Let’s get this out of the way. Sacha Baron Cohen exploded onto the feature film scene with “Borat” in 2006. “Bruno” quickly followed. Both movies combined the pseudo-documentary and mockumentary styles–along with a lot of potty mouth—to great effect. Both movies featured an odd and uninitiated foreigner coming to America to discover its wonders while at the same time exposing the unseemly side of many of its citizens—a sort of picaresque for the modern age. “Borat” was the more successful of the two, largely because Bruno was a rehash of the first movie with a lot more crudeness and staged scenes.

At first glance, “The Dictator,” which is the third film to combine the irreverence of Cohen and director Larry Charles, would seem to be the same gambit. A foreigner who has no internal censor winds up in America and must make his way with the aide of every masturbation and ethnic joke in the book. What’s different is that “The Dictator” is entirely fictional. There are no interviews with real people who have no idea they are being set up and mercilessly mocked. I think this was a good move for Cohen and Charles. Austin Powers was hilarious. The second installment less so. The third, stale. What started out as fresh and original became old news by film number three.

This is not to say “The Dictator” is a return to the glory of “Borat.” Don’t get me wrong: there are a million laughs in “The Dictator.” Every race, sex, and sector of society is skewered as the character Cohen plays, a fictional mid-east strongman, is replaced by a double on a trip to the United Nations. With the help of a progressive New York shopkeeper (who doesn’t know his identity) and an old countryman, he must thwart a plan to turn his dictatorship into a democracy.

But forget the plot. It’s so thin you’d need a microscope to see it. It’s all just an excuse to turn what feels like a Saturday Night Live skit into a feature film. The movie is as funny as hell, but herein lies the problem. The movie struggles to be an hour and twenty minutes, and at the one-hour mark I was tired of laughing. I wasn’t interested in finding out what was to happen, like I might in most movies, but simply looking for the next gag.

Many would consider Sacha Baron Cohen the comic genius of our time. Indeed, “The Dictator” may be channeling Charlie Chaplin, who made two movies that recall similar story lines. The first was “The Great Dictator,” in which Chaplin plays a fictional Hitler. The second was “A King in New York,” in which Chaplin plays a deposed monarch taking refuge in New York. Is Cohen cribbing or paying homage to Chaplin? Is Cohen the Chaplin of our times? Cohen is a great talent, but I’m not so sure jokes about “rape centers” and anal torture will earn him a place in the pantheon of great film comedians. Too often, Cohen departs from the field of satire and farce and goes for the cheap joke.

“The Dictator” is the kind of movie during which you laugh a lot, but when it appears on cable one year later, you only watch the funniest five minutes. Kind of like a Saturday Night Live skit, except you don’t have to bother with the other one hour and fifteen minutes of ostensible ‘story.’

Fayez Kazak and Nowar Yousef in "Speaker's Progress"

This is a chance to see something revolutionary—in every sense of the word. Performed by a cast culled from throughout the Middle East, “Speaker’s Progress” is not only a rich, layered satire on government censorship but also a work-in-progress negotiation of just what theatrical performances can achieve in an atmosphere of suppression. In many ways, this is the best play that could be staged so close to Dewey Square at this particular moment in history.

Playwright, director and starring actor, Sulayman Al-Bassam created the piece just before the Arab Spring had bloomed. He is the founder of the Zaoum Theatre in London and the head of the SABAB Theater and “The Culture Project” in his native Kuwait. The play is the third installment in his “Arab Shakespeare Trilogy.”

His character is a playwright exiled from an unnamed Middle Eastern country in which theater has been banned as a subversive art form, rife with Western influence. The play beings with this character’s endorsement of the law and renouncement of his former work in the theater. What he proposes to show this audience is a document of a characteristically subversive work: a production of Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night” adopted into Arabic with built-in revolutionary overtones. The production will be reconstructed, purely for the benefit of historical understanding, through the use of a few surviving film clips, and live performance to fill in the gaps in the audio/visual record. Its performers include a former actress, and representatives from a women’s league, a cultural ministry and a tourism board.

At its beginning, the exercise is quite funny to watch. Petrified of appearing in anyway subversive, the actors strive to keep their presentation of this poetic romance as drily scientific as possible. Positions on the stage are announced in the manner of chess moves. The men are armed with yardsticks to ensure that the head-dressed actresses never step within an inappropriate distance of their male scene partners.

