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Homeward Bound

Submitted by ni-radio on March 5, 2008 - 12:00am.

‘Think globally. Act locally.’ How many times have you heard that before? It’s the catch-cry on activists’ stickers and posters across the world. Embracing that spirit, Radio New Internationalist – which is normally produced at community radio station 3CR in Melbourne, Australia – is s’tepping outside its patch to collaborate with community radio stations in other countries. They select an issue of local concern. We bring in the international perspectives. When Murray Dawson – whose one of the driving forces behind SHMU FM in the Scottish city of Aberdeen, Scotland – put the privatization of public housing up for debate, progressive people from Cuba, England, Russia, and Germany stepped up to the microphones to share their views.

• The British Government wants to move public housing off its books into the hands of housing associations. At first blush this might sound great – giving people a chance to run the blocks of homes that they live in. So why are communities voting against it? Glyn Robbins from the British organization Defend Council Housing Campaign reports.
• In the full-blown sell-off of all Russian state assets that made multi-millionaires of some but impoverished most of the others, ordinary tenants in Moscow were offered the chance to own the homes they lived in. The sale price – nothing! But there’s a downside. Yelena Shomina from the State University Higher School of Economics in Moscow reveals it.
• Forget the ‘bricks and mortar’ approach. Improving local economy and society is central to improving public housing. Hermann Strab from the Gras Group for Architecture and Town Planning in Germany and Dr José Fernando Martierena Hernández from the Ecomaterials in Social Housing project in Cuba outline their two World Habitat award-winning projects showcasing this community approach.

The invigorating music that’s threading its way through today’s program comes from those sons of son music, the Cuban band Sierra Maestra, from their Soul of a Nation CD.

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Filed under:

• community
• Cuba
• economy
• Germany
• housing
• ni-radio
• Russia
• Scotland
• society
• UK

In Search of Santa

Submitted by ni-radio on December 19, 2007 - 4:34pm.

Ho, ho, ho! The Radio New Internationalist team had a good laugh when we found out where Santa - or St Nicholas - really came from. It's another indication that, when it comes to Christmas, history gets swept aside and traditions take over. Dick Gross, author of Godless Gospel: A modern guide to meaning and morality, jumps on the sleigh with Chris Richards as we search for Santa and the meaning of Christmas.

• In Turkey, Danielle North points us in the direction of where St Nicholas lived and worked.

• From the United States, author Mark Pendergrast explains the transition from scrawny St Nicholas to jolly Santa.

• From Israel, peace campaigner Uri Avnery paints a picture of what Christmas is like in a divided Jerusalem, and his blueprint for uniting the city.

• From England, Tori Ray from Friends of the Earth unwraps some tips about how a white Christmas can be made greener.

Today's program features music from one of a regularly featured artist and the author of the our theme music, Bob Brozman. As this program's theme is a light one, the music on the show reflects that - literally! Its "Lumiere" performed by the Bob Brozman Orchestra and available on the World Music Network's wonderful collection of inspiring music from all corners of the globe.

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Filed under:

• Christmas
• culture
• history
• Israel
• ni-radio
• peace
• tradition
• Turkey
• UK
• US

Kiss My Bottom Line

Submitted by ni-radio on December 5, 2007 - 8:38am.

Throughout the last decade, companies have told us that they want to be lean as well as green. The mad, bad days when corporations were only on about money and shareholders is over, they say. An aggressive corporate culture must be combined with community spirit; profit must not dominate the public interest. About time! But is it really happening?

To set the scene, New Internationalist co-editor Jess Worth went to a $5,500-per-ticket corporate conference on corporate social responsibility. She walks us through the talk of the high-flyers of the corporate world who she met there.

• Mark Hays - from Corporate Accountability International in Boston - drops into our airwaves with an overview of what's happening in the tobacco and water industries. He tells us how the industry players are shaping government policies in ways that are dangerous to the public interest.
• From England, John Hilary - the director of campaigns and policy with War on Want - and from Hong Kong, Apo Leong - who works with the Asia Monitor Resource Center - compare campaigning notes about what works, and what doesn't, in holding corporate vandals and bullies accountable.

