Alia Malek
NOV 16, 2006
Al Jazeera’s English-language channel launched yesterday as (AJE) Al-Jazeera English, not Al-Jazeera International as previously hyped. While viewers around the world were able to watch the glossy production on their televisions via satellite and cable, Americans for the most part could only see it in 15-minute free streams on the Web, or uninterrupted with a monthly subscription. [full story]
AUG 4, 2006
In March 2003, I fled to Beirut, Lebanon, wanting to escape the made-for-TV war on Iraq, the monotony of Washington, and the man who had become my boss, John Ashcroft.
Naturally, in this era of pretexts, the convergence of those events was itself also just an excuse. Even if my job as a trial attorney in the Civil Rights Division at the Justice Department had not been increasingly meaningless under the Bush administration, I would have been fantasizing about returning to Beirut, as I had ever since it seduced me in the summer of 2000, when I first visited it as an adult. [full story]
JAN 8, 2006
ERHAN YILDIRIM is singing in Arabic. His voice barely rises above the sound of the water that falls onto ceramic tiles after it spills over the lifeless body in front of him.
In mournful tones, Mr. Yildirim celebrates God — “He is great, and there is no God but God” — as he prepares yet another immigrant for a proper Muslim burial, one that will bring the man closer to his homeland than he has been in years.
On this late November day, Mr. Yildirim, who is trained to be an imam, then performs the man’s last ablution. It is the same ritual that every Muslim performs in life before prayer: washing the feet, hands and face. Mr. Yildirim then washes the entire body with olive oil soap before fetching a pure cotton shroud and wrapping it around the naked body like a cocoon.[full story]