L-R: Amal Omran, Carole Abboud (seated), actor not coming to Boston (Fahad Al AbdulMohsin), Fayez Kazak, Nassar al Nassar (hidden behind), Faisal Al Ameeri

Even in these conditions, even in Arabic with English subtitles, the message and the passion escape. In fact, the more they are restricted and forbidden the more attentive one becomes to them. As this fact becomes apparent, the cast seems to divide among those who wish to further the production’s original cause and those who wish to battle it back.

The greatest threat  to  the cause is the representative from the tourist board, played by Fayez Kazak. This stern figure has been cast as the play’s equivalent of Malvolio, the haughty puritan who gets his comeuppance. In the Arabic adaptation, Malvolio is a Mullah, the very figure who would have censored the play.

Malvolio/The Mullah is undone by falling into a trap in which he is led to believe that he is beloved of a woman more powerful than he—in the Arabic version, her name is “Freedom.” He winds up behind bars, tortured. A similar trap is set for this member of the tourism board. He is seduced by the freedom of playing the juicy role of the Mullah, and while his guard is down, his fellow actors try to strip him of his power.

Like much of “Speaker’s Progress” this drama plays out on at least four planes of reality at once. Engaging with it gives one some sense of how Sulayman Al-Bassam must feel as he strives to create works about conflicting cultures that speak to Arab citizens, government censors and Western audiences. It also speaks volumes about life under censorship and repression. It must indeed feel like a series of theatrical performances, full of  potential for subtle subversions and charged with the constant threat of cages of all kinds.

“Speakers Progress” is a deeply challenging work for a complex historical moment. It’s also funny, engaging and unique. Occupy a seat at the Paramount while you still can.

“Speaker’s Progress” plays at ArtsEmerson’s Paramount Mainstage through October 16.

It wasn’t that long ago when the infectious Hey Mama broke up, but they are back again for some boot stopping and hand clapping for two exclusive reunion shows this Friday and Saturday night in Boston and Vermont.

“We love playing together and we’ve have had a hunger to reunite with our fans. There’s a whole life that lives inside the songs and experience of Hey Mama that we wanted to revisit and share with world,” said guitarist and vocalist Avi Salloway as to why they are performing together again.

While fans are rejoicing to see the roosty rock Hey Mama back on stage together again, the group is only focusing on these two shows.

“Our energy is focused on the moment right now and that is these pair of concerts in our current and former home! This is it for now,” Salloway said.

The group members have been busy in the meantime with their own solo projects. Last winter and spring Salloweay was in Israel and Palestine working on an ethnographic music and peace project.

“I was guerrilla recruiting young Arab and Jewish artists to come across the line to collaborate on musical projects based in songwriting, recording, and performing. Building these relationships was intense, but once the artists were making music together more often than not a sense of trust was established,” Salloway said. “These artists bear the torch for peaceful progress in the region. I am continuing to work with Heartbeat Jerusalem (the organization I was working with) from stateside and we’re developing a US tour to promote their message.”

This powerful experience has inspired Salloway to form a new band called Billy Wylder.

“It’s a social bandit band which includes Paul Chase, Hey Mama’s bassists and a collection of innovative string players,” he said.

Salloway is not the only member of Hey Mama that is busy. Lead singer Celia Woodsmith has joined Della Mae, an all girl bluegrass band who recently just new record and gearing up for a tour in Germany this December.

What about drummer Jared Seabrook? “Jared’s rocking and rolling and climbing up trees!” Salloway joked.

The beginnings of the popular local band started in 2003 at University of Vermont through Salloways and Woodsmith’s mutual love of Carlos Santana.

“I was rocking out on electric guitar with Carlos Santana on ‘Live at the Fillmore’ in my forth floor dorm room. I turned around to find a sexy girl at my door, proclaiming that I had to play with her roommate (Celia), who was a great singer,” Salloway said. “The next day we met on quad and bonded over playing a collection of great American songs including a fair share of John Prine. The chemistry was palatable and we started performing and writing together, experimenting, touring, and growing together. We moved to Boston in 2007 and wanted to evolve our sonic landscape and established Hey Mama with Jared Seabrook and Ben Kogan who was later replaced with Paul Chase.”

For Hey Mama, songwriting is a collaborate process that often surprises them.

“It’s like fishing. You have the bait and throw out your line with your heart and soul and play the river. Once you’ve got a catch you reel her in, clean the fish and season it,” Salloway said. “Some of our best songs have been collaborations, where Celia and I color the song together and expand on the stories, textures and rhythms in with a ping pong approach. Then we work it out with the band and it takes on a life of its own.”

