brandon jourdan

Have you seen much news from Greece lately? As Brandon Jourdan reports, 300 migrants there, mostly from North Africa, are on hunger strike for their right to remain in the country. As of press time they were on their 37th day and at least 59 of them have been hospitalized --they have pledged to die for their cause if that's what it takes. Distributed by Tubemogul.

What is happening in Toronto? What is happening to financial reform? And what is going to happen to the many people who won't get their unemployment benefits extended? Dean Baker, co-director for the Center on Economic Policy Research, clears some of the questions and claims that economic changes are a mixed bag. Perhaps these changes brought positive things such as greater transparency, but this hardly negates rampant inequality or a problematic lack of change in how Wall Street operates business. It seems that the government knows how to do things like keep the unemployment rate down, but the talk at the G20 Summit and the results here in the United States, suggests otherwise. Dean Baker is part of a Nation forum on inequality that will be posted Thursday - featuring Robert Reich, Orlando Patterson, Jeff Madrick, Dean Baker, Katherine Newmann and Matt Yglesias. It looks at the widening inequality gap in the recession and under President Obama, and at possible solutions. Media coverage of this week's G20 summit focused on "violent" protests and police crackdowns, and reporters Brandon Jourdan and Beka Economopoulos certainly found themselves in the middle of the conflict--Jourdan, as well as Jesse Freeston of The Real News network, were attacked outside of the summit.But amid the chaos, Jourdan and Economopoulos found a renewed bond between labor activists and environmentalists, all struggling for green jobs. They submitted this report for GRITtv. “Redemption is looking at ourselves, asking what we can do better instead of blaming our leaders,” says Walter Mosley, author and columnist for the Nation Magazine. “We can’t look to corporate media for our answers,” he continues, “we have to look to ourselves.” Expressing political redemption through semi-spiritual language, Walter Mosley joins us in the studio to discuss the late West Virginia Senator Robert Byrd’s varied career, quite possibly one of redemption. Byrd was known for shifting his politics in accordance with his country and his constituency; while he once filibustered the Civil Rights Act, he also vehemently spoke out against the Iraq war and executive power. Should he be credited for his progress and “redemption”, or should his constituents? Since their arrest last July by Iranian forces near the Iraq border, three Americans — Shane Bauer, Josh Fattal and Sarah Shourd— have been at the center of a diplomatic struggle between Tehran and Washington.

Orozco joins guest host Ed Ott, a longtime labor activist, and Tahir Duckett of the AFL-CIO's Working America to talk about youth unemployment, why it matters, and how it connects to the student activism springing up around the country. Students across California--and the country--held protests on March 4 against budget cuts that are cutting courses and hiking tuition at state universities. In these videos from New America Media, students and protesters speak out about the state's overspending on war and prisons and underspending on education. Carrie Brunk, executive director of New York Jobs With Justice, joins Ed Ott in the studio to talk about bailouts, corporate subsidies, and why those aren't helping working people on the ground. Brave New Films points out Rush Limbaugh's hypocrisy, and you can join their group on Facebook to help fight right-wing smears. Brandon Jourdan and David Martinez were both held in jail for over 20 hours after filming this footage from a student protest in Oakland on March 4, where students took over an exit ramp on the highway before being rounded up by baton-wielding riot police. Stuart Bowen, the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, tells the Huffington Post Investigative Fund about waste of reconstruction funds in Afghanistan similar to that in Iraq--some $51 billion has been allocated to rebuild and stabilize, but tracking those funds proves next to impossible. Finally, in this latest clip from our friends at the Tactical Technology Collective, we see how personal stories can be used to reach people about issues they may not have been concerned about before.

President Obama is about to announce a troop escalation in Afghanistan. Though it's consistent with his campaign promises, public opinion has shifted and now, according to most polls, a majority of the American people oppose the war. We continue our discussion about how nothing seems to change in politics with David Swanson, founder of AfterDowningStreet, and Mark Winston Griffith, on leave from the Drum Major Institute. Jay Rosen, New York University professor and author of "What are Journalists For?," talks about how the media are at least partly to blame for the narrow scope of discussion in Washington.