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This Season

The Dispatches 2009-2010 regular season began on September 10, 2009. Below are the shows in reverse chronological order, starting with last week's. Or click here for the summer 2009 season.

For earlier Dispatches seasons, click the "Past Seasons" button to your left.

Find any place, person, event or date on this page by using {CTRL F} and entering any key word.

(Audio links below are in mp3 format.)

November 12/15, 2009

Recalling The Velvet Revolution; sounds from the day twenty years ago when the streets of Prague rang with dissent.

And a look at Communism`s lingering legacy in the Czech Republic with one who helped bring down that system.

Reforming American health care; it'll cost billions but the U.S. can't afford not to do it according to a new book that argues it's not an option but a right.

And, an Italian court humiliates the U.S. policy of rendition, convicting 23 Americans. We look back at the daylight kidnapping that started it all.

Part One as an MP3

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Part Two as an MP3

Listen to the podcast version [mp3 file: runs 55:32]
...or right click, then "save target as" to download
What's the difference?
Parts One and Two above are "streamed" (not downloadable, but playable) exacly as they went to air. The podcast is downloadable, but without copyrighted elements not cleared for downloading. However, it often has longer versions of some interviews and documentaries. And you can listen to it on an MP3 player..

Email Dispatches: dispatches@cbc.ca.

See more of CBC's coverage of the 20th anniversary of the fall of Communism

Content: November 12/15, 2009

The velvet hammer falls
Twenty years ago, this was a month of revolutions.

The Berlin Wall had just fallen. The collapse of Communism in the rest of eastern Europe was inevitable. A week later it was Czechoslovakia's turn.

The Velvet Revolution.

November 17th, 1989. Riot police quash a student protest. But Czechs and Slovaks are no longer intimidated.

Hundreds of thousands pour into the streets of Prague. They're ringing bells and jingling keys, symbols of their quest to open new doors, led by the rebel/rocker playwright, Vaclav Havel.

Within 12 days, the Communist regime expires. Forty years of authoritarian rule are over. The CBC's Nancy Durham was in the middle of it back then, and looks to her personal archives to capture the spirit of those dramatic days.

Nancy Durham circa Prague 1989, wearing the winter boots she borrowed from manager of her guest house.

Nancy's documentary...

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Communism's hangover
Back in 1989, with Czechoslovakia in the throes of revolution, Simon Panek was a twenty-two-year-old student activist, who'd been fanning the flames.

He helped organize the demonstration that triggered the events that dispatched the Communist regime.

These days he heads one of the Czech Republic's best-known charities, "People in Need". And much else has changed as a consequence of the Velvet Revolution.

Not all of it for the better, he says. Simon Panek joins me from Prague to explain.

Simon Panek's interview...

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Health care headache
With Barack Obama seeking a costly health care plan that may finally cover most Americans.

He's making this pledge...

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Author T.R.Reid argues that it`s a moral issue the U.S. can`t afford to blow.

Reid's take on the problem...

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Barack Obama has pushed the Affordable Health Care Act for America through the House of Representatives.

But good luck getting it through the Senate, where critics don't want government competing with private health care insurers.

Cuz that's just flat-out socialism, isn't it? Isn't it?

T.R. Reid doesn`t think so.

He says the U.S. is ignoring its moral responsibility and foreign alternatives -- like Canada's -- because it isn't...it's not...it...just wouldn't be AMERICAN! Meantime, when you lose your job in the U.S., you lose your health insurance. And lot of Americans have lost their their jobs lately.

So Reid and his bum shoulder went to investigate the world of health care systems beyond the U.S. border.

He's returned home convinced the answers are out there, and addresses them in his new book, "The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper and Fairer Health Care.", pulblished by The Penguin Press.

T.R. Reid's interview...

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Verdict on rendition rendered
The only country in the world to put the U.S. policy of rendition on trial has won its case.

And the Obama adminstration says it is "disappointed" to hear an Italian court this month convicted twenty-three Americans of kidnapping an Islamic cleric, and transporting him to Egypt for an interrogation that allegedly included torture.

Twenty-two of them were CIA employees.

They were given sentences ranging from three to eight years. But it's unlikely they'll serve a day, providing they stay out of Europe. They were found guilty in absentia.

Assisted by two Italians also found guilty, the Americans lay in wait on a Milan street in 2002, then snatched Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, also known as "Abu Omar," suspected of moving suicide bombers to the middle East.

Three years ago, Rick retraced the route of the kidnapping as chief prosecutor Armando Spatero was preparing his case in Milan.

Rick's documentary...

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In the end, the Italian government refused to request the extradition of the twenty-three American suspects.

Now they've been convicted, prosecutor Armando Spatero says he may ask Italy to issue international arrest warrants, making it easier to detain them.

But the tenacious, greying lawyer hasn't had a lot of help from his own government on this case, since it reflects poorly on Italy's American ally.

Rick interviewed the co-ordinator of the Anti-terrorism Department of the Milan Prosecution Service in his spacious Milan office in 2006.

Prints on the wall reveal his weakness for Warhol. A jarful of pens topped with cartoon animal heads hint at a sense of whimsy.

But on counter-terrorism, he has credentials of steel. He learned his craft pursuing the Red Brigades and other outlaws starting in the '70s.

It's still a dangerous job. As I sit down with Spatero, the city's top anti-terrorist cop is hovering protectively nearby.

The Spatero interview...

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Meanwhile, Abu Omar, kidnapped and spirited off to Egypt, is no longer in custody but is unable to leave that country.

As for the twenty-three convicted Americans, they're still at large. One of them is suing the U.S. government.

The CIA has made no comment about the convictions. But during his confirmation hearing last spring, CIA Director Leon Panetta said a modified version of the rendition program would continue.

Dispatches listeners write
After last week's interview with author Christopher Andrew on the counter-terrorism activities of MI-5, we heard from John Doucette of Manotick, Ontario who says we've lost the plot.

"As a former diplomat with a little knowledge of the subject, I loved the piece.

So much dis-information and propaganda in so little time.

Amazing! Christopher is doing exactly what he is paid to do ---10% truth, 90% something else.

MI-5 and MI-6 saving the world, defeating the IRA! Codswallop of the highest order.

Come on guys, get some real stories."

And on our story about the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, we heard from Marilynn Vanderstaay of Westmount, Quebec.

"I was particularly touched by today's broadcast that I heard in the car coming home...so much so I had to find it on the Net and listen again. I am an inspirational speaker and writer/journalist, partly as a result of being a big-time, cancer-five-time overcomer...and would like to use the idea of how a few people who ...are unwavering....can make such a monumental ...thing happen...this is the best time in the history of the world to be alive."

But listener David Parnas in Ottawa says our story is at odds with his experience in the East Germany he visited over the years.

