Rebel News - Independent News and Analysis

Welcome to the Kemerovo region in south-western Siberia! Join our guide and correspondent James Brown to see ancient drawings, visit a coal mine, and meet the Russian version of Santa Claus - Father Frost, or Ded Moroz. We'll also visits a biscuit factory and even play Russian hockey - a cross between football and ice hockey.

Veterans Today Editors, Jeff Gates, Raja Mujtaba and I were in the AF-Pak region over the last couple of weeks. Jeff and I are Vietnam veterans, Raja a decorated combat veteran, tank commander, from the India/Pakistan war.

Operation Moshtarak was more than a military offensive. It marked a significant change in the way Nato and its allies deal with the media and handle their public relations. The Listening Post goes back to the Afghanistan war story and shows the change in the way it is being told - to the Afghans affected and news audiences around the world. Plus, Iceland's bid to bring together some of the most progressive media laws from around the world to create one holistic law that will position the north Atlantic country at the forefront of the battle to protect journalists, whistle blowers and their sources from legal action.

Western media coverage of China tends to be dominated by two competing narratives. The first is all about economics. China, it contends, is an epochal success story. The economy is booming and national wealth is on the rise. The Chinese themselves are overwhelmingly satisfied with their lot. There's nowhere to go but up.

The second focuses on politics. China is in the grip of communist party dictatorship. People have no democratic rights. Everywhere you turn, there is social turmoil -- seething popular anger over corruption, environmental degradation, illegal land grabs, and summary arrests. Something's got to give.

China's top expert on social unrest has warned that hardline security policies are taking the country to the brink of ''revolutionary turmoil''.

In contrast with the powerful, assertive and united China that is being projected to the outside world, Yu Jianrong said his prediction of looming internal disaster reflected on-the-ground surveys and also the views of Chinese government ministers.

Hamidullah is a member of the Taliban who has fought against Nato troops in Operation Moshtarak - the Nato offensive against the group in Helmand province -which is in southern Afghanistan. He says that the foreign troops are not succeeding in the offensive as they often kill civilians instead of Taliban fighters. As a result, he says that the Afghan people are supporting the Taliban more than before. His statements come after a Nato air strike on what was assumed to be a bus carrying Taliban fighters on Sunday, killed 33 Afghan civilians. Al Jazeera spoke to Hamidallah in an excuslive interview at Lashkar Gar, Helmand's capital city. [February 22, 2010]

More than a week into the Nato-Afghan military offensive against the Taliban in the southern Helmand province town of Marjah, warnings of a humanitarian crisis are growing. Members of a fleeing family tell Al Jazeera they fled the fighting because they could stop neither the Taliban nor US soldiers from entering their homes. James Bays reports (22 Feb 2010).

Explain something to me.

In recent months, unless you were insensate, you couldn’t help running across someone talking, writing, speaking, or pontificating about how busted government is in the United States.  State governments are increasingly broke and getting broker.  The federal government, while running up the red ink, is, as just about everyone declares, “paralyzed” and so incapable of acting intelligently on just about anything.

 

How will Obama's meeting with the Dalai Lama affect US-China relations?

China says the US has "seriously damaged" ties after President Barack Obama met the Dalai Lama at the White House. The Tibetan Spiritual leader told reporters after the event, that Obama had been supportive of his efforts to win autonomy for Tibet. In the last two years the issue become increasingly sensitive in China. Al Jazeera's Tony Birtley reports from Beijing.