Alternatives International

The Future of Canadian Journalism

Stephen Eldon Kerr — 2012-05-01T03:01:21Z

Last weekend, from April 19 – 21, 2012, the Journalism Strategies conference was held at Concordia and McGill Universities in Montreal. The conference brought together attendees from Canada, Australia, France, the U.K., and Australia, to discuss some of the most pressing questions facing contemporary journalism: how should we define journalism in the age of citizen media? What potential new organizational and financial models should media companies investigate? What types of regulatory policies will foster a media that supports a thriving democracy?

The conference could not have come sooner: Canadian media is in a bad way. Over the last twenty years the number of independent Canadian media organizations has drastically shrunk: in 1990, 17.3 per cent of daily newspapers were independently owned, but by 2005, only 1 per cent were. A few large companies such as CTVglobemedia, Rogers, and the CBC control most of the flow of information to the general public.

But what do these companies publish? Salacious tidbits of apolitical “news” information stripped of any critical content, allthewhile ignoring the true activities and motives of the powerful. Why? Because in order to keep increasing profits in a fixed market, the mainstream media inevitably has had to make cuts. The advent of the internet has accelerated the cost-cutting. Investigative journalists have been the first to go: their work is relatively expensive and provides little revenue. Unsurprisingly, as the great journalist A.J. Liebling noted in 1961: “with the decline in the ‘number and variety' of voices there is a decline in the number and variety of reporting eyes, which is at least a malign”.

In his book Flat Earth News, the journalist Nick Davies found that in Britain, in 2006, only 12 per cent of newspaper articles in the highbrow papers were the result of real investigative journalism; 80 per cent were rewritten wire copy or press releases. The consequence is that global “flat earth news” stories, like the Millenium Bug and Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction stories, are allowed to perpetuate, because there are so few journalists checking the facts; the world was flat until somebody checked. This isn't journalism, it is churnalism: content churned out to keep up with the need to make money. Worryingly, Davies also found that more people now work in PR than in journalism. That is, more people are paid to disguise the truth than to reveal it. In service of profit the media has stopped fact-checking its own reports.

The problem with this is that many of the worlds news stories are the result of complex sets of historical forces, as most clearly described by Suzanne Pingree and Robert Hawkins:

“The myriad forms of oppression of women did not suddenly begin by Presidential decree last Thursday; they have been around for hundreds of years and have been adapted gradually as changing social and technological circumstances required.”

Replace “women” with “people” and the point still stands. Currently, 80 percent of the world's population live on less than $10 a day; one billion people are illiterate; and 80 per cent of the world's population live in countries with a growing income differentials. Contextualising these statistics will prompt readers to ask hard questions about the way the world is governed. That is not to say that there is a correct answer to the questions, but that news, decontextualized, ignores the political realities of the day. It is impossible for most people to address society's ills on the basis of most modern media coverage. Bernard Roshko concluded as much his 1975 book Newsmaking: news raises awareness but does not promote understanding. Even on those rare occasions when the facts are clear and correct, the mainstream media does not provide the context to further debate.

More sinisterly, the media often do appear to actively serve the interests of those they are supposed to critique. Chris Hedges, foreign correspondent for the New York Times for over twenty years, has argued that “a too comfortable relationship exists on the part of major news organizations...with the elite.” Instead of doing their own research, Hedges laments, the mainstream media rely politicians and CEOs for their news.

As British journalist George Monbiot has asked: Did all 247 of Rupert Murdoch's editors really just happen to support the second Gulf War? Well, according to a 2008 testimony given before the British House of Lords, absolutely not. Andrew Neil, the editor of Murdoch's The Sunday Times for 11 years, testified that Murdoch “never left [Neil] in any doubt about what he wanted...You knew, as an editor, that you did not have a freehold, you had a leasehold [which] depended on accommodating his views”.

