Sunday Morning for Sunday 7 July 2013

8:12 Insight A Tale of Two French Factories (BBC)

France, the second largest economy in the Eurozone, has slipped back into recession. Lucy Ash visits two tyre factories in the depressed northern town of Amiens. One has adopted flexible working practices and, for the time being, its 940 jobs are safe. The other has refused to sign up to the new shift pattern and the factory is slated for closure next year.
Produced by Philippa Tolley.

8:40 Bob Rigg – Chemical Weapons Claim Under Fire

Bob Rigg, formerly of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, says Obama's claim that the Syrian army used chemical weapons is fatally flawed. He fears stepped-up US military involvement could intensify and prolong the civil war, increasing human misery and the toll on civilian lives – and says humanitarian considerations are being subordinated to US military and strategic self-interest.
Bob Rigg was senior editor with the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) in The Hague. A recent article by Bob is published on the Open Democracy website.

9:06 Mediawatch

Mediawatch looks at how there’s lots in the media about exotic destinations, air travel and flash cars because travel agents, airlines and car-makers cover the costs. But do the pipers paying the bills also call the tune? Also on Mediawatch: Fact and fiction in the ongoing GCSB saga; and startling stats that overstated our appetite for takeaways.
Produced and presented by Colin Peacock and Jeremy Rose.

9:40 Tony Simpson – Wartime Mystery Revealed

When historian Tony Simpson found out that the last New Zealand soldier killed in action in Europe in the Second World War died in Trieste during a skirmish with Yugoslav partisans – who were, only days earlier, our allies – he determined to find out what happened.
Tony’s book, Ambiguity and Innocence: The New Zealand Division and the Occupation of Trieste, May 1945 is available by emailing him at sugarbags@xtra.co.nz

10:06 Ideas Bridget Williams

In the latest in our occasional series of interviews with influential New Zealanders about the individuals, writers and thinkers who have influenced them, we hear from publisher Bridget Williams. Bridget Williams has published everything from The Oxford History of New Zealand and The Dictionary of New Zealand Biography to Judith Binney’s Encircled Lands and the just-published Inequality: A New Zealand Crisis. It’s a list of books that will have informed and influenced virtually everyone with an interest in New Zealand history and politics. Chris Laidlaw spends the hour talking to Bridget Williams about the business of publishing, and the people and ideas that have informed her life.
Link to Bridget Williams Books
Produced by Jeremy Rose.

10:55 Today’s Track

The song is Khumbaya, from the Soweto Gospel Choir. The choir is ambassador for Nelson Mandela’s 46664 Campaign – a global HIV/AIDS awareness and prevention campaign, and a movement for social justice. 46664 takes its name from Nelson Mandela’s Robben Island prisoner number.

11:05 Down the List

In this, the 50th episode and first birthday edition of Down the List, Mana and the Maori Party attempt to join forces for next year’s election.
Down the List is written by Dave Armstrong and produced by Adam Macaulay and Duncan Smith from the RNZ Drama Department.

11:12 David Scheffer – Long Fight for Justice

David Scheffer is the UN Secretary-General's Special Expert on United Nations Assistance to the Khmer Rouge Trials.  He visited New Zealand recently and talked to Chris about issues affecting international justice.
Ambassador David Scheffer is professor of law and the director of the Center for International Human Rights at Northwestern University School of Law in Chicago.
All the Missing Souls: A Personal History of the War Crimes Tribunals, by David Scheffer, is published by Princeton University Press.

11:40 Wayne Brittenden’s Counterpoint

Edward Snowden’s latest revelations concerning US surveillance of EU countries have resulted in expressions of outrage from a number of governments, although no grateful offer of asylum for the now stateless whistleblower. Wayne looks at some of the implications, and Chris follows up with Kurt Huebner, professor of European Studies at the University of British Columbia and Professor Sergei Plekhanov  of Toronto’s York University.