Elgar Welch wriets from Australia:

We’re making very positive progress here in Australia, and have confirmed the launch of our online news and media service in July this year.

Our organization has also recently been invited to an event in June hosted by the Seoul based citizen media establishment ‘OhmyNews International’, of which we will present our own opinions of citizen journalism, media and participatory models of mass-communication etc. I’m not sure if you have heard of this conference, its certainly worth a look, I believe their organisation is now approaching 50,000 global citizen journalists etc.

FRENCH POLITICS AND OURS

Mark Stenzler of Mediachannel Europe recently attended a political rally in France and filed this report which was delayed by my email problems:

Just returned from a trip to Lyon on Friday to hear the French Socialist candidate for President, Ségolène Royal, give a speech to a large crowd
of her supporters. In contrast to the sound bites of war, terror and fear most often heard by the US presidential candidates from both of the major parties, the context of her 50-minute speech was about the preservation of the social system in France.

She spoke about the importance to ensure free health care for all its citizens and residents, free university education, the importance of the strength of unions, the right for all French to work and earn a* living wage*. She also spoke explicitly about the need for inclusion for all minorities to be able to fully partake in French society. The French understand the need to pay taxes to create what their society of /*Liberté, égalité, fraternité.*/

The evening also celebrated the role of women in French society and that they have achieved full equality under French civil law.

I found the event to be very different from what we hear repeatedly from the US candidates, as the politics of fear of war and terror were absent. The difference is startling and one can clearly see how, in comparison, the political discussion in the US is framed in such negative contexts.

On a side note, the event took place at the Lyon Convention Center. There was no security check for the some 20′000+ participants: no metal detectors, no inspection of bags or backpacks, no police visible. This would be unimaginable in the US.

LEE IACCOCA TAKES A STAND

Lee Iaccoca was always a larger than life figure in the auto industry. I was not always his fan, suspecting at times that he was a fraud. When I was at 20/20 I produced an investigation into his efforts on behalf of rebuilding the Statue Of Liberty. He was an icon then, almost a statue on his own but then moved out of the mainstream and sometimes got back in touch with his own gutsy take on the Bush Era. He recently opened up with both barrels. This piece appeared on Steve Zuckerman’s new site Total Access Live:

VIVA SOUTH AFRICA

Last week I marked South African Freedom Day on April 27 by visiting with a former producer on our South Africa Now series who was in town on personal business. He’s now a successful producer in the Beloved country which has come a long way from the dark days of apartheid. I was there in l994, on that date, when Nelson Mandela was elected as President. It was a euphoric occasion and one I will never event. My film COUNTOWN TO FREEDOM tells the inside story of that election. I will be heading back in late June to show my current film IN DEBT WE TRUST at the Durban Film Festival.

Whats South Africa like 13 years later. The election marked a big change, but not quite the revolution than many fought and died for.

Here’s one take from the pages of the Mail and Guardian newspaper:

And that’s the News Dissector for today. Check out the new foreclosurecrisis.info website. And keep your letters coming.

In Debt We Trust screens tomorrow night at 7 at the Cinema Paradiso in Ft Lauderdale Florida.

NOTE: We have had some tech problems with links. I think its fixed.

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