Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

Middle East Panorama show on Resonance FM 104.4 Every Friday 14:00 - 15:00 London Time (GMT) "Afghanistan is the world's largest producer of opium and heroin, but its own people are becoming the victims. ..." David Macdonald tells a story about the diversity of drug use in Afghanistan that no one has ever told before. Author David Macdonald has worked as a drugs advisor to the UN. Drugs in Afghanistan - Opium, Outlaws and Scorpion Tales (Pluto Press 2007) breaks down the myths surrounding the cultivation and consumption of drugs, providing a detailed analysis of the history of drug use within the country. He examines the impact of over 25 years of continuous conflict, and shows how poverty and instability has led to an increase in drugs consumption. >> Listen to the interview Since You Left is an autobiographical essay of a Palestinian-Israeli actor Bakri who returns to the grave of his former mentor, the writer and communist Emile Habibi, and attempts – using ...

Photo of the Year by World Press Photo, Spencer Platt, Getty Images, Beirut, Lebanon: Affluent Lebanese drive down the street to look at a destroyed neighborhood August 15, 2006 in southern Beirut, Lebanon. As the United Nations brokered cease fire between Israel and Hezbollah enters its first day, thousands of Lebanese returned to their homes and villages. >> Read article .

Middle East Panorama show on Resonance FM 104.4 Every Friday 14:00 - 15:00 London Time (GMT) The Myrtle Tree by Jad el Hage (Banipal Books, 2007). A Novel of love and Dreams in War-Torn Lebanon. Jad El Hage comments: "The most recent of our wars began in the 1970s and ended by stages in the early 1990s, depending on how one defines 'beginning' and 'end'. This uncertainty characterised the entire conflict. The only certainty is that we killed each other for more than fifteen years." The novel, says Patrick Seale, "conveys with razor-sharp accuracy the sights, sounds, tastes and tragic dilemmas of Lebanon's fratricidal civil war. A must read .' Hear the author . Birds of War: Hawks, Doves and Illegal Eagles is an exhibition of contemporary, visual artwork to mark the fourth anniversary of the Iraq invasion. 11-17 April 2007 at Candid Arts Trust Gallery, London. >> Listen to Tanya Tier >> Listen to Alaa Siraih In The Iran Hostage Cris...

Middle East Panorama show on Resonance FM 104.4 Every Friday 14:00 - 15:00 London Time (GMT) "We come again to the drama in which we Israelis must play our part opposite Palestinians, Iranians, Lebanese and many others. Who are we performing for, and why are they enjoying it? Why do the Western mind and the Western left dedicate so much time and energy to watching this play, analyzing it and attempting to influence it?" Interview with Matan Kaminer , an Israeli activist who spent some two years in prison for refusing to enlist in the Israeli army. >> Read article Sounds from Tehran (Iran), Izmir (Turkey), Beirut (Lebanon), Douar Tamgrete & Mirleft village (Morocco), Sanandaj City (Iranian Kurdistan) .

Middle East Panorama show on Resonance FM 104.4 or http://www.resonancefm.com/ Every Friday 14:00 - 15:00 London Time (GMT) "Anyone can go to Baghdad; real men go to Tehran", an administration official was heard saying shortly after the fall of Baghdad. Muhammad Idrees Ahmed, member of Spinwatch and whose regular commentaries appear at http://fanonite.wordpress.com joins Middle East Panorama to speak about 'The Israel Connection', 'The Oil Factor', 'The New Politics of Oil' and 'The Next War'. >> Listen to the interview >> Read article The Iraqi Communist Party has been accused of being a 'Stalinist' party and recently as 'a collaborator with the occupiers'' after the American-led invasion of Iraq. In its 73rd year since its foundation the general secretary of the party's organisation in Britain, Radhwan Alwakeel, and Imed Selmans defend the ICP 'glorious history' and 'its practical position...

Middle East Panorama show on Resonance FM 104.4 or http://www.resonancefm.com/ Every Friday 14:00 - 15:00 London Time (GMT) Oil Wars: Does competition for oil drive conflict? What part does oil play in war? "Western intervention in countries such as Iraq and Afghanistan is primarily motivated by the West's desire to control precious oil resources." Is this also true of other conflicts around the world? Interview with Yahia Said, co-editor of Oil Wars (Pluto Books, 2007) and Research Fellow at the London School of Economics, London. Popular Social Movements and the Future of Egyptian Politics . "Since 1952", writes Joel Beinin, Director of Middle East Studies and professor of history at the American University in Cairo, “no Egyptian head of state has been targeted directly in this manner. A taboo has been broken, and there is no telling where these popular movements may lead.” From Cairo Joel Beinin joins Middle East Panorama to speak about the recent wave of ...

