by Karin Leukefeld*
(16 March 2024) (CH-S) Karin Leukefeld – one of the few independent Western journalists in the region – describes the inhumane situation in Gaza in precise words. She repeatedly gives the floor to directly affected civilians whom she knows personally. Her report from the beginning of March is stirring and extremely informative.
by Ruy Barbosa
(9 March 2024) The “Julius-Nyerere-Dam” in Tanzania is practically completed and is due to start generating electricity these days. The new dam is a genuine pan-African project. The construction costs of 2.9 billion US dollars were financed entirely by the Tanzanian government, and the dam on the Rufiji River was built as part of a partnership between two Egyptian companies: the state-owned “Arab Contractors” and “El-Sewedy Electric”.
Interview by Chris Hedges* with Ilan Pappé**
(29 February 2024) Israeli historian Ilan Pappé reframes ‘the only democracy in the Middle East’ as a colonising force that is inherently undemocratic due to its necessary subjugation of Palestinians.
Israel’s status as a bona fide democracy is often taken to be a self-evident truth, but a more critical look at the history and reality of Zionism calls this into question. After all, how can a democracy exist in a country constitutionally defined as an ethno state that can only exist through the suppression and gradual elimination of its Others?
Israeli historian Ilan Pappé joins The Chris Hedges Report for a discussion on Israel as an inherently colonial, and therefore anti-democratic, project.
by Guy Mettan,* Geneva
(29 February 2024) A blind angle in the global media for decades, the African continent has become fascinating to observe since the Covid crisis because mind-blowing events are constantly happening there and there is a kind of confusing excitement that is difficult to decipher, but very exhilarating.
by Robert Seidel
(23 February 2024) The opinion that “elites” or “experts”, plutocrats, “blue bloods” or “global young leaders” can make better decisions per se than the public has proven to be a mistake time and again. The current wars are planned, initiated, waged, or “merely” tolerated by small elite circles who think they know better. This is a mockery of every human being and every democracy – after all, in the nuclear age, everyone is affected by these decisions. It is a fatal mistake to want to rely on the “common sense” of these elites these days.
by M. K. Bhadrakumar,* India
(16 February 2024) The diplomatic recognition of the Taliban government in Afghanistan on January 31, 2024 by China must be bracketed with two other far-reaching regional policy moves by Beijing in the post-cold war era – the Shanghai Five in 1996 – later renamed as Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) in 2001– and the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) announced by President Xi Jinping in 2013.