ni-radio
The earth or the pits: The global campaign to pay Ecuador to keep its oil in the soil
Submitted by ni-radio on July 16, 2008 - 1:20pm.
This program celebrates a remarkable environmental strategy proposed by civil society that is now the preferred option of the Ecuador's President. Ecuador will keep nearly a billion barrels of oil in the ground if the international community pay it $350 million in compensation each and every year for the next 10 years. The proposal has clear environmental and social benefits for Ecuador. The Yasuní National Park - a part of the Amazon rainforest with an extraordinary but fragile ecological significance - will be saved from the often devastating consequences of mining. The international community also gains from the proposal, with the atmosphere avoiding a potential 500 million tonnes of carbon emissions. The German and Spanish Governments are supporting the proposal. So too is the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). New Internationalist co-editor Vanessa Baird joins the Radio New Internationalist team to explore the Yasuní proposal and its relevance to mining everywhere.
- As share prices shoot up during mining booms, uncritical media give glowing guarantees that whole countries will be able to ride on the resources being prized from the earth. Patricia Feeney - Executive Director of the NGO Rights and Accountability in Development (RAID) - explains why mining's the pits by pointing out the African people and places buried under the mineral wealth.
- Carlos Larrea - one of Ecuador's leading economists - reports on the yet-to-be settled technical details of the Yasuní proposal and the emergence of a world first: legally enforceable rights for flora and fauna.
Today's stories move from Africa to Latin America. So does the music. The Afro-beats from a slave-bound past struts its stuff on Colombia's Caribbean coast as Colombi-africa: the Mystic Orchestra perform their Voodoo Love Inna Champeta-Land CD.
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Speak my language - The rise and fall of linguistic empires
Submitted by ni-radio on July 9, 2008 - 3:37am.
One language dies every two weeks. Of the estimated seven thousands languages spoken in the world today, only a fraction is expected to survive into the next century. For those who loose their language, the cultural cost is so profound that it's likened to loosing one's family. A shared language is not only a useful tool for communication. It also defines communities. Its words draw boundaries for the values we embrace and the way we see the world. Not surprisingly, a key cause for the decline of the world's linguistic heritage is the phenomenal global dominance of the language you are reading now: English. But language empires rise and fall. Mandarin Chinese has been tipped to topple English as the future super-language even though English is still gaining popularity inside China. This program's co-host - Nicholas Ostler - author of Empires of the Word and the chair of the Foundation for Endangered languages - joins today's guests as they map linguistic imperialism and its cultural costs:
- Nick Young, founder of China Development Brief, tells lost-in-translation stories from the streets of China - where the international popularity of Mandarin is a source of pride, but communicating in English is still seen as the key to empowerment.
- What is being done to combat the loss of language? Jeanie Bell manages the Centre for Australian Languages and Linguistics in the Northern Territory, where linguists are working with elders in communities to document endangered languages and teach the next generation traditional tongues.
- Colonisation leaves a language legacy but independence brings a choice: what should be the official language when there are many contenders? Human rights lawyer and former member of the East Timorese Constituent Assembley, Aderito Soares reveals how the world's newest nation made that decision and what it means for its emerging national identity.
The music on today's program celebrates a new generation of Hungarian Gypsy music. Introducing Bela Lakatos & the Gypsy Youth Project features songs in the Romani language, which was forbidden to the Hungarian Roma for generations but is now experiencing a revival through projects like this one.
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Small arms, big bangs
Submitted by ni-radio on July 2, 2008 - 1:54pm.
A thousand people die every day from gunshot wounds, and 3,000 more are severely injured. Surprisingly, those targeted are not troops. Nearly three quarters of guns are in the hands of civilians not armies; and three quarters of people who die are citizens, not soldiers. If a 1,000 people were dying each day from bird flu, it'd be treated as a global emergency. So why don't Governments just pass laws to outlaw them? It's just one of many conundrums targeted by the International Action Network on Small Arms - a global movement of 800 civil society organizations working in 120 countries to get rid of small arms and light weapons. It's Director, Rebecca Peters, joins today's guests to take aim at gun traders, and shoot down the old idea that the more guns we have, the safer we'll be.
- Yukiko Murasaki arrived in Cambodia to find that guns were part of the household furniture. But by the end of last year, she and her colleagues from Japan's Assistance Team for Small Arms Management in Cambodia had collected around 28,000 guns. She tells us how.
