The World Today - News & Current Affairs Radio
Reserve highlights European concern
The Reserve Bank says instability in some European economies may be a concern for global sharemarkets. The minutes of its most recent policy meeting show the bank decided to raise interest rates because of concerns Australia's economy was nearing capacity and house prices were rising strongly. More
12:44:00 16/03/2010
Queensland: where size does matter
A row has broken out in Queensland over claims by the former opposition leader, Lawrence Springborg, that he's broken the state record for growing the largest ever pumpkin. A Toowoomba horticulturalist is also claiming the honour. MoreHigh Speed Trains To Run From Beijing to London
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2010/03/high-speed-rail-across-europe.php?campaign=th_rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+treehuggersite+%28Treehugger%29
A Neutral Network Alone Will Not Build a Just Media System for Us and Neither Will Professional Journalists: Control of Public Media as a Social Justice Issue
http://www.truthout.org/control-public-media-a-social-justice-issue57713
Media justice organizers at the Center for Media Justice (CMJ) and MAG-Net have recently produced a brilliant campaign plan ("The Campaign for universal broadband") to win three policies crucial for just and democratic communication: network neutrality, universal broadband and universal service fund reform. Considering the renewed struggle required to win these goals, and to protect them afterwards, two questions seem particularly important. First, to win media access rights, social justice movements need media access. So, how do we get the kind of access that can allow us to succeed? Second, as net neutrality and universal broadband are not ends in themselves, but rather the means to enable a just and democratic media system, who should produce that system? Open access to a media system controlled by the status quo will not provide the necessary means for disadvantaged communities and social justice movements to change power relations.
To win and protect the three central policies of the MAG-Net plan, media justice movements must have allies at radio and TV stations - the leading sources of news for most people, especially those without the Internet (Pew Center for People and the Press). Mainstream commercial channels will not provide that access as they are also agents defending corporate power and driving social justice movements to the margins. So, what about public media? The problem is that too often public broadcasting outlets have boards populated by elite and corporate representatives, who historically have used their power to filter out the very perspectives we seek to extend. However, a movement of active publics could restructure governance at public media and demand democratically elected boards. This change could enable representatives from diverse communities to make decisions about programming and provide new access for marginalized and oppressed social groups to shape and produce content, self-organize and build just social relationships.
So, like network neutrality and universal broadband, should social justice movements also consider control over public media to be a racial and economic justice issue? In the effort to constitute a just and a ubiquitous public media system, should a high priority be to demand direct, democratic community governance of publicly funded outlets, especially local NPR and PBS affiliates? Though flawed, badly funded and commercialized, CPB outlets are the material of an existing system that could - if under community control - be a new means for self-organization by diverse publics.
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by: Cary Fraser, t r u t h o u t | Op-Ed -
by: Michael Isikoff and Michael Hirsh, Op-Ed -
by: Robert Reich | RobertReich.org -
by: Jason Leopold, t r u t h o u t | Report -
by: Dean Baker, t r u t h o u t | Op-Ed
Charles Bowden on “The War Next Door”
In the Mexican border city of Ciudad Juárez, a US consular employee and her husband were shot dead on Saturday while driving in their SUV. In a separate incident nearby, the husband of a Mexican employee at the US consulate was shot dead. The shootings are believed to be the first deadly attacks on US officials and their families by Mexico’s powerful drug organizations. We go to the US-Mexico border to speak with reporter Charles Bowden. “There is no serious War on Drugs,” Bowden writes. “Rather, there is violence, nourished by the money to be made from drugs. And there are U.S. industries whose primary lifeblood comes from fighting a war on drugs.” [includes rush transcript]
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/3/16/charles_bowden_on_the_war_next - India forms new climate change body
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The Indian government has established its own body to monitor the effects of global warming because it “cannot rely” on the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the group headed by its own leading scientist Dr R.K Pachauri.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/7157590/India-forms-new-climate-change-body.html - UN climate change claims on rainforests were wrong, study suggests
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/7437016/UN-climate-change-claims-on-rainforests-were-wrong-study-suggests.html - A new study, funded by Nasa, has found that the most serious drought in the Amazon for more than a century had little impact on the rainforest's vegetation.
The findings appear to disprove claims by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that up to 40% of the Amazon rainforest could react drastically to even a small reduction in rainfall and could see the trees replaced by tropical grassland.
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Climategate: UN review how world assesses risk
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IPCC chief Rajendra Pachauri to face independent inquiry
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Rajendra Pachauri to defend handling of IPCC after climate change science row
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Met Office to look again at global warming records
Climategate Stunner: NASA Heads Knew NASA Data Was Poor, Then Used Data from CRU
New emails from James Hansen and Reto Ruedy (download PDF here) show that NASA's temperature data was doubted within NASA itself, and was not independent of CRU's embattled data, as has been claimed.
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/climategate-stunner-nasa-heads-knew-nasa-data-was-poor-then-used-data-from-cru/?singlepage=true
Clamatologists find proof of Medieval Warm Period
http://briefingroom.typepad.com/the_briefing_room/2010/03/clamatologists-find-proof-of-medieval-warm-period.htmlTop Aussie climate scientist goes feral on skeptics and fellow scientists
http://briefingroom.typepad.com/the_briefing_room/2010/03/breaking-news-top-aussie-climate-scientist-goes-feral-on-skeptics-and-fellow-scientists.htmlEvidence for life on Mars may be staring us in the face
No mission to Mars has ever found complex carbon-based molecules, from which life as we know it is built. But sulphur is everywhere on Mars - it is more abundant there than on Earth - and it could contain one of the signatures of life. On Earth, the activity of some microbes converts one class of sulphur-containing compounds, the sulphates, into another, the sulphides. The microbes prefer to work with the lighter sulphur-32 isotope, so the sulphides they produce are relatively deficient in the heavier isotope, sulphur-34. Planetary scientists have long wondered whether we could use this pattern to discern signs of life on Mars. Now the prospects for this technique look better than ever.
CSI Microbiology: Germ Fingerprints Could Help Catch Criminals
Each of us is unique and special. So too are the bacterial communities infesting our grimy palms. As we move through the world, we deposit a potentially incriminating microbial film on everything we touch. Scientists at the University of Colorado at Boulder hope that our individual germ prints will one day be used to catch criminals. Their study, published yesterday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, found that traces of bacterial DNA can be used to link people to objects they've to… Read More
Rothschild claim fraudster guilty
By 2050 a third of the people on Earth may lack a clean, secure source of water. Join National Geographic in exploring the local stories and global trends that define the world's water crisis. Learn about freshwater resources and how they are used to feed, power, and sustain all life. See how the forces of technology, climate, human nature, and policy create challenges and drive solutions for a sustainable planet.
- Earthquake Baptism Saves Chile FamilyA christening celebration saved a Chilean extended family from the devastation of the February 27 Chile earthquake. Video.
- Time-Lapse: Mountaintop Mine Spreads Across ForestTime-lapse satellite views of a West Virginia coal mine show how long-term mountaintop mining can wipe out swaths of forest.
- Sea Spray Detected 900 Miles InlandSea spray has been detected in the middle of the United States, some 900 miles (1,400 kilometers) from any ocean—and it may be contributing to air pollution, a new study says.
- "Cove" Movie Assails Dolphin Hunt, Gets Oscar Boos ...With its 2010 Oscar win for best documentary, the movie The Cove has reignited debate over annual dolphin hunts in Taiji, Japan.
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- Earthquake Baptism Saves Chile Family
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