Water in Tanzania

Water is one of Tanzania’s scarcest commodities. In the capital city of Dar es Salaam, about sixty percent of households don’t enjoy an adequate and reliable supply. In many rural areas, the surest bet is a twenty-liter bucket of precious water for one dollar. Dar es Salaam journalist Asteria Mwanzi brings us this report.

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Sovereign Seeds

Small farmers in the hills of Honduras are improving their lives through seed saving and on-farm experimentation. Jen Moore reports.

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A Marine Returns

While Canada has announced it will withdraw combat troops from Afghanistan by 2011, the U.S. is engaged for the long haul. Almost a hundred thousand U.S. troops now serve in Afghanistan, but the insurgency continues and expands. GPM contributor Reese Erlich visited with a group of anti-war activists, including an American marine who had fought there.

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Chagas Disease

There’s a quiet killer living in the walls of traditional adobe houses in Central and South America. You can’t see it; you can’t hear it. It sneaks out at night, crawling or tumbling into your bed.

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Afghan Opium

Afghanistan produces ninety percent of the world’s heroin. The illegal drug accounts for about half the country’s gross domestic product. The Canadian and U.S. governments, along with major media, say the Taliban controls this drug trade. The reality is quite different, as investigative journalist Reese Erlich reports from Jalalabad, near the Pakistan border.

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Teachers For Mapaki

We humans need to feed our minds, as well as our bodies. Here’s a story from Cape Breton, Nova Scotia-based journalist Norma Jean MacPhee, about how education is being used to promote peace in a village in Sierra Leone, in West Africa. The people of Mapaki are hungry for knowledge—and eager to bridge the chasm created by a decade of civil war.

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Suchitoto-Stratford Theatre Project

In the 1940s and 50s, journalist Tom Patterson became convinced that Shakespeare could help revitalize his hometown of Stratford, Ontario. Today, Suchitoto, El Salvador hopes to begin a culturally-driven economic revitalization that will build on Tom Patterson’s legacy through a novel partnership with Stratford.

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Lebanese Wine

Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley has produced wine for over four thousand years. That winemaking tradition continues today, with Lebanon boasting some world-class reds. But wine making isn’t easy in Lebanon. Vintners have had to deal with fundamentalists, civil war, and invading armies. The struggle has been worth it. Reese Erlich reports from the Bekaa Valley.

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Land and People

Southern Lebanese farmers are caught between a rock and a hard place. On the one hand, their land has been a battleground and Israeli cluster bombs continue to pollute their fields. On the other hand, they’ve been abandoned by Lebanon’s political elite – many of them merchants – who prefer to see Lebanon import its food. A guy named Rami is helping them out.

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Radio FADECO

It’s hard to imagine a development tool more powerful than a radio station, owned and operated by a community. For the past few years, a little radio station called FADECO has been promoting rural development in the community of Karagwe, in northwest Tanzania.

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Bottom Line

Melaku Worede

An Interview with 1989 Right Livelihood Award winner Melaku Worede.

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