Americas

By Camille Elhassani in Americas on May 31st, 2011
Obama nominated on Monday General Martin Dempsey (centre) to be the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff [AFP]

Over the course of the next few months, Barack Obama will have replaced much of the defence leadership of the US in anticipation of watershed changes to defence policy.

On Monday, the US president announced the latest in a series of appointments: army General Martin Dempsey as his pick to be the nation's highest ranking military officer - chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

In the announcement, Obama alluded to Dempsey's qualifications and the need for his skills.

By Gabriel Elizondo in Americas on May 26th, 2011
Photo: Jose Claudio Ribeiro's hands. Maria Elena Romero/Al Jazeera.

The family home of Jose Claudio Ribeiro da Silva is a simple, modest 3 bedroom brick building on a dusty side road in Maraba Brazil.

It is fitting for a humble man who told anybody who asked that he preferred to be called simply ‘Ze.’ If you wanted to be formal, ‘Ze Claudio,’ would due.

The house has a small kitchen and a cozy and peaceful backyard with green shrubs providing shade from the sauna-like heat common in this region of Brazil.

Ribeiro did not live here much. He preferred his even simpler home in the Amazon sustainable reserve he ran with his wife, Maria. It is about 40 kilometers from here.

But it’s at his family house, here in Maraba on Wednesday, where I first met Ze and Maria in the cramped living room.

By Teymoor Nabili in Americas on May 25th, 2011
Photo by GALLO/GETTY

I was presenting the news on Al Jazeera English on Tuesday, as Binyamin Netanyahu was speaking to the US congress in Washington, DC.

We carried the whole speech live, and did a good job, I thought, of presenting a rounded analysis of the content and the implications of Netanyahu's hard-line approach. (And I am still always amazed at how the Israeli press is so much better at critiquing Netanyahu  than are the US media.)

Anyway, within the overwhelmingly partisan chamber there was, rather unexpectedly, a heckler. We didn't get to see her, barely even heard her yell "stop the occupation" before she was dragged away.

By Patty Culhane in Americas on May 25th, 2011

It always amazes me how much life is disrupted for any city that hosts a sitting US president. In the times I have been part of the TV pool - the press that follows the president - I have to say you can’t really see the disruptions. The streets, people and signs pass in a hurried blur. From the outside it is painfully clear the effect it has.

In Dublin, Obama’s visit caused most bridges to be closed, the trams were running only occasionally and it seemed the whole of the city had set out on foot on a very blustery day.

By Teymoor Nabili in Americas on May 24th, 2011
A protester is led out by security after disrupting Netanyahu's speech [Photo by Reuters]

Journalists have long known that alternative opinions are not welcome at AIPAC meetings, but this heckler must have been surprised by the number of security guards that swamped her, and the speed of it all; she barely even got two sentences out.

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By Teymoor Nabili in Americas on May 23rd, 2011
Representative Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland [Photo by Reuters]

Just before President Obama addressed the American Israel Public Affairs Committee on Sunday,

By Al Jazeera Staff in Americas on May 19th, 2011

File 28726

President's address spells out US policy towards the wave of political changes sweeping North Africa and the Middle East.

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By John Terrett in Americas on May 19th, 2011

I met Estelle today.  She's a long way from home, forced out by the Mississippi flooding.
 
"There's no place like home," she said.
 
Estelle's staying in temporary accommodation, known locally as "Canadaville", here in Simmesport Louisiana, that's been housing victims of Hurricane Katrina and now offers refuge for families forced out by the flooding.
 
"We heard the water was very dangerous up north.  Cairo.  Tennessee.  Coming very fast.  Very high, very dangerous.  So we didn't want to take a chance so we started packing up to move."
 
She's waiting for the all clear with her three dogs, Jack, Panda and Reeces, and wonders what's happening at her house which lies at the confluence of three rivers.
 
"I just wish we could get some definite answers.

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By Barnaby Phillips in Americas on May 19th, 2011
Photo by AFP

We don't know what actually happened in that New York hotel room, and it would not be wise to speculate.

But Dominique Strauss-Kahn's legal difficulties do give us an insight into the wildly varying standards of sexual probity different societies tolerate from their leaders.

Take a look at this article in the London's Independent newspaper by John Lichfield.

Lichfield says that in French media circles, it was common currency that Strauss-Kahn could not be safely left alone with a young woman.

So maybe the the famous Gallic tolerance of sexual indiscretions has gone too far; creating a culture where journalists and politicians turn a blind eye not only to infidelities, but also to harassment and even assault.
 
Things are very different in Britain where no high profile figure could expect the media to ignore a reputa

By John Terrett in Americas on May 17th, 2011
Photo by Reuters

The big question this Tuesday morning is - where's the water going? 
 
The question equals a level of frustration that has become unbearable for the people of lower central Louisiana.

Residents there have been told to evacuate their homes as water from the Morganza Spillway cascades their way in an effort to relieve water levels in the Mississippi River around the cities of Baton Rouge and New Orleans.
 
The authorities say recent droughts have made the land so parched that it's absorbing far more water from the Morganza Spillway than anybody thought and slowing the advance of the water dramatically.

Residents are not off the hook yet, however, the water may still engulf their homes.
 
People like Bud Turner, his two sons and two family friends, who I found stacking sandbags along the walls of the
home in Krotz Springs that Bud and his wife have shared for 40 years.
 
"They've given us a mandatory evacuation order

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