That the journalism strategies conference billed itself as “part of the on-going efforts to reimagine journalism in Canada” was important enough then, and the organisers were extremely conscious of the fact that a healthy democracy depends on a healthy media. But what were the outcomes?

First and foremost, the conference was a success. Media theorists and practitioners from all over the world were able to debate ideas and models, and the organisers ought to be commended for their tireless efforts. No formal policy recommendations were made - there wasn't time - but the attendees did agree on releasing a joint statement. From my perspective, the best outcome of the conference was seeing the variety of different media models that work, and the different ways they integrate with communities. AllNovaScotia.com has had a decade of online success by doing everything wrong. They are a digital-only organisation, but hide behind a paywall and pay their journalists - shock! Groundwire are a wonderful community radio organisation based in campus-community radio stations across Canada. OpenFile.ca are following the digital route but incorporating crowdsurfing into their model; they get readers to suggest stories.

The common theme throughout all of this was the movement towards education and empowering citizens, particularly in the face of the rapidly-declining quality of the mainstream media. Many of the media models presented were local and community-based, and tried to to more than just emit news by including their audience in the production, distribution, and promotion of content. In fact, as Andrea Langlois and Frederic Dubois note, alternative media organisations tend to be characterised by an attempt to “move beyond issues of content”, while Academics Michael Boyle and Mike Schmierbach have shown that audiences of alternative media are likelier to be more frequently engaged in protest actions than audiences of mainstream media.

The Canadian Association of Journalists (CAJ), in their “Principles for Ethical Journalism”, state that “journalists have the duty and privilege to seek and report the truth, encourage civic debate to build our communities, and serve the public interest”. Many of the alternative media models presented at the conference do just that, away from the prying eyes of Rupert Murdoch.

CIDA's Lack of Transparency and Democracy

Geneviève Lavoie-Mathieu — 2012-04-30T17:13:24Z

Canadian International Assistance Envelope (IAE) funds will decrease by 7.4% over the next three years despite promises, just two years ago, of freezing the aid budget at $5 billion for five years. More important, and at the heart of the current debate on Canadian politics, is the fundamental change in the way CIDA operates and which international development organisations get funding. According to the Association québecoise des organisations de coopération internationale (AQOCI), this change is not democratic and "allows the federal government to formally decline funding to organisations that do not support or [that] criticize Canadian national or international policies."

The CIDA Budget Cuts

By 2015, the deadline and assessment year of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), Canada will have reduced Canadian official development assistance (ODA) by close to $1.2 billion. The government has insisted that this move was done in an effort to “improve the effectiveness of Canada's aid by strengthening its focus, improving efficiency and increasing accountability." This move by the government has been denounced by the vast majority of NGOs, that work overseas as well as their respective associations.

According to the Canadian Council for International Cooperation (CCIC), "Canadian aid performance will decline between 2012 and 2014, if the government maintains the freeze on the IAE." The CCIC affirms, "these cuts will also undermine the minimal institutional capacity that the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) requires to ensure that Canada continues to deliver quality programs overseas."

Jean Louis Roy, historian and author of 'Ma rencontre avec un continent: Écrits sur l'Afrique', states that this diminution in the budget risks damaging relationships built over the last 60 years between Canadian organisations, the federal government, and partners in the Global South.

Through the new CIDA funding system adopted in July 2010, projects are selected on the basis of their needs, capacity to benefit from aid, and their conformity to Canadian politics priorities abroad.

Previously, aid groups requested funding for their own projects; With the new funding mechanism introduced, they must bid on projects that correspond to the government's priorities in 20 countries, "ramping up competition between the groups" according to ACDI. This process is more similar to private companies bidding for a contract, than international cooperation working in partnership with the government and populations in the Global South.

A report] produced by the CCCI and Inter-Council Network of Provincial and Regional Councils for International Cooperationassesses the impact of the change in the new system, and shows that it removes the possibility for international development organisations to work independently. It forbids them from taking initiatives, decreasing or ending in some cases long-term partnerships based on confidence and built on years of grassroots level activities.

