Tag: Olympics

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Tamara Lorincz, Glenn Michalchuk, Ken Stone January 27th, 2022

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Welcome to Gorilla Radio, recorded January 22nd, 2022

Unsurprisingly, Canada has joined America’s sabre-rattling chorus in issuing threats against Russia should it behave as the U.S. says it shouldn’t. It’s a very old song and overplayed song. And, just like those once catchy radio tunes whose ubiquity condemns them to background oblivion, Ottawa’s reflex bellicosity is in danger too of becoming just more white noise static in the martial cacophony. Today’s selection may be Ukraine – but we’ve heard the lyric and the tune again and again and again.

Tamara Lorincz is a fellow with the Canadian Foreign Policy Institute, member of Canadian Voice of Women for Peace and a PhD candidate in Global Governance at the Balsillie School for International Affairs at Wilfrid Laurier University; her research focus the climate and environmental impacts of the military. Glenn Michalchuk is Chair of Peace Alliance Winnipeg and has been active in anti-war and peace movements going back to the Reagan Era of the 1980’s.

Tamara Lorincz and Glenn Michalchuk in the first half.

And; Canada’s dyspeptic diplomacy is not limited to Russia; China too is disfavoured by the Trudeau government’s truculence. Its latest ill-mannered gesture is an announced boycott against February’s Beijing Olympics, which the prime minister says without irony is due to the concern of his “many partners around the world” for “repeated human rights violations” alleged against the People’s Republic.

Ken Stone is a long-time antiwar activist whose served as an executive member of both the Syria Solidarity Movement and Hamilton Coalition to Stop the War. Ken and the Hamilton Coalition are launching two petitions and one statement next week regarding the dismal state of Canada-China relations under Trudeau.

Ken Stone and reigning in Canada’s running dog diplomacy in the second half.

But first, Tamara Lorincz and ending Canada’s military support of the civil war in Ukraine and its cheerleading for a broader war against Russia.

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, and 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, Karl Grossman, Robert Hunziker March 11, 2021

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Welcome back to Gorilla Radio’s Home Edition, recorded March 2nd, 2021 Sept. 17, 2016

This March 11th marks the tenth anniversary of the Fukushima tsunami-engendered nuclear disaster. And, what have we learned? Ten years after, even as Japan continues cleaning up the mess, there is no solution to the question of just what to do with irradiated debris already collected, or how to deal with the contaminated cooling water still being generated every day, and now amounting to millions of litres.

In fact, far from getting a handle on the problem, things are only getting worse; as JapanToday reports, “The decades-long challenge to scrap the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant… is becoming more complex as recent remote-controlled probes have highlighted just how damaged the reactors are.”

And yet, the nuclear industry is enjoying a renaissance, buoyed by concerns for climate change, and an unlikely partner in NASA and its collaborators who recently landed nukes on Mars.

Karl Grossman is professor of journalism at State University of New York/College at Old Westbury, and author of, ‘The Wrong Stuff: The Space’s Program’s Nuclear Threat to Our Planet’, and ‘Cover Up: What You Are Not Supposed to Know About Nuclear Power’. He’s also the host of the nationally syndicated television program, Enviro Close-UP with Karl Grossman, and is an associate with the media watch group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR). Karl’s articles too appear at CounterPunch.org, and Nation of Change, among other places, where I found his latest, ‘Plutonium—the most lethal of all radioactive substances—in space’.

Karl Grossman in the first half.

And; what about the Olympic Games? In 2016, the IOC announced not only would Japan host the 2020 Games, it would do so in the nuclear shadow of Fukushima Prefecture. But, Fate intervened in the form of the Covid-19 pandemic. But, but, the IOC and Japan determined to carry on come pandemic Hell, or atomic high waters, rescheduling Japan 2020, to July 2021. And, despite 80% of Japanese polled saying the games should be postponed again, new Tokyo Olympic organizing committee president, Seiko Hashimoto is reassuring the public it will be safe to for the Games to go on saying, “The situation around coronavirus doesn’t go easy on us.”

About Fukushima’s lingering nuclear radiation and the threat it posed, Hashimoto had this to say, [crickets].

Robert Hunziker is an environmental journalist whose climate clarion calls appear in numerous journals and multiple languages around the World and across the internet. He’s also appeared in a variety of media to talk about global climate change and has written extensively about the ongoing aftermath of the Fukushima nuclear disaster. I spoke to Robert waaaaaay back in 2016 about the then newly announced winning Tokyo Olympics bid, and Japan’s “progress” cleaning up the World’s worst civilian nuclear disaster.

Robert Humziker revisiting Fukushima in the second half.

But first, Karl Grossman and Earth’s nuclear envoy to Mars.

 

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