In The News

Camera Phones Lend Immediacy to Images of Disaster

Yuki Noguchi July 8, 2005
The invention of camera phones has allowed everyday people to capture images of great political and social significance in an unprecedented way, sometimes beating professional photojournalists to the punch. Several survivors of yesterday's terror attacks in London recorded images of bombed subway cars and fellow victims on their camera phones. Their pictures were broadcast to the world on...

How Africans See the Initiative to Help the Continent

Bashir Goth July 8, 2005
As the G-8 discusses plans to cancel Africa's debt this week, most agree that the world's richest countries can and should aid the ailing continent. In fact, the group agreed to double aid to Africa by 2010. But in the excitement surrounding the G-8 summit, few have asked Africans how they feel about the plan. The answer, supplied by African journalist Bashir Goth, is surprisingly...

Muslim Problem Needs a Muslim Solution

Thomas L. Friedman July 8, 2005
After the terrorist attacks in London yesterday, politicians, journalists, and the public at large began searching for answers, and started thinking about how to prevent future atrocities. Columnist Thomas L. Friedman posits that the best way to counter Islamic terrorism is for the Muslim community to publicly speak out against extremists. One of the greatest potential dangers of extremist...

The True Face of Terror in London and Baghdad

Michael Glackin July 8, 2005
While governments and the media often proclaim that terrorism has no face, the innocent Londoners whose lives were destroyed by Thursday's indiscriminate attacks provided a daunting image of the violence. These bombings, targeting the "ordinary people," are especially perturbing given the tolerance Londoners have shown towards myriad racial groups, nationalities, and religions,...

Nagasaki 1945: While Independents Were Scorned, Embed Won Pulitzer

Mark Selden July 7, 2005
Sixty years after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, some newly disclosed journalistic accounts offer a unique insight into wartime press controls. A copy of Chicago Daily News reporter George Weller's dispatches, which were stopped in 1945 by US military censors, has recently been uncovered by his son. Both Weller and another reporter had documented the atrocities in post-...

Africa Needs an Al-Jazeera

Philip Fiske de Gouveia July 6, 2005
The spotlight on Africa of late has focused on many laudable goals: sustainable development, debt relief, disease prevention and control, and reining in governmental corruption. But promoting democracy and permanently establishing open and honest government, Philip Fiske de Gouveia writes, is inherently linked to a feature which most Africa nations still lack: a free press. The overwhelming...

Angst of a Stagnating Germany

Dominic Sachsenmaier July 5, 2005
In the midst of fierce debate concerning the future of the EU, German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder's call for a September election has opened a national discussion about the future of Germany. Since the unification of East and West Germany, the economy of the formerly prosperous welfare state has stagnated. Already high jobless rates are intensified by competition with low-wage foreign...