The new system has resulted in the government's direct control of the operations of organizations, which previously worked independently of political ideologies and religious beliefs. Through funding pressures, the federal agency now has the power to shape and constrain the activities of these organisations.

The AQOCI claims that as a result of the new funding process, funding for religious organisations and mining companies is being promoted. $4.5 million was awarded to Lundin for Africa, a foundation managed by a group of mining and oil companies in Alberta, who make millions of profit. Also, by imposing a minimum funding limit of CAN$100 000, bigger organisations are favoured in the competitive process.

Mining development: A win-win situation for Canada and its trading partners?
The recent changes in CIDA's operations hhave been coupled with a focus on building Canada's leadership in the mining sector, "to support and build natural resource management capacity in developing countries." The government will now focus 80% of its bilateral resources on 20 targeted countries of which several, including Bolivia, Mozambique and Tanzania, are home to significant Canadian mining and energy interests.

While funds for organisations like Development and Peace were decreased by 65%, CIDA awarded $6.7 million to three groups that have partnered with mining firms IAMGOLD, Barrick and Rio Tinto Alcan, to provide job training to youths in South America and Africa, where they have mines.

International Cooperation Minister Beverly Oda claims that stimulations the economy represents the best way to help a country.

Minister Fast added “Our trading partners, in particular developing countries, also benefit, from increased economic opportunities and from our knowledge, skills and experience, which can help them better manage their resources, leading to sustainable economic growth and poverty reduction.”

This is despite documented cases by organizations such as Amnesty International and Mining Watch of the human rights abuses that Canadian mining companies have been found guilty of, such as community conflict, environmental damages and unethical behavior.

The budget cuts along with the more fundamental, deeper change in the funding structure demonstrates that the Canadian foreign aid system is increasingly shifting towards a way to mobilise natural resources and profits, failing to fulfill its primary duty: To promote and assist in meaningful and sustainable development.

The Shin Bet Blacklist

Tamkinat Mirza — 2012-04-30T17:10:10Z

The Israeli Security Service Shin Bet has blacklisted over 1000 people from entering Israel. Many of the people named on the list have no evidence linking them as activists part of this year's “Welcome to Palestine” flytilla.

The Shin Bet compiled the list with the intelligence division of the Israel Police. The Population Registry was also involved in keeping out certain passengers, but said it was following Shin Bet's orders.

Israel issued the list of blacklisted passengers names to international airlines, threatening to take legal measure against them if they were allowed to board planes bound for Israel. Security officials reportedly tracked the activists on social media sits such as Twitter and Facebook to compile the list.

The 730 people on the initial blacklist were all foreign citizens banned either by the Israeli Intelligence's determination that they were flying in solely to take part in the protest, or because they had arrived in Israel for that purpose during a previous fly-in held in July.

The 270 people who took part in the previous protest have been banned from entering the country for ten years.

Many of the passengers on the list had also been arrested for protests in the West bank, or their names appear online in connection to pro-Palestinian groups.

About twenty airlines were told they would have to pay for the return flights of any people blacklisted and turned away at the border.

The airlines include Jet2.com, a British airline which obliged to the threat by refusing a British citizen to board the plan, while refusing to refund the ticket.

Other airines that cancelled tickets include Air France, Alitalia, Easyjet and Turkish Airlines. Lufthansa and Swiss airlines also cancelled flights bound for Israel, leaving airports around Europe the locations for mass protests. The companies cited Israeli threat of sanctions as the main reason for cancellations.

According to Haaretz, Shin Bet has no evidence that 470 of the 1200 people labeled “pro-Palestinian activists” intended to do anything illegal, or that they were connected to the protest.

Passengers on the blacklist who have no connection to the protest include an employee of Italy's Communications Ministry and a Dutch Member of the board of directors of German pharmaceutical giant Merck. Both were eventually allowed into the country.

