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ArticlesIsrael is referred to by Western governments and mainstream media as a beacon of democracy in a uniformly undemocratic region. A starkly different perspective is showcased in a recent UN report.
Recent studies report that a glass of wine in the evening is good for your heart. This may be so, but a bottle of wine is not something you’d expect to buy at a hospital. In the French city of Strasbourg, you most definitely can.
Back in 2012, on a visit to the occupied Palestinian territories, I set out to speak with someone who refers to these gorgeous lands as “Judea” and “Samaria.” That is to say, with a Jewish settler.
As the world holds its breath, waiting for Israel to demolish the little village of Susya, in the occupied West Bank, here’s a report to listen to from back in 2012. Today, Susya’s destruction could come at any moment.
It would be difficult to go a day without stainless steel, and that steel would not be stainless without ferrochrome — the end product of chromite mining. In northern Ontario, chromium mining generates controversy.
In an agronomy lab and farm field in Montpellier, France, scientists are uncovering the secrets of one of the world’s great crops. The potential spin-offs for global green economies are huge.
The fortieth anniversary of America’s hasty retreat from Vietnam is upon us. A true memetic moment, that frantic, April 25, 1975 escape from the US Embassy rooftop is engraved in popular consciousness. The toxic legacy of the war is less known.
Picture a landscape buried beneath a sky-high heap of dead plants and animal corpses. This is what Earth’s surface would look like if it weren’t for fungi. Fungi are the biosphere’s recyclers. Human society depends on them absolutely.
Mention Rwanda to someone, what comes first to their mind? Bloody genocide, most likely; certainly not swank men’s fashion. Think again.
Twenty-four hours in Zanzibar. What’s a person to do? Following up on a contact, I go visit the Dhow Countries Music Academy … and am amazed.
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.
Plants that grow from seeds are the foundation of humanity’s food supply. Wheat, barley, oats, corn, potatoes and a dizzying variety of beans and legumes … Conserving these seeds of survival is one of humanity’s greatest challenges.
For those in need of a Johnny Cash fix, Winnipeg-native Marcel Soulodre is a guy to listen to. But you’ll need to hop on a plane. Marcel is currently paying homage to the late-great American country singer in bistros across Europe.
Palestine has filed action against Israel at the International Criminal Court — a move Washington and its ally have denounced. Do Israel’s occupation, its settlement enterprise and assault on Gaza violate international law?
The universal point of view from Washington and European capitals is that Israel has the right to defend itself against rockets fired from Gaza. Eric David, an eminent Belgian expert in international law, takes a different position.
This coming spring will mark the twenty-second anniversary of the Rwandan genocide. An estimated eight hundred thousand were killed by ethnic Hutu extremists armed with knives, hoes and machetes. Over the radio, venom flowed.
The Israeli Committee Against Home Demolitions (ICAHD) runs tours of Palestinian East Jerusalem. Visitors from around the world learn the ins and outs of Israel’s occupation.
On the occasion of Winnipeg’s annual “Negev Gala,” organized by the Canadian chapter of the Jewish National Fund, a couple of dozen local activists (quite a few of them Jewish) gathered in humorous protest.
The “Nakba” began in late November 1947, six months prior to Israel’s declaration of independence. When it was through, some 750,000 Palestinians had fled, and an estimated four hundred villages were demolished.
The slow-food movement has reached the sun-baked, Bolivian altiplano. Here, small-scale producers are making the most of scarce water supplies, ample sun and local expertise to grow food at the top of the world.
In the foothills of the Himalayan Mountains – in northern India – a very energetic woman has declared that seeds should also be free. We caught up with Vandana Shiva at her biodiversity farm north just outside Dehradun.
Who coined the phrase “Think globally, act locally” is a matter of dispute. Dinah Ceplis and Zack Gross certainly exemplify the philosophy in action.
Israel’s “Separation Barrier” — some call it the “Apartheid Wall” — is one of those works of human ingenuity that has to be seen to be fully appreciated.
Cerro Posokoni towers over the town of Huanuni, on the eastern slopes of the Andes, in the Bolivian department of Oruro, like an upside-down ice cream cone. Thousands of miners pick away at its entrails each day, among them children.
In need of a hard-hitting enviro news fix? BC-based publication The Watershed Sentinel is your go-to source for cutting edge green news and trenchant analysis — from British Columbia and beyond.