The band is looking forward to performing to their hometown crowds of Boston and Vermont again. “The synergy between the band and the audience,” Salloway said as to why he is so excited. “At our last show, the crowd was singing along as loud as we were. It was f*cking awesome!”

The band also has been inspired by the protests happening on Wall Street and around the country. “We’re enthused by America’s action to reclaim its voice and direction through the occupy rallies from Wall Street to Los Angeles. As our musical story continues together and individually we are impassioned to sing the song of justice and rock & roll. Friday’s show will be a celebration of the human spirit. Let’s roll!” Salloway said.

Hey Mama will be playing at the Middle East tonight at 8 p.m.

I’m able to write this today, without the fear of censorship, without the fear of futile efforts and with the confidence that it will be read by at least one pair of eyes that were entitled to the same freedoms.

Today, Hosni Mubarak stepped down as president of Egypt after 30 long years of oppression that encompassed aspects of life that we take for granted everyday.

The Egyptian people have faced spirit-stifling oppression, from political and economic corruption to the simple entitlements, like the right to assemble – which they defied quite extraordinarily in the last 17 days.

Using tools like Facebook, Twitter and blogging, the Egyptian youth initiated a revolution that brought down a regime in just 17 days.  To put it in perspective, it is what the U.S. could not do in Iraq for almost 10 years now.  Egypt’s example of peaceful demands by the people will surely go down in history and change the way in which the calls for change are heard and carried out.

The high-leveled organization and resilience of the protesters throughout Egypt (and those in support around the globe) has showed the world a different face of political reform, lead and fueled by the desire to be free and carried out by simple tools of communication.

Egypt did not only win it’s freedom today; it fought on behalf of you and me for the sanctity of our God-given freedoms.  The iconic picture of a elderly woman kissing a soldier on the cheek so as to welcome his support of the people was immensely moving and demonstrated, in a single frame, the genuine source from which the demands of change were born from.  Only time can tell what will come next for Egypt’s political trajectory and many will wisely hold their breaths in being so optimistic.  Nonetheless, today’s feat is enough to deserve a sigh in relief that, on the path to a more peaceful and just world, Egypt just took a big one for the team.

This is not about Egyptians or about Arabs – this was oppression felt by individuals, just like you, me, that were muffled by oppression for decades.  If you can imagine the pain of a life with limited freedoms, then today, you will have felt the elation of those freedoms redeemed.

After the announcement that Mubarak stepped down from power, tens of thousands of demonstrators in the streets of Egypt chanted, “Egypt is Free!”  Forging the road to a peaceful, just and free society for all, the Egyptian people have allowed hearts around the globe to revisit the deep gratitude of what it means to be free.

In a June 2009 cable posted online by Wikileaks, a meeting is detailed between National Security Adviser James Jones and Indian Defense Minister A.K. Antony, who stressed the importance of a close military relationship between India and the United States.

The cable shows that both men were acting under the direction of the leaders of both countries.

“Both Jones and Antony affirmed their commitment to building the U.S.-India mil-mil partnership as envisioned by President Obama and Prime Minister Singh,” the cable reads.

India is seen as a strategic ally in Asia, given its proximity to the Middle East.

India also has a vested interest in American success in the war in Afghanistan.

“The Indian military is concerned by the situation in Afghanistan, Antony admitted, and stressed that the international community’s operations there must succeed because the India cannot imagine for a moment a Taliban takeover of its “’extended neighbor,’” the cable reads.

Both sides also worry about Pakistan. Indian officials stressed that they did not make any aggressive military moves toward Pakistan, even after the Mumbai terrorist attacks.

The Indians believe that 43 terrorist camps operate in Pakistan, 22 of which are located in Pakistan-administered Kashmir. They also shared intelligence that even after the Pakistan military raided some camps, they simply set up operations again after the soldiers left.

General Deepak Kapoor, Indian Chief of Army Staff, told the Americans that they worried that American military supplies meant for Pakistan’s forces to control terrorists are actually ending up in the wrong hands, as terrorists are being found to be well supplied and full of ammunition.

“There’s a trust deficit between the U.S. and Pakistan but there’s also one between India and Pakistan,” Kapoor siad.