“We put people on the list, who are as far removed from anti-Israel political activity as east is from west,” a Foreign Ministry official told Haaretz, “We have insulted hundred of foreign citizens because of suspicions, and have given the other side a victory on a silver platter.”

The Shin Bet has not responded to requests for comment.

Responding to the blacklist, Lubna Masarwa, one of the organizers of the protest told Haaretz, “What is clear is that there is a popular struggle that is gaining momentum and has the international support of thousands of activists. The Palestinians are not alone in their struggle.”

Around 100 activists managed to travel to the West Bank, despite Israel controlling access to the region, for the first “Welcome to Palestine” campaign in 2010.

Last year, Israel worked with airlines to prevent hundreds of activists from flying in, detaining and deporting 120 of those that did manage to arrive at the Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv.

This year, the Canadian coordination for the campaign said they anticipated about 1500 participants from around the world. 79 of the protestors, including one 19-year-old Canadian student, were detained by Israel authorities, at Ben Gurion airport.

Assault of Extractive Industry in Latin America

Raul Burbano — 2012-04-30T17:07:40Z

At the Summit of the Americas in Cartagena, Colombia, Harper spoke to CEOs from across the Americas and unveiled Canada's plans to expand into Latin America with vigor. Trade and investment, especially in the resource extraction sector, will be the engines driving this expansion. Canadian mining companies already have a significant presence in the region, with two-thirds of all mining projects in the Americas.

Harper carefully outlined to the business leaders the importance of the extractive sector to the Canadian economy, emphasizing that “mining alone contributed 50 billion dollars to GDP in 2011”. He went on to boast about the high standards of the industry, saying that Canadians are “justly proud” of their mining industry “for its elevated sense of social responsibility.”[1]

What he neglected to mention was that many communities in the region don't share his vision of development and that Latin America is rife with resistance against Canada's extractive industry. Montreal's Osisko company learned this lesson the hard way when it tried to impose a mining project in the northern part of the state of La Rioja, Argentina. Even though the project was only in the exploratory stage, it met with local and nationwide protest. So much so that the company publicly acknowledged that it lacked a “social license” for exploration and development around the Famatina project, and put its operations on hold.[2]

The number of communities organizing to halt mining encroachment goes on and on. One only has to turn on the TV or read a newspaper to understand the depth and scale of the resistance being waged against Canada's aggressive resource extraction sector in the region: An industry that is notorious for corrupting public officials, increasing militarization, escalating conflict, and degrading the environment in areas where companies set up shop. The benefits too often seem to be lost to those living in the regions that are supposed to reap the trickle-down benefits of the industry.

Similar protests against Canada's Barrick Gold in Chile forced the company to withdraw their request for public financing of its Pascua Lama project after large protests against its operations for “mine worker deaths, irreparable damage to glaciers, state sanctions against the company and ongoing problems regarding water quality and quantity affecting farmers in the area”[3].

In Marmato Colombia, artisan miners are defending their land and way of life against Gran Colombia Gold, a Canada-based gold and silver company. Many in the community oppose the company's plan to relocate the town in order to make way for its project. Tensions escalated in 2011, when Marmato's parish priest, José Reinel Restrepo, was shot dead by unidentified assailants. Coincidently, he was a vocal and ardent opponent of the displacement of his community. Weeks prior to his murder “Father Restrepo had visited the city of Bogotá together with municipal leaders in order to denounce the general unease in his community arising from the proposed large-scale open-pit gold project”[4]

Central America has not been immune to the negative impacts of Canada's extractive industry either. Opposition to Canadian companies is widespread there too. An emblematic case deals with Vancouver-based Pacific Rim and its El Dorado project in El Salvador. Early in the exploratory stages of proposed mining in the region, residents uncovered the negative environmental impacts of mining on their community. “These included reduced access to water, polluted waters, impacts to agriculture, and health issues” and the fact that “only a tiny share of Pacific Rim's profits would stay in the country, and that the El Dorado mine was projected to have an operational life of only about six years, with many of the promised jobs requiring skills that few local people had”. Community members began to organize and oppose the exploration. In turn, an escalation of violence was unleashed against organizers who opposed the exploration. Human rights violations resulted in increased public pressure against the mining exploration projects. Given this pressure, outgoing president Tony Saca refused to extend an exploitation license to Pacific Rim in 2008. In 2009, newly elected president Mauricio Funes declared a moratorium on all mining exploitation permits.[5]

