International

"Big Shopping Malls" and "No Humanitarian Crisis in Gaza"

by Steve Horn — July 26, 2010 - 3:30pm
  • Topics: Journalism, Human Rights, International, Media, Propaganda, Public Relations

    • Recently, the newest batch of Israel-related hasbara was released on a mass scale by the Israeli news website, Ynetnews, which is the online English language news website of Yedioth Ahronoth, Israel's most-read news source. It is akin to the New York Times or the Washington Post of the United States, and one of Israel's news sources of prominent distinction.

    "There Is No Humanitarian Crisis in Gaza"

    The Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu and Israel hasbara-extraordinaire, Felix Frankfurter, Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, and Alan Dershowitz, are both on the record as saying that "there is no humanitarian crisis in Gaza." They are not outliers in holding that opinion. Indeed, former neo-conservative Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, the current Foreign Minister of Israel, Avigdor Lieberman, Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer, Israeli Ambassador to the United States Michael Oren, as well as Netanyahu spokesman Mark Regev, are all on the record sharing these sentiments.

    BP's Dispersants Thwart Massive Skimming Ship

    by Anne Landman — July 19, 2010 - 3:04pm

    Nobu Su, the wealthy owner of TNT shipping, had a great idea: convert a supertanker into a giant skimming vessel that ca

    Main Source: 
    New Orleans Times Picayune (Nola.com), July 16, 2010

    Arizona to Spend $250K on Tourism PR Campaign

    by Anne Landman — July 4, 2010 - 10:08pm

    On May 13, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer appointed a task force to address flagging tourism amid the backlash created by Arizona's strict new law on immigration enforcement.

    Main Source: 
    USA Today, July 1, 2010

    Workers Left Behind at the World Cup

    by Ross Wolfarth — June 29, 2010 - 8:15am
  • Topics: Arts / Culture, International, Labor

    • The 2010 World Cup in South Africa was going to be a shining moment for Africa, but things haven't exactly gone according to plan. Of the tournament's six African teams, all but Ghana have been eliminated early. Half-empty stadiums early in the tournament suggest that the glittering architectural showpieces of the World Cup will quickly become albatrosses. A team of foreigners will leave South Africa with a trophy, and soccer's international master, FIFA will make billions. The people of South Africa will receive far less. The disappointments of the World Cup are clearest in the sad saga of Stallion Security.

    Israel's Spin Machine: It Keeps Spinning, and Spinning, and Spinning

    by Steve Horn — June 9, 2010 - 5:08pm
  • Topics: Activism, Human Rights, International, Lobbying, Propaganda, Public Relations, Social Justice, War / Peace

    • As per usual, when push comes to shove, the right-wing Israeli government, along with the Israel Defense Forces spinmeisters, have gone back to the simple formula: when they do something illegal and barbaric, blame the victim, for the United States will obligingly agree and stand by that narrative. Like always, while the rest of the world protests in condemnation and speaks out against Israel's actions and crimes, the U.S. government stands by complicitly, continuing to shower Israel with over $3 billion per year in military aid into perpetuity.

    Obama and Israel Shun the International Community

    by Maxwell Abbott — June 9, 2010 - 2:10pm
  • Topics: Human Rights, International, U.S. Government

    • From video of Gaza flotilla (Reuters)President Obama came to power promising to end the foreign policy of the Bush era and institute a commitment to international cooperation and diplomacy, especially with the Muslim world. The controversy surrounding Israel's recent raid on a Turkish aid flotilla has made it difficult for the Obama administration to fulfill that promise. The administration does not want to alienate Turkey, a large Muslim nation with aspirations of joining the European Union, nor does Obama want to anger Israel, which has strong historical ties to America. Trying to pacify both nations, the Obama administration has taken an ambivalent and ambiguous position on how to resolve the conflict, which does not include a definitive statement on an international investigation into the causes and culpability of the confrontation. While Secretary of State Hillary Clinton declared last Tuesday that the United States "supports the Security Council's call for a prompt, impartial, credible and transparent investigation" and "an Israeli investigation that meets those criteria," the administration is merely "open" to the possibility of international participation.

    Adulteration of Packaged Milk Rampant in Pakistan

    by Anne Landman — May 17, 2010 - 4:42pm

    Frame from video promoting Pakistan's dairy industry Pakistani television ads portray packaged milk as healthful, even sexy, and encourage parents to feed milk to their children, but
    the National Assembly Standing Committee on Human Rights in

    Main Source: 
    Islamabad Frontier Star, May 10, 2010

    Tobacco's New Target: Women in Developing Countries

    by Anne Landman — May 3, 2010 - 4:25pm

    As smoking rates decline in the developed world, tobacco companies are searching for new markets, and they are finding them in developing south Asian countries, Indonesia, the Philippines and Cambodia. People in rural areas of Bangladesh see advertisements that are unimaginable in other parts of the world. Ads tell smokers that they are smarter, more energetic and better lovers than non-smokers.

    Main Source: 
    MySinchew.com, April 29, 2010

    Your Tax Dollars Hard at War

    by Anne Landman — April 13, 2010 - 3:00pm

    The total U.S. budget for fiscal 2011 will be around $3 trillion, not counting funds collected for Social Security. The military's share is around $1.6 trillion, meaning about 53 percent of Americans' tax dollars are being spent on the military.

    Main Source: 
    CommonDreams.org, April 13, 2010

    Media Feeds Americans Fake News About Afghanistan

    by Anne Landman — April 5, 2010 - 2:43pm
  • Topics: Afghanistan, Journalism, Ethics, International, Propaganda, U.S. Government

    • Glen Greenwald of Salon.com reports that Americans are being fed false and misleading "news" about the U.S. war in Afghanistan because major American media outlets, like the New York Times and CNN, publish propagandized Pentagon accounts of the violence and killing occurring there, without questioning the information they are fed.

    An egregious example of this occurred on February 12, 2010, when NATO's joint international force issued a press release that bore the headline Joint Force Operating In Gardez Makes Gruesome Discovery. The release said that after "intelligence confirmed militant activity" in a compound near a village in Paktiya province, an international security force entered the compound and engaged "several insurgents" in a fire fight. Two "insurgents" were killed, the report said, and after the joint forces entered the compound, they "found the bodies of three women who had been tied up, gagged and killed."

    But an Afghan news report about the same incident differed wildly.

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