In a US embassy cable released by Wikileaks, American Ambassador James B. Smith, the ambassador to Saudi Arabia, met with Saudi Assistant Minister of Defense and Aviation Prince Khaled bin Sultan in February to relay concerns that the Saudis, battling with a Yemeni separatist group, attacked a hospital in Yemen using American satellite photos.

The cable said that Smith met with bin Sultan “to relay U.S. concerns about sharing USG imagery with Saudi Arabia in light of evidence that Saudi aircraft may have struck civilian targets during its fighting with the Houthis in northern Yemen.”

Bin Sultan did not deny that civilians were attacked but said that the Saudi military “considered it a priority to avoid strikes against civilian targets.”

And based on that assurance, the American government agreed to continue providing the Saudis with US satellite imagery.

The discussion took place after a Saudi missile allegedly struck a Yemeni hospital.

After the ambassador relayed the concerns, bin Sultan remarked that the incident might never have happened if the Saudis had Predator drones with better imaging, renewing the Saudi call for American-built unmanned aerial attack drones.

Smith, in the cable, said he believed bin Sultan was being honest and was neither defensive nor evasive during the meeting. Bin Sultan said their imaging was unreliable and that the Yemeni government’s Houthi targeting recommendations were equally unreliable.

The Houthis are a Shi’ite Yemeni separatist group. The Yemeni government has accused the them of having ties to the Iranian government, because Iran is a Shia majority country. The Houthis have accused, in turn, the Yemeni government of colluding with al-Qaeda.

At the end of the cable, however, Smith hints that Saudi Arabia defeating the Houthis goes hand-in-hand with curtailing al-Qaeda operations in the Saudi-Yemeni border region.

“While the fighting with the Houthis appears to be drawing to a close, the imagery will be of continuing value to the Saudi military to monitor and prevent Houthi incursions across the border as well as enhancing Saudi capabilities against Al-Qaeda activities in this area,” the cable reads.

In a Wikileaks-leaked cable from the US embassy in Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia, to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s office, Ambassador James C. Oberwetter reported in December 2006 that an unnamed Saudi official told the embassy that Saudi Arabia fears an Iranian missile strike more than terrorism.

“xxxxxxxxxxxx told Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism Frances Fragos Townsend that he was speaking for the King when he urged action to counter Iranian threats. xxxxxxxxxxxx said he worries more about an Iranian missile launch against Saudi oil facilities than a terrorist attack against them, because he can take preventative measures against terrorism but not against Iranian missiles.”

The cable shows the Saudis urging the US to attack Iran.

“The more dangerous threat, in his view, is a SCUD missile launch from Iran, which could happen with short or no notice. The Iranians would target Saudi facilities at Ras Tanura and Jubail, also perhaps the US bases in Qatar and Bahrain, which would cause the Saudis to be involved as well, he said. His concern was that tightening sanctions on Iran will cause Iran to up the ante, triggering an escalation leading to a missile launch. Given the possibility of this scenario, he speculated on the option of a pre-emptive strike.”

“I would rather be on the offensivesince we are the target,” the Saudi said, later clarifying that he meant “military readiness,” not necessarily a military strike.

The Saudi official said he was speaking on behalf of King Abdallah several times it he cable.

The same cable also implicated the United Arab Emirates, an American ally, accusing 8-12 Dubai banks of having “extensive links wit Iran, holding up to $12 billion in Iranian assets.”

“We need to send someone quickly to the UAE to freeze these assets before the Iranians begin to unload them. In addition, he continued, the Saudi Monetary Authority should issue a caution to Saudi banks to refrain from Iranian transactions or else jeopardize their international dealings,” the cable reads.

A 16-year-old volunteer Israeli firefighter died in the Carmel forest fire in Israel, a wildfire that is ravaging the landscape.

Elad Riven, of Haifa, was killed Thursday. He was a volunteer with a scout group of students.

He was in the northern city of Afula when his mother received a call to alert him to respond to the fire. He arrived soon afterward to assist evacuating residents from the area.

At least 42 people were also killed Thursday as a bus brought in to evacuate people from the area got caught in the fire.

According to FireFighterCloseCalls.com, the remains of a police commander who was killed while on his way to rescue residents were found. Lior Bokor, 57, was head of police operations for Israel’s northern region. Police searched for him on Thursday, but it appears he was caught in the fire while trying to ascertain the location of the bus that caught on fire.

The massive fire burns as mutual aid comes in from dozens of countries from the US to Russia as the Israeli firefighting response has been underwhelming, with staffing and supply troubles. Crews expect it will take at least a week to contain the blaze.