In your report it was observed that in much of the former (German Democratic Republic) the story of East Germany is not known or taught. I think that this is not the case.

The story that we westerners want to hear, is a black-and-white story. We want to hear about the shootings on the border, the Stasi spies, etc.

They won't teach the story we expect to hear. In today's Germany, those who dare to talk about the other side...are accused of the crime of (n)ostalgia...They are branded as "losers" and "Communists" although often, they are neither. Rather than face that kind of abuse, they stay silent.

And from Paul Weijers of Lachine, Quebec:

"I happened to be in Berlin the day before the Wall came down. I went through Checkpoint Charlie, bought the required visa and wandered around with my wife. Going back to the West, I asked if I could keep the visa, as it was the last day anyway. It was flatly refused by the (policeman) on duty. How's that for bureaucracy!"

Your letters. Our thanks.

This program is the work of producers Dawna Dingwall and Alison Masemann, Steve McNally, and intern Filipe Leite. Technical production by Tim Lorimer and Victor Johnston. Our senior producer is Alan Guettel.

November 5/9, 2009

Twenty years since the fall of the Wall: Germany's revolution then and now. From the signal demonstrations in Leipzig to the present-day classrooms of Berlin, we'll look at some successes and ironic failures brought about by that historic change.

And, what of eastern Europe's other revolutions of the time? "A promise not fulfilled," says a correspondent who was there. We'll look at why they may not have realised their potential.

Then: gunpowder, treason and plot. Tales of counter-espionage from the only author ever allowed to view them inside the vaults of the British spy service.

Part One as an MP3

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Part Two as an MP3

Content: November 5/9, 2009

Birth of a Revolution
Twenty years ago this month, it happened.

The gun towers went silent. The secret police melted away. Ronald Reagan demanded that Mikhail Gorbachev "tear down this wall", and seeing as Gorbachev had his own problems in the collapsing Soviet Union, he let east Germany go.

Jubilant crowds began scaling the Wall that symbolised all that was evil about communism.The thing that divided a nation. Penned up its people. And killed at least 125 who tried to climb it.

The Berlin Wall.

Just three-and-a-half metres high. A hundred-and-sixty kilometres long.

Built in 1961 to choke off the tide of east Berliners fleeing to the west.

Today, you find pieces of it on dusty shelfs and souvenir drawers the world over, remnants of an era when democratic revolution swept eastern Europe.

But while the Wall encircled Berlin, there are those who say it fell in Leipzig, a city two hours away.

Leipzig was the real hub of mass protest, a city once famed for trade and music left sinking by a ruthless communist regime.

A full month before the Wall was breached, thousands marched in Leipzig in a collective cry for democracy that was heard around the world.

CBC correspondent Tom Parry went to the church where it all started.

Tom's dispatch....

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Revolution, Unifinished
German re-unification came on the heels of revolution in Hungary and Poland, and would be followed by others in Czechoslovakia and Romania, Bulgaria and Albania.

And what of those revolutions? How is the promise of those heady days playing out for eastern Europe two decades later?

Nick Thorpe is a British correspondent now living in Hungary who covered the seminal events of those dramatic times.

He smuggled dissident writings out of Romania, lent a sleeping bag to Vaclav Havel in Czechoslovakia, and reported revolutions from Budapest to Leipzig.

It's all in his new book, '89: The Unfinished Revolution.

Rick's interview with Nick Thorpe.....

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Nick Thorpe is the author of '89: The Unfinished Revolution, soon to be published by Reportage Press. He is in Budapest, Hungary.

Listen to Nick Thorpe read from '89 The Unfinished Revolution:

Nick describes a harrowing train ride he took while smuggling a dissident's statement out of Romania....

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Nick explains how the Roma have suffered because of the recent economic meltdown...

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Generation East
The world will be watching Berlin on the 20th anniversary the fall of the Wall.

But for students in parts of the east -- the former German Democratic Republic -- it's like it never happened.

The new "Generation East" is taught little of the tumultuous history of their country. And most can't be bothered to ask.There are some painful reasons for it.

But it's in sharp contrast to the experience of kids being schooled in the former American sector of west Berlin.

In her documentary now, Dispatches contributor Alexa Dvorson goes into the classroom to discover one side has emerged from the fog of history, while others are still enveloped in it.

Alexa's documentary....

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See more of CBC's coverage of the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall
>br> Inside MI-5
Germany today is the economic engine of Europe. But it was the country's military ambitions in the past century that drove Britain to create its first domestic security service.

And the vaults of MI-5, as it's called, have only ever been opened to one civilian: the eminent intelligence historian Christopher Andrew.

He is professor of history at Cambridge. Has been a visiting professor at the University of Toronto.

And the results of his years in the security vaults have been distilled in an extensive new book he's called "The Defence of the Realm: The Authorised History Of MI-5."

To write it though, he had to become one of them.

And there were a few other surprises along the way.

Rick's conversation with Christopher Andrew....

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Professor Christopher Andrew is the author of "The Defence of the Realm," published by Viking Canada. He is in London, England.

Professor Andrew reading excerpts from his book....

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Velvet Revolution - a preview
Now, a taste of something we're working on for next week. A return to Czechoslovakia's "Velvet revolution" through the sound archives of a journalist who was there, the CBC's Nancy Durham.

Nancy's preview....

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This program is the work of producers Dawna Dingwall, Alison Masemann and Steve McNally. With intern Felipe Leite, technical producers Greg Fleet, Victor Johnston, and Catherine Seymour in London, and senior producer Alan Guettel.

October 29/November 1, 2009

China wants more folks drinking from the double-happiness cup because world's most populous nation needs more people.

Kicked out of the factories and sent back to their farms; the crackdown on illegal workers is hurting America and illegals alike.

Speakers in the trees; how Canada's contributed to creating town criers in rural Cambodia.

"The Teeth May Smile But The heart Does Not Forget:" a new book revisits the crimes of Idi Amin that Ugandans had agreed to ignore.

Part One as an MP3

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Part Two as an MP3

Content: October 29/November 1, 2009

China Doubles Up
China is under pressure to relax the controversial one-child policy.

Seems a plan intended to boost the economy, now threatens to slow it down.

The restriction began in the '70s, so development wouldn't be overwhelmed by a population explosion.

Thirty years on though, China's population is aging and there may not be enough young people in the workforce to pay for it.

So in Shanghai, China's most liberal city, officials are encouraging some Chinese couples to double-up, and have two children.

The state may be changing its mind. But it may have a job on its hands persuading the children of its policy to change theirs, as we hear from the CBC's China correspondent Anthony Germain, a witness to a happy day.

Listen to Anthony's report...

Gong Jue Rui, 26, and Shen Ci Chen, 27, at their wedding ceremony in Shanghai earlier this month. (Anthony Germain/CBC)

More from Anthony:
Rethinking China's one-child policy, by Anthony Germain

In the Shadow of the Raid
Willian Toj was hiding in the meatlocker when Immigration agents caught up with him.

