All images: Sarah Carr. All rights reserved. Israel happens so suddenly. There we were one moment on the coach in Amman. Our tour guide, Ruby, started talking about crossing the border into the West Bank at exactly the same moment as the coach suddenly started reversing, a possibly inauspicious sign. Then we sped through Amman and its pleasant emptiness into the Jordanian countryside as Ruby gave us an introduction to the country that lasted about five inutes.  “Jordan is the ‘safety bulb’ of the region”, she declared. It is the only Arab country that has peace with Israel other than Egypt. “When people visit Jordan for eight long days what do…

NOTE FROM THE EDITORS: THIS GOAL HAS BEEN MET!  BUT YOU CAN GIVE TO ANOTHER WORTHY CAUSE HERE. From December 14 through December 25, GOOD Sports will feature the worthiest school athletic programs in need of funding. Like most low-income public schools in Indiana, North Elementary School is struggling. The state decreased per-pupil spending for elementary and secondary schools under Vice President-elect Mike Pence’s governorship, and the Indiana Department of Education has proven to be an unreliable distributor of federal Title 1 funds. Jennifer Higgins teaches sixth grade at North and is helping launch the community’s first youth basketball program. The goal is to create a full-fledged league, but Higgins needs help, as she writes on…

Emilie Baujard/Demotix. All rights reserved. This past week, under heavy national and international pressure, the Israeli government suspended a program for segregation between Palestinians and Israelis on public buses. The proposed separation would have harmed Palestinian workers employed either in Israel or in Jewish-owned factories in the Occupied West Bank, who have so far been taking the same buses as Jewish settlers living in colonies, in order to commute to work daily. It is mostly only workers who have permits to leave the walled-off areas of the West Bank.  It should come as little surprise that of the many discriminatory policies Israel engages with regularly in the Occupied Palestinian Territories,…

Donald Trump just met with one of the most progressive members of Congress and insiders say she could be in line for a top administration job that would shock both his supporters and opponents. Tulsi Gabbard, an Army veteran, and Hindu, was one of the more prominent supporters of Bernie Sanders when he made his White House run in 2016. And according to various reports, she’s currently being considered by Trump for a number of positions, including U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations. The 35-year-old also previously held a leadership position at the Democratic National Committee but resigned her post when she publicly endorsed Sanders. The Hawaii congresswoman eventually said…

On 25 February 2015, Aleksandr Velichko, an official in the Dnipropetrovsk municipal government, disappeared. Ten days later, a recording appeared on an anonymous YouTube channel in which Velichko exposed the alleged involvement of the city council and mayor in corruption schemes and claimed that he had fabricated his own disappearance. The alarm was soon raised by Opposition Bloc, a political party representing the former allies of deposed president Viktor Yanukovych: they maintained that the official had been kidnapped by people working for Ihor Kolomoisky, governor of Dnipropetrovsk at the time. One week later, Velichko himself repeated the charges made by Opposition Bloc. Using this online testimony, Kolomoisky allegedly engineered the…

On Thursday, Cleveland Cavaliers forward LeBron James made his third trip to the White House to meet president Barack Obama after an NBA Championship. But he’s not sure if it’ll be his last. Even if the Cavs win this year, he wouldn’t say whether he’d meet with president Donald Trump. “I don’t know. That’s something I would cross,” James told Ohio.com. “We’ll see. I would love to have to cross that road.” Being that Ohio was a pivotal battle-ground state in the 2016 presidential election, James endorsed Hillary Clinton and made appearances on behalf of her campaign. Last month, James spoke out after Trump dismissed his comments about sexually assaulting…

Three Hamas leaders killed in the Gaza Strip. Ibrahim Khader/Demotix. All rights reserved. No use telling him I'm not Muslim. I'm not even Palestinian. And that I've got thyphoid fever again anyway, I am sick, and so the Qur'an says I am allowed to break the Ramadan fast. And it's no use, actually, telling him anything, because the Hamas policeman I am stopped by for three hours, charged with carrying a bottle of water in my bag, wears neither a uniform nor a badge.  I realise he is a member of Hamas only because I am in Gaza, and it's no use trying to talk to him, to explain my reasons:…

“MAKE MARGARET ATWOOD FICTION AGAIN!” read one sign at the Women’s March. “THE HANDMAID’S TALE WASN’T MEANT TO BE A HOW-TO MANUAL” read another. Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale is a story of how a totalitarian theocracy removes the U.S government of power and eliminates women’s rights. Book sales for Atwood’s book rose 30 percent in 2016 from the previous year, and 100,000 copies were reprinted to meet the high demand during the last three months of the year. In the same vein, George Orwell’s novel 1984, has been flying off bookshelves and even made its way to the top of Amazon’s Best Sellers List. Last week, publishing company Signet had…

The upsurge in deaths of "boat people" heading to Europe across the Mediterranean happened in the middle of the UK's general election campaign, forcing politicians to respond and provoking brief discussion of the links between the phenomenon and Britain's foreign policy. At the same time, the issue of climate change also made an appearance in the election, thanks both to consistent pushing by the Green Party and a speech on foreign policy by the Labour Party leader Ed Miliband. A substantial part of this speech, delivered at Chatham House on 24 April, was devoted to climate change, though the element was almost entirely ignored in media reporting.  The deep connection…

Eurogroup president Dijsselbloem meets Greece's finance minister,Jan.'15. Demotix/ Angeliki Panagiotou. All rights reserved. Rees Jeannotte, acTVism Munich. (RJ): James Galbraith – thank you for joining us! James Galbraith (JG): My pleasure RJ: So Sunday, July 5, was a very big day in Europe and an extremely important one for Greece. The people of Greece voted overwhelmingly to reject the bailout terms set by ‘the institutions’. They voted ‘NO’ in a bid to end 5 years of painful austerity.Can you give us a quick synopsis of the lead-up to the referendum and your thoughts on these past 5 days since the referendum. There has been some major happenings with Yanis Varoufakis stepping back,…