Middle East Panorama show on Resonance FM 104.4 or http://www.resonancefm.com/ Every Friday 14:00 - 15:00 London Time (GMT) The Workers Advice Center (or Ma'an in Arabic) in Israel provides an address for unorganised and neglected Arab workers in Israel. WAC is also committed to the struggle of Palestinian workers from the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza, for jobs and social rights. It cooperates with Palestinian Trade Unions in fighting the Separation Wall and Israel's policy of closure. They have a unique perspective on the struggles facing workers in the region. A delegation from WAC has met Britain's biggest tarde union, UNISON, and two representatives from the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (Britain). Here we listen to Adiv Assaf, national coordinator of WAC. >> Listen to the lead off . "ONLY Saudi diplomacy has succeeded in bearing the historical responsibility for all parties, gathering the warring brothers in Holy Mecca and extinguishing a fire that c...

Middle East Panorama show on Resonance FM 104.4 or http://www.resonancefm.com/ Every Friday 14:00 - 15:00 London Time (GMT) Aida Nadeem ( BBC World Music nominee) for an exculsive gig at the Spitz to showcase material for her forthcoming album on Sam Records, a follow up to the critically acclaimed 2005 release Out of Baghdad. Having fled her home country of Iraq due to her politics, she has sort refuge in Denmark where she has developed a unique style of dance/world music crossover. Dubbed 'ethnic synthetic', it combines aspects of ambient, trip hop and Arabesque blended together with traditional Iraqi poetry and topped off with her own unique vocal style. >> Interview with Aida . "Iran on the brink - Rising Workers and Threats of War" by Andreas Malm and Shora Esmailian (Pluto Press 2007). Questions and comments on the book and the situation in Iran. From a book launch that took place at the Housemans' Bookshop, London 06 March 2007. Listen here >> ...

Middle East Panorama show on Resonance FM 104.4 or http://www.resonancefm.com/ Every Friday 14:00 - 15:00 London Time (GMT) "Hizballah, the Lebanese Shi‘i movement has been cast misleadingly in much media coverage" during the last war last summer. Lara Deeb, a cultural anthropologist, assistant professor of women’s studies at the University of California-Irvine and author of An Enchanted Modern: Gender and Public Piety in Shi‘i Lebanon, joins the show to give a deeper analysis of Hizballah . Listen to the interview: >> Part 1 >> Part 2 While the world keeps its eyes riveted on Iran's nuclear programme, the Islamic Republic has gone through a crisis of its own; soaring unemployment and poverty has given way to social protest. A new labour movement has come to the fore. Although strikes are banned, workers are beginning to organise and underground networks are challenging the rule of the mullahs from within. Andreas Malm and Shora Esmailian, the first is a repo...

Middle East Panorama show on Resonance FM 104.4 or http://www.resonancefm.com/ Every Friday 14:00 - 15:00 London Time (GMT) Interview with Zakaria Ibrahim the founder and director of El Tanbura, a collective of master musicians, village singers, local fishermen and Sufi philosophers from Port Said, Egypt. >> Listen to the interview here 'Israel's demographic demons and their effects on its Palestine citizens' talk by Manal Hazzan, department of laws at University College London.

Middle East Panorama show on Resonance FM 104.4 or http://www.resonancefm.com/ Every Friday 14:00 - 15:00 London Time (GMT) Free lance journalist and author Stephen Grey on 'Our friends, the torturers: the secret story of the CIA's alliance with intelligence agencies of the Middle East and how they became America's jailer and interrogator'

Middle East Panorama show on Resonance FM 104.4 or http://www.resonancefm.com/ Every Friday 14:00 - 15:00 London Time (GMT) " As opposition grows in America to the failed Iraq adventure, the Bush administration is preparing public opinion for an attack on Iran, its latest target, by the spring [of 2007]." (John Pilger) Interview with Yassamine Mather, a member of the editorial board of Critique, a Journal of Socialist Theory, published by Centre for the Study of Socialist Theory and Movements at Glasgow University. Yassamine Mather works in the Departments of Aerospace Engieerning and Mechanical Engineering at Glasgow University. She has written articles on the Iranian revolution and Islamic fundamentalism. >> Listen here Interview with Salamah Kaileh spent 8 years in the Syrian prisons. Born in the town of Birzeit in Palestine, studied in Baghdad and became an activist within the Palestinian resistance. He wrote a number of books among them: "The Arab and The ...

Middle East Panorama show on Resonance FM 104.4 or http://www.resonancefm.com/ Every Friday 14:00 - 15:00 London Time (GMT) Conversation with Caoimhe Butterly, solidarity and anti-war activist who has lived with communities of resistance in Iraq, Labanon, Palestine (where she survived a bullet in the West Bank) and Mexico. Here she talks about her experience and struggles during the recent war in Lebanon and reports on the current humanitarian situation in the south. Listen here: >> Part 1 >> Part 2 Introducing AIWA , a collective founded in 1998 by Wamid and Naufalle, two Iraqi brothers brought up in France. They began mixing their musical practice (bass for Wamid and percussions and Arabic rap for his brother) to their growing interest for electronical music they were producing. Here we lsiten to some tracks from their album AIWA.

