the 8500 settlers from the Gaza Strip is displayed while CNN anchors utter soft, shocked words in the background. Images of Israeli soldiers painstakingly carry flailing settlers who are protesting the move. Their government once spent billions to protect and contain the animosity of 8500 people who once turned to them for help. But as the old saying goes, you break the law, you pay the price.

Palestine: A Tale of Two Families

Mneesha Gellman August 18, 2005 Mneesha Gellman

In June, 2005 I visited the Hope Flowers School in the town of Al Khadr, located in the West Bank territory of the Middle East occupied by Israel, also known as Palestine. Six kilometers outside of Bethlehem, the school implements a peace and democracy curriculum and was developed in response to the high level of violence the region has experienced. I interviewed two peace activists whose stories highlight the different realities the 1948 establishment of the state of Israel created for Jews and Muslims.

Global Notebook 8-17-05

Super User August 17, 2005 Super User

GLOBAL

UK to test RFID-tagged license plates

LONDON – Tracking of vehicles with radio frequency identification (RFID) tags on licenses is about to be tested in Great Britain, and the U.S. government and businesses are watching closely as they consider the idea, Wired magazine reported last week. The high-tech license plates will contain microchips capable of transmitting unique vehicle identification numbers and other data to readers more than 300 feet away.

"We definitely have an interest in testing an RFID-tagged license plate," said Jerry Dike, chairman of the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators and director of the Vehicle Titles and Registration Division of the Texas Department of Transportation. read more

Anything but the Truth: The Art of Managing Perceptions

Greg Guma August 17, 2005 Greg Guma

In The Secret Man, Bob Woodward's new book about his Watergate source Deep Throat, he notes, "Washington politics and secrets are an entire world of doubt." Even though Woodward knew that the identity of his source was W. Mark Felt, then associate director of the FBI, what he could never be sure about was why Felt decided to gradually reveal the details of the Nixon administration's illegal activities. Three decades later, the Bush administration has made it immeasurably more difficult to be sure about what motivates many sources of information - both on and off the record - or trust that what we learn from the media will turn out to be true.

Keys to Understanding Bolivia: An Interview with Oscar Olivera

Claudia Acuña August 16, 2005 Claudia Acuña

Win the elections and arrive at a Constitutional Assembly that changes the roots of the power structure in Bolivia: such is the proposal of Oscar Olivera, a leader of the country's recent social struggles. He supports, with much criticism, Evo Morales' bid for presidency. "It's important to avoid a transition with deaths," he said, although suggested that the crisis will be defined by force. The conflict with Evo in an assembly I attended, demonstrated how, in this climate, the present and future is decided. It is ten o'clock in the morning and in Cochabamba, Bolivia it is the hour to decide the future. On the second floor of the Federacion de Fabriles (the National Fabric Workers Union) there are some two hundred men and a handful of women listening attentively to the words of Evo Morales. Meanwhile, voices from the streets reach the meeting, repeating this phrase: "the people united"

Media Reform in Post-Jennings Era at Disney/ABC?

Bob Feldman August 15, 2005 Bob Feldman

As 1960s U.S. antiwar activist Bill Ayers recalled in his 2001 book Fugitive Days, at the time of the October 1967 anti-war march on the Pentagon, the recently-deceased anchor of Disney/ABC's World News Tonight show, Peter Jennings, was the boyfriend of Diana Oughton's sister, Christina Oughton. [Diana Oughton would later perish in the March 1970 West Village Townhouse explosion that killed her and two other members of the Weatherman faction of Students for a Democratic Society]: