Benjamin Dangl: How did you get involved in journalism and journalistic film making?
Brian Conley: Well, I initially intended to study history and political science in college. When I arrived there, however, I quickly decided that art and, particularly film, were very good ways to influence the public and to talk about important historical events that might not otherwise be learned or discussed in the public discourse.
Death is nothing new to the Morro do Estado, a mish-mash of redbrick favela housing that clings to the slopes high above central Niteroi, a city near Rio de Janeiro. But as locals crowded into the Bar do Raimundo for a game of snooker one Sunday night in December they had little idea just how close it was.
Within minutes five residents - among them three boys under the age of 15 - lay dead. The weathered cement walls outside the bar were pockmarked with gunshots and the pavement covered in a thick coat of blood.
Forget about Avian bird flu. The threat of it becoming a pandemic is more a political scare tactic and potential bonanza for drug company profits and its major shareholders' net worth (including Gilead Sciences, the developer of the Tamiflu drug and its former Chairman and major shareholder Donald Rumsfeld) than a likely public health crisis - unless you live around infected chickens or take an unproven safe immunization shot. There are much more other likely killer bacterial and viral threats than Avian that get little attention. Don't worry about possible or unlikely threats. Worry about real ones. Bacteria and viruses untreatable by anti-biotics are good examples. So are global warming and many others. But, there's possibly one threat that tops all others both in gravity and because it's been deliberately concealed from the public - never discussed, explained or had any action taken to remediate it. It's the global threat from the toxic effects of depleted uranium (DU), and like global warming; DU has the potential to destroy all planetary life. How can something so potentially destructive be hidden and ignored and why?
Information on TF’s panel tomorrow: If you’re in Caracas, we hope to see you there. If not, please send this info. to friends at the forum.
La Crisis de los Medios de Comunicación en EEUU., el Mundo, y el Movimiento a Favor de la Democracia en los Medios.
The Crisis in US and World Media and the Growing Movement for Media Democracy.
Panel – Taller
Jueves/Thursday – 26, Enero/January – 2006
Parque del Este, Estacionamiento este;
PE-06; 3:30 PM – Caracas,Venezuela
Participants – Participantes:
After winning a landslide election victory on December 18th, Bolivian president-elect Evo Morales announced plans to nationalize the country's gas reserves, rewrite the constitution in a popular assembly, redistribute land to poor farmers and change the rules of the U.S.-led war on drugs in Bolivia. If he follows through on such promises, he'll face enormous pressure from the Bush administration, corporations and international lenders. If he chooses a more moderate path, Bolivia's social movements are likely to organize the type of protests and strikes that have ousted two presidents in two years. In the gas-rich Santa Cruz region, business elites are working toward seceding from the country to privatize the gas reserves. Meanwhile, U.S. troops stationed in neighboring Paraguay may be poised to intervene if the Andean country sways too far from Washington's interests. For Bolivian social movements and the government, 2006 will be a trial by fire.
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