When ten “tech” divers travel to Bikini Atoll for a week’s adventure in paradise, preparing to feast their eyes on the most famous collection of sunken nuclear warships in the world, the couldn’t guess what would happen next.
Tanzania was applauded for attaining its UN Millennium Development Goal on universal education four years in advance of the 2015 deadline it had set for itself. But in this rural east African nation, enormous challenges remain.
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Universities are engines of higher learning – also of national development and prosperity. No one knows this better than Israel – home to some of the world’s most prestigious universities. Palestinian schools struggle under Israeli occupation.
Until recently, Rwandan farmers knew when the rains would come; when best to plant their crops. These days, with varying weather patterns attributed to climate change, more and more Rwandan farmers struggle to grow food.
In January 2013, former Nebraska Senator Chuck Hagel appeared before the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee, charged with approving his nomination as Defense Secretary. Was he sufficiently committed to a foreign country — Israel? Listen to Hagel’s inquisition.
For those who speak and write non-Latin languages, being able to type on a ‘standard’ computer keyboard is a major barrier to digital democracy. In Cambodia, this problem has been solved and communities are going wireless.
The city of Curitiba, in southern Brazil, is famous for innovation and rational development. It was one of the first cities to market itself as “green” in a 1980s advertising campaign. And it is.
When it comes to garbage, it’s a matter of perspective. One person’s trash is another person’s cash. Outside of Kigali, in the east African nation of Rwanda, villagers have figured out how to turn food waste into cooking fuel.
A few of the remarkable faces captured (along with audio) on last August/September’s trip to Palestine/Israel. Speaking with folks like these, it’s hard not to feel optimistic about the future of Israel as a nation of its citizens.
Food is wonderful. A delight to be eaten as well as to behold. At this festive time of year, feast your eyes on some of the tastiest foods and beverages Palestinians and Israelis have to offer.
Weekly peaceful protests in villages across the West Bank are routinely greeted by Israeli teargas, sewage water, concussion grenades, and the occasional burst of live rounds. The village of Bi’lin is one of these.
Hanan Ashrawi is a member of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s Executive Committee.
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Amira Hass is a columnist for the left-center Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz. For over twenty years, her hard-hitting reports from the West Bank have shone a light on Israel’s occupation.
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Jeff Halper, a native of Hibbing, Minnesota, is the founder of the Israeli Committee Against Home Demolitions.
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According to Mahatma Gandhi, nothing poses more of a threat to an oppressive regime than well organized, non-violent resistance. Mubarak Awad — some call him the Palestinian Gandhi — is a case in point.
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Mustafa Barghouti is a Palestinian politician and democracy activist. He and I sat down for an interview in August 2012 in his office on the outskirts of Ramallah.
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The largest of Israel’s hundred or so checkpoints, Qualandia — between northern Jerusalem and the road to Ramallah — is a masterpiece in population engineering. Israeli Machsom Watch activists keep an eye on what happens there.
Thirty years have come and gone since the end of the American War – as the Vietnamese call it – and its toxic aftermath lingers on.
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The next time you buy roses for your honey, consider this: The cut flowers in your Valentine’s bouquet were fumigated for insects and mildew, then drenched with preservatives for the long flight north.
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When powerful corporations seek concessions in poor countries, communities rally around democratic institutions to defend their land and water.
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For more than three decades, the Central Coffee Organization of Northwestern Peru has addressed gender inequity on the farm. Putting a dollar value on women’s work is what has made a difference.
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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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They’re scrubby, fierce with mosquitoes and impossible to walk through, but salt water mangroves are the guardians of Earth’s tropical coastlines and nurseries for her fish. They’re also threatened.
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Dar es Salaam … City of Peace on Tanzania’s Indian Ocean coast. Driving a car into, out of or around the city, or commuting in one of the Tanzanian capital’s jam-packed dala-dalas, is anything but a peaceful enterprise.
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Mumbai is the world’s third most populous city. This little neck of land dangling in the Arabian Sea is a Mecca for India’s corporate giants. But almost half of Mumbai’s eighteen million residents are poor and real estate moguls are squeezing them out.
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It’s easy to forget – living in the middle of a continent – that there are limits to the amount of dross we can toss. But when you’re living on an island, in the middle of the ocean, trash can get in your face
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A dozen Cambridge Bay muskox hunters go hi-tech, courtesy of Nunavut’s Wildlife Management Board. It’s all part of monitoring study aimed at conserving tundra species for future generations.