It was the Guatemalan's first day working illegally in the United States. So he did the only thing he could under the circumstance.

He burst into tears.

His job at the Agriprocessors plant in Postville, Iowa -- was over, and so were those of nearly four-hundred other illegal immigrants. Some had worked there eleven years.

It was the largest raid the Bush administration had ever conducted. The targetting of illegal employees inflamed the immigration debate. Now, the Obama adminstration is going after their employers, too.

When he heard about the raid, journalist Greg Brosnan and his partner were researching a film about the effect of declining remittances on central America.

Their film "In The Shadow Of The Raid" is now finished and Greg joins me from his office in Mexico City to talk about it.

Rick's interview with Greg Brosnan...

Jesus Xicay poses with a photograph of his niece Lilian Ord��ez in the village of San Jos� Calderas, Guatemala. Prior to Ord��ez's arrest, Xicay had survived thanks to money she sent back from Postville.(Jennifer Szymaszek)

"In The Shadow of the Raid" will be showing next month at the Zacatecas Film Festival in Mexico. You can watch a trailer

Keying up Cambodia
Imagine a computer keyboard that can handle the longest alphabet in the world.

That's the Khmer alphabet, the one they use in Cambodia. It's got more than 100 basic characters -- plus countless combinations of accents and markings to go along with them.

Now thanks in part to Canadian funding, there is such a keyboard.

And as we hear from Dispatches contributor David Kattenburg, it's helping deliver the news of the day to the rice paddies of rural Cambodia.

David's dispatch...

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Back to the Wall
It's been almost twenty years since the Berlin Wall came down. And with it, the end of Communism.

Remarkably, some students in what used to be East Germany are learning little about the country where their parents grew up.

Next week, Dispatches contributor Alexa Dvorson picks up a story which began for her during those heady nights of November '89, when the air was alive with the sound of jackhammers and euphoric crowds chanting "Mauer weg" -- "Away with the wall."

Hear Alexa report from the fall of the wall...

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Alexa will return next week with more of Berlin then and now.

The Teeth May Smile the Heart Does Not Forget
Memory of course, is often a casualty of history.

Take Eliphaz Laki for example, shot in the back of the neck.

We know that now.

But when he disappeared during the vicious rule of Idi Amin in Uganda, his family knew nothing at all.

He simply disappeared, like so many other Ugandans.

It would take thirty years for his son to uncover why he'd been taken to a farmer's field by two of Amin's men, who argued over which would kill him.

Andrew Rice reading from "The Teeth May Smile but the Heart Does Not Forget."

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There are a lot of stories like that in Uganda's bloody history.

But it prefers to leave them in the ground with the bones of the dead.

However, journalist Andrew Rice sees Laki's story as a window on the country's unreconciled past, an era that began in the '70's with the turbulent leadership of Presidents Milton Obote, Idi Amin, and then -- as now -- Yoweri Museveni.

And he's written it up in a new book titled after a proverb of Laki's Banyankole tribe, "The Teeth May Smile But The Heart Does Not Forget."

Hear Rick's chat with Andrew...

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You DO know Hula
You might remember last week in the opening headlines, Rick said none of you out there knew hula. Well, we didn't know Pam Pitz of Mississauga, Ontario.

Busted.

She wrote us an email to say;

"I am a Hawaiian/Hula enthusiast and recently we brought to Toronto, for the first time, one of the top bands from Hawaii to play at two concerts.The band is the Makaha Sons and included cultural exchanges and Hula dancing. We have several (hula schools) in Toronto who are very good" she adds," and the interest here is very strong."

Dispatches feels a song coming on.

Hear Hi'Ilawe by the Makaha Sons...

That's the mellow sounds of "Hi'Ilawe," written back in 1902 and performed in Hawaaian by those same Makaha Sons off their album "Live on the Road."

"Hurry, let us go close to the wharf" the lyrics go, "I am your new love to be kissed."

They don't write'em like that anymore...

This program is the work of producers Dawna Dingwall, Alison Masemann and Steve McNally. With technical producers Greg Fleet and Victor Johnston, and senior producer Alan Guettel.

October 22/25, 2009

The CBC's Afghanistan correspondent on covering the conflict, the dangers of a runoff election, and the soldiers of Generation Facebook.

Then, the country that became interesting for all the wrong reasons. How Iceland went from cool, to the cleaners.

So you think you know hula? You don't know hula. Now "Pops" Pilippo, he knows hula. And he teaches how to dance it with integrity.

And soldiers spread the virus that causes AIDS. So why won't the U.N. test its peacekeepers? We look at the polemic and military policy in Africa.

Part One as an MP3

Part Two as an MP3

Content: October 22/25, 2009

Our man in Kandahar: unembeded
The prospect of another election in Afghanistan next month promises a new round of unspecified peril to Canadians and other NATO forces patrolling its roads and fields.

The CBC's James Murray is more than familiar with it, having just spent four months in the country, much of it embedded with the Canadian troops.

Right now though he's out on a break that's included a trip to Vegas and an NBA game in Boston. And kindly took a moment of down time to join me here in studio, with hair askew and a big blue tattoo, and eager to talk about the experience.

Rick's chat with James...

African Peacekeepers arrive with AIDS
In just a few months, Africa plans to create an army of its own. The African Standby Force. Available to deal with emerging crises anywhere in the continent, or the world.

But before it does, it hopes to come up with some kind of policy on HIV/AIDS.

Fact is, soldiers contribute to the spread of the virus, as the U.N. well knows from its experience with peacekeepers.

But even the U.N. refuses to test soldiers before sending them into the field.

If it did, some African countries might be disqualified completely, losing out on the fifty-dollars-a-day its peacekeepers are paid.

AIDS policy is a controversial challenge to future of military peacekeeping as we hear from Judith Pyke, heading for the UN Mission in the African state of Liberia.

Judith's dispatch...

Poster at U.N. office in Monrovia. Photo by Judith Pyke.

Judith also attended a conference the Centre for Conflict Resolution held in Accra, Ghana to produce the handbook she mentioned.
Her report on the discussion...

Condoms on offer at the U.N. headquarters in Monrovia. Photo by Judith Pyke.

Iceland on the rocks
For awhile there it was hip to be Iceland.

The New Vikings, as they were known, were creating the New Cool. Buying up global businesses and knocking down shots of vodka filtered through Icelandic lava fields. Icelanders stopped eating puffin and started flying to London for lunch.

Some called it "a hedge fund with icebergs." All this in a country with fewer people than Halifax or Victoria.

But that was before the crash. Iceland now, as everybody knows, is a basket case. The first state bankrupted by the global recession.

