Radio New Internationalist
A weekly audio adventure linking you up with progressive people from every corner of the globe.
Put on your seat belt each week as we travel from Liberia to Latin America, through Asia and the Amazon to rendezvous with rebels, radicals and realists with voices and ideas not often heard through mainstream media. A world without armies. Trade without greed. Co-operation without confrontation. Communities that connect. Connect with Radio New Internationalist, right here online.
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International program partners
Radio New Internationalist is produced by NI co-editor Chris Richards (who also presents the program) and broadcaster Rachel Maher at the studios of our program partner, 3CR, in Melbourne, Australia.
Music to your ears
Each program dips into the World Music Network’s wonderful showcase of songs and artists from the Majority World – a different album every week. You’ll find a range of these albums in the NI shop on this website, or by visiting the World Music Network’s Riverboat Records Releases at www.worldmusic.net.
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This week's program:
Politics of war - pathways to peace (Part 2)
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 up-beat sassy strains of the accordian led vallenato music.
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Previous programs:
Pathways to peace (part 1)
How the effects of violence are inherited...
There’s no escaping it. It seems like violence is everywhere! Turn on the radio and hear about the latest war – mass rapes, murder and destruction. Closer to home it’s a body found in a trunk; a grandmother bashed for her bag; or a child that’s been sexually assaulted. How to respond? Give comfort and support to the victims? Time, they say, is a wonderful healer. But is it?
What if trauma is inherited – a violent legacy that’s passed down from one generation to another. Suddenly the wars that are happening far away – wars we didn’t think were even relevant to us – can come back years, decades, even centuries later to haunt our communities just because someone’s grandfather or aunt was there.
This is the first of four programs that will be broadcast over the coming months in search of sustainable pathways to peace. Independent Australian broadcaster Colm McNaughton kicks off this series with his excellent documentary, Awakening from History, which was commissioned by the Australian Broadcasting Commission. In it, Colm returns to Ireland – the home of his parents and for a short time the cradle of his own childhood – to confront the profound effects that the war between the British and the Irish had on himself and his family, decades and generations later.
Unfortunately, while this part of the program has been broadcast by the 50 community radio programs across the world now scheduling Radio New Internationalist, for copyright reasons we are unable to make this documentary available to the general public through our website. However, here is the interview that followed the documentary, with indigenous member of the New South Wales Parliament, Linda Burney. Linda takes our understanding another step further as she considers whether the violence that deprived Australian Aboriginal people of their land up to two centuries ago can explain why their communities are full of violence today.
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Ballot boxes Burma
May 10th vote may give Burma's generals permanent control...
From a country that employs one soldier for every citizen - where demonstrators are tortured and where political joke-tellers end up in jail - some incredibly brave men and women step up to Radio New Internationalist's microphones today to talk about the latest developments in their country. Since 1962, military generals have run Burma with iron fists and frozen hearts. As the generals' bank balances rise, the standard of living of the Burmese continues to fall, with an estimated one in ten of Burma's people now suffering from chronic malnutrition.
On Saturday 10th May the Burmese people will be asked to give the generals permanent control over the government of their country by endorsing a new constitution: one that most voters won't be able to read before they place their vote. Just back from Burma, New Internationalist co-editor Dinyar Godrej shares some stories about the generals and their grip on power with three resisters of the military regime who are forging new horizons for Burma:
- Bo Kyi from Burma's Assistance Association for Political Prisoners spent a total of seven years and three months in Burma's jails because he organized a demonstration. He explains the way tens of thousands of political prisoners have been abused in a justice system that the military kidnapped decades ago.
- Charm Tong from the Shan Women's Action Network reports on how military madness is burning ethnic villages off Burma's map - killing the villagers and using rape as a weapon of war.
- Htoo Paw from the Karen Women's Organization has been part of a process to draft a Constitution that's alternative to the one being proposed by the military. She outlines a system to unite the country and still deliver autonomy to minorities.
Today's CD is a collection of ambient funk from Asia from the Ryukyu Underground, which takes original Japanese recordings and mixes them with a beat pulsing with an independent spirit.
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Indigenous Sunrise
A brighter horizon may finally be dawning for some of the world’s 350 million indigenous peoples. It’s a nice change. In country after country, indigenous peoples are often the most deprived: more likely to be in prison; more likely to die early; and more likely to be hungry. Stripped of their land by foreign invaders generations ago – often with deadly consequences – community after community still struggles for a decent place within their own homeland. But the storyline is changing as indigenous peoples become more organized and demand justice. Two and a half years ago indigenous leader Evo Morales was elected President of Bolivia. New Internationalist co-editor Vanessa Baird joins the Radio New Internationalist team on a trip to Bolivia to discover how redistributing parliamentary power, resource wealth and land can deliver social justice to indigenous peoples.
