1. Interview with senior retired Australian army officer Alan Stretton. Stretton was one of the commanders of the Australian war in Vietnam, about which he says: “a million people dead, for what”. He disputes the reasons given for invading Iraq: “the whole thing is just a beatup, a lot of political rot… If we join the bombing of Iraq we’re going to become – frankly – terrorists ourselves.”

2. Interview with Amer Abdelhadi, manager of Radio Tariq Al Mahabbeh (TMFM 97.7) in Nablus, in the occupied West Bank.

• The station started as a commercial enterprise. But when the whole city was put under curfew during the Second Intifada, TMFM became a community station, helping a community to survive under occupation, siege and curfew.

• The curfew has been going for 103 days (since 20 June 2002). Now people have started to break the curfew, for instance many families are sending their kids to school over the past two weeks despite the risk from the Israeli army. Some teachers deliver their lessons over the radio as they can’t access school physically due to Israeli army blockades. Palestinian kids can talk about their experience of the occupation.

• The station has lost four transmitters and the main studio, offices and computers due to Israeli army shelling and destruction. Journalists have been shot and injured by the Israeli army. Staff are unpaid and often sleep in the station to carry on the services.  

• 2XX is doing a fundraiser to help Radio Tariq Al Mahabbeh pay their phone bills. 

• “We need people in the world to know what’s happening”

2XX ran another fundraiser for TMFM in 2004 – hear Tanya’s interview with Amer on that occasion here