18 April 2009 - In this edition of The State We're In: Do we have the right to sell arms? The right to move for work. Cuba and US travel. Allah made me funny. Plus, a dilemma discussed.

In this edition April 18, 2009:

Do we have a right to sell small arms?
Merchant of death?
Mick Ranger, a British gun merchant, believes that what he's doing as a small arms dealer is perfectly legal and therefore right. Although he's been called "a merchant of death" in the press, he argues that soldiers and police forces need small arms to help make the world safer.
 
Activist nun
Sister Barbara Raftery teaches school in Portlaoise, Ireland. As a classroom experiment, she had her students import and export lethal weapons and has even worked undercover with a documentary team to expose how dangerously easy the global trade in small arms is.
 
Theme: The right to move for work

Mexico illegal immigrants
Reporter Shannon Young visited an illegal migrants centre in Mexico to talk to people who are in the process of making the long risky journey from Central America to reach the US and as she tells Jonathan Groubert, nothing is going to stop them.
 
China migrants
An estimated 200 million people in China have left their homes in the impoverished countryside to the cities to take part in the steady economic boom of the last decade, but as Ruth Kirchner reports the global economic crisis is having an effect here too.
 
Joyce's story
Joyce's childhood abruptly ended when she agreed to follow someone who promised her a job as a waitress in Europe. Instead she ended up in one brothel after another, and even after a police raid, she found little sympathy for her situation.

More... 

 
Cuba and US travel
TSWI talked to two Cuban women in January, a mother and daughter, who cannot visit each other as one lives in the US and the other still resides in Cuba. We ask them how their lives will change now that President Obama is easing travel restrictions.

Allah Made Me Funny
Azhar Usman and Preacher Moss are Americans, lecturers, community activists and stand up comedians. Together they travel the world raising smiles and consciousness while confronting fear of Islam in the West with their own unique brand of inclusive comedy.
 
Dilemma
Radio Netherlands Worldwide colleague Michele Ernsting joins Jonathan to talk about a dilemma she faced 12 years ago: she didn't like her dentist and was thinking of leaving. But then her dentist had a sex change and Michele didn't want to appear bigoted towards transsexuals by leaving.