Middle East Panorama show on Resonance FM 104.4 or http://www.resonancefm.com/ Every Friday 14:00 - 15:00 London Time (GMT) Question and Answer session from 'Syria - cockpit of Middle East Politics' , leture by Dr Sami Khiyami, Syrian ambassador to London, School of Oriental and African Studies, London 30 January 2007. Books reviews: two Syrian writers. Menstruation by Ammar Abdulhamid and Sun on a Cloudy Day by Hanna Mina.

Middle East Panorama show on Resonance FM 104.4 or http://www.resonancefm.com/ Every Friday 14:00 - 15:00 London Time (GMT) Iraq: The Logic of Withdrawal , a new book by Anthony Arnove, editor of Iraq Under Siege: The Deadly Impact of Sanctions and War and, with Howard Zinn, of Voices of a People's History of the United States . Arnove joins Middle East Panorama online from New York. >> Listen to the interview Lebanon: General strike, violent clashes and more threats from the Lebanese opposition to carry on its protests untill the resignation of the government. So far, six people have been killed and more than 100 injured.

Middle East Panorama show on Resonance FM 104.4 or http://www.resonancefm.com/ Every Friday 14:00 - 15:00 London Time (GMT) ' Perdition '. The announcement by the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign that it will stage January performances of Jim Allen's celebrated 1987 anti-Zionist play, "Perdition," triggered off enraged response by the British Jewish establishment. Interviews with: David Cesarani , Research professor at Holloway University, London, Roland Rance (Jews Against Zionism, UK) and Lenni Brenner , author of 51 Documents - Zionist Collaboration with the Nazis . On the 11th of January 2007 Human Rights activists gathered outside the US embassy in London as part of an international day of protest marking the 5th anniversary of the opening of Guantanamo Bay concentration camp. The execution of Saddam Hussein. Was the trial a 'Kangoroo trial' as Stephen Lendman calls is? Why is it that the manner in which Saddam was executed is 'unaceptab...

Middle East Panorama show on Resonance FM 104.4 or www.resonancefm.com Every Friday 14:00 - 15:00 London Time (GMT) 'The vision of the East and the heritage of the West: the ideological dialectics in the art music of the Jewish community in Palestine and Israel' by professor Jehoash Hirshberg.

Interview with Paul Rogers , author of A War Too Far: Iraq, Iran and the New American Century (Plutobooks 2006) and A war on Terror Afghanistan and After (Pluto Books 2004) . >> Listen to the interview Lebanon - What is behind the Conflict? This week quote: "Society cannot share a common communication system so long as it is split into warring factions." Bertolt Brecht, German playwright

Middle East Panorama show on Resonance FM 104.4 or http://www.resonancefm.com/ Every Friday 14:00 - 15:00 London Time (GMT) "The Financial War on Terror". Ibrahim Warde , adjunct professor at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University, Massachusetts, and journalist for Le Monde Diplomatique, speaks about The Price of Fear: Al Qaeda and the Truth Behind the Financial War on Terror (IB Tauris. 2006). 4th London Kurdish Film Festival. This year's festival will run for one week and will present an extraordinary variety of films made by Kurdish film makers or about Kurdish issues: features, documentaries, shorts and, for the first time, animated films, from all over the world. For more deails visit: www.riocinema.org.uk Sherif Abdel Samad on the Internet portal Qantara.de wrote about the Egyptian band Wust EL Balad saying there is "a touch of religion, politics, love, and revolution."

Middle East Panorama show on Resonance FM 104.4 or resonancefm.com Every Friday 14:00 - 15:00 London Time (GMT) "I can definitively say that what Al-Jazeera is doing is vicious, inaccurate and inexcusable," Rumsfeld told reporters on 15 April, 2004 after Al-Jazeera showed the bodies of women and children killed by U.S. bombs in Fallujah. "...Al-Jazeera has been ragarded with suspicion by Arab governments who complain that its programs bruise their sensitivities and threaten the stability of their regimes," wrote Mohamed Zayani in Al-Jazeera Phenomenon, Critical Perspectives on New Arab Media ( 2005) Jon Anderson and Dale Eikelman argue that "Al-Jazeera plays a role, jejune as it may be, in the pacification of Arab public opinion."  The Blood Never Dried: A Peoples' History of the British Empire (Bookmarks 2006). Part of a book launch speech by the author John Newsinger: >> The British Empire in the Middle East   Friday 8 December : "The...