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Wanted Man

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.




Ghosts of Hate Radio

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.













Al-Quds

https://media.blubrry.com/thegreenbluesshow/dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/314577/GPM%20III/Audio%20stories/AlQuds.mp3

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.












Mubarak Awad

https://media.blubrry.com/thegreenbluesshow/dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/314577/GPM%20III/Audio%20stories/MubarakAwad.mp3

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.


The Cage

https://media.blubrry.com/thegreenbluesshow/dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/314577/GPM%20III/Audio%20stories/TheCage.mp3

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.



Flowers for Sweethearts

http://media.blubrry.com/thegreenbluesshow/www.greenplanetmonitor.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/Flowers1_JMoore.mp3

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.


Cafe Femenino

http://media.blubrry.com/thegreenbluesshow/www.greenplanetmonitor.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/femenino.mp3

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.


The Mangroves of Southern Cambodia

http://media.blubrry.com/thegreenbluesshow/www.greenplanetmonitor.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/mangroves-1.mp3

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.


City of Peace & Traffic Jams

https://media.blubrry.com/thegreenbluesshow/dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/314577/GPM%20III/Audio%20stories/DarEsSalaam.mp3

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.


Dharavi

http://media.blubrry.com/thegreenbluesshow/www.greenplanetmonitor.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/dharavi.mp3

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.


Garbage in Paradise

http://media.blubrry.com/thegreenbluesshow/www.greenplanetmonitor.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/majuro-garbage.mp3

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




Hebron Settlers

https://media.blubrry.com/thegreenbluesshow/dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/314577/GPM%20III/Audio%20stories/HebronSettlers.MP3

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.


African Lion Down

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.


Bumbire Island – Part 4

https://media.blubrry.com/thegreenbluesshow/dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/314577/GPM%20III/Audio%20stories/Bumbire_Josie.mp3

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.




Bumbire Island – Part 2

http://media.blubrry.com/thegreenbluesshow/dl.dropbox.com/u/314577/GPM%20III/Audio%20stories/Bumbire_Christine.mp3

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.




Pity the Poor Student

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.




Afghan Women

http://media.blubrry.com/thegreenbluesshow/dl.dropbox.com/u/314577/GPM%20III/Audio%20stories/AfghanWomen.mp3

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.



Housing Rights For Women

https://media.blubrry.com/thegreenbluesshow/dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/314577/GPM%20III/Audio%20stories/Women.mp3

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.



Palestinian Rappers

https://media.blubrry.com/thegreenbluesshow/dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/314577/GPM%20III/Audio%20stories/PalestinianRappers.mp3

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.


Honduran Women’s Collective

http://media.blubrry.com/thegreenbluesshow/dl.dropbox.com/u/314577/GPM%20III/Audio%20stories/TextileWorkerHeath1_jmoore.mp3

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.


Water in Tanzania

https://media.blubrry.com/thegreenbluesshow/dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/314577/GPM%20III/Audio%20stories/WaterTanzania.mp3

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.


A Marine Returns

https://media.blubrry.com/thegreenbluesshow/dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/314577/GPM%20III/Audio%20stories/MarineReturns.mp3

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.



Suchitoto-Stratford Theatre Project

https://media.blubrry.com/thegreenbluesshow/dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/314577/GPM%20III/Audio%20stories/Suchitoto.mp3

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.


Lebanese Wine

https://media.blubrry.com/thegreenbluesshow/dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/314577/GPM%20III/Audio%20stories/LebaneseWine.mp3

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.


Melaku Worede

https://media.blubrry.com/thegreenbluesshow/dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/314577/GPM%20III/Audio%20stories/Melaku.mp3

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.


Land and People

http://media.blubrry.com/thegreenbluesshow/www.greenplanetmonitor.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/landandpeople.mp3

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.


Radio FADECO

https://media.blubrry.com/thegreenbluesshow/dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/314577/GPM%20III/Audio%20stories/FADECO.MP3

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.


Agua Sustentable

https://media.blubrry.com/thegreenbluesshow/dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/314577/GPM%20III/Audio%20stories/AguaSust.mp3

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.


Fringe Education

https://media.blubrry.com/thegreenbluesshow/dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/314577/GPM%20III/Audio%20stories/Intercultural.mp3

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.



Bolivians With Disabilities

https://media.blubrry.com/thegreenbluesshow/dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/314577/GPM%20III/Audio%20stories/Disabilities.mp3

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.





New Horizon

https://media.blubrry.com/thegreenbluesshow/dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/314577/GPM%20III/Audio%20stories/ExInsurgents.mp3

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.


Sustainable Transit in Dar es Salaam

https://media.blubrry.com/thegreenbluesshow/dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/314577/GPM%20III/Audio%20stories/LetterFromTanzania.mp3

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.



Greening Air Travel

http://media.blubrry.com/thegreenbluesshow/dl.getdropbox.com/u/314577/canopy2.mp3

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.



Farming in Palestine

http://media.blubrry.com/thegreenbluesshow/www.greenplanetmonitor.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/palestinian_farming.mp3

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.