Bubbie Morthens - Photo by CBC

Icelandic rock star Bubbi Morthens describes the collective fever he and his countrymen got caught up in...

Journalist Roger Boyes has a long affection for the place and just wrote a new book about how a people lost all sense of themselves, and very nearly lost their country in the process.

It's called "Meltdown Iceland: Lessons On The World Financial Crisis From A Small Bankrupt Island" published by Bloomsbury.

Roger's interview with Rick...

How Roger sees Iceland drifting from the West to closer ties with Russia...

Roger Boyes reading from "Meltdown Iceland"...

Hula: saving Hawaii's spiritual soul
By the time the missionaries and Hollywood had their way with the Hawaiian Islands, hula dancing was little more than high camp and low art.

But in its true form, hula was actually a kind of cultural semaphore. Hidden signals and motions that tell a story and connect a culture to the cosmos.

And its secrets are still known to a select few. Dispatches contributor Hadani Ditmars is there to hear them.

Hadani's story...

Citizen Dispatches: Your letters
Markus Eymann of Edmonton, Alberta wrote after hearing our recent story on the burglar baboons of Cape Town, who are breaking into houses searching for food.

You may be interested to learn that the problem of baboons that you described on your show is part of a pattern that has been observed around the world.

As people eliminate large predators, smaller ones become more numerous and bold. You get rid of wolves and end up with coyotes, you get rid of sharks and you get rays, you get rid of lions and you end up with baboons.

The medium-sized predator often become a much bigger problem than the large predators were....more numerous (and) they eat a wider variety of foods.

I. Young of Montreal writes to take us to task for our bit on baboons:

I heard the story...after another about the deaths of five members of the Kennedy Road squatter settlement in Durban...and forced displacement of some one thousand persons...

Odd serendipity? Both stories depict a complex African nation in great social flux.

I do hope future dispatches reflect that other reality.

Our documentary on the punitive laws afflicting organic vegetable farmers in California drew this response from Darcy Maude who farms in Marysville, Ontario.

We need to ask ourselves why organic farmers in California are being scrutinized to such an extent, and forced to implement such stingent protocols when trying to grow food in a natural way; working with the environment, not against it.

...Lobbying efforts have led to new initiatives that work in favor of large corporate farms, and against small organic growers.

Would you rather eat lettuce that rabbits and deer nibbled or walked on, or lettuce that was grown on soil sprayed with Round-Up? We may not have a choice in the near future.

Our interview about the anthropologists embedded with American troops in Afghanistan caught the attention of Mary-Sue Haliburton of Ottawa.

This reminds me of the book, "Three Cups of Tea," which describes the personal gesture by Greg Mortenson who set out to build a school for an isolated village in the mountains of Pakistan....

He could not retain the trust of the people in the mountains and villages of Pakistan and Afghanistan, if he appeared to be acting as an agent for the U.S. military.

So the role of peacemaker and anthropologist is contradictory to that of war-fighter. You have to separate the two if you want to be able to build a workable peace.

Sharon on Vancouver Island heard Claude Adams' recent essay on Haiti, where the minimum wage is two dollars a day and employers want to keep it that way. One Canadian executive advised him to look at it in a "holisitic" way.

It is time for all Canadians to understand the black eye we are getting because of Canadian predator corporations in other countries - not only are these companies getting huge profits, but their income taxes have been decreased in Canada. 'Holistic' my foot!

Your letters. Our thanks.

This program is the work of producers Dawna Dingwall, Alison Masemann and Steve McNally. With technical producers Greg Fleet and Victor Johnston, and senior producer Alan Guettel.

October 15/18, 2009

California farmers have to chase rabbits if they want to sell lettuce. Why some say the law is cutting into their salad days.

Can anthropology help win the war in Afghanistan? The U.S. Army thinks so and wants to embed more social scientists with front-line troops.

Hear the sound of The Last Rango Master. How a forbidden instrument is finding a new global following.

Reflections on Haiti's holistic economy. If the poor can't afford to eat, is it their own fault for not seeing the big picture?

And, the plague of hairy, snarling crooks in Cape Town.

It's like they're not even... human.

Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the salad bar, comes news those leafy greens are among the riskiest foods we eat.

Part One as an MP3

Part Two as an MP3

Content: October 15/18, 2009

Leafy greens and growing pains
A new American study says they account for nearly thirty per cent of all reported food-borne illnesses. That's got the industry going crazy trying to keep its products pathogen-free.

Now, the rules for cultivating salad were set down a couple years ago in the fragrantly-named "California Leafy Green Products Handler Marketing Agreement.

All the state's exports to Canada must comply. And Washington's pushing to make the rules nationwide.

Dispatches tells you all this for a reason.

All the zeal around food safety is having unintended side effects.

Growers worry it's short-term gain for long-term pain as we hear from CBC Correspondent Jennifer Westaway in the fields of central California.

Listen to Jennifer's report....

Human Terrain
While the White House considers whether to send more American troops into Afghanistan, it's also being asked to send in more anthropologists and social scientists.

They're part of an experiment to help U.S. forces understand the place and the people they're dealing with.

Civillian academics are embedded with front-line soldiers to advise on local customs and politics.

It's called "The Human Terrain System" and it began in Iraq two years ago. Not everyone approves. And it's not without dangers. Three of them have been killed in action.

But it's apparently been effective enough that the Army's asking to expand the six teams in Afghanstan to thirteen.

One journalist who's seen it up close in the field is Vanessa Gezari, who's writing a book on the system underwritten by the Pulitzer Centre on Crisis Reporting.
Listen to Rick's conversation with Vanessa Gezari....

Vanessa Gezari is an American journalist researching a book about the social scientists embedded with US troops in Afghanistan. She was in Kabul.

Counting crickets
At Dispatches we delight in bringing you the world but here's a first. We bring you...Bugworld. As Rick explains , it comes via New York City...

Link to New York's Cricket Census

Burgling baboons
Now, India's entry into the exclusive club of "Space Nations" has come to a rude ending.

The scenic tranquility of Capetown, South Africa has come under seige.

Residents are now plagued by a growing incidence of break-ins and vandalism.

And the culprits are not the kind of thieves you can just throw in jail as we hear from. Dispatches contributor Rhoda Metcalfe at the scene of the crime.

Listen to Rhoda's story.

Pennies from Haiti
The U.N. is going to give Haiti another go.

It's extending its peacekeeping mission into a sixth year, saying the country still constitutes a threat to international security.

It's even bringing INTERPOL into the picture, to combat criminal gangs that threaten to undermine the nine-thousand strong force.

It all seems a far cry from the Haiti of twenty-five years ago, when a dictator ruled, and Haitians worked for just a few pennies per hour.

Or is it?

Canadian journalist Claude Adams has covered Haiti for many years and just returned wondering what's really changed.

Listen to Claude's essay....