A former senior justice official of Earth’s most powerful nation vents his rage at the war machine his country has become.
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Jewish settlers in the Palestinian city of Hebron wear skull caps and carry Glock pistols. They have forcibly expanded their settlements, closed Palestinian shops, and expelled residents.
Some thoughts on Colonel Muammar Gadaffi. Under Gaddafi’s autocratic rule Libya improved greatly, especially for the poor and women, with a distribution of wealth hitherto unknown in any country on the continent. But he was a dictator.
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In this final chapter in our series, Christine Hamilton and I head off to a fishing settlement called Lushonga, in search of a woman named Josie, who suffers from an advanced case of AIDS.
Found in a time capsule … A Clayoquot Sound forest activist reflects on civil disobedience and the lesson she learned from a black bear, and sings a revised version of Danny Boy.
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A crowd of Winnipeggers gather to hear one of Israel’s most courageous and incisive journalists — Ha’aretz reporter/columnist Amira Hass.
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The third in a series of voicescapes from a visit to Bumbire Island, in Southwest Lake Victoria, Tanzania … Dale Hamilton and I travel to nearby Kinagi Island to visit a big fishing camp.
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Bumbire Island sits on the northern tip of a sliver of an archipelago in southwest Lake Victoria, in Tanzania, East Africa. Nature on and around Bumbire is gorgeous—but the hardscrabble fishing camps scattered along its shores—and those of nearby rocky islets—are a different story.
Bumbire Island sits on the northern tip of a sliver of an archipelago in southwest Lake Victoria, Tanzania, East Africa. The landscape is gorgeous, but hardscrabble fishing camps tell a different story.
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A former senior justice official of Earth’s most powerful nation vents his rage at the war machine his country has become.
Little Rwanda will soon commemorate the twenty-second anniversary of the 1994 genocide. Between April 6 and early July 1994, an estimated 800,000 ethnic Tutsis and some tens of thousands of Hutus perished.
Recent cuts in government support for students is causing enormous dismay on Rwandan university campuses, and exposed cracks in the Kagame government’s post-genocide reconciliation efforts.
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I had been pressing Marshall Islands conservationist Ben Chutaro to take me to Mili Atoll, to see the marine/nature conservancy he was setting up — but weather ended up not permitting. We went to Arno instead.
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Amid growing concerns about how to survive on a paltry income, Rwandan teachers turn to a traditional practice, whereby groups of people communally contribute money to help one another out.
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Young girls run and shout here at the Afghans4Tomorrow girl’s school, much as they do everywhere in the world. But the sight is unusual in Afghanistan because these girls wear school uniforms, not all-encompassing burkas.
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Young gang violence is endemic in the Central American nations of Guatemala and El Salvador, and its tentacles have spread north. Some would say the process has worked in reverse fashion.
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During South Africa’s Apartheid years, black families were routinely evicted from their land. Women and girls fared the worst. Sixteen years after the collapse of Apartheid, life in South Africa is as difficult as it’s ever been for women.
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Agriculture is the backbone of Tanzania’s life and economy. Three quarters of her people are small-scale, peasant farmers. Policies that empower farmers — particularly women — need to be implemented.
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Palestinian rap is only about a decade old, but it has spread throughout Israel, Palestine, and now to Lebanon. The rappers look to Tupac Shakur and the socially conscious rappers, and reject the gangsta image so popular in the west.
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One night, Mariana dreamed that she was happy to go to work. Her supervisor greeted her and Mariana was delighted to find a comfortable ergonomic chair waiting for her in front of the machine that she operates. Then she woke up.
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Water is one of Tanzania’s scarcest commodities. In the capital city of Dar es Salaam, about sixty percent of households don’t enjoy a reliable supply. The surest bet is a twenty-liter bucket of precious water for one dollar.
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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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Afghanistan produces ninety percent of the world’s heroin. The Canadian and U.S. governments admit the Taliban controls this drug trade.
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In the West African village of Mapaki, education is being used to promote peace, after years of civil war.
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In the 1950s, journalist Tom Patterson became convinced that Shakespeare could help revitalize his hometown of Stratford, Ontario. Today, Suchitoto, El Salvador hopes to do the same, in partnership with Stratford.
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Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley has produced wine for over four thousand years. That tradition continues today, with Lebanon boasting some world-class reds. But vintners have had to deal with fundamentalists, civil war, and invading armies.
