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Belen Fernandez

Belen Fernandez

Al Jazeera

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A post-pan­dem­ic homage to Cat­alo­nia

Twenty years ago, in 2003, I left the United States with no particular agenda aside from leaving the United States – which despite being my country...

02.06.2023 30

Al Jazeera

Belen Fernandez

Fen­tanyl: The new face of the US war on the poor

At an April 14 news conference in Washington, DC, Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) chief Anne Milgram sounded the alarm about the country’s latest...

21.05.2023 10

Al Jazeera

Belen Fernandez

The for­ev­er war on Ju­lian As­sange

Imagine, for a moment, that the government of Cuba was demanding the extradition of an Australian publisher in the United Kingdom for exposing Cuban...

14.05.2023 10

Al Jazeera

Belen Fernandez

It’s psy­cho­log­i­cal war­fare sea­son on the US bor­der

On April 8, three young Venezuelan men were detained in El Paso, Texas, where they had just crossed the border from Ciudad Júarez, Mexico. They were...

09.05.2023 80

Al Jazeera

Belen Fernandez

It’s rain­ing IMF in Suri­name

On February 17, large demonstrations rocked Paramaribo, the capital of the South American nation and former Dutch colony of Suriname. Thousands of...

01.05.2023 80

Al Jazeera

Belen Fernandez

The Amer­i­can war on books

Once upon a time, George W Bush – former governor of Texas, 43rd United States president and accused war criminal – made a worrying observation:...

23.04.2023 100

Al Jazeera

Belen Fernandez

The Ciu­dad Juárez fire – and oth­er cir­cles of made-in-USA hell

On March 27, 40 men were killed in a fire at a migrant detention centre in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, just across the border from El Paso, Texas. The...

16.04.2023 80

Al Jazeera

Belen Fernandez

Is­rael’s vi­o­lence is open ter­ror­ism — stop call­ing it ‘clash­es’

Here we go again. The state of Israel is committing unchecked barbarism against Palestinians and the Western corporate media has decided it all comes...

07.04.2023 300

Al Jazeera

Belen Fernandez

Sor­ry for get­ting old

In February my friend Michelle visited me in the coastal village of Zipolite in Mexico’s southern Oaxaca state, where I have been semi-residing...

04.04.2023 90

Al Jazeera

Belen Fernandez

El Sal­vador: A na­tion un­der hyp­no­sis

In May, a 40-year-old woman – we’ll call her “Ana” – was arrested in downtown San Salvador, the capital of El Salvador. She presided over a...

27.03.2023 100

Al Jazeera

Belen Fernandez

Rape as a weapon of war against asy­lum seek­ers

The first time I spoke with survivors of the Darién Gap – the notoriously deadly stretch of jungle on the border between Colombia and Panama –...

19.03.2023 100

Al Jazeera

Belen Fernandez

Trav­el un­der the in­flu­encers

Among the remaining bits of photographic evidence of a 2005 hitchhiking trip through Turkey is a shot of me lying in the back of the cab of a Turkish...

13.03.2023 100

Al Jazeera

Belen Fernandez

Biden’s asy­lum ban: The view from the Dar­ién Gap

In November of last year, Jesús, a 33-year-old man from the Venezuelan state of Falcón, spent 10 days traversing the Darién Gap – the treacherous...

02.03.2023 100

Al Jazeera

Belen Fernandez

Who’s afraid of a Chi­nese bal­loon?

Sometimes on this planet of ours, militaries do silly things. There was that time in 2021, for example, that the United States army accidentally...

23.02.2023 100

Al Jazeera

Belen Fernandez

Xeno­pho­bic delir­i­um: The US’s race-mak­ing op­er­a­tion in Mex­i­co

In the historic centre of the city of Tapachula, located in Mexico’s southern state of Chiapas near the border with Guatemala, sits a golden statue...

15.02.2023 90

Al Jazeera

Belen Fernandez

When calami­ties strike, it is the poor who bear the brunt

On February 6, massive earthquakes struck southern Turkey and northern Syria, inflicting ghastly damage across a geographic region that has already...

07.02.2023 80

Al Jazeera

Belen Fernandez

Net­flix and Is­rael: Did ‘Farha’ sab­o­tage a spe­cial re­la­tion­ship?

In January, the English-language website of the prominent Israel Hayom newspaper reported with satisfaction that Netflix had suddenly added an...

04.02.2023 100

Al Jazeera

Belen Fernandez

Let­ter from a mass grave in Mex­i­co

The municipal cemetery of Tapachula in the Mexican state of Chiapas is a sprawling expanse overflowing with graves in colourful disrepair. Tombstones...

27.01.2023 100

Al Jazeera

Belen Fernandez

The Biden pres­i­den­cy at two years: Halfway point of a for­ev­er war

In 2020, during his campaign for president of the United States, Joe Biden pledged to make Roe v Wade “the law of the land”. While the 1973...

17.01.2023 100

Al Jazeera

Belen Fernandez

The Three Ami­gos and the US war on asy­lum seek­ers in Mex­i­co

For his first international foray of 2023, United States President Joe Biden has swung down to Mexico City to attend the latest iteration of the North...

10.01.2023 100

Al Jazeera

Belen Fernandez

Search­ing for Oman: To­wards a dis­con­nect­ed 2023

Back in 2013, I went camping for three nights in a remote area of Oman at the invitation of some Arab friends living in Dubai. They had overestimated...

03.01.2023 100

Al Jazeera

Belen Fernandez

‘Tis the sea­son: The post-World Cup Christ­mas blues

When the World Cup kicked off in November, I was rooting for Mexico. Having resided off and on in the coastal town of Zipolite in Mexico’s southern...

25.12.2022 100

Al Jazeera

Belen Fernandez

Mex­i­co and the un­bear­able white­ness of ad­ver­tis­ing

Scrolling through Facebook recently on my phone in Mexico, I came upon an advertisement informing me in Spanish: “The moment has arrived to renew...

19.12.2022 100

Al Jazeera

Belen Fernandez

El Sal­vador’s war on it­self: The siege of Soy­a­pan­go

On December 3, Nayib Bukele, the president of El Salvador who is also a Bitcoin influencer and the self-dubbed “coolest dictator in the world”,...

08.12.2022 80

Al Jazeera

Belen Fernandez

‘Hard­core’: The Mars of Elon Musk

Not long after commandeering Twitter in October for a sum of $44bn, Elon Musk – who is also the CEO of SpaceX and the self-branded “Technoking”...

05.12.2022 100

Al Jazeera

Belen Fernandez

The mas­sive hypocrisy of the West’s World Cup ‘con­cerns’

United States Secretary of State Anthony Blinken recently came out against a ban on rainbow armbands at the World Cup tournament in Qatar, which...

29.11.2022 200

Al Jazeera

Belen Fernandez

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