Sun, 23 June 2013
 22MB. mono 24 minutesToni Solo from Nicaragua talks about some of the environmental and geopolitical issues at stake in the announcement by the Nicaraguan government of an agreement with a Hong Kong based Chinese company to go ahead with feasability studies for a massive canal project connecting the Pacific Ocean with the Caribbean coast through largely uninhabited jungle areas of Nicaragua. |
Nicaragua's trans-oceanic canal
Nicaragua's Trans Oceanic canal
Sun, 23 June 2013
 9Mb. 13 minutesToni Solo from Nicaragua talks about some of the environmental and geopolitical issues at stake in the announcement by the Nicaraguan government of an agreement with a Hong Kong based Chinese company to go ahead with feasability studies for a massive canal project connecting the Pacific Ocean with the Caribbean coast through largely uninhabited jungle areas of Nicaragua. |
Former President on War Crimes charges
Mon, 3 June 2013
19.2 Mb 21 minutes Stereo mp3
Grahame Russel is a Canadian lawyer who works with Rights Action (http://rightsaction.org). He was in Guatemala as an observer for the trial of Rios Efrain Montt who is accused of being responsible for the genocide of over 100 thousand Mayan indigenous people during his term as President in the early 1980s. Grahame makes the point that this is a ground breaking trial as it implicates the current President of Guatemala who was a major in the Guatemalan Armed Forces at the time the human rights abuses and the genocide was peaking. Alan Nairn, a journalist who filmed current President Otto Perez Molina gloating over the bodies of villagers suspected of being supporters of the guerilla forces was blocked from presenting evidence at the trial. (http://www.democracynow.org/2013/4/19/exclusive_allan_nairn_exposes_role_of) |
Honduras Revolutionary Musician - Pavel Nunez Duarte and 'Cafe Guancasco'
Fri, 4 January 2013
10MB stereo 10 minutes.
Pavel Nunez Duarte, Honduras' revolutionary musican and songwriter, of the top selling band 'Cafe Guancasco' talks to community radio about how politics informs their music. A teacher of mathematics, a student organiser, and now active in the Resistance Front of Honduras against the coup, he finds music is 'another language', his guitar 'a megaphone' to communicate the social realities of Honduras. He can't say how he 'came to be involved in politics' because it has always been part of his life. It is more a question of why he can't leave it ! A revealing interview in which even the explanation of 'Guancasco' has a social import. A 'Guancasco, he says, is a gathering , or get together of people in an indigenous community. You don't get that, in the cities but, he explains, in urban communities around the world you have 'Cafes' . Hence the name - a blend of the modern and the traditional, the regional and the global.
Direct download: PavelPart1Jan_2013_09_36_16_2.mp3
Category:Latin Radical -- posted at: 9:28 PM
Honduras Revolutionary Musician - Pavel Nunez Duarte and 'Cafe Guancasco'
(Spanish Language)10MB stereo 10 minutes.
Pavel Nunez Duarte, Honduras' revolutionary musican and songwriter, of the top selling band 'Cafe Guancasco' talks to community radio about how politics informs their music. A teacher of mathematics, a student organiser, and now active in the Resistance Front of Honduras against the coup, he finds music is 'another language', his guitar 'a megaphone' to communicate the social realities of Honduras. He can't say how he 'came to be involved in politics' because it has always been part of his life. It is more a question of why he can't leave it ! A revealing interview in which even the explanation of 'Guancasco' has a social import. A 'Guancasco, he says, is a gathering , or get together of people in an indigenous community. You don't get that, in the cities but, he explains, in urban communities around the world you have 'Cafes' . Hence the name - a blend of the modern and the traditional, the regional and the global.
Direct download: PavelPart1Jan_2013_09_36_16_2.mp3
Category:Latin Radical -- posted at: 9:28 PM
Timor Media - Interview with Jose Belo
Fri, 14 September 2012
46.3 Mb. 51 minutes
Jose Belo is a Timorese man who perhaps represents the highest values of journalism. Active in the Timorese resistance movement against the Indonesian occupation, he was a critical factor in enabling those few independent Australian journalists who contrived to work in Timor Leste (legendary journalists like John Martinkus, Max Stahl, and others) to gather critical information about the Indonesian occupation, and to get that information out. He was captured and tortured by the Indonesians 7 times, continuing to work in Timor even though he had the opportunity to live in exile in Australia.
After Timorese independence he became a journalist, still maintaining a critical and independent attitude to successive governments of Timor Leste. One year he was threatened with house arrest when he accused a government minister of corruption. He is currently the editor of "Tempo Semanal", a weekly publication that is one of the most influential in the country, still attacking the government on issues of corruption and misspending of state finances.
He was involved in the making of the film Balibo, and more recently, the subject of a more recent film ('Breaking the news') about to be released exposing the behaviour and role of some foreign journalists working in Timor Leste whose ethical and professional standards do not perhaps, match up to Jose's own.
In this interview he talks about his values as a journalist, why he became a journalist, how he became a journalist, and the values that inform his work.
Note: This is a raw, unedited sound file. The sound quality is generally adequate for reproduction, but another shortened edited and contextualised version of this interview will be posted soon.
Jose Belo is a Timorese man who perhaps represents the highest values of journalism. Active in the Timorese resistance movement against the Indonesian occupation, he was a critical factor in enabling those few independent Australian journalists who contrived to work in Timor Leste (legendary journalists like John Martinkus, Max Stahl, and others) to gather critical information about the Indonesian occupation, and to get that information out. He was captured and tortured by the Indonesians 7 times, continuing to work in Timor even though he had the opportunity to live in exile in Australia.
After Timorese independence he became a journalist, still maintaining a critical and independent attitude to successive governments of Timor Leste. One year he was threatened with house arrest when he accused a government minister of corruption. He is currently the editor of "Tempo Semanal", a weekly publication that is one of the most influential in the country, still attacking the government on issues of corruption and misspending of state finances.
He was involved in the making of the film Balibo, and more recently, the subject of a more recent film ('Breaking the news') about to be released exposing the behaviour and role of some foreign journalists working in Timor Leste whose ethical and professional standards do not perhaps, match up to Jose's own.
In this interview he talks about his values as a journalist, why he became a journalist, how he became a journalist, and the values that inform his work.
Note: This is a raw, unedited sound file. The sound quality is generally adequate for reproduction, but another shortened edited and contextualised version of this interview will be posted soon.
Timorese Police Chief under pressure. NGO watchdog backgrounds him. Interview with Fundasaun Mahein
Wed, 12 September 2012
8.2 Mb. 8 minutes 45 seconds (stereo)Head of the PNTL (Timorese National Police), Longhuino Monteiro has been called on to resign for a series of incidents involving 'missing' weapons over several years. The most recent is the disappearance of a high powered automatic weapon, with 60 rounds of ammunition from the car of the head of Police Intelligence while it was parked outside a brothel. Longuino dismissed this as 'not a problem - a single weapon is not a threat to public security'. But this, and other weapons that have gone missing over the years is, according to the NGO Fundasaun Mahein a flaw in the PNTL that Monteiro has not addressed.
Fundasaun Mahein (Guardian Foundation) is an NGO that evolved as a watchdog research organisation concerned with issues of public security out of the destabilising conflicts of 2006 and 2007, that involved elements of both the Timorese Police and the the Timorese Armed Forces, who at times were involved in armed conflict against each other.
