News From Your Home Country

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Brian Lehrer: The melding of two great Brian Lehrer show themes, but there they are. To end the show, yesterday, we had a call-in at that time, that was news from your block because we always hear the news from official sources and things like that. We invited you to call in with news from your block. We're going to follow that up today, as we promised yesterday, with a call-in for immigrants from anywhere with news from your home country.

Yesterday, we went hyperlocal. Today, we're going hyper-global. 212-433-WNYC. There's so much news from around the world that never makes it into the mainstream American press, even on to this station with our BBC News Hour, that precedes the show and other attention we try to pay to the whole world. We want your help. Did you immigrate from another country? We know the New York area is such a home to people from literally all over the world, that we have the opportunity to do this and let some of you let everybody else know what's going on that's important and interesting from your country of origin. 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. Tell us what's interesting and important from any country that you came from.

Some example, obviously, Venezuela is in the news with all the asylum-seekers coming to the United States, and coming to New York right now. I don't know if we have any of you brand new asylum-seekers listening, but talk about it from your perspective. I do know we have other people who have been here longer from Venezuela, in the New York area, and who have called in before. Call in with your take on what's the Venezuela side of the story. We know the Greg Abbott, governor of Texas side of the story, and the Mayor Adams' side of the story. What's the Venezuela piece that people in this country might want to know? 212-433-WNYC.

How about if you're from Brazil, they have a battle of the left-wing and right-wing giants going on in a presidential election right now. Bolsonaro versus Lula da Silva. Who wants to call in who comes originally from Brazil, and tell us what you think matters there and how it's going? 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. Those are just a couple of examples. We're inviting immigrants from anywhere with a story that we may know even less about, and things from Venezuela or things from Brazil. 212-433-WNYC, 433-9692.

Anybody listening who comes originally from the UK? The last time we did a call-in like this- We do it periodically. -Britain had just seen the resignation announcement of Boris Johnson, as prime minister. Since then, of course, he's been replaced by Liz Truss. We haven't done a Liz Truss segment yet explicitly. Of course, the UK lost your long-reigning monarch, Queen Elizabeth and there's King Charles now. All of that stuff. The financial crisis in the UK as well.

Also the last time we did a call-in like this, there were big protests in Sri Lanka, where the President had just been ousted. Anybody originally from Sri Lanka want to follow up on that? According to Al Jazeera, the country is now looking to the World Bank for loans as it faces its worst economic crisis in more than 70 years. Who wants to give us specifics on that?

Burkina Faso, they're going through the second coup d'état in that country in 2022. Those are just a few examples of world news we haven't gotten to cover in explicit segments on the show. We welcome your calls. Immigrants from anywhere, tell us a story from your country of origin that you think everybody should know. What's important? What's interesting? Are you from Pakistan, Iran, Haiti, what's going on in your home country? 212-433-WNYC. We'll take your calls right after this.

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Brian Lehrer on WNYC with our latest call-in for immigrants from anywhere with news of interest from your country of origin. I talked about Brazil. Let's take a Brazilian caller calling in. Karina in Brooklyn, originally from Brazil, you're on WNYC. Thank you so much for calling.

Karina: Hi, Brian. Yes, I'm calling about Bolsonaro. He's right now threatening to expand the number of seats in the Supreme Court. Actually, this is a very, very dangerous thing that could happen to Brazil. Ironically, he's been saying a lot of things that Chávez said in the past, at the same time that he's accusing Lula.

Brian Lehrer: Chávez the former left-wing leader of Venezuela?

Karina: Yes. It's a huge thing for him to talk about Chávez and that Brazil could become the new Venezuela. He's the one with these authoritarian ideas and suggestions. He's also not investigating any of the corruption accusations, a lot of them against his own family. Brazil is late in the ranking for fighting the corruption index. He's the threat to Brazil right now in the elections, there's so much at stake at this point. I don't see enough of that coverage in American media. I just wanted to say that.

Brian Lehrer: Karina, thank you very much for starting us off, we really appreciate it. Let's go next to Simon in Manhattan. It's a good British name, Simon. You're originally from the UK, right?

Simon: Yes, indeed I am, Brian. Thank you to your screener for allowing me to come on air. Yes, I'm from London, originally. I would like to say that when I immigrated here with a job offer, not knowing if I would get it, but I did, then the green card came and then the US citizenship came, but it was quite a lengthy process and going through the medical and interviews at the US Embassy in London, et cetera, but I'm glad I'm here and I love being in America.

I was telling you a screener that I wish the Constitution would change that I'm not a refugee by any stretch of the imagination. I think that people who were born here should not immediately have US citizenship, but that's probably a digression here.

Brian Lehrer: Yes, that's going to be a digression for another segment, it's certainly one we've debated. Give me a piece of news from your country of origin, what's going on with this financial crisis in the UK, or anything else you want to point to?

Simon: Yes, I'm in touch on emails and WhatsApp constantly on a daily basis with friends and colleagues back in London. It's scary. It's quite frightening actually. I think quite honestly, and maybe this is another subject for another segment, but I think the prime minister right now is an interim prime minister and I don't think she would last too long. Obviously, the way it happens over there as you know, it's not voted by the public but internally, and she's doing all the wrong things at the start of her political career.

Brian Lehrer: Name one thing just as an example that you think she's doing wrong, then I'm going to get some other callers on.

Simon: Just basically Kwarteng the finance minister. I think I've got the correct term of the exchequer. Basically with all the upheaval, and I'm not saying this correctly, but I think you know what I'm referring to, that is causing an upheaval in the stock market and all over the world. There's a lot of finance problems going on and people are getting more and more as they are in this country and other civilized countries. They're getting poorer, not richer.