- John Rodsted - part of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines that won the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize - was firing on all cylinders again in Dublin this year when over 100 countries committed to a ban on cluster munitions. He swaps strategies on negotiating international conventions.
- Author Alasdair Soussi is researching the first US invasion of Lebanon, which took place 50 years ago this month. Ally takes us to the beaches of Beirut on 15 July 1958 to introduce us to the unusual ‘enemies' confronting US troops as they landed.
As disarming communities and countries is today's target, the CD for this week is Ceasefire, inspired by peace-talks in Sudan between the Moslem North and the predominantly Christian South. Reflecting the hope by both sides for a peaceful future, Christian rapper Emmanuel Jal gets together with Moslem musician Abdel Gadir Salim to show what colourful, dynamic sounds are produced when two different cultures work side-by-side.
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Those 27,000 Nukes
Submitted by ni-radio on June 25, 2008 - 12:00am.
How to ban nuclear bombs and save the planet
With just 50 of the world's 27,000 nuclear weapons having the capacity to kill an amazing 200 million people, you'd reckon that nations would thump their parliamentary tables and ban those bombs completely. After all, only nine countries have nuclear bombs. Yet despite active campaigns involving millions of people, five decades after the first nuclear bomb was dropped on Hiroshima in Japan, an international convention to ban the bomb has still not been successfully negotiated. But things are about to change. Now that Henry Kissinger and some of the other most aggressive advocates for US world military domination are arguing that the US should get rid of its nuclear weapons, the doors of Governments across the world are opening-up to disarmament. New Internationalist magazine co-editor, Jess Worth, is fresh from producing a magazine called ‘Dropping the Bomb: how to ban nukes and save the planet'. She joins today's guests for a tour of nuclear weapons; whose got them, where they're pointing, and how the people of the world are mobilizing to get rid of them.
- The theory is that no country would dare damage a country with nuclear arms. Yet Professor Pervez Hoodbhoy - the Chairman of the Department of Physics at Quaid-e-Azam University Islamabad - argues that in practice nuclear weapons make Pakistan less secure.
- The international campaign to abolish nuclear weapons is mushrooming. Felicity Hill - from the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom - spotlights some inspirational developments, and the politics behind them.
- Where there's bucks to be made, there's marketing managers to spin the issues. Two media watchdog groups have just launched a new online resource to profile who's spinning nuclear power and weapons issues. Bob Burton - the managing editor of SourceWatch - spotlights some of the star performers.
As the dangers of nuclear weapons reach from one end of the planet to the other, today's CD is an international showcase of musical styles and performers from Spain to the Pacific; from Latin America to a range of African countries - Rhythm of the River.
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AIDS without the aid
Submitted by ni-radio on June 18, 2008 - 12:00am.
In the Western World it feels like HIV/AIDS is well and truly under control. Yet world figures tell a different story. HIV/AIDS kills more people than all world wars and conflict - 1.2 million in 2007. The United Nations estimate of the people living with HIV last year was over 33 million. In sub-Saharan Africa alone, over 2,000 men become infected every day. But while the United Nations has calculated that the world needs $41 billion annually by 2010 to reach full universal access to treatment prevention and care of AIDS, only a proportion of that has been pledged so far. and diplomat, Stephen Lewis, co-director of AIDS-Free World, and before that the UN Secretary-General's Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa, joins Chris Richards to dissect the politics behind HIV/AIDS - the indifference of Western World governments; the negligence of international institutions; and the mass misogyny that has meant that women in parts of Africa are now being deliberately infected at a far greater rate than men.
• Brazil was the first nation to provide anti-AIDS therapies free to patients who were prescribed it. Dr André de Mello e Souza - from the Pontifíca Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro - explains how dusting-down the dollars that big pharmaceutical companies make from AIDS treatment produces better health for less cost in Brazil.
• The militias in Congo are using the genitals of women as a weapon of war on a massive scale - leaving their torn flesh open to HIV. Marie Claire Faray, spokesperson of COMMON CAUSE UK - a platform for Congolese women in the United Kingdom - explains the war on women and what the international community must do to help stop it.
• In Tamil Nadu in the south of India, there is now a whopping 99 per cent AIDS-awareness. Dheepthi Namasivayam talks with sex workers, who are now AIDS awareness workers with the Indian Community Welfare Organization, about the power of their voices.
The spotlight in this program is on Kenge Kenge - which, roughly speaking, means the fusion of small, exhilarating instruments. In the CD Introducing Kenge Kenge, traditional sound boxes, one-string-fiddles and gongs combine with modern day drums and flutes to produce their dance-until-dawn Afrobeat.
