This episode of Al Jazeera Fault Lines, “Horn of Africa Crisis: Drought Zone” aired last night at 2230 GMT/ 5:30p EST.
The worst drought in sixty years has thrown more than 13 million people across the Horn of Africa into crisis.
In Kenya, those already living in the greatest precarity have been pushed even closer to the edge.
In the arid lands, deadly inter-tribal conflict is escalating as pastoralists compete over increasingly scarce resources, as climate change accelerates drought cycles.
As weather patterns become increasingly unpredictable, small scale farmers are struggling to grow enough food.
And in Nairobi’s poorest neighborhoods, residents are reduced to eating one meal a day, as the price of food spirals out of reach.
As world leaders discuss climate policy in Durban, Fault Lines travels through Kenya’s drought zone. In the second part of a two-part series, we ask how US policies intersect with drought and hunger, and how the United States is responding to the emergency in the Horn of Africa.
All episodes of Al Jazeera Fault Lines are on YouTube here.
Source: youtube.com
Thanks for a great summer season
The Al Jazeera Fault Lines team is now out on the road interviewing and deep in research for our next season.
We return in late November with six episodes and then we’ll back in early spring 2012.
You can watch all eight episodes and clips from this summer on our YouTube channel page.
We’ll be posting occasionally until November here on Tumblr, on Twitter (@AJFaultLines), and on our Facebook page.
And we’ll be tweeting from the road; this is our staff Twitter list. Zeina and Elizabeth are in Iowa right now, so let us know with a tweet or reblog if there’s a deep-fried Twinkie stand they need to try between interviews.
We really appreciate your support over the season, and while we may not answer right away, we read every message you send to our Ask page.
See you in November and sporadically around here too.
Our Live Blog brings you the latest updates, images and video from the UK riots.
Source: blogs.aljazeera.net
I’ve got two posts about Bahrain today. The first is this excellent hour-long Al Jazeera documentary “Bahrain: Shouting in the Dark.”
Bahrain: An island kingdom in the Arabian Gulf where the Shia Muslim majority are ruled by a family from the Sunni minority. Where people fighting for democratic rights broke the barriers of fear, only to find themselves alone and crushed.
This is their story and Al Jazeera is their witness - the only TV journalists who remained to follow their journey of hope to the carnage that followed.
This is the Arab revolution that was abandoned by the Arabs, forsaken by the West and forgotten by the world.
Source: whatescapes
Al Jazeera English’s new documentary, Bahrain: Shouting in the Dark, will air tonight and looks to be an absolute must-watch. (For those of us not fortunate enough to have Al Jazeera hosted on our cable, we have live streaming options via LiveStation. It’ll also no doubt be uploaded online quickly.) The Telegraph says that the documentary also reveals the Bahraini government’s use of social media sites to their own advantage, and to find activists like twenty-year-old Ayat Al-Qurmezi, whom they arrested.
And here’s more on how to watch Al Jazeera online.
(via theatlantic)
Source: youtube.com
The richest 1% of US Americans earn nearly a quarter of the country’s income and control an astonishing 40% of its wealth. Inequality in the US is more extreme than it’s been in almost a century — and the gap between the super rich and the poor and middle class people has widened drastically over the last 30 years.
Meanwhile, in Washington, a bitter partisan debate over how to cut deficit spending and reduce the US’ 14.3 trillion dollar debt is underway. As low and middle class wages stagnate and unemployment remains above 9%, Republicans and Democrats are tussling over whether to slash funding for the medical and retirement programs that are the backbone of the US’s social safety net, and whether to raise taxes — or to cut them further.
The budget debate and the economy are the battleground on which the 2012 presidential election race will be fought. And the United States has never seemed so divided — both politically and economically.
How did the gap grow so wide, and so quickly? And how are the convictions, campaign contributions and charitable donations of the top 1% impacting the other 99% of Americans? Fault Lines investigates the gap between the rich and the rest.
This episode of Fault Lines first aired on Al Jazeera English on August 2, 2011 at 0930 GMT.
Thoughts?
![aljazeera:
Rebel fighters make a rocket launcher from steel pipes, in a workshop in Zintan, on July 30, 2011 [AFP]](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lp6xj3D5z51qggs77o1_1280.jpg)
Rebel fighters make a rocket launcher from steel pipes, in a workshop in Zintan, on July 30, 2011 [AFP]
Source: blogs.aljazeera.net
Presenter Zeina Awad describes the challenge of interviewing subjects on the topic of their personal wealth in this video extra from the upcoming episode of Al Jazeera Fault Lines.
“We knocked on so many doors…and no one would talk to us.”
The new episode of Fault Lines, “The Top 1%,” first airs on Al Jazeera English August 1, 2011 at 2230 GMT.
What “life” in prison really means…
The Washington Post has a front page (at least on their iPad version) review of a new documentary called “Serving Life” that airs tonight on the Oprah Winfrey Network. From the trailer, it looks really good. It’s such a tough, but important issue. I filmed a similar story last year (above) called “Dying Inside” with producer, Jeremy Young, and cinematographer, Snorre Wik. We gained access to eight prisons in three states: Oklahoma, Pennsylvania and New York. We interviewed one prisoner who was 100 years old (he has since passed away); gained exclusive access to an entire wing dedicated to inmates with Alzheimers; and witnessed sincere and surprising acts of compassion. Here are a few photos from the journey:
Inmate staring out of his cell at the Dick Conner Correctional Facility, Oklahoma.
Convicted child molester at James Crabtree Correctional Facility, Oklahoma.
Elderly Inmates are often victimized by younger, stronger prisoners. Inmates inside Dick Conner Correctional Facility, Oklahoma.
Inmates at Dick Conner Correctional Facility, Oklahoma.
Mary Rowe: convicted murderer, one-time prison escapee, grandmother and published poet. Mabel Bassett Correctional Facility, Oklahoma.
Inmate, Joseph Harp Correctional Facility.
Stroke victim and inmate, Bobby Moore. Dick Conner Correctional Facility, Oklahoma.
Inmate with Alzheimer’s in Fishkill Correctional Facility, New York. Often when I take a photo of someone I will show them their image on the screen on the back of my camera. The first inmate I did that with in the Alzheimer’s wing got very upset because he didn’t recognize himself. I believe it was partially because of the disease, but also because there are no mirrors allowed in the facility, so he hadn’t seen his reflection in nearly thirty years and didn’t realize how the decades had effected his appearance.
Willie Prenell. Convicted of first degree murder in 1977. He’s spent most of his life in prison for killing his friend Kieth Thompson in Oklahoma City.
Inmate watching the sunset from the yard at James Crabtree Correctional Facility, Oklahoma.
Source: joshrushing
All photos by Jeremy R. Young from this Flickr set for Monday’s new Fault Lines episode, “The US and the New Middle East: The Gulf” at 2230 GMT (6:30p EST).
Source: flickr.com