- An indigenous head of state means far more than a fair share of the country’s money and resources. Bolivian anthropologist Xavier Albó salutes power’s crowning glory – dignity.
- Saturnino (Jun) Borras – one of the founders of the international peasants movement La Via Campesina – digs up the good, the bad and the ugly ways of dividing up a nation’s land.
- While cocaine is being cooked chemically from coca, the United States Embassy in Bolivia is serving coca tea to its visitors. Given its substantial health and export potentials, Jim Shultz argues that – when it comes to the coca leaf – its time that the international community gets real.
Also in this program, power dances to a different beat as Cuban band Sierra Maestra performs passionate love songs both to Latin America and the rumba from their CD Rumbero Soy.
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Privatization continued
Inside the minds of politicians privatizing public assets...
Despite widespread and vocal global disgruntlement about privatisation, governments keep on keeping it on. They're selling public assets at ridiculously low rates. They're giving corporations monopoly control of a dizzying array of essential public services. And they're exposing education, health and transport to a profit motive delivering less quality at more cost. Just what can politicians who privatize be thinking? Radio New Internationalist decided to ask.
- Laila Harré - a former New Zealand Cabinet Minister - joins today's program to explore what goes on in the minds of our governments when they're making these huge and irreversible decisions: decisions that effectively let companies take over the functions entrusted to government. As she outlines the players, the politics, and the psychology of privatization, she paints a clear picture of what's coming up next on privatization's broad horizons.
- The privatization cheer-leading squad contains a colourful array of financiers and advisors who are driving the process behind the scenes. New Zealand researcher, writer and activist Bill Rosenberg from the Campaign Against Foreign Control of Aotearoa (CAFCA) provides some profiles, as he outlines some of the international pressures driving privatization.
- A massive 30 per cent of South Africans have no access to electricity even though it's a right given to all by South Africa's Bill of Rights. Silumko Radebe from the South African Anti Privatization Forum explains how he and his colleagues are reconnecting people with the energy services that privatization is trying to take away.
Today's CD is called Sabou performed by that legendary West African singer Mory Kante. He's a millionaire of a different sort - the first African artist to sell a million singles.
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Ethical travellers
To fly or not to fly...
Now that we're more conscious of combating climate change, cutting back on carbon emissions is high on the list. To fly or not to fly - that is the question. After all, heating a home for a whole year produces on average less carbon dioxide emissions than one person taking a return flight from New York to London. But helse do you get there? You can't take a train, and who's got time for a boat? Should you go at all? 's just one of many dilemmas that confront ethical travellers. It's no easy ride. here to go? Who to travel with? How to maximize the amount of your money that goes to local people - not big companies - in the places you visit? So strap on your seat belt as New Internationalist co-editor Chris Brazier away the ecotourism marketing hype and guides us through a host of travelling experiences destined to do more good than harm.
- Combine carbon emissions with the increasing cost of a place on a plane and the desire for plane travel might be crashing. Cameron Forbes - author of 'Under the volcano: The Story of Bali' - considers what would happen to the Indonesian island of Bali if the tourist dollar disappears.
- From rubbish and water waste to the over-development of sensitive areas, tourism's environmental impacts are significant. Syed Liyakhat from the Indian NGO Equations sets out the effects that tourism has had on Indian people, places and culture.
- Peter Richards - from the Community Based Tourism Institute in Chiangmai, Thailand - shows us snapshots of communities in the Majority World that are benefiting best from tourism.
The revved-up rhythms in today's program come straight off the streets surrounding Colombia's Caribbean coastline as Colombi-africa - the Mystic Orchestra perform their Voodoo Love Inna Champeta-Land CD.
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you would like to save the program to - 128kbps mp3 55.7MB)
Program archives
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Voices from the margins:
Multimedia: video, podcasts, and more.
- Poetry Slam in Zimbabwe
- The House of Hunger poetry slam held in Zimbabwe in 2006, and organised by the Pamberi Trust, showcased young artists performing inspirational work on issues from corporate power to child soldiers. The video features four of the poets.
Published by Pambazuka News.
- Iranian women speak out
- 3 March 2007, London. Women's rights activists marched through the English capital last week to celebrate International Women's Day with a protest against the misogyny of the Islamic regime in Iran and the threat of invasion by the US. Hear the voices of Iranian feminists Azar and Leila Parnian and the sounds of the demonstration as it passed through the heart of the city. Click here to learn more about the campaign.
Produced by Heidi Bachram.
- Raised Voices audio:
- Benny from West Papua on Corporate Power
- Vinayan from India on agriculture
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.
Except where otherwise noted, images on this site are copyright of the photographer/illustrator or representative agency.Except where otherwise noted, content on this site is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 License.