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Human Tides
Submitted by ni-radio on June 11, 2008 - 12:00am.
An estimated one billion people will flee their homes by 2050...
What's the most urgent threat facing poor people in developing countries. War? Climate change? Mega-development? A recent report says it's the result of all three - that people are being forced from their homes. On current trends a staggering one billion people will flee their homes in the next 40 years - the majority because of climate change and the building of mega-projects like dams and mines. Today's co-host, John Davison - one of the authors of the report Human Tide: the real migration crisis - joins Radio New Internationalist's Chris Richards to visit some startling scenarios and meet the people who are affected:
• Ten years after Cyclone Mitch hit Honduras, Juan Almendares from Friends of the Earth reveals how displacement and disruption still endures.
• Development projects like dams displace 15 million people a year. Medha Patkar - the leader of the Save Narmada Movement - recounts how the World Bank helps fund them.
• Two hundred and fifty million people are going to be displaced because of climate-change through floods, droughts, famines and hurricanes between now and 2050. That's more than double the entire populations of Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand. Ibrahim Togola - from the Mali Folke Center - explains how it's already happening in Africa.
• Professor Walter Kälin, Representative of the UN Secretary-General on the Human Rights of Internally Displaced Persons, presents compelling reasons why the Rich World should pay to climate-proof the Poor World.
In today's CD - Urban Gypsy performed by the Romanian-born Shukar Collective - traditions of those perennial refugees - the gypsies - meet the electric sounds of modern musicians.
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Pathways to peace (part 3)
Submitted by ni-radio on June 4, 2008 - 12:00am.
If peace had a personality, what would it be?...
Have you ever wondered why war, not peace, is higher on societies' agenda? People seem more preoccupied with stopping war than building peace. It's an important difference. Cabinet rooms and news desks; in school and university curricula; around kitchen tables and work rooms; the concentration is more on the immediate gunfire and bombings than a long-term look at the tools we all need to get on better with a neighbouring person or country - the very things that will prevent conflict from breaking out in the first place.
Over the last two months Radio New Internationalist has been exploring pathways to peace. Today's program explores the human characteristics that the world needs to put peace into practice – the qualities that we'll need to nurture if we’re going to stop conflict from war-zones to war-in-homes. And it's women who are in the drivers' seat:
• If peace had a personality, what would it be like? Rebecca Spence – founder of Peaceworks, an organization that designs training programs to build peace in deeply divided communities around the world – sketches some profiles.
• Even though victims of conflict are traumatized by the violence they've experienced, many go on to inflict it on others. Robi Damelin – a Jewish woman whose son died in the Arab-Israeli conflict – considers the consequences (with Sally Golding Advocacy Manager for Christian Aid in the United Kingdom, who recorded Robi's story).
• With four coups in two decades in a warrior nation, Fiji's men have problems putting down their guns. Sharon Bhagwan-Rolls – coordinator of femLINKPACIFIC – takes a suitcase radio out into the rural areas of Fiji to record the voices of the people and play them back to policy makers and politicians. She tells us the results.
Zena Bacar – the golden voice of Mozambique – sings her way through this week's program from her comeback performances in the CD Yellela.
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Telling truths
Submitted by ni-radio on May 28, 2008 - 12:00am.
The power in truth and the justice in revenge...
What's wrong with a bit of revenge? It may be a base emotion, but it has some redeeming qualities that we ignore at our peril. For individuals, it acknowledges the harm done to the victim and punishes the perpetrator - needs which, if unmet, can be psychologically devastating to a victim. Within countries, 'moving on' from conflict without meeting the needs of victims can mean widespread community violence decades later. So when a war is over, and yesterday's enemies are now one's neighbours, how do the victims of conflict obtain justice without revenge? How is it possible for people to move towards peace when they can see their torturers or rapists - the people that they have nightmares about - in the street enjoying life, free and prosperous?
Today's co-host - law professor Teresa Godwin Phelps - has written a book about it: Shattered Voices: Language, Violence and the Work of Truth Commissions. Together with today's guests, she explores the power of Truth Commissions to help a country face up to its past and move into its future.
On behalf of indigenous peoples abused by their governments, National Chief Phil Fontaine from Canada's Assembly of First Nations has been at the forefront of obtaining both words of apology and the action that must flow from them. He weighs up the weaknesses and strengths of saying sorry.
