News Middle East
www.english.aljazeera.net

An Iraqi journalist arrested after throwing his shoes at the US president has been tortured during his detention, his brother has said.

Muntazer al-Zaidi, who called George Bush "a dog" during his attack, was beaten by security guards after his arrest, Durgham al-Zaidi told Al Jazeera on Tuesday.

"We know that [Muntazer] has been tortured and his hand was broken. I asked them to go and check on him in the Green Zone [in Baghdad]," he said.

by Ramzy Baroud

by Pablo Ouziel

This post is addressed to the fans of Roller Derby,

by Rory O'Connor

by Jim Miles

Two recent events have prompted the ideas behind this article – in truth, the whole history of recent events have prompted the following comments, but it is two in particular that gave the push to write them down.

by Danny Schechter.

No One Escapes the Greeders: Tears for the Rich, Contempt for the Poor

By Ramzy Baroud

It’s incomprehensible that a region such as the Gaza Strip, so rich with history, so saturated with defiance, can be reduced to a few blurbs, sound bites and reductionist assumptions, convenient but deceptive, vacant of any relevant meaning, or even true analytical value.

The fact is that there is more to the Gaza Strip than 1.5 million hungry Palestinians, who are supposedly paying the price for Hamas’s militancy, or Israel’s ‘collective punishment’, which ever way the media decide to brand the problem.

by Dahr Jamail
December 15th, 2008 | Extra! The Magazine of FAIR

The New York Times failed spectacularly in its coverage of Iraq’s alleged weapons of mass destruction, helping lead the country into war and only much later (5/26/04) publishing a half-hearted mea culpa. As the near-apology acknowledged, the paper’s failure resulted in large part from its lack of skepticism regarding its sources, most notably exiled Iraqi politician Ahmed Chalabi.

by Maria Tomchick & Geov Parrish
www.EatTheState.org

Welcome to our 13th annual selection of the year’s most over-hyped and underreported stories, separated into local and global categories. With the news business, especially newspapers, undergoing a not-very-slow collapse, and hard news coverage usually the first victim of tightening budgets, there was more underreported news than ever this year. Fear not, however. America’s addiction to trivial distractions can withstand any assault from economic hardship–or from reality.

2008’s Most Over-Hyped Stories

Global

by Norman Solomon.

Now in their seventeenth year, the P.U.-litzer Prizes recognize some of the nation’s stinkiest media performances. As the judges for these annual awards, we do our best to identify the most deserving recipients of this unwelcome plaudit.

And now, the P.U.-litzers Prizes for 2008:

HOT FOR OBAMA PRIZE — MSNBC’s Chris Matthews

By Ramzy Baroud

The United States, Russia and China are sending a terrible message to the rest of the world by refusing to take part in the historic signing of a treaty that bans the production and use of cluster bombs. In a world that is plagued by war, military occupation and terrorism, the involvement of the great military powers in signing and ratifying the agreement would have signaled – if even symbolically - the willingness of these countries to spare civilians’ unjustifiable deaths and the lasting scars of war.

From December 14, 2008 through January 5, 2009, tens of thousands of volunteers throughout the Americas will take part in an adventure that has become a family tradition among generations. Families and students, birders and scientists, armed with binoculars, bird guides and checklists will head out on an annual mission - often before dawn. For over one hundred years, the desire to both make a difference and to experience the beauty of nature has driven dedicated people to leave the comfort of a warm house in the middle of winter.

by John Ross

MEXICO CITY (Dec. 12th) - At first Lucia Morett couldn't make out where she was and what had woken her up in the pitch-black jungle dark. Then the Mexican graduate student remembered. She reached for her schoolmate Veronica Velazquez's hand but Vero was not there. She would never be there again.

Source: CNN, December 9, 2008

by Agence France Press.

CHICAGO (AFP) — The Tribune Co., owner of the Los Angeles Times, The Chicago Tribune and other dailies, filed for bankruptcy, in the latest blow to a newspaper industry reeling from a drop in advertising and the rise of online media.

The Chicago-based company said it was forced to seek bankruptcy protection Monday ecause of a sharp drop in revenue and a 13-billion-dollar debt load but has enough cash to sustain operations while it restructures.

by Norman Solomon

Sunday morning, before dawn, I read in the New York Times that “the Pentagon is planning to add more than 20,000 troops to Afghanistan” within the next 18 months — “raising American force levels to about 58,000″ in that country. Then I scraped ice off a windshield and drove to the C-SPAN studios, where a picture window showed a serene daybreak over the Capitol dome.

While I was on C-SPAN’s “Washington Journal” for a live interview, the program aired some rarely seen footage with the voices of two courageous politicians who challenged the warfare state.

12/5/08

(Watch clip on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27PNuaDAeVk)
(Watch Keith Olbermann response to New York Times floating of the original story: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjZ8vgvbM1s&NR=1)

In an attempt to explain the plight of the Big Three U.S. automobile manufacturers, ABC's World News used a wildly misleading statistic regarding autoworkers' pay.

December 4, 2008

MEDIA ALERT: CAN THIS BE TRUE? GEORGE MONBIOT CHALLENGES MEDIA LENS ON HYPOCRISY

The Guardian columnist, George Monbiot, posted the following on our website message board yesterday:

“Can this be true?

http://dissident93.wordpress.com/2008/11/28/medialens-monbiot-wilby-miln...

“If so, I think I have reason to feel aggrieved.”

Blindman's Buff #231
by JOHN ROSS

MEXICO CITY (Dec. 2nd) - The fiery November 4th crash of a private Lear jet here not a mile from Los Pinos, the Mexican White House, that killed President Felipe Calderon's closest collaborator Interior Secretary Juan Camilo Mourino was largely buried by the U.S. press, coming as it did on Election Day USA and the subsequent eruption of Obamamania.