Published reports indicate that while policing services are well-maintained and adequately staffed in Israel, firefighting has not been an area of focus lately, and the country is now paying the price.

My faith in the Boston music scene was aggrandized ever so slightly on Sunday after seeing a matinee show at the Middle East Upstairs headlined by Art Decade, with whom I talked last weekend, and fellow Berklee bands The Dirty Dishes, Southern Belle, and Shapes and Numbers.

After hearing a lot of buzz about Art Decade’s incorporation of a stringed quartet in their live show, I was intrigued to say the least. The quartet and power trio didn’t interact like two separate entities, as one would naturally expect, but rather like one body, sounding symphonic at times. Art Decade’s set was a classically driven indie rock performance, in not only the wide variety of texture the quartet brings, but in the music itself. The songwriting screams that of a classically trained musician. While at times this sounds belabored and obvious, for the most part it works, creating complexity and at times, chaos, out of even the simplest of parts.

Guitarist/vocalist Ben Talmi played equal parts frontman and conductor, delivering an energetic performance while leading the quartet, while bassist Binod Singh Jr. shredded through all the registers of his instrument, free to noodle a bit more with the bass’ older cousin, the cello, holding down the low end.

The other standouts of the day were Southern Belle, who played an engrossing set of dynamic-shifting electro/experimental pop. The group’s tight guitar work and magnetic pre-recorded loops might have turned the room into a dance party had it not been 2:30 in the afternoon. I’m definitely looking forward to seeing what this band does in the coming months.

Shapes and Numbers opened the show, playing a lights out cover of seminal Boston classic, "Where Is My Mind?" Whenever you here a Pixies cover in the Hub, it’s a good day.

Today Blast’s Sachin Seth talks about Israel denying water to Palestinians.

Your thoughts? Share them with us in the comments section below!

Heliopolis, a city in Egypt on the outskirts of Cairo, was at one time in ancient history referred to as “City of the Sun.” It is ironic then that this city, named after the planet’s light source, would be a dark place of stagnant policy and outdated systems — a place desperately in need of illumination.

Christine Solomon grew up in Egypt and moved to Canada at age 7. She stars in the Ahmad Abdalla’s “Heliopolis,” a film that chronicles five modern Egyptian children over the course of a full day, with each trying to achieve a different goal and struggling to do so. The actress portrays a gothic woman stuck in a hotel in the city of Heliopolis, providing much of the comic relief in the film.

Solomon grew up speaking French and English in Montreal. It wasn’t until she attended the Cairo International Film Festival in 2006 and got her “big break,” that she started to seriously perfect her Arabic and jump feet first into the Middle Eastern film arena.

Five months after attending the festival, Christine moved to Cairo. For a year and a half, she pursued her goals of landing movie roles and gaining fluency in her ethnic language. A determined student, Solomon forced herself to speak only in Arabic. She sought to learn words of emotion and feeling from anyone and anything around her — like hotel concierges and cab drivers. These tactics proved quite successful and now this young actress is frequently invited to interview with Arabic magazines and appear on Arabic television shows.

“Egypt is the Hollywood of the Middle East. If you want to make it (in Middle Eastern film) you have to go there” Solomon said in a recent interview with Blast. While living in Egypt, she renovated and lived in the apartment of her deceased grandmother, a home that had not been occupied in 19 years. “I lived with my Aunt for two months and then decided I wanted to live on my own, it was easier. In Egyptian culture, family likes to be together all the time. I wanted to focus on my work and needed my space.”

Solomon described having difficulties with the culture, even the men renovating her apartment resented a woman giving them orders.

“Heliopolis” (which will be presented during the Toronto International Film Festival running from September 10-19) has a paradoxically Western feel to it, according to the actress. “It has a Woody Allen style to it,” Solomon said, “completely different from other Egyptian films.”

The movie’s setting and storyline introduce the Egyptian cultural and societal systems to the mainstream. “The essential message is that everyone is striving to get to their goals and nothing happens,” Solomon said. “The message is that the system needs to change.”

For a film from which great things were not the least expected, “Heliopolis” shows promise, and you could hear it loud and clear in Solomon’s voice. “Everyone on board just felt there was something special about it,” she said. “I have never seen anything like this in Egypt.”

