Vietnam

By Marwan Bishara in Imperium on August 4th, 2010

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Photo by EPA

Surprise, surprise ... the US government did not tell the whole truth, yet again, about its war conduct, and indeed misled the public about the true record of the war.
 
I personally have not met anyone who has been shocked by the revelations in the documents published by WikiLeaks, but many are surprised - not so much by the novelty of it all, but rather by the mundane repetition of more of the same deception.
 
It is déjà vu all over again. Governments lie, especially about war and violence.

By Gregg Carlstrom in Business on May 22nd, 2010
Al Jazeera

Human Rights Watch put out a statement yesterday calling for the Egyptian government to drop charges against a blogger, Amr Gharbeia, accused of what the organization calls "bogus" crimes. Those sorts of press releases are remarkably common: Over the last 12 months, HRW has called for the release of bloggers and online activists from Vietnam, Syria, Iran, and dozens of other countries.

New media - particularly blogs and, more recently, Twitter - have certainly helped to revolutionize political speech.

By John Terrett in Americas on January 26th, 2010
Photo by EPA
We're witnessing round two of the spat between China and Google.
 
Two weeks after the California based search giant threatened to pull out of the country after finding emails of political activists had been pried into, Beijing is hitting back. 
 
On Monday, the ministry of information said: "Any accusation that the Chinese government participated in cyber attacks, either in an explicit or indirect way, is groundless and aims to discredit China."
 
It comes just days after Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, called on Beijing to investigate sophisticated cyber-spying and make its findings known. 
By David Chater in Asia on December 1st, 2009
Photo by GALLO/GETTY

Biting into another Oreo made in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, I cannot escape that uncomfortable feeling I’ve lived through this moment before.

I'm sitting in much more comfortable circumstances than usual: a room in the 5-star Serena Hotel in the centre of Kabul, watching the outpourings of the cable channels across the world as President Obama’s moment of history approaches.

I began my career in journalism just as the war in Vietnam was ending. The images of that debacle - which only with hindsight now seems inevitable - did much to propel me into a career as a television correspondent and a check-in to the world’s conflict zones.

In the opening stages of the civil war in Sri Lanka I was staying in the Hotel Oberoi as the bloody pogroms against the Tamils were underway on the streets of Colombo.

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