israel is commonly referred to as the Jewish state, but the label may not capture Israel’s rapidly changing demographics. A wave of immigration over the past few decades has created ethnic and religious diversity. Also, some 20 percent of Israelis are Muslims, Christians and other minorities.
Worldfocus special correspondent Michael Greenspan and producers Yuval Lion and Ara Ayer explore Israel’s melting pot.
A local campaign against the government has lead to the destruction of over 400 schools and a long standing way of life.
Al Jazeera’s Kamal Hyder has been given exclusive access to the area and he sends this report.
Afghanistan looms large as a vexing problem whose intractability remains unsolved. Yet this report from National Public Radio seems to suggest that the light is at the end of the tunnel. I’m sure it’s an on-coming train.
CIA-directed airstrikes against al-Qaida leaders and facilities in Pakistan over the past six to nine months have been so successful, according to senior U.S. officials, that it is now possible to foresee a “complete al-Qaida defeat” in the mountainous region along the border with Afghanistan.
The officials say the terrorist network’s leadership cadre has been “decimated,” with up to a dozen senior and midlevel operatives killed as a result of the strikes and the remaining leaders reeling from the repeated attacks.
“The enemy is really, really struggling,” says one senior U.S. counterterrorism official. “These attacks have produced the broadest, deepest and most rapid reduction in al-Qaida senior leadership that we’ve seen in several years.”
Another senior U.S. official described “a significant, significant degradation of al-Qaida command and control in recent months.”
The intelligence reports have been shared with President Barack Obama and underlie his decision to authorize the continued use of unmanned aircraft to launch missile and precision-guided bombs against suspected al-Qaida targets in Pakistan’s border region. One such strike was carried out on Jan. 23, just three days after Obama took office.
The CIA has been using drone aircraft to carry out attacks on suspected al-Qaida and Taliban targets in Pakistan for several years, but such attacks were significantly expanded last summer under orders from President George W. Bush. They also became more lethal, with the CIA for the first time using Reaper drones, an enhanced version of the Predator model used previously. The Reaper is capable of carrying two Hellfire missiles, as well as precision-guided bombs.
Michael Signer is Senior Policy Advisor and Director of the Homeland Security Presidential Transition Initiative, a joint project of the Center for American Progress Action Fund and Third Way.
In 2007-08, he was Senator John Edwards’ foreign policy adviser on his presidential campaign. In this position, he was responsible for all of the campaign’s major foreign policy and national security speeches and statements. He also appeared as a campaign surrogate at major public events in Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina and regularly represented Senator Edwards before print, broadcast, and online media.
In 2005, he was appointed Deputy Counselor to Governor Mark Warner in Richmond, Virginia, where he counseled the governor on a wide variety of criminal, civil, policy, and regulatory matters and was assigned to homeland security and National Guard and Reserve reform policy.
He is also a Democratic candidate for Lt. Governor in Virginia. Learn more at Mike Signer. He holds a Ph.D. in political science from U.C., Berkeley, where he was a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow; a J.D. from the University of Virginia, where he was president of the UVA Law Democrats and co-founder and co-president of the American Constitution Society; and a B.A., magna cum laude, from Princeton University.
I’ll say this, as much as I am sure that he would make a great Lt. Governor of the Commonwealth, his talents deserve a national stage.
In the wake of the war on Gaza, Israel’s election campaign is dominated by one single issue: Israels security.
Benyamin Netanyahu of the Likud party is seeking to garner support by vowing to topple Hamas. Tzipi Livni, his main rival from the Kadima party, is pledging a combination of force and political initiative to achieve peace with Palestinians. Either way, it is a palatable shift to right.
Al Jazeera’s Jonah Hull reports from Jerusalem.
San Francisco is considering banning new smoke shops from opening in the city. Officials say it’s part of an effort to promote a better balance of business in the historic Haight-Ashbury neighborhood.