This week: The controversial Enbridge pipeline scheme that would disgorge tar sands bitumen at Kitimat for ocean trans-shipment to Asia and America created more controversy yesterday in Bella Bella, where the National Energy Board's Joint Review Panel, or JRP, was scheduled to hear depositions from local intervenors.
The small community on BC's central coast, at the heart of the Great Bear Rainforest, came out in numbers, (in full welcoming regalia) but someone on the panel panicked. The review was cancelled, the JRP citing "safety concerns."
Ingmar Lee was at the rally that welcomed the Joint Review Panel. Ingmar lives in Shearwater, where the JRP retreated to from Bella Bella, and is a long-time ecology defender at the front lines of efforts to stay the destructive hand of industry, and works to enlighten the ignorant as to the great dangers facing this corner of the Pacific's ecosystem.
Ingmar Lee in the first half.
And; last Friday marked Land Day in the Occupied Palestinian territories. That is the annual observance by Palestinians of their dispossession at the hands of Israel. It was marked, as it has routinely been, by Israeli state violence, resulting in death and injury.
Like last year's observance, this year's Land Day differed from previous years due to the context of the ongoing "Arab Spring," and the quickening disintegration of the political status quo in the region.
Jon Elmer is a Canadian journalist who has reported from and lived in Occupied Palestine for the better part of the last decade. He's back in Canada now, filling his war chest for a return assignment.
Jon Elmer and the increasingly turbulent situation in Palestine in the second half.
And; Victoria Street Newz publisher and CFUV broadcaster, Janine Bandcroft will be here at the bottom of the hour to bring us news from the streetz of the city and beyond.
Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, airing live every Monday, 5-6pm Pacific Time. In Victoria at 101.9FM, 104.3 cable, and on the internet at: http://cfuv.uvic.ca. He also serves as a contributing editor to the web news site, http://www.pacificfreepress.com. Check out the GR blog at: http://GorillaRadioBlog.blogspot.com
Feeling anxious? Don't worry, you're not paranoid; you just happen to be living in the most dynamic period in human history. All around you, and the rest of us, the world is spinning concentrically, it's ever-tightening circles bringing our existential crucible to a roiling, boiling point of imminent portent. On the political front, restive people across the planet are rising, demanding a "humane" life; and in the natural world, environmental degradation is straining the web of life past breaking point. The question is now universal: "Just what's to become of us?"
Amy Miller is a Montreal-based documentary filmmaker and activist whose film, 'Myths for Profit: Canada's Role in Industries of War and Peace' has featured in festivals from Calgary to Australia. Amy is also a journalist, who has reported for Free Speech Radio News, The Dominion online newspaper, and the Independent Media Centre in Montreal. She was in Toronto reporting on the G20 when the Pigs turned on her, as they did many journalists, and took her into custody for the crime of revealing the myth of Canadian democracy. Miller has been busy since the 2010 G20 fiasco, working on two film projects: 'Resistencia,' Jesse Freeston's documentary of the Honduran decent into fascism since the oligarch's coup d'etat there in 2009; and, finishing her latest film, 'The Carbon Rush,' an examination of the always controversial carbon trading schemes of the Global North, and its effects on the people and economies of the south.
Amy Miller in the first half.
And; from our privileged vantage point here at the edge of the known world, the problems of that world can seem remote and baffling to Canadians; few of us realizing how intricately tied both our government, and corporations doing business under the auspice of the Maple Leaf are to global doings currently undoing the order of nations. For example: What has a failed prison project, and recent revelations of mysterious payments of millions of dollars to do with we in little old Canada?
Jon Elmer is a Canadian writer and photojournalist specializing in the Middle East and Canadian foreign and military policy. He's reported from more than a dozen countries throughout the Arab world, and has lived in and reported from Bethlehem, Occupied Palestine for the better part of the last decade. His writing and photographs can be found at his site, JonElmer.ca.
Jon Elmer and the Arab Spring viewed from the frosty Great White North in the second half.
And; Victoria Street Newz publisher and CFUV radio broadcaster, Janine Bandcroft will be here at the bottom of the hour, recently returned from her harrowing weeks away in the Land's End hinterland, to bring us news from the city's streets and beyond. But first, Amy Miller and the greatly unreported, Carbon Rush.
This week: According to the Palestine Liberation Organization, Israel killed more than 180 Palestinians last year, and dispossessed thousands more. The PLO also credits the Israel Occupation Authority with green lighting the construction of 26,837 new settlement units on Palestinian lands, while confiscating thousands of acres of land, and razing to the ground nearly 500 homes.