Solomon said some people around her initially expressed doubt about the film “In the beginning some people told me not to get involved, because it isn’t a box office film, but I felt something special,” she said. “I didn’t care about what people said. I think that is what made it special. All the actors understood this. It’s like Slumdog Millionaire … It has a powerful message.”

A powerful message, a powerful comparison, and only time will tell on the film. But for Solomon, the significance in the film’s message is poignant. There are 80 million people living in Egypt, and most of them live near Cairo. Because of the sheer volume of the masses, as Solomon puts it, “things are really slow.” The hope is for the film to raise awareness among the young Egyptian population.

Born in the Middle East, raised in Canada, and having traveled all over the world, Solomon said her ultimate goal is “serenity and peace.” Being a part of this story is one step in this quest.

“Heliopolis” will premiere at both the 2009 Toronto and Vancouver International Film Festivals. It will release December 1 in Egypt. No American release plans have been announced.

According to the Canadian Radio-Television Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) AlJazeera English is, most likely, on its way to major broadcast networks in the Great White North.

Many however have quite the negative view of AlJazeera, especially the Arabic network. They’ve been accused of giving a “voice to terrorists” and have, in the past, aired some seriously anti-Semitic programming.

But AlJazeera English is the station that’s on its way to Canada, not AlJazeera Arabic. AJE was established just three years ago and even though it is, like Aljazeera Arabic, owned by the Qatari government, it operates independently from its big sister station.

I watch AlJazeera English regularly on Livestation. It’s a quality all-day news channel that reports on issues much like CNN does, but from a differing, more localized and internal perspective.

CNN’s coverage of American politics is hard to match. It’s comprehensive and seen from all angles. It’s quality. Why? Well it operates from the area on which it reports, the U.S. Atlanta, Washington D.C., Los Angeles and New York City. Everything is covered. Here.

So, naturally, a news channel operating out of the Middle East would give the world a more authentic idea of what is going on there than, say, CNN, whose headquarters are a long way from the Mid-East.

You wouldn’t rely on the BBC for American political news, so why are we forced to watch CNN to learn about the Middle East? After all, CNN’s global sister stations aren’t available to us here in the U.S. and Canada.

The current vast news landscape is made up largely of Middle Eastern issues. AlJazeera’s main headquarters are right smack-dab in the middle of the Middle East: Doha, Qatar, just off the eastern coast of Saudi Arabia. They also have broadcast stations in Kuala Lumpur, London and Washington D.C. They air at least one 30-minute news show from each base everyday.

In addition to the four headquarters, AJE has 69 bureaus set up all over the world, many of which are in the southern hemisphere. They also employ 1,200 staff of more than 45 ethnicities.

That doesn’t sound too oppressive to me. These stats make them the most diverse news network in the world.

If you watch the channel you’ll know their anchors, reporters and weathermen come in all colors. As a person of color, that’s a nice thing to see on TV. Finally.

Many of their staff is also women.

I admit I’ve never watched AlJazeera Arabic, aside from all the terrorist videos that have become infamous in the West. I’ve heard the negative criticism and the allegations of anti-Americanism toward the AJA. I’ve also seen some of the proof.

But that doesn’t mean AJE isn’t a quality, unbiased organization. It operates independently from AJA and caters, purposefully, toward a Western audience.

You only have to watch programs like “Witness” and “People & Power” to understand the quality of AlJazeera English. Seriously, download LiveStation and watch those programs. They are phenomenal examples of how AJE brings attention to important issues that get either get lost in Western mainstream media filters or go undetected on news radar.

About 80 per cent of AJE’s stories relate to the Africa, the Middle East, Asia and Latin America, about twice as much as the BBC and CNN.

AJE’s reporting of not only Middle Eastern issues but also those issues that affect the forgotten areas of Latin America, Africa and Asia are without a doubt superior to those few pieces produced and released by CNN and the BBC.

The rest of the world needs a voice. AlJazeera English is it. So please come on down to Canada.

Former President Jimmy Carter, who has been spending the last few years trying to help forge a just peace in the Middle East, said Obama will “not wait for even a month after he is president to start working on the peace process, where as you know, the previous two presidents waited till the least year they were in office before they began the peace process.”

Carter was criticized by Obama during the campaign for meeting with members of Hamas, a political party that took power in the 2006 Palestinian elections.

“I think is a very important issue, I don’t have any doubt in my mind that to find peace and security and human rights for the Palestinians and also for Israel would be a major factor in reducing the threat of terror,” Carter told CNN.