As President-elect Barack Obama focuses on the meltdown of the U.S. economy, another fire is burning: the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. You may not have heard much lately about the disaster in the Gaza Strip. That silence is intentional: The Israeli government has barred international journalists from entering the occupied territory.
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Evo Morales knows about “change you can believe in.” He also knows what happens when a powerful elite is forced to make changes it doesn’t want.
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Alice Walker is the first African-American woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. But Monday, I called her to talk about a true story. The Obamas had just visited the White House. The first African-American elected president of the United States had visited his soon-to-be residence, a house built by slaves.
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Democracy Now! producer Anjali Kamat writes, “To all those for whom America has represented generations of racial injustice, the election of America’s first Black president marks the beginning of a new era…But unless the inspired millions who brought him to power continue to believe their demands matter and insist on holding him accountable each step of the way, it will be Obama’s corporate and hawkish friends who determine the domestic and foreign policies of the coming administration and our collective future.”
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You could almost hear the world’s collective sigh of relief. This year’s U.S. presidential election was a global event in every sense. Barack Hussein Obama, the son of a black Kenyan father and a white Kansan mother, who grew up in Indonesia and Hawaii, represents to so many a living bridge—between continents and cultures.
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The legendary radio broadcaster, writer and oral historian Studs Terkel has died at the age of 96 in Chicago. Over the years Terkel has been a regular guest on Democracy Now!
In 2005, Studs Terkel appeared on Democracy Now! shortly after undergoing open heart surgery. He told Amy Goodman, “My curiosity is what saw me through. What would the world be like, or will there be a world? And so, that’s my epitaph. I have it all set. Curiosity did not kill this cat. And it’s curiosity, I think, that has saved me thus far.”
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Election Day approaches, and with it a test of our election system’s integrity. Who will be allowed to vote; who will be barred? Who will get paper ballots; who will use electronic voting machines? Will polls be open long enough to accommodate what is expected to be a historic turnout?
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The Supreme Court has ruled that the Environmental Protection Agency has the authority to regulate the emission of “greenhouse gases” linked to global warming. In a 5-4 decision, the court ruled that the EPA violated the Clean Air Act by improperly declining to regulate new-vehicle emissions standards to control the pollutants that scientists say contribute to global warming. We speak with New York Times environmental reporter, Andrew Revkin. [includes rush transcript]
The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is set to release a report this Friday that is expected to underline that while global warming is changing physical and biological systems on every continent, Western countries must take extra steps to address the growing “Climate Divide.” We speak with New York Times environmental reporter, Andrew Revkin. [includes rush transcript]
Nearly 400 people have been killed in Somalia since Thursday in what has been described as the worst fighting in the capital of Mogadishu in 15 years. Most of the fighting has been between U.S.-backed Ethiopian troops and Somali fighters allied to the Somali Council of Islamic Courts. The UN is estimating more than 47,000 people have fled Mogadishu since March 21. We speak with Salim Lone, a columnist for the Daily Nation in Kenya and a former spokesperson for the UN mission in Iraq. [includes rush transcript]