Africa meets Europe in the music that we've lined up throughout today's program as Saba who was born to an Ethiopian mother and an Italian father sings her way through the divide between the two continents in her debut Jidka (meaning 'The Line').

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Filed under:

• china
• corporate accountability
• corporate power
• corporate responsibility
• Ethiopia
• ni-radio
• tobacco
• UK
• US
• water

Dreaming of a Fair Trade Christmas

Submitted by ni-radio on November 28, 2007 - 5:25pm.

This week, as the holiday shopping season gets into full swing, we examine some of the impacts our consumption patterns have on people and planet. We take a look at some of the food we eat, the clothes we wear and what gadgets we use and ask whether 'ethical shopping' is a way out of the quagmire. Today's co-host is New Internationalist co-editor Jess Worth who's done some research into the ethical shopping sector and has found that all is not as simple as it seems at first glance. We also hear from a number of guests from all over the world:

• Albert Tucker, Fair Trade consultant from Sierra Leonne and Barbara Crowther from the UK's Fair Trade Foundation, discuss the pros and cons of big business involvement in the Fair Trade sector.

• NI co-editor David Ransom speaks with Greenpeace's Sarah Holden about the fishy business of pirate fishing and its impacts on our oceans and the workers who get caught in the nets of the global seafood industry.

• The vast majority of electronic goods end up as waste in Asia - mostly China - where they may have been manufactured in the first place. Greenpeace China's toxics campaigner, Jamie Choi, describes the impacts this enormous e-waste burden is having on human health and the environment in China.

• Australian author/activist Sharon Beder diagnoses the CSD (Compulsive Selling Disorder) epidemic afflicting the politicians and governments around the world, as read by Radio New Internationalist producer Rachel Maher.

Today's music comes from two CD's from the World Music Network - Riverboat Records series. Granada-born vocalist and lyricist Benjamín Escoriza's Carambola delves into Spain's Moorish roots blending Flamenco and North African traditions. Meanwhile, take two volcanic island nations of Hawaii and Reunion and what do you have? The explosive combination of master accordionist and guitarist Rene Lacaille with the eclectic genre-defying talent of Bob Brozman erupting hot musical magma in the form of their album Digdig.

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Filed under:

• Australia
• china
• consumerism
• environment
• ethical business
• fair trade
• labour
• ni-radio
• oceans
• Sierra Leonne
• UK

Torture - the deepest scar

Submitted by ni-radio on October 10, 2007 - 12:00am.

Undoubtedly acts of torture are shocking. How could anyone extract information from others by breaking their back or boiling them alive? But the real horror exposed by this program is not so much the acts themselves but the complicity of Western Governments - and the leaders and officials in them who hold themselves out as supporters of human rights - in obtaining information through such methods. Down in The Grave in Syria and the countless other cells where thousands have been sent for forceful questioning, we come face-to-face with some inescapable realizations - that the war on terror is a war of terror, and that our security is being traded for the insecurity of an unacceptably high number of others.

• Stephen Grey, author of Ghost Plane, tracks both the private executive jet fleet that the US uses to ferry suspects in the war on terror to torture chambers around the world, and its implications for us all.

• Canadian Abdullah Almalki - who spent 482 days of torture in a Syrian torture centre - relates the impact that torture has had on his life and that of his family.

• Author and activist, Kerry Pither sets out how innocent Canadian citizens are being tortured abroad with the knowledge and support of their Government.

• Andrea Berg, the Central Asian researcher for Human Rights Watch, reveals the findings of a report about the world's most notorious torturers - the Uzbekistan Government and its authorities - that is about to be presented to the United Nations Committee Against Torture.

• And Stephen Grey outlines the lengths to which British authorities have gone in order to continue receiving information obtained from Uzbek torture.

The CD Lumiere performed by Bob Brozman proves a perfect sound for today's program as it moves musical influences effortlessly between cultures and countries: a great thing for music, but not so good for the many thousands who are being moved around the world for interrogation in the war on terror.

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Filed under:

• Canada
• Central Asia
• human rights
• ni-radio
• prisons
• Syria
• torture
• UK
• United States
• Uzbekistan