Recorded in Lahore in March 2013, Hydr Ibrahim, Pakistani architect and co-founder of Resettling the Indus, talks about the grass roots social movement that is rebuilding flood- and war-ravaged villages in the Punjab, Sindh and South Waziristan regions of the Indus valley.

Recorded in Lahore last month, Hydr Ibrahim, Pakistani architect and founder of Resettling the Indus, talks about the grass roots social movement that is rebuilding flood- and war-ravaged villages in the Punjab, Sindh and South Waziristan regions of the Indus valley.

This is a surprising story to come from Pakistan, a country more often associated these days with the brutal side of humanity.  It is also a grand story of a new generation of citizen-builders, envisioning, resettling and bringing new life out of what was destroyed.

More about Resettling the Indus here.

Produced by Tony Ernst and broadcast on WPKN 89.5 on April 10, 2013Recorded at Sanjannagar Audio Recording Studio, Lahore, Pakistan. 

John Hill, notable Jungian analyst, at the International School of Analytical Psychology  in Zurich, Switzerland, talks about apocalyptic psychology in the context of worldwide response to  the Mayan calendar's "end of world" predictions. Despite the fact that these predictions have always proved false, John Hill tells us why they have always been with us and why they are likely to return again and again.

 

Rob Hopkins, founder of the Transition Network, talks about an international movement of community-led response to climate change, resource depletion and fossil fuels.  Embraced by communities in  34 countries, including 130 (so far) in the US, the Transition model provides a sustainable  blueprint for communities learning to grow their own food, generate their own power, build their own homes with local materials and develop their own local economy through resilience to a changing habitat.  Rob spoke to Tidings via Skype from his home in Totnes, Devon, the very first Transition town.  Learn how your community can become part of the transition! (Tidings is produced by Tony Ernst and heard on WPKN on the second Wednesday of each month.)

P.S.  Rob just posted an end-of-year round-up of happenings at Transition towns all over the world  I really liked this video from Rumania and their take on Black Friday.

Do you know where your passport is?  Listen and you'll hear my personal reflections along with what my son, grandson and two friends have told me about their feelings about their passports.  Could my neurotic feelings be a legacy from my refugee parents?

(First broadcast March 14, 2012)

Blog post here.

Medea Benjamin, co-founder of CODEPINK and Global Exchange, discusses her new book Drone Warfare: Killing by Remote Control, her recent delegation to Pakistan to express solidarity with the Pakistani people and to protest US drone strikes, the numerous legal, moral and practical issues raised by the proliferation of drone technology and how she and her fellow activists worldwide are attempting to influence drone policy. (Broadcast on WPKN radio on November 14, 2012.)

 

Producer Catherine Komp and anchor Dorian Merina of Free Speech Radio News talk about FSRN's news gathering and editorial process, its virtual, commuting operations and its worker-run collective organizational structure.  FSRN came into being in 2000 by striking reporters protesting the censorship policies of the Pacifica Network.

(Broadcast on WPKN on September 12. 2012)

Rebecca Vilkomerson, Executive Director of Jewish Voice for Peace, talks about her own path to integrating her Jewish values with her political response to Israel's policies as well as the work her organization is doing to inform American consciousness and  to influence US government policy about the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem, its blockade of Gaza and Israel's policy toward its own Palestinian citizens.

(Broadcast on WPKN 89.5 Bridgeport, CT on August 29, 2012)

Nora Kramer, vegan and animal rights activist, Texas coordinator for  Mercy for Animals and founder of YEA camps, talks about her life's path, her philosophy and practice of activism and her love of sports.

(Broadcast on WPKN 89.5 Bridgeport, CT on August 8, 2012) 

 

Australian author Stephanie Dale talks to me about her 1,000-mile pilgrimage through the Balkans and Middle East that she traveled with her 29-year old son, Ben.

(Broadcast on WPKN89.5 Bridgeport, CT on July 11, 2012)

 

UPDATE In the Supreme Court of Pakistan a short order was passed today (January 7, 2013) in which the original agreement and its appendages signed by the Balochistan Development Authority with the foreign companies "is held to have been executed contrary to the provision of the Mineral Development Act, 1948, the Mining Concession Rules, 1970 framed thereunder, the Contract Act, 1872, the Transfer of Property Act, 1882, etc., and is even otherwise not valid, therefore the same is declared to be illegal, void and non est."

 

June 13, 2012 In a case before the Pakistan Supreme Court, lawyer Usman Kazim Jamil describes how bad governance and lack of transparency are threatening to deprive the people of Baluchistan province with rightful access to and ownership of the largest deposits of copper and gold in the sub-continent.  The lawyers are requesting the Court to stay the case from going to international arbitration so it may be resolved in the local courts instead.

(Broadcast on WPKN 89.5 Bridgeport, CT on June 13, 2012)