Claude Adams is a Canadian journalist based in Vancouver.

The Last Rango Master

Hassan with his band, Rango.

Well down through history, music has had the power to move and incite, prompting some regimes to ban it.

And on rare occasions, the instruments that play it too.

Bagpipes were once forbidden by the British which feared they were a Scottish weapon of war.But that was nearly 300 years ago.

Imagine our surprise to learn that Egypt had forbidden the playing of another kind of instrument as recently as the 1970s.

The rango is fashioned from vegetable gourds, but Egypt viewed it as black magic which caused women to shake evil spirits from their bodies. The forbidden instrument and its music had all but died out.

Until Zakaria recently found Hassan, the last Rango Master.

Listen to The Last Rango Master...

Hassan is touring Britain this month playing his first recording, called "Sudani Voodoo" and recently performed it at the Barbican Theatre in London.

The tracks featured in this piece are from the band's debut recording "Sudani Voodoo" on 30IPS Records. Their website: www.30ips.com/rango

Hassan displays the rango.

This program is the work of producers Dawna Dingwall and Alison Masemann, intern Nadia Shabhaz, with technical producers Victor Johnston, Marc Thibodeau, Thomas Ledwell and senior producer Alan Guettel and myself.

October 08/11, 2009

The oilman J. Paul Getty once said "The meek shall inherit the earth, but not the mineral rights." But a new book says oil rights cause a lot of wrongs.

The Torture Report.Thousands of classified U.S. documents about torture and rendition are being pieced together on the Web.

Roosters, replenishment and repentance. How radio is bringing better farming to northwest Africa.

And, the story of Krong and the Elephant Lords. The black business that's pushed elephants out of the jungle and into the streets of Thailand.

Part One as an MP3

Part Two as an MP3

Listen to the podcast version [mp3 file: runs 54:57]
...or right click, then "save target as" to download
What's the difference?
Parts One and Two above are "streamed" (not downloadable, but playable) exacly as they went to air. The podcast is downloadable, but without copyrighted elements not cleared for downloading. However, it often has longer versions of some interviews and documentaries. And you can listen to it on an MP3 player.

Email Dispatches: dispatches@cbc.ca

Content: October 08/11, 2009

The Torture Report
Somewhere out there is a Canadian who alleges he was beaten and robbed by American soldiers during the invasion of Iraq.

Maybe you're listening.

You say they threw you in a prisoner-of-war camp, scrawled the word "Canadian" on your shirt, and beat you.

When you protested, they told you to file a complaint. And when you did, you say they beat you again.

That fragment is one of many partial stories emerging from 130,000 once-classified documents the U.S. government was recently ordered to release. And the American Civil Liberties Union is making them available online, and trying to put them into context on a website it calls The Torture Report.

In time, it hopes to have a complete picture of the tactics of rendition, torture and interrogation used by the U.S. in its so-called "war on terror." Larry Siems is the lead writer on "The Torture Report."

Listen to Rick's conversation with Larry Siems....

The Torture Report website

Rango reborn
Next week on Dispatches: the Last Rango Master. Rango is a supressed form of African music that's played on an instrument made from dried gourds.

It became illegal in Egypt, but now is being revived by the last man on earth who knows how to play the Rango.

Listen to a preview of next week's story....

The tracks featured in this piece are from the band's debut recording "Sudani Voodoo" on 30IPS Records. Their website: www.30ips.com/rango

Radio free farming
In Mali, northwest Africa, farmers learn better farming through radio programs like Mercy Simbi's farmer-to-farmer radio program.

One caller tells her how to keep bugs off tomatoes by soaking tobacco leaves in laundry water and sprinkling it on your plants.

Everybody it seems, has a homegrown tip. And radio seems a logical way to let everybody learn how to grow better crops.

But first, the farmers had to go to school to learn radio.

It's a story the CBC's David Gutnick first brought us last season; the story of how he found himself standing at the front of the class.

Listen to David's documentary....

The Farm Radio International website

Part Two

The Crude World of big oil
If you remember those pictures of U.S. marines hauling down that statue of Saddam Hussein in Iraq back in 2003, you probably saw my next guest.

Peter Maass was the journalist seen jumping on to one of their military vehicles and hollering questions at the crew.

The next day, he watched looters sacking The National Museum of its Mespotamian treasures while American troops looked on. The only thing the military was interested in protecting, he says, was the Ministry of Oil. For Maass, oil is a paradox. It brings more trouble than prosperity, and Iraq was just one stop in his effort to document it in his new book entitled Crude World: The Violent Twilight of Oil.

Peter Maass spoke to us from New York.

Listen to Rick's interview with Peter....

Here's Peter Maass reading two excerpts from The Secret Life of War:

On the relentless quest for the next find....

On the interests of oil company executives....

Crude World is published by Random House.

Elephant man
In Thailand, there was a time when the logging industry depended on the labour of elephants and their keepers.

But that time has now passed.

Elephant tourism is the only job open to them now. And sure, that sounds pretty laid back.

But turning two tons of working Asian elephant into a human taxi, that comes with complications -- for the animal and the handler. For a piece first aired last season, we join Canadian journalist Marion Warnica at the start of a new day at the elephant station.

Listen to Marion's dispatch....

Krong with her mahout Duangkum Lanue. (Marion Warnica)

Mahouts demonstrate logging techniques in the Chiang Dao elephant show. (Marion Warnica)

Some recent emails from listeners
Claudette D. Shaw in Calgary wrote about Alexa Dvorson's encounter with a group of Canadian medical volunteers she ran into in Mali...

I am busy pecking away on my keyboard, when I suddenly hear a voice I recognise.

I listen carefully and yes. It is definitely Tyler Belgrave.

I was very happy to attend his first fundraiser towards raising the money for his dream of a clinic in that area...

And because I know that Tyler does not like to use the connections he has developed in the oil patch on his personal mission...I make it a point to let people he and I both know in the patch what he is trying to do.

Our interview with fair-trade coffee pioneer Francisco Van der Hoff, and his warning that corporate connections have created a crisis in the movement, brought this from Bob Jowett of the Barrie, Ontario Fair Trade Working Group:

This is a disturbing concern but maybe not one that stands up to further scrutiny...

Companies such as Nestle, Walmart and Starbucks do indeed sell Fair Trade Certified products - products that have been produced by small scale farmers who have received at least the minimum price for their produce.

I too am uncomfortable with the involvement of the likes of Nestle - however if Fair Trade is to truly make a difference the demand for Fair Trade products has to continue to grow.

In entering the mainstream markets Fair Trade products have to be sold by large companies - how this is handled is going to be a real challenge for the movement.

However, it is a challenge to be relished because it indicates that the movement is succeeding. Consider, if all products were Fair Trade it would be akin to a world minimum wage..

