This mother and child—and this part of Mogadishu—show the toll of the overlapping political, security, and public health crises in Somalia, which have put an immense burden on women and children.
Years marked by conflict, drought, and a profound lack of governance culminated in a massive humanitarian crisis in the second half of 2011, to which MSF responded by expanding its programs in Somalia and for the huge numbers of Somali refugees who sought aid in Kenya and Ethiopia.
Photo: Somalia © Lynsey Addario/VII
Here’s our Fault Lines episode that aired on Al Jazeera on November 28, 2011 on the current crisis and food policy impact in the region.
Source: doctorswithoutborders
Fault Lines: On the Pulse of the Pentagon
The US announced a new military strategy today at a Pentagon briefing. Much of the discussion concerned what could be read as predictable—and cyclic—budget cuts of a post-war drawdown. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta also took pains to mention what wouldn’t feel the fiscal pinch: offensive and defensive cyber security and unmanned systems.
We at Fault Lines have covered and predicted both of these trends.
First with an episode called Cyberwar.
A growing fear of computer hackers—a term encompassing a broad range of entities from digital spy rings to information thieves to cyberarmies of kids, criminals and terrorists (some backed by nation states)—and their potentially massive threat to national security has Washington maneuvering into position to defend its assets from a new style of warfare: one without foot soldiers, guns or missiles. Crucial national infrastructure, high value commercial secrets, tens of billions of dollars in defense contracts—as well as values like privacy and freedom of expression—are at stake.
In this episode of Fault Lines, I enter the domain of “cyber” and speak to a former US national security official turned cybersecurity consultant, a Silicon Valley CEO, a hacker, and those who warn of a growing arms race in cyberspace.
Is the US contributing to the militarisation of cyberspace? Are the reports of cyber threats being distorted by a burgeoning security industry? And are the battles being waged in cyberspace interfering with the Internet as we know it?
Then last week we filed a report titled Robot Wars.
Over the past decade, the US military has shifted the way it fights its wars, deploying more unmanned systems in the battlefield than ever before.
Today there are more than 7,000 drones and 12,000 ground robots in use by all branches of the military.
These systems mean less American deaths and also less political risk for the US when it takes acts of lethal force – often outside of official war zones.
But US lethal drone strikes in countries like Pakistan have brought up serious questions about the legal and political implications of using these systems.Fault Lines looks at how these new weapons of choice are allowing the US to stretch the international laws of war and what it could mean when more and more autonomy is developed for these lethal machines.
Source: joshrushing
AL JAZEERA ENLGISH - INSIDE SYRIA: IS THE ARAB LEAGUE MISSION DOOMED TO FAIL.
How effective is the Arab League mission? Has the Syrian regime managed to continue their heavy handed crackdown on protesters despite Arab League’s presence on the ground? Guests: Elias Hanna; As’ad Abukhalil; and Ahed al-Hendi.
(via aljazeera)
Source: leaveobashar
In November 2011, Al Jazeera’s The Stream did an episode on education protests in Chile.
The protests have continued (the second Minister of Education resigned last week) and here’s our Fault Lines episode on the same topic that aired on Monday.
Here’s the new episode that just aired on Al Jazeera English. Description below.
This is our last episode in this season, and we expect to be back in early spring. We’ll keep you apprised here, on Twitter @ajfaultlines and on our Facebook page.
Chilean students have taken over schools and city streets in the largest protests the country has seen in decades.
These actions are causing a political crisis for the country’s billionaire President, Sebastian Piñera.
The students are demanding free education, and an end to the privatization of their schools and universities. The free-market based approach to education was implemented by the military dictator Augusto Pinochet in his last days in power.
As the demonstrations in Chile coincide with protests erupting globally, Fault Lines follows the Chilean student movement during their fight in a country that is among the most unequal in the world.
This episode of Fault Lines first aired on Al Jazeera English on January 2, 2012 at 2230 GMT.
Source: youtube.com
The promo for our Fault Lines episode today at 2230 GMT/5:30p EST on Al Jazeera English on the frustrated students in Chile who are demanding a fairer education system.
We examine the student movement and the issues behind the anger.
Watch online as we livetweet from @ajfaultlines.
Source: youtube.com
A student is punched in the face by a police officer in Chile. Students in Chile are demanding a new framework for education. (Reuters / VICTOR RUIZ CABALLERO)
See our new Fault Lines episode about this issue tonight at 2230 GMT/ 5:30p EST on Al Jazeera English. You can watch online.
(via ratatwat)
Source: aljazeera.com
“Chile Rising” photos from our new episode that airs Monday, January 2, 2012 at 2230 GMT/ 5:30p EST on Al Jazeera English.
Fault Lines travels to Chile to follow the student protests there, and examines the underlying issues driving the anger.
Chile’s student protest movement claimed its second ministerial victim today when President Sebastian Pinera named Harald Beyer to replace Felipe Bulnes as education minister.
Bulnes took over from Joaquin Lavin in July, a month after the start of protests that shuttered hundreds of state schools and led to almost weekly clashes with police in the streets of Santiago in the second half of the year.
While the scale of protests has subsided, Beyer will face an increasingly radicalized student movement. Earlier this month, University of Chile students ousted Communist Party member Camila Vallejo as president in favor of Gabriel Boric, who advocates a harder line against the government. The protests helped push Pinera’s approval rating to 23 percent, the lowest for any president since the return of democracy two decades ago, according to an opinion poll released today. Pinera also named Luis Mayol as the new agriculture minister today.
“Chile’s Student Protests Claim Their Second Ministerial Victim,” Randall Woods and Sebastian Boyd, Bloomberg, December 29, 2011.
Our new Chile episode about student protests and politics airs next Monday, January 2, 2012 at 2230 GMT/ 5:30p EST on Al Jazeera English.
Source: businessweek.com
It’s Not a UFO, Just a Killer Drone for an Aircraft Carrier
Note to the Navy: When trucking a giant flying robot with a rounded fuselage across the country, people are going to think they’re looking at an artifact from Area 51.
As the local news coverage above shows, residents of Cowley County, Kansas, were freaked out to see a truck rumbling down U.S. 77 towing what looks a whole lot like a 32-foot spaceship. “People were calling in saying, ‘Oh they think they found a flying saucer,’” Donetta Godsey of the Winfield Daily Courier told the ABC News affiliate.
Alas, the cargo wasn’t anything otherworldly. Just a trussed-up, wingless version of the Navy’s futuristic killer drone, the X-47B, which the Navy hopes will one day be the world’s first robot capable of landing on an aircraft carrier. For the past few days, it’s hitched a rather terrestrial ride from California’s Edwards Air Force Base to Patuxent River, Maryland.
“Oh, you mean the UFO?” Brooks McKinney, a spokesman for X-47B manufacturer Northrop Grumman, told Danger Room.
McKinney’s both embarrassed and amused by the UFO confusion. “They effectively shrink-wrapped the rest of the fuselage after taking the wings off the drone for the cross-country trek,” he said. “Because it was 32 feet wide, it could only travel certain hours of the day because we blocked off the road. That led to lots of weird stories, like we had abandoned [the X-47B] on the side of the road.”
- WIRED Danger Room, Spencer Ackerman, December 21, 2011. Link. We interview Spencer Ackerman in our latest episode, “Robot Wars,” that aired on Al Jazeera English this Monday. Full episode on YouTube.
Source: Wired
