Ian Cobain and Richard Norton-Taylor at the UK Guardian reported earlier this week that the widely heralded 2010 announcement of a British government official inquiry into UK torture is facing a boycott by British human rights and attorney groups. The reason is undue secrecy. [British Prime Minister] Cameron also made clear that the sort of [...]
Jordan’s King Abdullah II and his new government appear to be racing the clock to begin enacting political and economic reforms before the largely peaceful street demonstrations turn ugly. Whether his proposed reforms will be seen by the people as going far enough, and whether he can light a fire under his government to actually [...]
One of the great publicity coups in WikiLeaks’ recent release of classified military documents relating to the majority of the 779 prisoners held at Guantánamo, as I explained in the first part of this five-part series, was to shine a light on the stories of the first 201 prisoners to be freed from the prison [...]
In May 2008, in a submission to the 48th Session of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child (PDF), the Pentagon claimed that it had only held eight juveniles — those under the age of 18 when their alleged crimes took place — during the life of the Guantánamo Bay prison. This, however, [...]
The world countries are competing with each other in imposing new financial sanctions against Iran. While the Iranian people still hasn’t forgotten the bitter memory of 8-year war with the Baathist Iraq which was masterminded and fostered by the United States and its European allies, new rounds of crippling sanctions directed against the most strategic [...]
Since the beginning of the Arab Spring – starting with the unrest in Tunisia in early January – questions have been raised about the role of women in the uprisings across North Africa and the Middle East. Photography of demonstrations in Egypt’s Tahrir Square reveals the presence of women of all ages. The same appears [...]
Amid the anger that has erupted in Syria following the publication of images of the battered face of 13-year-old Hamza al-Khateeb, Human Rights Watch (HRW) has released a chilling new report detailing the brutality of Syrian security forces in the Syrian city of Daraa. “For more than two months now, Syrian security forces have been [...]
Unless you were in a coma the past few years, you probably know who Charlie Sheen, Lindsay Lohan, and Paris Hilton are. You heard about them on radio, saw them on television. You read about them in newspapers and magazines, on Facebook, Twitter, and every social medium known to mankind. Because of extensive media coverage, [...]
The latest garbage spewing hate as it circles the Internet in a viral state of panic continues a three year smear against Barack Obama. The attacks had begun with the extreme right wing spitting out Obama’s full name—Barack HUSSEIN Obama, as if somehow he wasn’t an American but connected to the Iraqi dictator who, despite [...]
George Katsiaficas is a renowned university professor, sociologist, author and activist. He is a visiting American Professor of Humanities and Sociology at Chonnam National University, Gwangju, South Korea where he teaches and does research on the 1980s and 1990s East Asian uprisings. Katsiaficas has a Ph.D. of sociology from the University of California, San Diego. [...]
