explaining what i wanted to do. and getting over some of the prejudices of my being an american and she obviously didn't have any of that problem. so i relied on her hugely. i was also fortunate in that there was a smirnov vodka vodka archive at harvard university saw had access to hundreds of documents bear. thankfully most of them are already translated. it was kind of really lucky break for me and there's actually some stuff at columbia university as well and i got something set of berkeley so i was able to do some of the research year which really helped. but it was my researcher and moscow -- i had a real vision for what i wanted to do this but so i was able to put all questions to her and then she would really got to the countryside and deal with. >> [inaudible] >> how did i find her? there was actually a woman in san francisco who is a friend of

a friend here and i talked to her about two deals a lot of the russian community here ended new emigrants to the area. she actually knew the woman who turned out to be my researcher from her efforts. to put me in touch with this woman not because she thought she knew my researcher but she thought she might have connections with somebody who would be my researcher but when we met in moscow and talked him she was excited, as excited about the story as i was and agree to put her courage on and work with me as a researcher. so it was really so lucky. >> how much of your book addresses the current situation with a trademark suit or effort that is making, and what is the

basis i am curious from a business or a legal point, what is the basis of the claim of a family unit that the brand was literally sold earlier as you mentioned and what you think is wise to happen with the current litigation? >> well, that particular piece of litigation actually was settled in 2006. the company that owns the smirnov brand agreed to pay a company that was climbing the brand in russia money so that the label not only now imports its smirnov into russia but all the lectures that the banks. and the family was not a part of that settlement. the family still is not involved in making the vodka or in any aspect of the business. the second part of your question was what? the basis of a lawsuit.

it is actually fascinating so amongst the other things was multipronged as most litigation is but one of their chief claims was vladimir, the sun that escaped russia and license to the brand to the russian emigre, did not have a right to do that because he had are sold his shares in the business to his brother which he had done before the revolution. but that brother died and two of the others died and one of them because he still lived in russia couldn't revive the brand, there was nobody around to revive the brand other claim is it was wrongly sold in the first place and that he didn't have a right to do it there for it should revert back to the family. they also claimed consumer deception, false advertising because they felt people assume it smirnov was still the russian smirnov and, in fact, had not been made in russia for many decades. so it had a lot of aspects to it and ended up changing the label someone and some other things to clarify that point.

>> linda himelsein is the former legal affairs editor and silicon valley bureau chief for business week. she is also work for the "washington journal", legal times and the san francisco reader. kepler's books in menlo park, california hosted the event. for more information visit kepler's.com.

the brecht forum held a benefit and celebration of the 40th anniversary publication of noam chomsky first political book, "american power and the new mandarins". event took place at the riverside church in new york city, and lasts an hour and half. >> it is such a great honor to be here tonight to make this interjection. as we're standing here i was thinking that 14 years ago it was 1995, it was november.

there was a forum on globalization that was taking place here at riverside and it was there that i've heard the announcement that nine activists had been executed in nigeria. in the writer is environmentalist to had dared to take on the nexus of a corporate and military power, the military dictatorship of nigeria and shell corporation, which had crisscrossed his land in the niger delta with gas pipelines above the ground, burning off gas and flares the size of apartment buildings. the children of the niger delta and never knowing a dark night. and yet not profiting from the

trailing and taking it the power out of the earth and giving it to the most powerful on earth, it is impairing the host communities from which it had come. i had met this man in 1994 when an nigerian activist brought him into the studios of the wba i. we were doing wake-up call that morning in the bernard white and i sat there and this man who was not one of the scheduled guests that morning held forth. and he told the story of what he was confronting in nigeria saint the world had to know and ending by saying i am a marked man. he returned to nigeria, was imprisoned, was tried, and he was executed.

last week as we sat in the studios of "democracy now!" we broadcast of the voice of a him from those days on the wba i and we broadcast his son who was announcing that they had just won a settlement with the shell that took 14 years but they would then wind $15.5 million for their family and other victims and the people of the land. [applause] we also play the words of his father, jim, who jeremy and i got to made and the niger delta when we visited three years after his death. when in jim said directly to us,

shell is responsible for my son's death. and as we sat there listening to the father of a son and his grandson, and was sitting next to judas brown, our guest for the hour. judith brown chomsky was one of the leading attorneys in this case that led to this landmark settlement. when i asked noam chomsky tonight how you like to be introduced, he said tom i'm the brother and lot of judith brown chomsky. [laughter] [applause] judith is married in to the younger brother of noam, david. noam was born december 7th, 1928 in philadelphia.

