drea Borhaven, 25 Pickton Trial to be Covered by Over 25 Journalists, 2 Former Sex Trade Workers News website offers Internships to two women who knew some of the victims Nicole Burton, News Editor When the mob of journalists arrives in New Westminster next week from around the world, two women in particular will stand out. A Vancouver-based independent media website has awarded a pair of writing internships to two former sex trade workers who will be writing for them. Their story? To cover the gruesome trial of Robert Pickton, a Port Coquitlam resident now accused of murdering 26 female prostitutes from the Downtown Eastside. His trial, now expected to last 24 months, begins next week in New Westminster Supreme Court, right next door to Douglas College’s New Westminster campus. According to the website Orato.com, both women are familiar with the issues surrounding their Pickton’s victims. Each of the women have worked in the sex trade and even knew several of the victims whose remains were found at the Pickton farm after an 18-month investigation beginning in 2002. Of the 250 journalists signed up to cover the Pickton trial, a slim minority will be represent- ing independent press. Orato.com Editor-in-Chief Paul Sullivan believes his website’s amateur journalists will have an advantage over the pros based on their own life experience. “They are going to go [to the trial] when it is appropriate to be there,’ Sullivan said to media last week. “We are asking them to shape their own coverage.” nt to hear their stories,” he said. pparently, so do others. In an online poll posted this week on their website, 90 percent who responded believed that having sex trade workers report on the Pickton trial “is a reat .cea” as ‘It gives the women affected a voice.” 6 percent believe that it is “a terrible idea — prostitution is a crime,” while 4 percent believe that a full publication ban would be the best puot 4 THE OTHER PRESS JANUARY 22 2007 Canada “Joining the Ranks of the Hated ! World,” British MP Says Ashley Waiters, NightViews (Ryerson University) TORONTO (CUP)—On one of the first really cold nights in Toronto, bundled bodies hu dled outside Christ Trinity Church, straining to decipher the vibrations of a booming voice emanating from its interior. The voice was that of George Galloway, a maverick socialist member of the British Parliament, whose anti-war sentiments led to his expulsion from the Labour party in 2003. But he was re-elected in 2005 as the MP for the anti-war party he founded, Respect: The Unity Coalition. Galloway’s talk focused on the current military occupations in Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine. He called attention to the stark shift in Canada’s international reputation, from building “peace and development” to emulating the foreign policy of US President George Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair and, as Galloway put it, “joining the ranks of t hated in the world.” To Galloway, the hypocrisy within Canadian foreign policy is clear. “It’s absurd to say that [the Canadian government is] fighting for democracy in Afghanistan when you were the first government in the entire world to punish the Palestini people with starvation because they voted for a party of which your government did not approye,” he said. Galloway’s comments reference Canada’s decision to stop funding the Hamas-controlle Palestinian Authority, which he noted was the only democratically elected government in t Middle East. Canada has cut $7.3 million from what it is sending to Palestine, almost one- third’of the annual $25 million that Canada spends on aid in the West Bank and Gaza. “75 per cent of people in Gaza are living on less than one Canadian dollar a day, and when [Prime Minister Stephen] Harper announced a siege against those people, this is 2 de ration of war, and I don’t know why your country would do that,’ Galloway said. Galloway also attacked the Liberal party’s refusal to call for a céasefire in Lebanon. “Tt’s absurd that [Canadians] have an opposition party that is not losing any sleep over massacres in Lebanon. It’s the opposition that wouldn’t call for a ceasefire,’ he said. And h¢ said that since Canadian foreign policy is beginning to mirror that of the US, the silence of the Liberal party is all the more startling. “That war that we talked about in Lebanon, every airplane, every warship, every tank, every shell, every rocket, every missile, every bullet, every gun, every salary of every Israeli soldier was paid, every cent, by the taxpayers of the United States of America,’ Galloway said. He said he notices the “support our troops” placards that often greet him when he ent a building to give a talk, but urged people to support their troops by bringing them home 2 not continuing to fight a war that is “for a pack of lies, for a pack of liars.” “The troops are lions, led by donkeys, like Harper, like Blair, like Bush: people who are sending their own sons to kill and be killed,” he said. “They’re chicken hawks ready to fight the last drop of somebody else’s blood for exploitation and domination around the world’ Galloway’s history is fraught with controversy. The politician is widely known for his ov spoken disagreement with war in the Middle East. He publicly opposed the 2003 invasion « Iraq, and he has been an ardent supporter of the Palestinian cause since the early 70s. In 2003, after accusing Bush and Blair of attacking Iraq like a pack of wolves, he event ly apologized to wolves, saying he’d defamed the animals in comparing them to the politiciz