Global Research

The Global Research News Hour radio program is hosting a fund-raiser. These funds are necessary in order to improve and expand on the reporting and analysis we produce on a weekly basis to explore in-depth those issues missed by mainstream and even a lot of alternative media. Please consider a donation to Global Research and earmark it as for ‘Global Research News Hour’ or for the ‘radio show.’ Visit the GRNH fund-raising page here. (Tag donation GRNH)

LISTEN TO THE SHOW

Click to download the audio (MP3 format)

After nearly eight and a half years of conflict, the Syrian government and the country’s armed forces finally seems to be consolidating a victory over the Islamic State and other opposition forces that had formerly dominated the bulk of the land area of the West Asian country.

By the end of August, the Syrian military forces’ had recaptured a former rebel stronghold – the strategic town of Khan Sheikhoun in Idlib province – a major victory in its efforts to re-establish control of Syrian territory.

Shortly after, at the beginning of October, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced that his country’s military would be launching a military assault in the northeast section of Syria, a region controlled by U.S.-backed Kurdish militia. The Trump Administration then announced it would be withdrawing troops stationed in the region in the face of bipartisan outrage and concern that America’s allies in the area, the Syrian Kurds, would be left at the mercy of the attacking Turkish army.

As of this writing, a new peace agreement, secured by Russian President Putin and Turkish President Erdogan, has halted the Turkish offensive.

The larger picture, however, is that Syria, like Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya before it, has been targeted by the U.S. for regime change. A sophisticated propaganda apparatus has concealed this agenda of conquest behind the benign aphorism of ‘humanitarian intervention’ – protecting vulnerable freedom loving Syrians from a brutal dictatorial leader.

Consequently, elements of the anti-imperialist Left have accepted the demonization of Assad, and have condemned Trump’s U.S. troop withdrawal even though U.S. Force presence in Syria is illegal. The Kurds, for their part have attracted the sympathies of the American mainstream, as well as the anarchist and feminist Left.

Debunked claims about the use by Assad of chemical weapons against his own people or the ‘heroic’ White Helmets rescuing civilians from the rubble of the Syrian war go unchallenged.

This week’s Global Research News Hour radio program examines and deconstructs some leading pro-war Syrian narratives as the Russia-Turkish peace deal takes effect.

In our first half hour, we hear from Laith Marouf. This political commentator and Middle East analyst provides some historical context for the recent Turkish incursion and the agreement brokered recently to resolve that situation. We next hear from a member of the Syrian diaspora in Canada, Majd Zooda, about the removal of Waseem Ramli from a high profile Syrian representative post in Montreal and what it means for Syrian and non-Syrian Canadians. Finally, we re-air part of an interview by Chris Cook of CFUV’s Gorilla-Radio with Journalist Vanessa Beeley about her August article on Canadian human rights lawyer Irwin Cotler and his championing of the White Helmets.

Laith Marouf is a long time multimedia consultant and producer and currently serves as Senior Consultant at the Community Media Advocacy Centre (www.cmacentre.org) and the coordinator of ICTV, a project to secure a national multi-ethnic news television station in Canada (www.tele1.ca). Laith derives much of his understanding of Middle Eastern Affairs from his ancestral background of being both of Palestinian and of Syrian extraction. He is currently based in Beirut.

Majd Zooda is a Ph.D. Candidate in science education at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto. She was born in Kuwait but moved to Damascus in 2005 where she lived until 2012 before moving to Canada.

Vanessa Beeley is an independent investigative journalist and photographer. She is associate editor at 21st Century Wire. She is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

(Global Research News Hour Episode 274)

LISTEN TO THE SHOW

Click to download the audio (MP3 format)

The Global Research News Hour airs every Friday at 1pm CT on CKUW 95.9FM out of the University of Winnipeg. The programme is also podcast at globalresearch.ca .

The Global Research News Hour now airs Fridays at 6pm PST, 8pm CST and 9pm EST on Alternative Current Radio (alternativecurrentradio.com)

Community Radio Stations carrying the Global Research News Hour:

CHLY 101.7fm in Nanaimo, B.C – Thursdays at 1pm PT

Port Perry Radio in Port Perry, Ontario –1  Thursdays at 1pm ET

Burnaby Radio Station CJSF out of Simon Fraser University. 90.1FM to most of Greater Vancouver, from Langley to Point Grey and from the North Shore to the US Border.

It is also available on 93.9 FM cable in the communities of SFU, Burnaby, New Westminister, Coquitlam, Port Coquitlam, Port Moody, Surrey and Delta, in British Columbia, Canada. – Tune in  at its new time – Wednesdays at 4pm PT.

Radio station CFUV 101.9FM based at the University of Victoria airs the Global Research News Hour every Sunday from 7 to 8am PT.

CORTES COMMUNITY RADIO CKTZ  89.5 out of Manson’s Landing, B.C airs the show Tuesday mornings at 10am Pacific time.

Cowichan Valley Community Radio CICV 98.7 FM serving the Cowichan Lake area of Vancouver Island, BC airs the program Thursdays at 6am pacific time.

Campus and community radio CFMH 107.3fm in  Saint John, N.B. airs the Global Research News Hour Fridays at 10am.

Caper Radio CJBU 107.3FM in Sydney, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia airs the Global Research News Hour starting Wednesday Morning from 8:00 to 9:00am. Find more details at www.caperradio.ca

RIOT RADIO, the visual radio station based out of Durham College in Oshawa, Ontario has begun airing the Global Research News Hour on an occasional basis. Tune in at dcstudentsinc.ca/services/riot-radio/

Radio Fanshawe: Fanshawe’s 106.9 The X (CIXX-FM) out of London, Ontario airs the Global Research News Hour Sundays at 6am with an encore at 3pm.

Los Angeles, California based Thepowerofvoices.com airs the Global Research News Hour every Monday from 6-7pm Pacific time.