The people of some countries are demanding more than an acknowledgement of the past. Thun Suray - Chairman of the Cambodian Human Rights Action Committee - puts the case for prosecuting military murderers through trial and punishment.
Rita Arditti - the author of Searching for life: The grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo and the Disappeared Children of Argentina - recounts the resilience of truth and how it is uncovering the identities of children stolen during Argentina's military regime thirty years ago.
In the melodies taken from today's CD, Sahara, Spanish singer-songwriter Javier Ruibal delivers performances that are beautiful but haunting, staying with those experiencing it well after they are finished... just like the unresolved injustices that are discussed throughout this program.
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Inside China's Prisons
Submitted by ni-radio on May 22, 2008 - 9:12am.
Swinging open China’s cell doors to hear who’s inside, and why...
Civil unrest is rising in China, particularly in rural areas where people are increasingly disgruntled because of corrupt or inefficient officials. In a push upwards by the people, more and more protesters are claiming freedom of speech and demanding a right to be heard. Seeing this potential growing amongst labour rights activists in 2002, Dr Yang Jianli to China for two weeks to assist with strategy and negotiation, then spent the next five years in prison. He was one of thousands of political prisoners - prisoners of conscience jailed because of what they believe or say – interrogated, beaten, placed in solitary confinement and then left to serve out his sentence in China's gaols. Together with today’s guests, he shows us who’s imprisoned there and why.
• When political prisoners are convicted, so are their partners. Lee Tan, from the Australian Conservation Foundation, reads extracts from an essay by Ouyang Xiaorong called: 'The life of a political prisoner’s wife'.
• Like Tibet, Xinjiang is presently claimed by China as a province in its far-east region. And also like Tibet, thousands of it people have been imprisoned while seeking more autonomy. But unlike Tibet, their cause is rarely heard on the international stage. Alim Seytoff – the Director of the Uyghur Human Rights Project and General Secretary of the Uyghur American Association – explains why.
• While Dr Yang describes how prisoners' organizing to share their knowledge creates harmony inside Chinese prisons, Australia's first doctoral candidate studying in prison is finding the opposite. In an essay read by Colm McNaughton, Craig Minogue – serving a 23 years jail sentence – describes the subtle and not-so-subtle ways that the prison bureaucracy bucks when it finds out that he's lent a helping hand.
Today's CD – Lumière – lights up the program. Performed by one of this show’s favourite artists, Bob Brozman, this amazing CD combines musical influences of a range of Asian and the Pacific countries.
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Politics of war - pathways to peace (Part 2)
Submitted by ni-radio on May 14, 2008 - 12:00am.
The unseen politics propping up war...
Unquestionably, the greatest violations of human rights occur in times of war; not just because of the mass slaughter, unspeakable rapes and torture. Everything that we value is under attack: homes and schools; family, friends, and food; political debate, participation in government, protection by the rule of law. And as we probed in the last program, these effects reverberate for decades, even centuries later as the legacy of violence is inherited from one generation to the next. The good news is that major armed conflict - conflict causing at least 1,000 deaths within a year - is falling. The bad news is that it doesn't seem that way.
The United States - hell bent on removing global risks to its economic and social security - is aggressively intervening in the Middle East and Latin America. And - in the case of Iraq - a collection of Rich World countries that are gloriously free from internal conflict have armed their troops to join the fight. The cost can be immense. So why do it? Two passionate advocates against war and for human rights - one from a country that promotes war and another that is a victim of it - join Chris Richards to explore the unseen politics propping up war and international interventions. They unravel the complexities of the Iraq and Colombian conflicts along the way:
• Kathy Black - a convenor of the US Labor Against the War - explains how military intelligence, fundamentalist religion, education, and the American psyche have helped build and maintain US war-mongering;
• Alirio Uribe Muñoz - a member of a death-defying human rights lawyers' collective, the Corporación Colectivo de Abogados 'José Alvear Restrepo' in Bogotá - takes us inside Colombian conflict to find out why the United States is pouring money and troops into it, and the interests it seeks to protect. David Feller, also from the collective, translates.
Also from Colombia, the music threading its way through this program is the CD Canta Bovea y Sus Vallenatos con Alberto Fernandez featuring the up-beat sassy strains of the accordian led vallenato music.
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New Internationalist (NI) workers' co-operative exists to report on issues of world poverty and inequality; to focus attention on the unjust relationship between the powerful and the powerless worldwide; to debate and campaign for the radical changes necessary to meet the basic needs of all; and to bring to life the people, the ideas and the action in the fight for global justice.
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