Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Helen Caldicott, Nils Melzer (redux) April 2nd/5th, 2023

Welcome to Gorilla Radio, recorded April 2nd and 5th, 2023.

Just thirty years since the fall of the USSR and end of the Cold War, the atomic Mexican stand-off between East and West is hotter than its ever been. At this moment, nervous fingers hover above buttons and toggles that once triggered mean the end of everything we know. Worse, with the advent of AI, human agency is no longer required; its messy, indecisive moral acid removed from the Earth-ending equation.

Dr. Helen Caldicott is a physician, author, and lecturer who has for more than forty years studied, written, and campaigned against the proliferation of nuclear weapons and their derivatives, delivering impassioned speeches and making imprecations to both the politicians and power-brokers overseeing the precarious atomic tinderbox, and more importantly, imploring the people step up to stop the madness.

Helen Caldicott’s book titles include: ‘If You Love This Planet,’ ‘Nuclear Power Is Not the Answer,’The New Nuclear Danger,’ ‘Depleted Uranium: Metal of Dishonour,’ ‘If You Love This Planet: A Plan to Heal the Earth,’ and her most recent, ‘Sleepwalking to Armageddon’ in which she assembles contributions from the world’s leading nuclear scientists and thought leaders to “assess the political and scientific dimensions of the threat of nuclear war today.”

Helen Caldicott in the first half

And; Reporters Without Borders was to pay a visit to Julian Assange, the journalist wasting in Belmarsh Prison, London this week but in yet another example of arbitrary cruelty at the last moment authorities refused the RSF visit, barring too for good measure Assange’s wife, Stella.

April 11th marks the four year anniversary of Julian’s incarceration, under the harshest measures the British penal system can mete out. He’s held not for any crime committed in Britain, or against Britain, but because an American warrant seeking his extradition is “in process”.

June 6, 2019, I recorded an interview with Nils Melzer, then the United Nations Special Rapporteur on torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. Melzer visited Assange in May of that year and subsequently issued a public call for Assange’s immediate release, along with a searing rebuke of both his current jailors in Britain and those in America who would be if their extradition petition is executed.

Nils Melzer and the continued call for Julian Assange’s release in the second half.

Song: Behind These Prison Walls

Artist: David Rovics

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, broad/webcasting since 1999. Check out the Archive at Gorilla-Radio.com, GRadio.Substack.com, and the GR blog at: http://gorillaradioblog.blogspot.com/

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Steve Poikonen Clovers4Assange March 16, 2021

Welcome back to Gorilla Radio’s home edition, recorded on this date, March 15th, 2021.

Approaching the second anniversary of the sanctioned kidnapping of journalist and publisher Julian Assange from Ecuador’s London embassy, the founder of WikiLeaks seems no closer to freedom. A “victim of legal procedure”, Assange has been left to rot in solitary confinement in Britain’s notorious Belmarsh Prison while American courts decide his fate. The outrage against the principles of journalism and due process have been protested in Britain and globally, while in the U.S. a dedicated campaign of Americans from all over the country has manifested in the streets of the Capitol during the pivotal moments in the British hearings on extradition.

Steve Poikonen is a columnist, broadcaster, and host of the ‘Slow News Day‘ podcast available at https://slownewsdayshow.com. Steve’s also an organizer with Action4Assange, and co-host of the #FreeAssange Vigil. He and a retinue of activist have returned yet again to Washington, D.C., this time as part of the Clovers4Assange Actions coinciding with St. Patrick’s Day.

Today, Steve Poikonen & Clovers4Assange from Washington, D.C.

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, airing live every Thursday between 11-Noon Pacific Time. In Victoria at 101.9FM, and on the internet at: https://cfuv.ca. He also serves as a contributing editor to the web news site, http://www.pacificfreepress.com. Check out the GR blog at: http://gorillaradioblog.blogspot.com

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Steve Poikonen July 26, 2020

Welcome back to Gorilla Radio’s continuing efforts, NOT broadcast live from CFUV Radio in the basement of the Student Union Building at the University of Victoria, but emanating live-to-tape via Skype from our home-based … studios on this date, July 26th, 2020.

Almost a year and a half after being seized from the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, WikiLeaks founding publisher, Julian Assange is still in Belmarsh Prison. He’s awaiting the next phase in the protracted extradition process the United States has initiated with Britain.

Steve Poikonen is host of Slow News Day, the Patreon.com available online current events program covering “stories that you won’t find on establishment, or the majority of “lefty” or “independent” channels”. Steve’s also co-host of the #FreeAssange Vigil and organizer with Action4Assange.

Today, Steve Poikonen and back to Washington for the World’s foremost political prisoner, Julian Assange.