Brian Lehrer: Having to do with tax cuts and stuff over there. The dollar being so strong against the pound. I saw somebody tweeted a joke that said the rapper 50 Cent when he goes to the UK, now he wants to be known as one pound. Hahaha, because it's dropped that much against the dollar. Simon, thank you very much. We're going to go to Miriam in Scotch Plains, you're on WNYC. Hi, Miriam.

Miriam: Hi, Brian. Thank you so much for taking my call. I've been a listener to your show for the last decade that I've been in the US.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you. What country do you want to talk about? Where did you come from?

Miriam: I am an Iranian-American. I've been here for more than a decade. I have done a PhD here in the United States. I just want to talk a little bit about how Iran protests are being covered in US media.

Brian Lehrer: Please.

Miriam: Sure. Those kids on the streets, those 17, 18, 19 kids or the ones in their 20s, they are saying no to monarchy, no to the supreme leader. We do not want to go back to any monarchy, to any supreme leader, to any authoritarian government. Unfortunately, what I see in US media is giving platform and voice to some loud voices, loud divisive voices that are not really representing everyone on the streets in Iran.

People like Mahsi Amini [inaudible 00:10:39] who are pushing Boltons and [inaudible 00:10:43] agenda rather than real people, real women, and people in Iran. A lot of religious people, a lot of women who choose to wear a scarf, they are against this whole system. They are on the streets. They're getting bitten up. This one-sided narrative of what I see is really not representing what is happening. We are all done. Religious, and non-religious is just a minority who is imposing what they want on most of the people, and we are fed up. Everyone is fed up.

Brian Lehrer: You're saying even women who choose to wear a head scarf, et cetera want this regime out.

Miriam: Yes. They not only want this out, they want freedom. Freedom to choose. We want a fair election that allows everyone to come and have a say about what should be the system of government. This is what we want. I see like all these flags that are covered, all these people in the media that are talking about, they're either going back to like 40 years ago monarchy, or they are having this personal agenda as they push, which, unfortunately, are affiliated with some of these strange things. That some of them are mostly Republican or Democrats. This is really frustrating me and I'm not alone. We are a very, very huge majority of us that we have been here in the United States.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you so much, Miriam. I hear you. I think you got a message across there to a lot of listeners and we will definitely follow up. Please call us again. Edgar in Waiting River, you're on WNYC. Hi Edgar.

Edgar: Hi Brian. Good morning and thank you for doing what you do. I'm originally from Haiti. I've been living here for about 40 years, and I'm calling to remind everyone that there's a huge crisis going on in that country. I don't claim to know all the political nuances because again, that was a long time ago that I left. By the way, the last time I visited was 20 years ago but I do understand there's a huge impact when people are destabilized. That could be, of course, we've seen this in the past there's a huge migration to another country sometimes at a very high risk.

My suggestion would be that, whatever we can do, we in the international community, and by the way, that is part of all the big things that are going on throughout the world to at least see if it could take some preventive action by encouraging both sides to sit down and in a way that makes them see what the outcome could be if they try to settle this in a peaceful way. That's the reason why I'm calling today, Brian and I thank you for what you're doing again.

Brian Lehrer: Edgar, thank you so much for that call. Abena in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Hello, Abena.

Abena: Hi, thank you so much, Brian, for everything that you do. I just wanted to take advantage of this opportunity to call in and flag something that we've been protesting as am a Ghanaian American living in Brooklyn. A lot of Ghanaians have also been protesting an anti-LGBTQI bill that is in Ghana's Parliament right now. It was introduced a year ago and is in committee, but it will be voted on soon.

I just wanted to flag that this, one of the sponsors of the bill, a member of parliament named Sam George who's been getting a lot of funding from right-wing conservative anti-LGBTQI groups including from the United States, was actually just in the United States for the conference, the World Congress of Families and I think it's called like the Family Institute.

Brian Lehrer: There is US support for this anti-LGBTQIA bill in Ghana. In very brief terms, what would the bill do?

Abena: What would the bill do I think is what you asked?

Brian Lehrer: Yes.

Abena: Basically, it would make it a crime to identify as LGBTQI, or to be an ally is punishable by up to 10 years in prison. It's also punishable by prison terms or fines to know of a relative or anyone in your community that identifies as gay or trans or intersex and not report them. It's also meant to target advocacy groups on social media and other forms of advocacy for the queer and trans community.

The fact that Twitter has named Ghana its headquarters and has not spoken up about this bill, but they've been hiring staff that they know many of whom are in the LGBTQI community and they have not spoken up against this bill is just really devastating.

Brian Lehrer: I didn't know about that Twitter connection. We will definitely follow up on this one. Thank you for letting me and letting everybody know, yikes. What a bill, if that were to go through in any country. We're going to give Laura in Terrytown our last 30 seconds on this. Laura, you're an immigrant from Italy, I see. You have 30 seconds. Go.

Laura: Okay. Well, I just heard the speech by Liliana Segre, the senator for life. The election in September was horrific with the right wing of the fatality Talia, the brothers of Italy won and it's the first time that the fascist government is coming back since World War II. I was moved by her speech. I happen to be an Italian Jew. She started by saying, "In 1938 in October, I had to leave my little desk in the elementary school for racial reasons and now I have the most honorable desk in Italy."

Brian Lehrer: That has to be the last word, I'm sorry to say. Laura, thank you, and thanks to all of you who called with news from so many places around the world. We will follow up on many of those calls.

 

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