Sojourner Truth Radio: January 26, 2021 – India Protests, Native Americans & COVID, Nuclear Treaty
Today on Sojourner Truth:
On Friday, January 22, a UN treaty outlawing nuclear weapons went into effect, having been ratified by over 50 countries. The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, which was adopted in 2017, prohibits countries from producing, testing, acquiring, possessing or stockpiling nuclear weapons. The Treaty also outlaws transferring weapons and forbids countries from permitting any nuclear explosive device to be stationed, installed or deployed within their borders. It sets the goal of achieving a nuclear-weapon-free world, saying it would serve both national and collective security interests. Any use of nuclear weapons, it adds, would be contrary to the rules of international law for armed conflict. The Treaty is certainly groundbreaking. However, the United States and other major nuclear powers have not signed it. Some are protesting in the U.S. to press the Biden administration to sign the treaty. Our guest is Alice Slater, who serves on the Board of World Beyond War, is the UN NGO Representative of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation and a member of the Global Council of Abolition 2000. She serves on the Board of Nuclear Ban U.S. and works with the NYC Working Group for the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) in the Nobel Prize winning campaign to promote the newly passed treaty to ban the bomb.
Indigenous nations in the United States hard-hit by COVID-19 are alarmed by the impact on their nations in terms of loss of life and also the threat to their culture, including maintaining their traditional languages. Our guest is Ethel Branch, the former Attorney General for Navajo Nation and founder of the Navajo and Hopi Families COVID-19 relief fund.
Also, on Tuesday, January 26, the people of India celebrate Republic Day. The holiday honors the date on which the Constitution of India came into effect on January 26, 1950, formally turning India into an independent republic. This was a major development for the people of India, who had suffered from hundreds of years of colonization under the British. Today, 71 years later, the people of India are still fighting for true freedom. Today, on the 71st anniversary of Republic Day, tens of thousands of protesting farmers plan to drive into India’s capital city of Delhi on tractors. Many of them are women, who account for 70 percent of agricultural work, but are paid half as much as men. The farmers are protesting against agriculture reform laws passed by Parliament last September 2020. They are also demanding pay equity for women farmers and all agricultural workers. Our guest is London-based Didi Rossi, a member of Global Womens Strike, an international network campaigning for a living wage for mothers and other carers.
LISTEN | January 26, 2021 – India Protests, Native Americans & COVID, Nuclear Treaty