Happy Birthday Bogusia

We Love and miss you...

from Chris, Keeley and John
xo...

Good News from our friends at Amnesty International...

Those who participated in Amnesty's write-a-thon last December will be pleased to hear that the Thai authorities recently released Sok Yoeun, a Cambodian opposition party member, ending his four-year imprisonment. His was one of several cases taken up by members across the country on December 10, 2003 to mark International Human Rights Day.

Sok Yoeun spent more than four years in a Thai prison while authorities sought his removal to Cambodia to face politically motivated charges. Since his detention began Amnesty members have been writing to the Thai government, urging them not to return Sok Yoeun to Cambodia where he would face an unfair trial and possible torture. In February 2003 the prisoner of conscience was released. He immediately flew to Helsinki for an emotional reunion with his wife, children and grandchildren who have settled there. Upon his arrival, he thanked Amnesty members, saying “I've been saved from the troughs of death, I will never forget this day in my life.”

www.amnesty.ca

Lost...

45,000 people dying a month in Congo

DAKAR, Senegal - Some 45,000 people die each month in Congo as the world's deadliest humanitarian crisis has failed to improve despite five years of relative peace in the Central African nation, according to a report released Tuesday.

An estimated 5.4 million Congolese died between 1998 and April 2007 because of conflict, most from the rampant disease and food shortages stemming from fighting, the report said.

The study found that life is still alarmingly precarious for Congolese despite the end of the 1998-2002 conflict that pulled in armies from half a dozen surrounding countries, and the country's first free and fair elections in more than four decades in 2006.

"When war ended in Congo there was the same level of dysfunction without the violence," said Les Roberts, a Columbia University professor who helped conduct the first surveys in Congo with the International Rescue Committee...

news.yahoo.com

Katie Melua - Nine Million Bicycles

photocell

www.photocell.tv

Reporters Blow Whistle on FOX News

THE RIGHT TO
COMMUNICATE

On Monday, January 7th, the British Columbia Supreme Court is scheduled to hear arguments on whether or not Adbusters' lawsuit against Global Television, the CBC, and the CRTC, should go forward. If the Adbusters lawsuit clears this hurdle, media rights advocates will celebrate an important victory in the battle against censorship.

For more than a decade, Adbusters, a magazine and media foundation, has been trying to pay major commercial broadcasters to air its public-service TV spots, but these attempts have been routinely blocked by network executives, often with little or no explanation. In 2004, Adbusters finally turned to the courts. It filed a lawsuit against the government of Canada and some of the country's biggest media barons, arguing that the public has a constitutionally protected freedom of expression over the public airwaves.

At issue is the right of all Canadian citizens to have (as stipulated by the Canadian Broadcasting Act) "a reasonable opportunity...to be exposed to the expression of differing views on matters of public concern."

"This case will decide if Canadians have the right to walk into their local TV stations and buy thirty seconds of airtime for a message they want to air," says Kalle Lasn, editor-in-chief of Adbusters.

Ryan Dalziel of Bull, Housser & Tupper LLP, who is representing Adbusters, explains the special nature of this suit.

"This is not," he says, "a bare-knuckle family law dispute, nor is it a Bay Street-style war of attrition between commercial entities. It is public interest litigation, brought by a not-for-profit organization with no chance of any monetary return."

Adbusters is hoping Canadians will pay close attention to a landmark case that pits ordinary citizens and consumers against powerful special interests. The outcome will determine the future role of television in Canada.

EDITOR'S NOTES

For more information about Adbusters and the global media democracy movement visit www.mediacarta.org and www.adbusters.org.

[1] Canadian Media facts: * Four corporations (CanWest, Quebecor, Torstar and Gesca) control 72 per cent of the country's daily newspaper circulation.
* Five major media acquisitions in Canada have occurred or are currently in the making in the past two years: CHUM was purchased by CTVglobemedia for $1.4 billion, which then sold five CityTV stations to Rogers for $375 million; CanWest purchased Alliance Atlantis for $2.3 billion; Astral Media bought Standard Broadcasting for $1.2 billion; and Black Press and Quebecor are vying for the Osprey Media newspaper chain in a deal that will be worth more than $400 million.

[2] Facts about Media Democracy:

* More than 30,000 people have signed the Media Carta <www.mediacarta.org> to voice their concerns about the way information is distributed in our society. * In the past year a growing number of grassroots media activist groups have been formed in Canada to express their dissatisfaction with the continued consolidation of the country's media: <www.democraticmedia.ca> <www.mediareform.ca> <www.mediademocracy.ca>

www.adbusters.org

Did the Chinese discover America?
New book asserts a different version of history

In his new book, "1421: The Year China Discovered America" (William Morrow), Gavin Menzies claims that a massive Chinese fleet of huge junks and support ships made a two-year circumnavigation of the globe, with extensive exploration of the Americas, nearly a century before Magellan and Columbus.

Needless to say, his assertion has raised an international flurry of debate.

The book has already garnered mixed reviews from the British media, as well as skeptical articles from The New York Times Magazine and Salon.com...

www.cnn.com