It took three months of hunger strike before decision was reached  to release the Palestinians soccer player held without trial and without charges In this affair the state of Israel scored an own goal.

by Adam Keller
This week – to be precise, the fifth of June,  2012 – marks the 45th birthday of the occupation. An occupation which already lasts for more than two-thirds of Israel's entire existence. Forty-five years of military rule which the State of Israel maintains over millions of Palestinians who did not choose this government and do not want to live under it, but which the State of Israel decided to impose on them against their will, throwing in jail those who oppose the Israeli rule imposed on them.

The music was momentous and appropriate, the gowns flowing and scholarly.

Faculty members marched in procession, led by a man holding a ceremonial mace.

by Luke Hiken
I Don’t Remember:
 
            1) Voting to wage war against every Muslim nation that is not a pawn of U.S. capital.
 
            2) Voting to support the use of unmanned drones as murder weapons against civilian populations.
 
            3) Voting to characterize corporations as “people” for purposes of buying elections, and destroying whatever vestiges of democracy that might have existed in the U.S.

by Imran Khan

Flags belonging to Bahrain and the Lebanese group, Hezbollah flutter gently as the crowd take their places.

The men, from all hues of Iranian society, wash themselves. It's a ritual common to all Muslims, a physical purification, in readiness for a spiritual message.

by Lisa Goldman

Last Monday, a mob of Beitar Jerusalem football fans rioted at the Malcha Shopping Center. Notorious for their racism, the fans’ chants often include “MAH-vet l’araVEEM” – death to Arabs; this can be heard in the amateur video below, starting from 2:36.

Is the USA still #1? Well, there are many things that America is still the best in the world at, but unfortunately a lot of those categories are nothing to be proud of. Once upon a time the United States was the greatest nation on earth, but now we are a nation that is in a horrific state of decline. Just consider a few of the embarrassing things that America leads the world in: obesity, crime, divorce, teen pregnancy, child abuse deaths and government debt.

America

By Alan Fisher

It is just six days to the Iowa caucus, the first real test of the seven Republicans hoping to win their party’s presidential nomination for the 2012 election.

Karl Rove, the man who masterminded George Bush’s election victories, has described the current battle for the heart of the Republican party as “the most unpredictable, rapidly shifting, and often downright inexplicable primary race I’ve ever witnessed”.

By John Terrett

Millions of Americans are facing a bleak holiday new year as they wait to hear if the banks will foreclose on their homes.

By Khalid Amayreh

They call you terrorists and other nasty names; but as far as we are concerned, you are our ultimate heroes.

Your sacrifices, self-abnegation and patriotism enabled us to live and be steadfast as well as survive the nefarious onslaught by the falsifiers of history, the world's greatest thieves.

By Teymoor Nabili

The New York Times has decided that the Iran angle is the most significant element of the latest WikiLeaks package.

By Imran Khan

I have just finished reading a terrifying document. It's called 2083: A European declaration of Independence. 

It's full of advice for the budding Christian martyr. Handy tips on how to build bombs and make poisons; on how to use video games to hone your shooting skills.

By Imran Khan

The last time I wrote about this city was in 2004.

The opening line was: "Behind the new and grand facades lay the hints of a bloody and violent past".

By Prerna Suri

"I can't believe this is happening again," my friend Radhika tells me over the phone, as I ask her how she's doing.

She's usually a stoic person, a hardened journalist who's been living in Mumbai for years. She's seen and lived through bomb blasts, communal riots - even floods. But the serial blasts on the evening of July 13, 2011 has brought back painful memories of November 26, 2008. And they've softened my tough friends' guard.

by Lawrence Davidson

One of the problems with operating a blog that deals with U.S. foreign policy (among other issues) is that it is often hard to keep up.  From the perspective of those who see that the emperor wears no clothes, stupidity and hypocrisy appear almost daily. Take the piece pasted below which has just appeared via Reuters. To be brief, it shows the U.S. State Department once more taking the "let's blame the victim" stance necessited by the fact that the real culprits are the Israelis. As a consequence our government now threatens fines and imprisonment to those who dare defy Israel's illegal blockade in order to bring humanitarian aid to 1.5 million people who have been systematically reduced to despair. Yet again the term "proud to be an American" is confirmed as a very bad joke.

Here's how the President, the media and Wall Street would spin it

What would all the world's experts and authorities say today if the Titanic were sinking but nobody was willing to admit it? The U.S. economy, after all, is sinking and taking on an unprecedented volume of water (i.e. debt), yet virtually no one is willing to admit the obvious fact that this ship is sinking. And much like with the Titanic, most "experts" continue to claim the U.S. economy is unsinkable, despite the obvious evidence that we might want to start heading for the life rafts.

Titanic

By Ayse Alibeyoglu

If Recep Tayyip Erdogan's Justice and Development Party (AKP) wins a landmark third term in office, all eyes will be on the Turkish prime minister's next step.

The House just passed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), including a provision to authorize worldwide war, which has no expiration date and will allow this president — and any future president — to go to war anywhere in the world, at any time, without further congressional authorization. The new authorization wouldn’t even require the president to show any threat to the national security of the United States. The American military could become the world’s cop, and could be sent into harm’s way almost anywhere and everywhere around the globe.

US House | Worldwide War

By Teymoor Nabili

I was presenting the news on Al Jazeera English on Tuesday, as Binyamin Netanyahu was speaking to the US congress in Washington, DC.

By Teymoor Nabili

The New York Times columnist Paul Krugman once remarked: