USA
A decade of wrong decisions and damaging policies
Watch the event here. By Sara Elizabeth Williams The West’s reaction to 9/11 was excessive and misguided, wrongly influenced by hubris, hysteria and ignorance. Ten years on, we are still mired in a mess largely of our own making. Last night’s First Wednesday Special: Changing world – conflict, culture and terrorism in the 21st century, which […]
A Q&A with Julian Assange (part II): on Lockerbie, copycat leaks sites, and protecting whistleblowers
Yesterday WikiLeaks editor Julian Assange was awarded the Sydney Peace Prize gold medal for Peace with Justice at the Frontline Club. You can read our report of events here. After Assange gave his acceptance speech, there was time for a question and answer session. He spoke in depth in reponse to many questions, giving insight […]
Wikileaks and the embassy cables: media coverage
I’m afraid I might not be able to look at the latest Wikileaks release of U.S. embassy cables in too much detail as I’m scrambling to finish up my PhD thesis. If, for some reason, you want my thoughts on Wikileaks I wrote a couple of blog posts on the organisation last month – ‘Some […]
Medal of Honor awarded to Korengal valley soldier
The video below describes the story of America’s first living recipient of the Medal of Honor since the Vietnam war. Staff Sgt. Sal Giunta was awarded the United States highest military honour for rescuing a captured colleague in the Korengal valley, Afghanistan. The Sal Giunta Story from Sebastian Junger on Vimeo. Meanwhile according to Militaryblogging.com, […]
The U.S. Navy’s social media manual and (not) “flattening communications”
The U.S. Navy has produced a social media handbook including guidance for sailors and Navy personnel as well as a section for commanders. In the introduction, the Navy’s Chief of Information, Denis Moynihan, suggests the manual is necessary because "the rapid growth of social media platforms and technologies have flattened and democratized the communications […]
News from America, 130-year old
There was a beautiful Azerbaijani newspaper Akinchi (The Cultivator) published between 1875 and 1877. So what did The Cultivator wrote about America then? Below are some excerpts published in Aynur Bashirli’s In a Spotlight of Free Press: New York Times about Azerbaijan and translated here by me.
Whitehouse.gov launches blog as Barack Obama is sworn in as President
So change has come to America. And change has come to the White House website. The new administration has launched a Presidential blog. It will ‘serve as a place for the President and his administration to connect with the rest of the nation and the world’. No promises that the President will be doing the […]
Hillary’s Comeback
It would make a great film, but it makes an even better story: the wife of a former president, humiliated by his philandering and lies in office, is poised to succeed him, and in the process become the first female head of state in the world’s sole superpower. The resurrection of Hillary Clinton from embattled […]
Media Talk: US Elections
Will the war on terror cost George W. Bush his majority in congress? What would that mean for the world?
Join us as we discuss the likely effects of the November 7 mid-term elections in the US on the Bush administration’s foreign policy.