Fifteen Million Afghans Trailer

Fifteen Million Afghans Trailer from Fil Kaler on Vimeo.

An intimate view of the plight of ordinary Afghans living on the bread line through the eyes of one family in Kabul a city at economic breaking point.

More info about the documentary: http://15millionafghans.com

Dangerous Liaisons: Assange guests targeted in FBI sting

Will Julian Assange's show make the Guinness Book of Records? Quite likely, especially if you think of all the people interrogated over their ties with the whistleblower before or after they talked to the WikiLeaks founder.

­"The FBI is apparently collecting evidence to indict Julian Assange before a grand jury. Sweden must not be the final destination of the designed extradition," sources close to the WikiLeaks and Julian Assange told RT.

If you've missed the previous episodes, you can always watch them online at http://assange.RT.com

Approaching Midnight: Taking Midnight's Children from Book to Film (Radcliffe Institute)

Director and screenwriter Deepa Mehta discusses her recent work with Salman Rushdie to adapt his 1981 novel Midnight's Children for the screen—they collaborated closely as he wrote the screenplay—including the challenges of casting 30 principal actors in India and spending days and nights in intensive workshops inspired by the ancient Indian performing arts treatise, the Natya Shastra. Mehta shares her philosophy of filmmaking and how she walks the fine line between conventional storytelling and pure instinct. Following the lecture, she is joined by Bapsi Sidhwa, who wrote the novel on which Mehta's 1998 film Earth was based, to discuss the relationship between author and filmmaker and the evolution of story from print to film.

00:00:00 Welcome by Lizabeth Cohen, dean, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study; Howard Mumford Jones Professor of American Studies, Department of History, Harvard University

00:08:40 Introduction by Martha Chen, lecturer in public policy, Harvard Kennedy School

00:15:37 "Approaching Midnight: Taking Midnight's Children from Book to Film" by Deepa Mehta, film director and screenwriter

1:33:43 Discussion of the relationship between author and filmmaker by Bapsi Sidhwa, author of Cracking India: A Novel (1991), which Mehta adapted into the film Earth, and Water: A Novel (2006), based on Mehta's film Water

UK faces £5bn bill if Greece leaves euro

A Greek exit from the euro could see British taxpayers forced to offer up to £4.8bn in loans, despite the Prime Minister's claims he has won assurances to the contrary.

Original District 9 Short Film

This a short film from Neill Blomkamp, which the movie District 9 is based off of. Neill Blomkamp was originally set to produce the halo movie.

Monbiot: Correspondence with Noam Chomsky

This is supporting material for the article See No Evil.

Posted on monbiot.com, 21st May 2012

From: George Monbiot
Sent: Monday, June 13, 2011 10:10 AM
To: Noam Chomsky
Subject: foreword to Politics of Genocide

Dear Noam,

I hope you are very well. I’m writing a column for the Guardian today about genocide denial, in which Edward Herman will feature prominently. I have just finished reading his book The Politics of Genocide. It contains a revisionist and wildly inaccurate account of the Rwandan genocide, as well as some eminently contestable statements about the massacre at Srebrenica.

I note that in your foreword you neither endorse nor disown the specific statements the book contains. But I think most readers would see the fact that you wrote the foreword as an endorsement of the book.

Is that how you see it? Do you accept the accounts it contains of the Rwandan genocide and the massacre of Srebrenica? If not, in what respects do you reject them?

[ ... ]

From: Noam Chomsky
Sent: 14 June 2011 03:27
To: ‘George Monbiot
Subject: RE: foreword to Politics of Genocide

At work all day and evening, and just found your letter.

I purposely mentioned only one aspect of the book, which I do think is important, particularly so because of how it is ignored: namely the vulgar politicization of the word “genocide,” now so extreme that I rarely use the word at all. The mass slaughter in Srebrenica, for example, is certainly a horror story and major crime, but to call it “genocide” so cheapens the word as to constitute virtual Holocaust denial, in my opinion. It amazes me that intelligent people cannot see that.

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