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Moqtada al Sadr and his militia, the Mehdi Army - or 'JAM' in American military shorthand, have been America's most intractable opponents in Iraq. But after recent attacks launched by the US and Iraqi military against Sadr strongholds, cease-fires were negotiated and the Mehdi Army melted away from the streets. Has the Mehdi Army finally been defeated, and is this the end of the armed Shiite resistance to the occupation?

Begins airing Friday, December 5th, 2008 on public television's Foreign Exchange with Daljit Dhaliwal

The Democratic Republic of Congo has endured one of the world's bloodiest wars for over a decade. More than 5 million people have died, mostly from preventable disease and starvation.

In the last year alone, over a million people have fled the fighting in eastern Congo.

An estimated 250,000 children are exploited every day as child soldiers around the world. There are more than 30,000 former child soldiers in the West African nation of Liberia alone, many of whom are eager to help rebuild their country. Now a unique photography program is helping some of them see hope and beauty again, and regain the respect of their communities as peacemakers.

Airs beginning Friday, November 28, 2008

We've been on the climate change awareness tour for four days. The group usually wakes around 5:30AM – when the roosters warm their vocal chords – and bathes in the nearest river or in the sea. Breakfast or kai kai in pidgin, the common language spoken on tour, is usually a plate of rice, soupy noodles with tin fish, and kaukau or sweet potato.

Rice is the staple of food of asia, and Vietnam is the second largest exporter of rice in the world, although it's a country about the size of California.

So the style of rice cultivation being practiced to produce such high yield is increasingly dependent on commercial fertilizers, to the point where now many farmers are only realizing a financial return large enough to buy their next year's supply of fertilizer.

Today the community held a church service to commemorate the youth from the Carteret Islands who will travel to the mainland to discuss climate change and the relocation (the islanders plan to relocate from the Carteret Islands to Tinputz on mainland Bougainville).

The sea was calm today.

About one in ten Afghans is disabled, a legacy of decades of war and poor health care. In 1999, Dost Mohammed Khairy contracted Guillane Barre Syndrome - an infection that attacks the nervous system. He is one of 9,000 Afghans given refuge in the US since Sept 11. He established an organization here to help the disabled in Afghanistan. Recently he made his first trip back.

Aired on Foreign Exchange November 7, 2008