Democracy Now - 20 feb 2012 torrent

An alternative daily newschannel. One hour with news as you do not see it elsewhere.

http://www.democracynow.org

Headlines for Feb 20, 2012

- Report: U.S. Taxpayers Will Subsidize Mortgage Settlement
- U.S. and British Officials Urge Israel to Back-off on Iran Attack
- Bahraini Govt Deports Four More Human Rights Observers
- Palestinian Prisoner Risking Death on 65th Day of Hunger Strike
- Report: NYPD Spied on Muslim College Students Throughout Northeast
- Santorum Challenges Obama\'s Christian Values
- U.S. Supreme Court Blocks Century-Old Montana Ban on Corporate Campaign Spending
- Billionaire Casino Mogul Pledges $10 Million More to Gingrich Super PAC
- Lawsuit Filed to Block License For New Nuclear Reactors in Georgia
- California Prisoner Dies During Hunger Strike Over Jail Conditions


Special reports

- Black History Special: Jazz Legend Randy Weston on His Life and Celebration of \"African Rhythms\"

In a Black History Month special, today we spend the hour with the legendary pianist and composer Randy Weston. For the past six decades ,Weston has been a pioneering jazz musician incorporating the vast rhythmic heritage of Africa. His most famous compositions include, \"Little Niles,\" \"Blue Moses,\" and \"High-Fly,\" and his 1960 album, \"Uhuru Afrika,\" was a landmark recording that celebrated the independence movements in Africa and the influence of traditional African music on jazz. The record, which began with a freedom poem written by Langston Hughes, would later be banned by the South African apartheid regime, along with albums by Max Roach and Lena Horne. In 1961, Randy Weston visited Africa for the first time as part of a delegation that also featured Nina Simone. The trip would transform Weston\'s life and lead him to eventually moving to Africa in 1967. In 2001, he was named a Jazz Master by the National Endowment for the Arts - it is considered to be the nation\'s highest honor in jazz. Weston talks about his collaboration with Langston Hughes, how Marcus Garvey and Paul Robeson influenced his life, his friendship with the Nigerian afrobeat star Fela Kuti, and his success with \"having people understand the impact of African rhythms in world music, whether it\'s Brazil or Cuba or Mississippi or Brooklyn. If you don\'t have that African pulse, nothing is happening,\" Weston said. Now 85 years old, Weston continues to tour the world, and in 2010, he published, \"African Rhythms: The Autobiography of Randy Weston.\"

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