Iran

Fistful of dollars

Submitted by ni-radio on February 6, 2008 - 6:52am.

Compared to the euro, the value of the United States (US) dollar has fallen 76 per cent in the last five years. So why would anyone want to be paid in a currency that's loosing its grunt. Not Iran. It's hedging its bets by selling its oil in a basketful of currencies brimming with euros and Chinese yuan. As it prepares to launch an oil exchange (bourse) which will trade in a currency other than US dollars, it's encouraging the big oil producing countries to do the same - effectively destroying the US dollar's monopoly in the international oil market. At the same time President George Bush is branding Iran as the world's worst terrorist nation and travelling to the Middle East to prosecute his case. Mere coincidence? Or punishing payback? It's one of many questions that this program raises for debate as today's guests examine the international impact of the falling US dollar: how it heralds 'the fall of the empire' and why it will bring about a dramatic decline in United States' influence over world economies and politics.

• As the dollar declines, China is left holding an ever-decreasing bag. What will it do with the trillions of US dollars that it now holds in reserve? Renowned Asian intellectual and activist, Walden Bello - executive director of Focus on the Global South - considers China's options after he describes how the falling dollar is having a disproportionate impact on Asia's poor.

• How are the Arab states likely to respond to the falling dollar? Political economist Ardeshir Ommani - a founder of the American-Iranian Friendship Committee that spearheads the Stop War on Iran campaign - finds some answers at the last Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) meeting and in present-day Iran.

• And with the start of the year 4,706 in the Chinese calendar, Calvin Ke-ming Yen - the Director General of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Melbourne, Australia - drops in to wish us Happy New Year and stays on to explain the significance of both the dragon in the New Year festivities and the election of Taiwan's new Government.

This week's feature CD is Sahara performed by Javier Ruibal. He's a highly regarded singer-songwriter from Cadiz in Spain, blending passionate flamenco with more relaxed North African sounds.

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Filed under:

• china
• economics
• Iran
• ni-radio
• oil
• OPEC
• Taiwan
• US
• war

Labour the point

Submitted by ni-radio on August 15, 2007 - 12:00am.

Each time a person becomes rich, you can bet your bottom dollar that it has come at a cost to the wealth or health of others. As an upper class of millionaires emerges in any country, they often do so off the backs of imported labour, creating a layer of second-class citizens. China is no exception. More than 120 million rural workers have now left their land and migrated to factories and developments both inside and outside their country. Once there, they can earn a better living than in their fields by mortgaging their bodies to their bosses. But what are these capitalist realities doing to socialist principles? And is the Chinese Communist Party bringing their people out of poverty or throwing away a whole generation of its citizens to feed capitalism's new machines? Through a range of revealing discussions, Monina Wong, from Labour Action China, helps us find some answers.

• In foreign policy, the Chinese Government is substituting development aid for diplomacy. Nicola Bullard, a senior associate with Focus on the Global South, and Daniel Bibiero from the Mozambiquen NGO Justicia Ambientale investigate the results.

• When Chinese state-owned enterprises export Chinese workers to develop and construct their overseas projects, cultural clashes and conflict result. Yat Paol, who works with the NGO called the Bismark Ramu Group in Madang Province in Papua New Guinea, lays out the concerns held by Papuans about the Ramu nickel mine development, owned and operated from China.

• Then today's microphones turn to Iran, to hear Pakistani sociologist Farida Shaheed explain why women are still being stoned to death, and the international campaign that's now developing to stop it.

Carrying on with the Asian and Pacific themes in today's program, the music that you'll be listening to comes from the CD Nankuru Naisa - in which Bob Brozman's island-beats intertwine with the Japanese songs of Takashi Hirayasu. 

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Filed under:

• china
• class
• Iran
• Japan
• labour
• mining
• Mozambique
• ni-radio
• Pakistan
• Papua New Guinea
• poverty

Radio New Internationalist – Base matters

Submitted by ni-radio on April 13, 2007 - 12:00am.

Base matters

As the US and its coalition of willing friends concentrate more military resources in Afghanistan and Iraq, Radio New Internationalist takes a step back to look at the backbone of the US security network – its bases. As campaigners from Iran, Mauritius, the Pacific and the Philippines talk about how US bases operate in their region, a clearer picture emerges of how the US maintains its superpower status… and the price that ordinary people in other parts of the world must pay as a result.

• Pacific leader, teacher and campaigner Mosese Waqa takes us through the network of international military bases and how they secure the health and wealth of the US;

• Lindsey Collen, from LALIT, tells the shameful story of how the people of Diego Garcia were expelled from their homes to provide the US with a strategic base in the IndianOcean ; 
  

• Herbert Docena, from the Philippines office of the international organization Focus on the Global South, explains why Ecuador has ousted its US base: just one positive step in a growing international movement to close down foreign military machines; and
  

• Nasrin Alavi, author of We are Iran, explains the hopes, fears and dreams of the people of Iran in the face of mounting world hostility to their country’s nuclear ambitions.
  

This week’s program features the Mapou CD – presenting truly global sounds with African, Indian, Madagascan and European influences.

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Filed under:

• Diego Garcia
• Ecuador
• Iran
• Mauritius
• militarism
• ni-radio
• Pacific
• Philippines
• United States
• war