by the age of 10 he was writing an extended essay against fascism and about the spanish civil war. [applause] don't be discouraged. at 14 he was getting his education in the back of the 72nd street subway station in new york. you go out the front, that is where you go by newspapers in the stand where people would rush by and go, but it was the back less populated stand with the stragglers would be, where his uncle ran at that newspaper stand and they would sit and debate and discuss politics. that is where noam said he was getting his education. i hear that they just opened the back again at about four years ago, the south side of the 72nd saint substation, but i've understand they removed the newspaper sustanon. maybe there were also concerned about some young the noam

chomsky getting educated for the future of. within two years the education clearly done him far because of its 16 years of the university of pennsylvania. he went on to be at the harvard says nadine othello's where he continued his research into linguistics and by 1953 he broken up almost tally from the field as it existed in. he became a professor at the university of massachusetts institute of technology. in 1955 at the age of 26. africa to say he had arctic on his ph.d. at the university of pennsylvania. and while he broke ground as a world-renowned linguist shattering all previous paradigms' and linguistics in a world i know very little about. [applause] he was also taking on the war in

vietnam. so much so that his lifetime partner, his wife, carol, went back to school to get her graduate degree in linguistics so that she could be the breadwinner if noam was imprisoned, that is how she described it. to run on to be a professor at the harvard graduate school of education of what linguistics and also wrote to brown on the town of the language and position. they have known each other since i think he was three and they only lost carol a few months ago. his lifetime partnership with a great model for relationships appear to have his personal life also a model for all of us, what it means to live a life of integrity. on democracy now we have

interviewed noam many times a year ago and i think about 2002 it was around midnight, it was may 20 and of. journalist and i were at a momentous time and after a quarter of a century of slaughter, a genocide the people of this were celebrating their freedom. those who have survived. the indonesian military had killed off a third of the population. and i remember that night clearly the u.n. secretary general took the stage is ever handed over the power from the united nations to the people, and the love -- rebel leader ascended to the podium and unfurled a the flying of the democratic republic of east

timor the lighting of the firm works was reflected in the tear stained faces of the people of timor. they had resisted and they had one and an unbelievably high price but they had one. we were broadcasting this historic moment over the airwaves a pacifica radio free up the united states and at that moment we called noam because it was noam chomsky since 1975 and to lay on his birthday on december 7th when indonesia invaded east timor when never let the story die. and so many of his books, so much of his writings, so many of his speeches often introducing to people of this point on a map summon a thousand miles from las and he let people know what was happening in your name appear again it was noam who told us about what was happening in

timor and let us to tape those trips to try to expose what was happening. and i bet almost everyone here tonight in the sanctuary has a story about discovering his writings or his voice or his words and now it has changed your life. now what i am most affected by as i travel the country of the young soldiers who come up to me in when i asked them what made the difference, why they turned and how they could be so brave and courageous and resisting war so often in these young men and women will say someone handed me a book of noam chomsky. [applause] there's something wonderful said

it about noam in the book, were taught, she spoke. may of 2003. she has a chapter, the loneliness of noam chomsky, where she writes when i first read it and noam chomsky it occurred to me that his marshaling of evidence, the volume of it, the relentlessness of it was a little, how shall i put it coming insane. [laughter] even a quarter of the evidence he had compiled was enough to convince me, i used to wonder why he needed to do so much work, but now i and a stand that the magnitude and intensity of his work as a barometer of that magnitude, scope and relentlessness of the propaganda machine that he is up against. he is like the one more who lives in san the third rack of my bookshelf, a day and night i hear his jaws crunching through the wood and riding into fine dust. it is as though he disagrees with the literature and wants to destroy the very structure on

which rests. i call him a jump ski. [laughter] being an american working in america running to convince americans of his point of view must really be like having to tunnel through hardwood. he is one of a small band of individuals fighting a whole industry and that makes them not only brilliant but heroic. [applause] his work so prolific, his support for summoning, so important to us this afternoon norm was telling me how he had visited noam one summer when he had are a written two books. and so he said to a friend, noam just finished two books and his friends said, i read two books

this summer to. [laughter] he said, no, he wrote them. and i think of calling noam chomsky in turkey it was february of 2002, he had not just gone there to speak but to stand with a young publisher who was facing years in prison for publishing noam chomsky work. i called noam to interview him before he went to court not knowing what would happen to him as well. when i rang him up, he answered the phone and said to you know what time it is, i thought i had calculated correctly, he said it is for it in the morning. i said i can call you back and he said no, i am not now, let's talk. but it is that bravery, that courage, his resistance to the war in viet nam and his writing

about the wars in vietnam, the death squads and latin america, what happened to vietnam and cambodia, what is happening today in israel and palestine. his opposition to the wars in iraq, his relentlessness that is such an inspiration to us all. [applause] i think looking at the essential noam chomsky, of this a book case of that is on the cover is filled with noam chomsky books. he has written over 100 of them. and is not just writing, because when he excludes the line he is saving lives because the allies take lives. i don't know who said this

quote, but someone once said i think back on my life that all the times i thought i went too far i realize now i did not go far enough. well, i think noam chomsky has clearly gone to the distance and as we celebrate his 80 years i am encouraged by a woman who told me about celebrating her grandmother's 106th birthday and her grandmother stood up at her party and said, to be 100 again a. [laughter] we look for into your noam chomsky for many years to come beginning with tonight. noam chomsky. [applause]