Thanks for your emails. Please, keep them coming

This program is the work of producers Dawna Dingwall and Alison Masemann. With technical producers Victor Johnston and Greg Fleet, senior producer Alan Guettel and intern Nadia Shahbaz.

October 01/04, 2009

This week... Afghans who help the troops are being offered a fast-track into Canada. So why the skepticism about Ottawa's intentions?

Crisis in Fair Trade coffee. The worker-priest who helped create the industry disses corporate bigshots and the movement's own leadership.

The country of broken shapes. An interview with the correspondent who puts the horror back into war reporting.

From Bosnia, a school where ethnic factions get together in peace. Too bad the bus doesn't dare stop there.

And, Ladies Hour in Syria's ancient Bath of Roses, where they dip like the Romans did. It's a scream. Literally.

Part One as an MP3

Part Two as an MP3

Content: October 01/04, 2009

Interpreting trust
In Afghanistan, helping Canada can get you killed.

Local interpreters and others working with Canadian soldiers and federal agencies are viewed as traitors by the Taliban.

And despite the disguises and dissembling they do to stay safe, some have been assassinated for it.

That's why Ottawa recently announced it will soon make it easier for a few hundred of them to emigrate to Canada; a promise welcomed by some of the interpreters, "terps" as they're known.

But the CBC's James Murray in Kandahar finds others are skeptical, as you might expect in a country where trust is hard to come by.

Listen to James' dispatch....

Crisis brews in Fair Trade
Francisco Van der Hoff, as his name implies, is a man who lives in different worlds.

He's a Dutch professor. And a Mexican farmer.

He works on a coffee co-op he co-founded in the 1980s, the first ever certified to sell its product under a banner of Fair Trade.

Following his lead, thousands of producers in the developing world now skip the middleman and export directly to foreign markets, fetching premium prices for commodities that meet social and environmental standards.

Worldwide, it's a $4-billion industry. But it's in crisis, according to Van Der Hoff, a celebrated figure in the Fair Trade movement.

But then, he's a blunt-talking guy, as Rick discovered when Van der Hoff's stopped over for a symposium at Toronto's York University.

They sat down in a grad student cafe, proudly serving Fair Trade coffee, according to the sign out front.

Weathered and white-haired, sporting worn jeans and a windbreaker, Francisco Van der Hoff looked every bit the worker-priest he set out to become.

Rick's interview with Fransicso Van der Hoff....

Bosnia by bus
The hobgoblin of nationalism is again stirring in Bosnia.

While Iraq and Afghanistan command more attention, the Obama administration recently warned Bosnia against resuming "old patterns and ancient animosities.

The progress and the pitfalls are both on display, as our colleague Francis Plourde of Radio-Canada goes on a journey into Bosnia on a suitably wayward bus.

The secret life of war
It's hard to say whether the horrors of Bosnia and so many other places would have been different if the outside press had been a little more brutally realistic in its coverage -- if the world had better known what Peter Beaumont calls, "the secret life of war."

He's a print correspondent who can't say enough about it:

In his book The Secret Life Of War, Beaumont calls war "a country of broken shapes.

" But it's the human wreckage caused by bullets and bombs that informs Peter Beaumont's vivid journalism for Britain's Observer newspaper, where he's now the foreign affairs editor.

He says conflict distorts people and societies in less obvious ways too, often so rarely reported these can seem like secrets.

Rick's conversation with Peter Beaumont....

Here's another excerpt from The Secret Life of War.

The Secret Life Of War: Journey's Through Modern Conflict is published by Doubleday in Canada.

You write...we read
Iain Clayre wrote after hearing our recent piece on the struggles of the Kelabit people of Borneo.

I know them well... and worked for years as a missionary in a related tribe.

My son, a Cambridge-trained anthropologist, spends a great deal of his time there, and has been in some trouble with the Malaysian government when he joined the nomadic Penan people in a road-block to stop the bulldozers....

(Their) habitat is even more at risk from the logging interests, as they have no (permanent settlements) but wander the forests in search of wild sago...and boar, deer or even python to go with it.

Dr. Iain F. Clayre, formerly of Cambridge and Edinburgh Universities, now lives in Edmonton, Alberta.

After our recent interview about explorer Percy Fawcett, who vanished in the Amazon while searching for the lost city of Z, we heard from Margaret Taylor, on Gabriola Island in B.C. She has her own memories of some of the same ground.

I was a member of a Royal Geographical society expedition in 1967... to the Mato Grosso (in Brazil)... to investigate the soils and human inhabitants of virgin wilderness before it was exploited.

We were in the region of the headwaters of the Xingu River, a tributary of the Amazon.

Forty-four British and twenty Brazilian scientists took part, spread over the two years. I was at base camp for three months.

Mosquitoes, ticks, spiders were a nuisance, and ants sometimes invaded the entymology lab to "remove" our insect specimens. Bird-eating spiders only invaded camp once whilst I was there.

The larger animals were around the fringes of camp -- medium and large cats. We had to be wary of the small, deadly snakes. The anaconda moved out.

Just another day at the Amazon office for Margaret Taylor, now living on Gabriola Island, B.C. Thanks for your email.

Bathing in history
In the Syrian capital of Damascus, a bathing complex built by the Romans is still steaming away all these centuries later.

Ironically enough, this monument of the past, frees women from some cultural restrictions of the present.

It's also a field day for mothers who go wife-spotting on behalf of their bachelor sons, as we hear from Canadian journalist Oussayma Canbarieh at the door to delight.

Listen's to Oussayma's dispatch.....

September 24/27, 2009

The new prisoners of piracy. Monsoon season provides safe haven for crews of the small boats that sail the Indian Ocean.

We'll hear some answers from the Canadian in charge of the count in Afghanistan's tainted election.

Then, Pulitzer prizewinner Tracy Kidder tells a story of triumph over memory of the massacres in Burundi.

The Ramadan Blogs; two American-raised Muslims get their eyes opened when they venture into a different New York mosque, every day for a month.

And from a high plateau in Mali, a trio of Canadians brings healing hands to people who've never seen medical care.

Part One as an MP3

Part Two as an MP3

Content: September 24/27, 2009

Prisoners of piracy
Piracy and hostage-taking on the Indian Ocean is an expensive cost of doing business for the world's major shipping companies.

But it's also hitting the little guys.

Sailors from coastal India who crew even the smallest sailing boats have been targets.

Most are at home right now, taking advantage of the current rainy season to get rested, and as we hear from Anna Cunningham, in some cases, get married.

Anna's dispatch....

Finding fraud in Afghanistan
The investigation into vote-rigging in the Afghan election has been fast-tracked by the U.N.

Instead of examining every single box and ballot, its Election Complaints Commission, the ECC, will look instead only at representative samples.

And that's sure to keep the matter politically-charged in a way that won't please everybody.