Those sobering figures will set the stage this week for meetings between Israeli and Palestinian negotiators in Amman, where they hope to set an agenda for peace talks. Meanwhile, the Israeli daily, Ha'aretz reports the Israeli Defense Force is planning a successor to 2008's infamous Operation Cast Lead, where as many as fifteen hundred Palestinians perished.
Jon Elmer is a Canadian writer and photojournalist specializing in the Middle East and Canadian foreign and military policy. He's reported from more than a dozen countries throughout the Arab world, and has lived in and reported from Bethlehem, Occupied Palestine for the better part of the last decade. His writing and photographs can be found at his site, JonElmer.ca.
Jon Elmer in the first half.
And; while the collapse of the world's banking system made headlines last year, little is reported about the state of Canada's banks, or the role played in banking by the Canadian State. Shortly before the holidays, the Committee for Monetary and Economic Reform, or COMER, filed suit in Federal Court, charging the government of Canada restore the role of the Bank of Canada to its intended purpose, and challenging the federal government's accounting methods and calculations as pertains to the tabling of the budget and issuing of "tax credits" to big business and other select taxpayers.
Ann Emmett is named as a co-plaintiff with COMER. Confronting global finance in the Canadian courts with Ann Emmett in the second half.
And; Victoria Street Newz publisher and CFUV broadcaster, Janine Bandcroft will join us to bring newz from the City's streets and beyond. But first, Jon Elmer and a very New Year in an ancient land.
Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, airing live every Monday, 5-6pm Pacific Time. In Victoria at 101.9FM, 104.3 cable, and on the internet at: http://cfuv.uvic.ca. He also serves as a contributing editor to the web news site, http://www.pacificfreepress.com. Check out the GR blog at: http://GorillaRadioBlog.blogspot.com
Last week, Israeli prisoner of war, Gilad Shalit was released in exchange for more than a thousand Palestinians held in Israeli jails. Shalit was an army sergeant captured over five years ago in a night raid of a Gaza outpost.
Jon Elmer is a Canadian journalist/photographer living in and reporting from Occupied Palestine. Elmer has spent the better part of the last decade filing for the Inter Press Service, Al Jazeera English, and various online publications. He's also the author of the website, JonElmer.ca.
Jon Elmer from Bethlehem in the first half.
And; the People's Assembly convergence last week at Victoria's Centennial Square has continued in the form of a tented encampment in the heart of the city. I went down there yesterday and spoke with Mike, a volunteer at the Media liaison tent to get a feel for what's happening, and what the movement's manifestation here means.
Mike and messages from Victoria's frontline of the growing global movement for economic and social justice in the second half.
And; Victoria Street Newz publisher and CFVU broadcaster, Janine Bandcroft will join us at the bottom of the hour to keep us current with some of the goings on going on on our city's streets and beyond. But first, Jon Elmer and the prisoners released in the Middle East.
Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, airing live every Monday, 5-6pm Pacific Time. In Victoria at 101.9FM, 104.3 cable, and on the internet at:http://cfuv.uvic.ca. He also serves as a contributing editor to the web news site, http://www.pacificfreepress.com. Check out the GR blog at:http://GorillaRadioBlog.blogspot.com
This week: Michael Parenti is an American educator, lecturer, social justice activist, and author of 23 books, including: 'The Assassination of Julius Caesar,' 'Superpatriotism,' The Culture Struggle,' 'Democracy for the Few,' ' God and His Demons,' and his latest, 'The Face of Imperialism.' Parenti is also recipient of awards from Project Censored, the Caucus for a New Political Science, the Social Science Research Council and many others organizations, including being awarded the Certificate of Special Congressional Recognition. He now serves various advisory boards and sits as a judge for Project Censored.
Michael Parenti in the first half.
And; Jon Elmer is a Canadian journalist and photo-journalist who has lived in and reported from Occupied Palestine for the better part of the last decade.
His dispatches appear at Al Jazeera English, the Inter Press Service, and are featured at numerous other internet outlets. He is also the author of the website Jon Elmer.ca.
Jon Elmer in the second half.
And; Victoria Street Newz publisher and CFUV broadcaster, Janine Bandcroft fresh back from her sojourn in the manicured wilds of Vancouver Island's retirement Mecca, Qualicum Beach, will join us at the bottom of the hour to bring us news from the city's streets and beyond.
Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, airing live every Monday, 5-6pm Pacific Time. In Victoria at 101.9FM, 104.3 cable, and on the internet at: http://cfuv.uvic.ca. He also serves as a contributing editor to the web news site, http://www.pacificfreepress.com. Check out the GR blog at: http://GorillaRadioBlog.blogspot.com
G-Radio is dedicated to social justice, the environment, community, and providing a forum for people and issues not covered in corporate and state media. Gorilla Radio airs live every Monday, 5-6pm Pacific Time. In Victoria at 102FM, 104.3 cable, and on t