A Critical Ear » Palestine

Gaza, Afghanistan, Haiti: ACE for 17 December

andrew — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 00:59:47 +0000

Today we ended up recording the show on a tight turnaround, so it’s shorter than usual (so we could get the file uploaded to air during our timeslot on WRFU). We talked about the Dear Colleague letters circulating in the House of Representatives that push for improvement of conditions in Gaza, Obama’s surge in Afghanistan, and upcoming elections in Haiti.

Also, Bob shared that he’ll be in Eygpt and Gaza from 27 December, so we’ll be hoping to bring you news from him during his trip. Watch out for updates.

We like to include information on how you can intervene in the news stories we cover: see this call from JustForeignPolicy.org about asking your representative to sign onto the letters being circulated.

Download now from:

Radio4All.net

Indymedia Radio

Will also be available shortly on AudioPort (login required).

Live from the DNC

andrew — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 23:41:04 +0000

This week the focus of our show was the DNC, with Bob reporting live from Denver. However, we managed to fit in reports from Gaza and a world news bulletin, before connecting up with Bob.

With Bob, we started by talking about how the DNC compared to other protest events, then talked about Kucinich’s speech and the importance of international law. I mentioned a new Pew survey (showing that people feel they know more about Obama’s personal story than his policies) as a segue into a discussion of where Obama stands on foreign policy. We then discussed the IVAW rally at the DNC, and closed our DNC focus by talking about a rumoured raid on Indymedia space in Denver. To finish, I asked Bob about significant events in the world this week, and he gave some context on the Gaza convoy, pointed to the continued discussions on a ‘Status of Forces’ agreement (SOFA) in Iraq, as well as to new signs that the Afghan government is interested in having a SOFA to govern US forces in Afghanistan.

During our discussion, Bob mentioned a video he produced of a Code Pink rally, which was included in his blog post on Common Dreams. I promised a link (there’s also a link to Kucinich’s speech in there).

There was also mention of the Blue Dog party hosted by AT&T (to thank them for the gift of retroactive immunity). More from Glenn Greenwald of Salon here. Further DNC coverage from the Colorado IMC.

Next week we’ll be at the RNC.

Audio now up at Radio.Indymedia (mp3), Audioport (mp3), Radio4All

Georgia: behind the headlines

andrew — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 21:40:58 +0000

On this week’s show, we spent most of our time talking about Georgia, in light of the recent events there. We wanted to get beyond the headlines and usual frames of coverage, and believe we accomplished this through two approaches. First, we talked with Jodi Blumenfeld. A graduate student at the University of Illinois, she has participated in archaeological excavations in Georgia, and she spoke with us a little about Georgian culture, giving a more three-dimensional portrait of the country than is usually achieved in news coverage.

Second, Bob and I (Andrew) spoke about the news frames being used, and how we might contextualize the conflict. Is it as simple as “Russia is an aggressor?” Is it sufficient to look for a ‘good guy’ and a ‘bad guy’? How does this relate to resource issues (Georgia is an important distribution route for gas from the Caspian Sea to Europe)? What about politics in other former Soviet states and Eastern bloc nations?

Then a brief update on events in Bolivia and Ecuador – where offers of mediation by the government in the lawsuit against Chevron may not be the positive development one might think.

Finally, in a tribute to Mahmoud Darwish, Bob recites (in the original Arabic) from the 1964 poem Identity Card.

Write down!
I am an Arab
And my identity card number is fifty thousand
I have eight children
And the ninth will come after a summer
Will you be angry?

We close with salutations in Georgian, from Jodi.

The show is now available on Radio4All (direct mp3 link), on Audioport (mp3), and Indymedia Radio (mp3).

Catching up with the uploads

andrew — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 00:34:16 +0000

While travelling the past few weeks I fell somewhat behind on uploads of the program to the Indymedia Radio site (though I was generally successful with getting them to Audioport on time). I’ve now uploaded the following to that site:

8 May, 15 May, 22 May, 29 May, 12 June.

US increases tensions with Iran, Israel agrees truce with Hamas

andrew — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 21:22:42 +0000

Those are among the most significant developments we discuss in our latest show (for June 19, 2008). Also available on Audioport.

We’ve fallen a little behind in posting shows to the site (I’ve concentrated on getting them onto Audioport during some recent travels). I plan to clear the backlog and get them up soon, probably as a combined post.

ACE 2008-04-17 now online

andrew — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 22:24:56 +0000

You can listen to our latest show online here or here. Yesterday’s show included discussion of Carter’s visit to Palestine as well as an interview with Allison Hantschel about Douglas Feith (the focus of her book, Special Plans). Note that we’re now sharing our content on Audioport, radio.indymedia.org and from the WRFU site. If you’re interested in re-broadcasting the show you can grab it from any of these sources – though do let me know, so I know who’s depending on downloads from which sources, by what deadlines. At present I’m getting Audioport up by Thursday night, and try to get it onto either radio.indymedia.org or WRFU by Thursday too, with links added here, and the third audio source, by some time Friday.