There are reportedly enough votes under review that a finding of massive fraud could overturn the election of President Hamid Karzai, and force a runoff election.

A finding in his favour, on the other hand, would disappoint his challenger, who's already warned there's no telling how his supporters will react to another disappointment.

And supervising this delicate business is a Canadian, Grant Kippen, chair of the ECC, and he joined Rick from Kabul.

Rick's interview with Grant Kippen....

30 mosques in 30 days
Two Muslims living in New York City recently came up with what they call "an insanely random idea."

What if they prayed at a different mosque every single night of Ramadan, Islam's month-long period of prayer and fasting?

Why? Why not.

And so, a website was born. And with some trepidation, the American-raised pair headed out to the masjids as they're known in Arabic, of dozens of different cultures.

The site's authors are Aman Ali and Bassam Tariq.

They read from their blog entries....

Link to the 30 Mosques blog

Strength in What Remains
In the '90s, the genocide in Rwanda got the headlines, but neighbouring Burundi suffered much the same fate, and had many times before.

And fleeing the violence, a young medical student named Deo made his way past the assassins, eventually arriving in New York City.

He slept in Central Park. Worked scuzzy jobs. And wrestled with the memory of the slaughter he'd seen.

Eventually though, he was adopted by a series of Samaritans who saw him through medical school and eventually, he built his own clinic back in Burundi, now an oasis of ethnic tranquilty.

Deo's story is told in the new book Strength In What Remains, by Pulitzer prize-winning writer Tracy Kidder, a master of narrative non-fiction.

He came to our studio, a lean and youthful-looking 64-year-old with these large gnarled fingers and laugh lines that jump out when he gets excited, as he is about this story.

Rick's conversation with Tracy Kidder...

Listen to an excerpt from Strength In What Remains....

Strength In What Remains is published by Random House.

Healing Dogon country

Recording the mask dance, Tereli, Dogon country, Mali. (Jaap Croese)

Here's something you may not know.

Eleven years ago, one of the poorest countries in the world came to Canada's aid.

That was the year of the ice storm. And a small group of people in the African state of Mali raised sixty-five dollars for the relief effort in rural Quebec.

Call it payback.

Some years earlier, Canadians had sent help to them after a bad flood in Mali.

All these years later, "Dispatches" contributor Alexa Dvorson went trekking among the Dogon people of Mali's remote Bandiagara escarpment, and found the wheel has turned again.

Listen's to Alexa's dispatch.....

And a postscript to that story: Tyler Belgrave has since formed a partnership with SOS Children's Villages, and is raising funds to build a medical clinic and train medical staff in Mali's Dogon region.

This program is the work of producers Dawna Dingwall, Alison Masemann, and Steve McNally with technical producers Brian Dawes, Greg Fleet and Victor Johnston, and senior producer Alan Guettel.

September 17/20, 2009

This week...

In Kabul, people are jumpy and guns are getting pricey. What does the Afghan street know that we don't?

China's economic safari in Africa. The author of a new book documents Beijing's colossal ambitions on the continent.

Meanwhile Ottawa's decision to give less aid to Africa could cost Canada a seat on the UN Security Council.

From Borneo, the "wild dreams" of the Kelabit people, struggling to survive like the rainforest.

And from the Can't-Win-for-Losing Department: musicians in Lebanon win acclaim for singing in Arabic. Then lose it. For singing in Arabic.

Part One as an MP3

Part Two as an MP3

Content: September 17/20, 2009

Kabul's testy times
In Kabul, they're hoping for the best, and preparing for the worst.

There's a surging market for assault rifles, as residents await the investigation into the recent Presidential election, which was marred by widespread allegations of fraud.

Despite Western assurances the city is safe, many locals have already made up their minds there's trouble ahead.

Sarah Davison is a Canadian freelance journalist in Kabul.

Sarah's debrief....

Beirut's musical mish-mash
Pop music is fickle. Fickle, fickle, fickle.

Ask Tiffany. Ask Dylan. Or, ask Yasmine Hamdan, because it's the same where she's from, in Lebanon.

Yasmine won praise from her fans for singing in Arabic, back when French and English were the cultural fashion.

But now that she's taking it to the international level, they're turning on her.

Seems the culture wars are alive and well and playing festivals in Lebanon, as we hear now from Don Duncan.

Listen to Don's documentary....

Canada's U.N. ambitions
Minority governments like Canada's generally don't hatch huge new foreign policy plans when survival turns on bread-and-butter issues at home.

Especially when they've got Afghanistan and a recession on their plate.

But Ottawa does have one modest foreign policy plum in its sights.

The Harper government is lobbying for one of the 15 seats on the United Nations Security Council.

Along with the prestige comes influence over the course of international peace and security around the planet.

What are the odds of us getting it? Not what they once were, says the CBC's correspondent in New York, David Common.

Listen to David's essay....

China's African safari
Six hundred years ago, Chinese explorers reached the coast of Africa, and what a sight they must have been.

Three hundred ships, enormous for their time. Thirty thousand men at arms.

Today, China is funding the search for the ruins of those ships, which shows continuity with the continent's distant past.

But it's also financing mega-projects that will feature heavily in Africa's future: highways, factories and dams.

It's no surprise to Africa hands that China is investing big-time on the continent.

But the pace and point of it may surprise you, as it did the two Swiss journalists who've authored the new book "China Safari: On The Trail of Beijing's Expansion in Africa."

Co-author Serge Michel spoke to Rick from Paris. Listen to the interview with Serge....

Listen to an excerpt from "China Safari"....

"China Safari" is published by Nation Books.

Keeping progress pristine
Chances are you've never heard of the Kelabit tribe of Borneo.

Until about sixty years ago, nobody had. They lived deep in the rain forest, unknown to the outside world.

But not long after they were discovered, a Kelabit was competing in the Olympics. Another attended Harvard.

Long term though, meeting up with the modern world isn't such a good thing.

There's a struggle between progress and the pristine ranforest and the Kelabit's survival may be at stake as we hear from Dispatches contributor Maria Bakkalopalo.

Listen to Maria's dispatch....

From the Dispatches mailbox
Doug Hull in Ottawa wrote:

"I really enjoyed your program on Uruguay being the first country to provide laptop computers to all its students. As the Director-General responsible for Industry Canada's "SchoolNet" Program, I had the great honour to be invited to join Uruguay's President in launching the country's school connectivity and computerization program in 2001 and sharing some of Canada's experience and know-how.

"They chose Canada as their role model because, at the time, we were global leaders in that effort. Unfortunately, while Uruguay has rapidly advanced, we have fallen behind many other countries in better training out teachers and students to use ICT in a productive way in the learning process."