These are just a few of the countless examples of the continent-wide opposition to Harper's vision of Canada's extractive sector and its “elevated sense of social responsibility”. Much of this was synthesized in Cartagena, Colombia at the People's Summit. The Summit is a large civil society forum that runs parallel to the official Summit of the Americas. It was titled, “the true voice of the Americas”. It brought together a diverse sector of groups including indigenous, Afro-Colombian, campesino, labour, ecumenical, NGO and student organizations from across the Americas to share stories, build links and discuss strategies on various topics relevant to people in the region. One key topic was the encroachment of resource-hungry transnational companies on communities in Latin America. The People's Summit culminated in a march that saw over 8,000 people take to the streets despite the presence of thousands of police and military personnel.

The final declaration that came out of the People's Summit is a testimony to the fact that many sectors and communities in Latin America are not reaping the benefits of Canada's mining and resource extraction industry. In fact, it's often the opposite, and this was clearly outlined in the final declaration of the People's Summit, which labels Canada and its promotion of this policy of development as nefarious.

“For its part, the Canadian government has promoted a policy of Free Trade Agreements, mega mining and resource extraction of natural resources and energy in all Latin America. Many of its companies are causing irreversible damage to the environment, biodiversity, violating the rights of the people and their lands and the sovereignty of countries of the south. Social and environmental conflict increases in regions as a result of this non-consultative imposition”[6].

Harper's new Americas' strategy premised on the principles of prosperity, democracy and security in the hemisphere leaves much to be desired if the locomotive of resource extraction in conjunction with Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) continues to drive the agenda. These agreements are used as wedges to open doors for Canadian companies. FTAs provide the architecture of impunity for corporations as they seek to deepen corporate rights and increase profits at the expense of communities and their lands.
The conservatives' misguided and short-term strategy to aggressively promote this environmentally destructive resource extraction industry in Latin America is bound to fail. Rather than bringing prosperity, democracy and security to the region, it will fan the fire of discontent and opposition across the continent. Harper's disingenuous promises of improved corporate social responsibly in the region will not be enough to placate a proud people with a long history of struggle and resistance. They have seen the results first-hand and know all too well that the negative impacts of such policies vastly outweighs any short-term gains.

Harper was correct when he said, “resource development has vast power to change the way a nation lives”. Unfortunately, today, for many living in Latin America, that change is often all too negative.

1http://www.pm.gc.ca/eng/media.asp?category=3&featureId=6&pageId=26&id=4742
2 http://www.osisko.com/en/press/2012/01/30/665/osisko-updates-status-of-famatina-exploration-project.html
3 http://www.ccic.ca/_files/en/working_groups/apg_2012-04-12_mining_note.pdf
4 http://www.miningwatch.ca/news/response-marmato-colombia-murder-father-jos-reinel-restrepo
5 http://www.thenation.com/article/162009/water-gold-el-salvador
6 http://www.desdeabajo.info/actualidad/internacional/item/19591-declaraci%C3%B3n-de-la-v-cumbre-de-los-pueblos-la-verdadera-voz-de-las-am%C3%A9ricas.html

http://commonfrontiers.ca/Cartagena/ - April 19th 2012

Dark Hearts

George Monbiot — 2012-04-30T17:06:14Z

There is one thing you can say for the Holocaust deniers: at least they know what they are denying. In order to sustain the lies they tell, they must engage in strenuous falsification. To dismiss Britain's colonial atrocities, no such effort is required. Most people appear to be unaware that anything needs to be denied.

