WERU Special 8/22/18: The Threatened Forcible Displacement of Khan al-Ahmar and the Denial of Human Rights to Palestinians

Producer/Host: Carolyn Coe

The Threatened Forcible Displacement of Khan al-Ahmar and the Denial of Human Rights to Palestinians

Israeli order for the destruction of the bedouin community of Khan al-Ahmar
Israeli control of water in the Occupied Palestinian Territories
The unviable so-called two-state solution
How do Palestinians resist the continued denial of human rights?
How will climate change and illegal settlement building impact the future of Palestine?
How do Palestinians channel their anger?

Guests:
Jamal Juma’, organizer of the grassroots campaign Stop the Wall (stopthewall.org)
Saim AbuDahouk, Khan al-Ahmar community member, Palestinian Authority employee
Professor Mazin Qumsiyeh, activist, professor, and founder and director of the Palestine Museum of Natural History (www.palestinenature.org)
Qumsiyeh’s blog: popular-resistance.blogspot.com/

WERU News Report 3/29/11

Producer/Host: Amy Browne
Contributing Producer: Meaghan LaSala

Segment 1: LD 1129, “An Act To Provide the Department of Environmental Protection with Regulatory Flexibility Regarding the Listing of Priority Chemicals”, and LD 1185, An Act To Amend the Process for Prioritizing Toxic Chemicals in Children’s Products
Producer: Amy Browne
The Joint Standing Committee on Environment and Natural Resources heard testimony today on 2 pieces of proposed legislation, aimed at revising the Kids Safe Products Act— which was passed in 2008, with the goal of protecting children from harmful chemicals like bisphenol A, or BPA.
LD 1185, An Act To Amend the Process for Prioritizing Toxic Chemicals in Children’s Products, is sponsored by Senator Seth Goodall and several co-sponsors, and has the support of the Natural Resources Council of Maine. Goodall’s bill would narrow the scope of chemicals for consideration as “priority chemicals”, and require that at least 2 additional priority chemicals be designated by January 1, 2013.
Environmentalists say that the other piece of proposed legislation being presented to the committee today would gut the KidsSafe Product Act. LD 1129, “An Act To Provide the Department of Environmental Protection with Regulatory Flexibility Regarding the Listing of Priority Chemicals” is sponsored by Representative James Hamper, a Republican from Oxford. The Joint Standing Committee on Environment and Natural Resources was still hearing testimony as we went to air, but here are excerpts from Representative Hamper’s presentation of his bill.

Segment 2: An interview with Sheila Watt-Cloutier, a Canadian Inuk, Nobel Peace nominee and world leader on climate change and human rights.
Producer: Meaghan LaSala
Sheila is also a visiting scholar for the 2010-2011 school year at Bowdoin College’s Arctic Studies Center. Sheila discusses her belief that indigenous voices must be brought to the forefront of international dialogues around climate change, describes the traditional Inuit hunting culture, and details the ways in which this ancient culture is already under threat due to climate change. She explains why the Arctic experiences the minute changes of global warming more drastically than other areas of the world, and how these changes threaten the Inuit way of life. Sheila also discusses her vision of “bridging the gap” between indigenous knowledge and the rationalism of globalization– one that does not consign indigenous cultures to a museum, but rather puts them at the forefront of the solution, with feet planted firmly in both worlds.

RadioActive 7/10/09

Producers/Hosts: Meredith DeFrancesco and Amy Browne

Topic: The urgent impacts climate change will continue to have on food security through out the world. The G8 Summit in Italy this week has said they will examine these issues. Whether any plan will emerge remains to be seen. The leaders of the so-called Group of 8 or G8 countries are meeting in Italy this week in an annual summit to discuss global issues…

Guest: Gawain Kripke, Oxfam America’s policy director
To view report “Suffering the Science: Climate Change , People and Poverty” -www.Oxfam America.org. FMI www.350.org

Weekend Voices 6/20/09

Executive Producer/Host: Amy Browne
Contributing Producer: Carolyn Coe
Topic: Carolyn Coe reports back from her recent trip to Gaza with CodePink
Segment 1: Conversation with Um Khaled. Her son Ahmed interprets. She describes her experience living with the Israeli blockade, her hopes for her sons, and the contrast between life in Gaza and other places where she has lived.
Segment 2: A woman’s story of living through the Israeli attacks during the “last war” and a call for the borders to open, with Nisreen Hisham AlBorno, Director of the National Center for Community Rehabilitation and John Ging, Director of UNRWA’s operations in Gaza.

Voices 3/17/09

Producer/Host: Amy Browne
Zoe Weil, is the co-founder and President of the Institute for Humane Education, and author of several books, including “Above All Be Kind: Raising a Humane Child in Challenging Times”, (New Society Publishers, 2003); “The Power and Promise of Humane Education” (New Society Publishers, 2004); “Claude and Medea, The Hellburn Dogs” , Winner of the 2008 Moonbeam Children’s Book Award, (Lantern Books, 2007); & “So, You Love Animals: An Action-Packed, Fun-Filled Book to Help Kids Help Animals”, (New Society Publishers, 1994)

She joins us today to talk about her latest book “Most Good, Least Harm: A Simple Principle For a Better World and a Meaningful Life” (Atria Books, 2009)

FMI: www.zoeweil.com & www.humaneeducation.org

Weekend Voices 1/03/09

Producer/Host: Amy Browne

Audio contributed by: Meredith DeFrancesco, Eric Olson, Jim Harney

Music from School of the Americas Annual Protest at Ft. Benning, GA

Today we pay tribute to Bangor resident—and world citizen—Jim Harney, who died on December 26th at age 68.

Harney was former Catholic priest, and one of the Milwaukee 14, a group of priests and faith-based peace activists who broke into draft boards and burned about 10,000 Selective Service records with homemade napalm in a protest against the Vietnam War in 1968.  They read from the gospel while the records burned.  He spent more than a year in jail for his part in that protest.

In recent years many of us knew Jim Harney through the faces and voices of others that he shared through his photographs and stories.  The photographs of people he met in Iraq have adorned pins and posters, putting a real face on war.  Jim traveled extensively in Latin America, interviewing and photographing people whose stories might not otherwise be told— the poor, survivors of systemic economic violence, those struggling for change.  He accompanied them on their journeys–  running with his friends in El Salvador as US bombs rained down on them, sleeping in the mud in the corn fields, crossing the desert with the undocumented.

After learning he had terminal cancer,  Harney planned a walk  from Boston to Washington DC last summer, to call attention to the plight of the undocumented.  He was able to make it as far as Rhode Island.

In December 2008, Jim Harney was given the Sacco & Vanzetti Social Justice Award from Community Church of Boston— an award that over it’s more than 30 year history has also been presented to Howard Zinn, Scott and Helen Nearing, Cesar Chavez and Rachel Corie.

FMI: www.posibilidad.org, http://celebratingjim.net/, www.soaw.org