Our coverage of developments in Honduras after the President was ousted at gunpoint this summer prompted William Murray of Ottawa to write:

"While I am pleased that CBC has featured the political troubles of Honduras, I am concerned about the one-sided presentation I just heard....The specific action that lead to (President) Zelaya's ouster was Zelaya's attempt to amend the Honduran Constitution to let him run for a second term...The bottom line is that Zelaya's actions were treason, and that he was legally ousted by the Supreme Court and his own party colleagues."

On a similar note, Dan Durst of Peterborough, Ontario wrote:

"In August I was in Honduras working for an aid organization which works towards protecting the children of Honduras. During my visit I noted that things in Honduras are as usual and the rule of law is in effect and things for the most part are peaceful and orderly. For international governments to turn their backs on Honduras by cutting aid and refusing to recognize the new president could push Honduras into a lengthy political crisis at a time when stability and support are needed."

Finally, a note from Roz Wilson who heard our interview about India entering the space race and staking its claim to the resources of the moon.

"The Globe and Mail recently had an article (saying) 40 per cent of the malnourished kids in the world are in India. A scientist even invented a wonderful peanut food and medicine for infants, and then the government said they must cease distributing it. So backward, yet in the space race!"

Thanks for your letters. Keep them coming.

This program is the work of producers Dawna Dingwall and Alison Masemann, with technical producer Victor Johnston and senior producer Alan Guettel.

September 10/13, 2009

This week...

The country where every school kid gets a laptop. You knew it would happen someday. You may be surprised as to where.

Up against the coup in Honduras. With the elected president in exile, his supporters battle for human rights.

How India lost a satellite but gained a land claim. On the moon.

Obama's Afghan problem. It looks different from Ground Zero.

Roland Jarvis and human heads in the trees. How methamphetamine got a hold on the American heartland.

And from Brunei, the gummy paste with the yummy taste. If you can get past the look of it. The tree that's making a snack comeback.

Part One as an MP3

Part Two as an MP3

Content: September 10/13, 2009

No Guns. No War. No Army
Rick spent some of his summer in Costa Rica. Here are his thoughts to begin our new season of Dispatches:

I went to Costa Rica as a tourist this time.

Unlike Manuel Zelaya, the President of Honduras, who was rousted from his bed by hooded soldiers and dropped off on a Costa Rican runway in his PJs.

More on the aftermath of that coup later in the program from our contributor Jennifer Moore.

But Costa Rica often finds itself playing a cameo in the affairs of its more volatile neighbours.

The first time I went had nothing to do with the Republic's own charms and everything to do with sneaking over its border to witness the invasion of Panama. The Americans were busy ousting former ally Manuel Noriega, who was too powerful and too close to the strategic Panama Canal.

Operation Just Cause, they called it. Within days you could buy the T-shirt.

In Costa Rica they sell one of their own that neatly underscores its unique place in the region.

"Costa Rica, it says, "No guns. No war. No army."

It's a big selling point, being the only country in Central America without a military. Eco-tourism is another.

Come for the ziplines. Stay for the monkeys.

So imagine my surprise, bobbing in the surf one day, when a couple of military helicopters come clattering overhead low and fast, doors open and skimming the jungle canopy.

Was this the Americans coming to the aid of the democratically-elected and dishonorably deposed Honduran President? They had an airbase right in Honduras, after all.

Alas for Mr Zelaya, not a chance.

They'd come looking for a lost American tourist, missing in one of Costa Rica's magnificent national parks.

His congressman back in Chicago made a couple of calls. Next thing you know, two choppers with 15 medics and crew are scanning the bush for the infra-red outline of a missing American.

And good luck to them. But that, Mr. Zelaya, is what it takes to get American airpower out of the hangar in Honduras.

Just something I noticed on my out-of-country vacation.

Latin America and Laptops
Now, if I asked you which country in the world is likely to be the first to issue a laptop to every child in school, would you automatically think of Uruguay?

It may be a small country of just three-and-a-half million people. but it has big ambitions for its elementary school students.

And by Christmas, all 340-thousand of them will be online, from the biggest schools to the tiniest schoolhouses, which is where the CBC's Trevor Dunn went.

Trevor's documentary...

Students of Rural School 26 in Uruguay help raise the flag before class. (Alejandra Perdomo)

Destination Moon
Now, India's entry into the exclusive club of "Space Nations" has come to a rude ending.

Less than a year after sending a satellite on a two-year orbit of the moon, the screens suddenly went dark recently.

The voyage of the Chandrayaan-1 is over and a $100-million dollar satellite is lost.

But India is still spinning the mission as "a complete success" because -- among other things -- it planted the flag on the moon.

Journalist Pallava Bagla has been tracking his country's space program for many years and joins me from New Delhi to tease the politics from the science.

Pallava Bagla is the Science Editor for New Delhi Television and the author of "Destination Moon - India's Quest for Moon, Stars and Beyond."

Rick's interview with Pallava Bagla...

Eight Years On: America and Afghanistan
Eight years ago this week the nature of what it means to be American was forever altered.

Eight years since the planes hit the Twin Towers and U.S. troops were sent to hunt al-Queda in Afghanistan.

But American enthusiasm for that campaign is waning as we hear from CBC Correspondent David Common at his new post in the United States.

David's report...

Honduras and Human Rights
Leaders of the coup in Honduras are refusing to let the President back in the country despite growing international pressure to reinstate him.

Several countries have levelled diplomatic sanctions.

Including the United States, which cut off $30-million in aid and says it won't recognize the results of the next election.

But the new regime still doesn't accept the so-called San Jose Accords, endorsed by Canada among others, which would let President Manuel Zelaya back in the country with limited authority until elections in November.

He was forced from the country at gunpoint in June, prompting demonstrations and arrests that have the country's human rights movement demanding a more robust international response, as we hear now from Jennifer Moore in the capital.

Jennifer's Dispatch...

Methland
Maybe you've seen empty blister packs of cold medicines lying in piles on the ground.

Sudafed and medications like it are a key ingredient in methamphetamine, and a clue there's likely an illegal lab nearby.

But meth, or crank as it's also known, is not just another addictive street drug.

It's worse.Because it makes people crazy.

It means you feed your infant son a five-cent piece because you think it's baby food, and he winds up in surgery having it removed from his throat.

Meth "is uniquely suited to middle-America" according to journalist Nick Reding, who documents its rise in his new book entitled "Methland: The Death And Life Of An American Small Town."

Rick's interview with Nick Reding...

A Side Order of History
A dish made out of desperation is making a comeback in one of the wealthiest countries in the world.

Oil-rich Brunei is so rich, its citizens live a tax-free life of free schooling and medical care.

But a gooey tree paste known as ambuyat is finding its way back into food fashion, and Nancy Greenleese is in for a bite of history.

Nancy's Dispatch...

This program is the work of producers Dawna Dingwall and Alison Masemann, with technical producer Victor Johnston and senior producer Alan Guettel.

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