The story of benign imperialism, whose overriding purpose was not to seize land, labour and commodities but to teach the natives English, table manners and double-entry book-keeping, is a myth that has been carefully propagated by the right-wing press. But it draws its power from a remarkable national ability to airbrush and disregard our past.

Last week's revelations, that the British government systematically destroyed the documents detailing mistreatment of its colonial subjects(1), and that the Foreign Office then lied about a secret cache of files containing lesser revelations(2), is by any standards a big story. But it was either ignored or consigned to a footnote by most of the British press. I was unable to find any mention of the secret archive on the Telegraph's website. The Mail's only coverage, as far as I can determine, was an opinion piece by a historian called Lawrence James, who used the occasion to insist that any deficiencies in the management of the colonies were the work of “a sprinkling of misfits, incompetents and bullies” while everyone else was “dedicated, loyal and disciplined”(3).

The British government's suppression of evidence was scarcely necessary. Even when the documentation of great crimes is abundant, it is not denied but simply ignored. In an article for the Daily Mail in 2010, for example, the historian Dominic Sandbrook announced that “Britain's empire stands out as a beacon of tolerance, decency and the rule of law. … Nor did Britain countenance anything like the dreadful tortures committed in French Algeria.”(4) Could he really have been unaware of the history he is disavowing?

Caroline Elkins, a professor at Harvard, spent nearly ten years compiling the evidence contained in her book Britain's Gulag: the Brutal End of Empire in Kenya(5). She started her research with the belief that the British account of the suppression of the Kikuyu's Mau Mau revolt in the 1950s was largely accurate. Then she discovered that most of the documentation had been destroyed. She worked through the remaining archives, then conducted 600 hours of interviews with Kikuyu survivors – both rebels and loyalists – and British guards, settlers and officials. Her book is fully and thoroughly documented. It won the Pulitzer prize. But as far as Sandbrook, James and the other imperial apologists are concerned, it might as well never have been written.

Elkins reveals that the British detained not 80,000 Kikuyu, as the official histories maintained, but almost the entire population of one and a half million people, in camps and fortified villages. There, thousands were beaten to death or died from malnutrition, typhoid, tuberculosis and dysentery. In some camps almost all the children died(6).

The inmates were used as slave labour. Above the gates were edifying slogans, such as “Labour and freedom” and “He who helps himself will also be helped”. Loudspeakers broadcast the national anthem and patriotic exhortations. People deemed to have disobeyed the rules were killed in front of the others. The survivors were forced to dig mass graves, which were quickly filled. Unless you have a strong stomach I advise you to skip the next paragraph.

Interrogation under torture was widespread. Many of the men were anally raped, using knives, broken bottles, rifle barrels, snakes and scorpions. A favourite technique was to hold a man upside down, his head in a bucket of water, while sand was rammed into his rectum with a stick. Women were gang-raped by the guards. People were mauled by dogs and electrocuted. The British devised a special tool which they used for first crushing and then ripping off testicles. They used pliers to mutilate women's breasts. They cut off inmates' ears and fingers and gouged out their eyes. They dragged people behind Land Rovers until their bodies disintegrated. Men were rolled up in barbed wire and kicked around the compound(7).

Elkins provides a wealth of evidence to show that the horrors of the camps were endorsed at the highest levels. The governor of Kenya, Sir Evelyn Baring, regularly intervened to prevent the perpetrators from being brought to justice. The colonial secretary, Alan Lennox-Boyd, repeatedly lied to the House of Commons(8). This is a vast, systematic crime for which there has been no reckoning.

No matter. Even those who acknowledge that something happened write as if Elkins and her work did not exist. In the Telegraph, Daniel Hannan maintains that just eleven people were beaten to death. Apart from that, “1,090 terrorists were hanged and as many as 71,000 detained without due process.”(9)

The British did not do body counts, and most victims were buried in unmarked graves. But it is clear that tens of thousands, possibly hundreds of thousands, of Kikuyu died in the camps and during the round-ups. Hannan's is one of the most blatant examples of revisionism I have ever encountered.

