If you’ve been wondering why (older) links to Al Jazeera English stories are depositing you on the frontpage of the site, scroll all the way down and you’ll find tell-tale indicators — specifically, the replacement of the iHorizons logo w/ that of Aljazeera IT.
AJE has, over the past two days, rolled out a new, home-brewed content management system (CMS) and left behind the back-end software that has run its daily operations since the website relaunched in November 2006 to coincide with the new international channel.
Radiohead, the popular UK rock band, has been asking fans online to remix (rehash, reconfigure, remake) a track from their (relatively) new album in rainbows, which itself made news for the fact that they offered the two-disc set to fans online for whatever price they saw fit to pay.
The above vid is a pretty brilliant take on the song, using old or obsolete hardware such as hard drives, a scanner and a dot-matrix printer to replace instrument tracks.
You can Digg the video here. Interested in doing something similar? Hack a Day can walk you through it.
Sami al-Hajj, the Al Jazeera’s journalist held for 6 1/2 years at Guantanamo Bay, has returned to Doha - headquarters of the channel - to a hero’s welcome.
A throng of about 200 supporters greeted him at the airport, waving flags and launching white doves in the air.
Back at the Al Jazeera compound, a “freedom celebration” (as Wadah Khanfar, Al Jazeera’s director general called it) was held in his honour.
“Its been more than 2,500 days that I’ve been dreaming of this moment,” he said.
In his speech at Al Jazeera, he thanked millions of people around the world for their support while he suffered both physical and psychological torture at Guantanamo, but said his freedom would not be complete until colleague Tayseer Allouni, currently held under house arrest in Granada, Spain was also free.
As for his career, Sami said “it is no crime to be a journalist” and that he would continue. Khanfar told me what role Sami would now take on at the network is still to be determined.
Leaders from across Lebanon’s political spectrum - meeting in Qatar - have reached an agreement under Arab League mediation to reconvene parliament after 18 months of crisis.
In the deal, to be acted upon immediately, both governing coalition allies and the opposition agreed to elect Michel Suleiman, head of Lebanon’s army, as president, form a new inclusive government, and ban the use of weapons by political groups during internal conflicts.
The deal yields veto power and more seats in Lebanon’s parliament to the opposition alliance, led by Hezbollah.
Almost immediately after the announcement, camps outside the Lebanese prime minister’s office in central Beirut - set up 1 1/2 years ago in protest to the government - began to be dismantled.
Sami al-Hajj, an Al Jazeera camerman held for more than six years without charge in Guantanamo Bay prison, has been released.
The Sudanese national was flown to Khartoum, where he was met by family and friends, and underwent a medical examination.
UPDATE: Upon release, he said “rats are treated with more humanity” in the US military prison, and that his fellow inmates’ “human dignity was violated”.
Its been dubbed the city of superlatives, it calls itself the land of “captivating contrasts”.
Skyscrapers rise out of every corner (although these are two of the eldest), and construction is underway in every nook and cranny - more so even than here in Doha.
Monica Hesse of the Washington Post explores green greed and the way some eco activists have fallen by the wayside, seeking to push back the tide of global warming by buying more - more expensive imported organic cotton sheets, more hybrid luxury cars - and using fewer hand-me-downs or used goods.
It seems the three Rs of conservation - reduce/reuse/recycle - and especially the first two, are being dropped for a new, better-feeling form of conspicuous consumption.
Green is the new black, carbon is the new kryptonite, blah blah blah. The privileged eco-friendly American realized long ago that SUVs were Death Stars; now we see that our gas-only Lexus is one, too. Best replace it with a 2008 LS 600 hybrid for $104,000 (it actually gets fewer miles per gallon than some traditional makes, but, see, it is a hybrid). Accessorize the interior with an organic Sherpa car seat cover for only $119.99.
The basic message: You can’t be ‘green’ and not change your lifestyle.
Vanity Fair magazine has published a report revealing plans by the US government dating back to 2006 to overthrow the newly elected Palestinian government it deemed illegitimate.
After failing to anticipate Hamas’s victory over Fatah in the 2006 Palestinian election, the White House cooked up yet another scandalously covert and self-defeating Middle East debacle: part Iran-contra, part Bay of Pigs. With confidential documents, corroborated by outraged former and current U.S. officials, David Rose reveals how President Bush, Condoleezza Rice, and Deputy National-Security Adviser Elliott Abrams backed an armed force under Fatah strongman Muhammad Dahlan, touching off a bloody civil war in Gaza and leaving Hamas stronger than ever.
Israel has ramped up its attacks on the “sinking ship” (to quote a colleague) that is the Gaza Strip.
The Israeli military conducts daily raids both in the West Bank and Gaza - Palestinian territories that continue to be occupied - but since Wednesday, those attacks have intensified to the tune of more than 100 people now left dead in Gaza - 60 killed yesterday alone - with a large number of them incontestably civilian casualties.
Correspondingly, one Israeli citizen was killed on Wednesday by one of the dozens of homemade rockets constantly fired over the border into Israel.
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