[applause] [applause] >> thanks, is really exciting to watch amy a couple days ago when she was interviewing today. it is quite an amazing achievement, not going to the whole story, but she took a lot of courage in a effort to win a completely unprecedented case. i don't think there has ever been a case of a settlement like that that was where the evidence which had been, in fact, gathered in nigeria. it was so strong that the

corporation not only settled, but even allow the settlement to be public. indicating their concern that they might be exposed in trial. well, let me say a couple of words about the title which has always is short-handed. there is too much sand a variety to make a sharp distinction between us and them. and, of course, neither i nor anyone else can presume who speaks for us, but i will pretend it is possible. it is also a problem about the word crisis, which 13 have in mind? there are numerous very severe crises, many of them will be under discussion here, in a couple we said the united nations and their confidence on

the world financial and economic crisis. and this crisis is interwoven and very complex way which make it, preclude any sharp separation, but again i will pretend otherwise for simplicity. one way to enter this morass was helpfully provided by the current issue of the new york review dated yesterday. the front cover headline reads: how to deal with the crisis? it features a symposium on specialists and that is worth reading, but with the intention to the definite article the crisis. pour the west the raise, the crisis, has a clear and not meaning. it is the financial crisis that hit the rich countries and therefore is of supreme importance, but in practice even for the rich and privileged that is by no means the only crisis

or even the most severe of those they face another see the world quite differently. for example, the newspaper, new nation, in bangladesh, there we read it is it that mary tallying the trillions have already been spent to patch up a leading world of financial institutions while out of the comparatively small sum of $12 billion pledged in brummer earlier this year to offset the food crisis, only 1 billion has been delivered. the hope that at least extreme poverty can be eradicated by the end of a 2015 as stipulated in the u.s. and milling and development goals seems as unrealistic as ever, not due to lack of resources but to a lack of your concern for the world's poor.

they're talking about approximately a billion people and basing starvation and severe malnutrition, even 30 or 40 million of them in the richest country of the world. that is a real crisis and it is getting much worse. in this morning's financial times britain business press reported the world food program just announced that they are cutting food aid and rations and also closing operations. the reason is that the donor countries have been cutting back funding because of the fiscal crunch and they are slashing contributions. a close connection between in the horrendous food crisis and poverty crisis and a significant but less significant fiscal crisis closing down operations in rwanda and uganda, ethiopia

and many others. in 25 percent cut in the budget while food prices are rising and the financial crisis and economic crisis is bring unemployment and cutting back remittances. that is a major crisis. we might incidentally remember it that when britain and landed in what is now bangladesh they were stunned by its wealth and splendor and it did not take long for it to be on his way to become the very symbol of misery, not by an act of god and. the fate of bangladesh should remind us that the terrible food crisis is not just a the result of western a lack of concern. in large part it results from the very definite and clear concerns of the global managers

namely for their own welfare. is always well to keep in mind that this to an observation of by adam smith about policy formation in england in, he recognized that what he called the principal architects policy in his day the merchants and manufacturers make sure how that their own interests are most peculiarly attended to however grievous the impact on others including the people of england but foremost so those who were subjected to what you call the savage and justice of the europeans and particularly in concord, india own a prime concern. we can easily think of analogs today. his observation impact is one of the few solid and enduring principles of international

domestic affairs to keep in mind and the food prices is a case in point. erupted first and most dramatically in haiti in early 2008. no like bangladesh 80 is a symbol of utter misery and like bangladesh when and the european explorers arrived there were stunned because it was so remarkably rich in resources. later it became a the source of much of france's well, i can run to the sordid history, it is worth knowing, but the current food crisis traces back directly to woodrow wilson's invasion of haiti which was a murderous and brittle and destructive of. among wilson's many crimes was to dissolve the haitian parliament at gunpoint because it refused to pass what was

called progressive legislation which would allow u.s. businesses to take over haitian lands. in wilson's marines ran then -- ran a free election in which the legislation was passed by 99.9% of the vote, that is of the 5 percent of population permitted to vote. all of this comes down to us as what is called a wilsonian idealism. later u.s. aid instituted programs in haiti to turn and under the slogan of a turning haiti into the taiwan of the caribbean, by adhering to the sacred principle of comparative advantage. that is, they should import from the united states while working people mostly women slaved under miserable conditions in u.s. on an assembly