Without explaining what this means, Lawrence James concedes that “harsh measures” were sometimes used, but he maintains that “while the Mau Mau were terrorising the Kikuyu, veterinary surgeons in the Colonial Service were teaching tribesmen how to deal with cattle plagues.”(10) The theft of the Kikuyu's land and livestock, the starvation and killings, the widespread support among the Kikuyu for the Mau Mau's attempt to reclaim their land and freedom: all vanish into thin air. Both men maintain that the British government acted to stop any abuses as soon as they were revealed.

What I find remarkable is not that they write such things, but that these distortions go almost unchallenged. The myths of empire are so well-established that we appear to blot out countervailing stories even as they are told. As evidence from the manufactured Indian famines of the 1870s(11) and from the treatment of other colonies accumulates(12,13), British imperialism emerges as no better and in some cases even worse than the imperialism practised by other nations. Yet the myth of the civilising mission remains untroubled by the evidence.

www.monbiot.com

References:

1. http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/apr/18/britain-destroyed-records-colonial-crimes
2. http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/apr/18/sins-colonialists-concealed-secret-archive
3. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2131801/Yes-mistakes-stop-proud-Empire.html
4. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1299111/Stop-saying-sorry-history-For-long-leaders-crippled-post-imperial-cringe.html
5. Caroline Elkins, 2005. Britain's Gulag: the Brutal End of Empire in Kenya. Random House, London.
6. Caroline Elkins, as above.
7. Caroline Elkins, as above.
8. Caroline Elkins, as above.
9. http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/danielhannan/100083096/in-all-the-coverage-of-the-atrocities-in-kenya-two-words-are-missing
10. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2131801/Yes-mistakes-stop-proud-Empire.html
11. Mike Davis, 2001. Late Victorian Holocausts: El Nino Famines and the Making of the Third World. Verso, London.
12. See for example John Newsinger, 2006. The Blood Never Dried: a people's history of the British empire. Bookmarks, London.
and
13. Mark Curtis, 2007. Unpeople: Britain's secret human rights abuses. Vintage, London

Published in the Guardian 24th April 2012

Gunter Grass: Nominee for Nobel Peace Prize!

MICHAEL WARSCHAWSKI — 2012-04-30T17:04:54Z

For his courageous poem warning of an Israeli attack on Iran, German poet Gunter Grass should be nominated for a second Nobel Prize - this time for peace!

Briefing: Living in the Kabul Bubble

2012-04-30T17:03:03Z

DUBAI, 16 April 2012 (IRIN) - A sustained attack by militants on Afghanistan's parliament and various targets in the diplomatic zone on 15 April temporarily shut down the capital, Kabul, to all movement by UN personnel and raised alarm among aid workers that the Taliban are now able to penetrate even the most secure parts of the city.

Cuts Belie Harper's Commitment to Building Democracy Abroad

JENNIFER DITCHBURN — 2012-04-30T17:02:17Z

Canada's commitment to strengthening struggling democracies will likely be a key message as the Prime Minister travels to Latin America next week – but the federal budget tells a different story.

CIDA's Risky Business Venture

Mark Mattner — 2012-04-30T17:01:02Z

Why the public-private development partnerships forged between the government and large mining companies are unlikely to improve the record of Canada's extractive industries.

The Crusades Are Back: Islamophobia

2012-04-30T16:56:39Z

Fear replaces rational thinking; FDR knew this. Most Americans don't personally know any Muslims but we do know that those who caused 9/11 claimed to be Muslim. So today in 2012, we are in the grips of Islamophobia. The Institute for Policy Studies' John Feffer has a new book out called Crusade 2.0 which sheds much needed light on the crusade of a thousand years ago and the similarities to current fears and policies. Of course there are no angels, but there really is great variation among Muslims, just like every other religion. Tune in!

Listen to the podcast here