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Ethiopia is renowned for the diversity of its seeds, with native resistance to drought, pests and climate change. Listen to 1989 Right Livelihood Award winner Melaku Worede talk about seed diversity in his homeland, Ethiopia.
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Southern Lebanese farmers are in a bind. On the one hand, Israeli cluster bombs continue to pollute their fields. On the other hand, they’ve been abandoned by Lebanon’s political elite, who prefer to see Lebanon import its food.
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It’s hard to imagine a development tool more powerful than a radio station. For the past few years, a little station called FADECO has been promoting rural development in the community of Karagwe, in northwest Tanzania.
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By its very nature, water can only be successfully managed by consensus. When conflicts arise, smart solutions are often the exception. Nowhere are water conflicts more common than in the landlocked South American nation of Bolivia.
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Poor farmers have always set off to the nearest big city in search of income. Opportunities are often a dream, and obstacles abound. Many forsake their most valuable asset – their own traditions.
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What happens when a refugee camp turns into a permanent community? Buduburam — home to hundreds of Liberians — is one such human settlement in the Ghanean capital of Accra.
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The development of rights for disabled people in industrialized countries is an encouraging trend – a sign of inclusiveness in this age of division and disparity. Imagine what it’s like to be a disabled person in a country like … Bolivia.
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Victoria, B.C. native Kevin Neish set off to Gaza at the end of May on the Mavi Marmara — and almost made it. He recalls Israel’s hijacking and brutalization of the Mavi’s passengers.
Here’s another dispatch from Victoria Fenner, who spent an action and learning-filled three weeks in Central America earlier in the year. It’s hard to visit Central America and not explore the world of coffee, so here we go.
If everyone on Earth earned what their labour was truly worth, global poverty would be less rampant. Paying people what their labour is worth is what the so-called Fair Trade movement is all about.
A joint training project between the Departments of Psychiatry at the Universities of Toronto and Addis Ababa are turning out some of Africa’s most skilled practitioners.
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Of all the conflicts in Latin America, none was more brutal or costly in human lives than the forty-year civil war in Guatemala. Today, former rebels are presenting their perspective of the struggle–to tourists.
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On the bottom of a mountain slope in Honduras, farming communities depend on fresh waters and are trying to keep them clean.
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In the Tanzanian capital of Dar Es Salaam, a metropolis known for its astonishing traffic jams, urban planners are working on a new mass transit system that will hopefully make everyone’s lives and workday much more peaceful.
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What if — during our teen years — we each had to write a sex advice column?
Three quarters of Earth’s surface is covered in water. Most of this vast mass of water is salty, a mere two percent fit to drink. You’d think we’d conserve what’s so scarce and valuable. It isn’t always so. Bolivians are trying hard.
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Stuart Franklin is turning air miles into trees. Franklin — the founder of a carbon offsetting project in Ecuador — calculates how many seedlings he needs to plant to capture the carbon dioxide emitted by tourists jetting to the Galapagos Islands each year.
Israeli activist Jeff Halper came to Winnipeg at the end of January to speak about the current situation in Palestine-Israel, and about the work of the Israel Committee Against House Demolitions.
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Palestinian farmers face a myriad of challenges. In the “West Bank,” Israel’s so-called “Security Barrier” has walled them off from their olive and vegetable groves. Farmers in Gaza are liable to be shot by soldiers manning Israel’s “security” perimeter.
Rwandans have grown rice, bananas, tea and coffee for generations. On one mountainside, villagers earn extra money processing their own coffee beans — thanks to a fellow Rwandan educated in Canada.
Once upon a time, the US was the world’s top emitter of carbon dioxide. The average American still emits more than the rest of us, but – sometime last year – China’s annual emissions surpassed the US’s. As the Chinese choke on fume-filled air, their leaders are turning to the wind.
Think about threatened waters and their wildlife … what comes to mind? Whales … declining codfish stocks … bleached coral reefs. In the U.S. Territory of Puerto Rico, tiny, luminescent creatures are taking it on the chin. Chemical and light pollution threaten to quench their bioluminescence.
To comprehend the obstacles that need to be overcome if peace and justice are to be achieved in the Middle East, one must spend time in the West Bank and Gaza, listening to Palestinians describe their hardships. The Israeli occupation is particularly egregious for youth, who — like Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet — feel seriously misunderstood.
Upbeat commentary on Lebanon’s Party of God is not something western media consumers are accustomed to. But American academic Judith Palmer Harik gives credit where credit is due.

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