Digital Divide: Wade Davis, Juliane Assange Update, Ram Dass

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange said his work "will not be cowed," as he promised the whistle-blowing site would release a million more documents.               In a speech from a balcony at the Ecuadorean embassy in London, he said the files to be published in 2013 would affect "every country in this world". It is six months since he sought asylum to avoid extradition to Sweden over sexual assault claims, which he denies. He fears being sent to the US and being punished for leaking diplomatic files. A crowd of some 80 supporters gathered outside the building, in Knightsbridge, to listen to the 41-year-old Australian - whose website published a mass of leaked cables embarrassing a number of countries. Mr Assange entered the embassy after the UK's Supreme Court dismissed his bid to reopen his appeal against extradition. It had given him a two-week grace period before extradition proceedings could start. Mr Assange has been warned he will be arrested when he leaves the embassy for breaking the terms of his bail conditions, and officers from the Metropolitan Police continue to mount a round-the-clock guard on the building. A statement from the Ecuadorian ambassador said: "At a time of year when people come closer together, Ecuador reaffirms the solidarity that our country gave six months ago to a person who was being persecuted for thinking and expressing themselves freely. Calling for reflection, he went on: "Often it is necessary, as we have done in our beloved country, to stand up and face those enemies of democracy that, far from seeking unity and peace among the citizens of the world, instead seek to ruin socialist peoples and dominate on behalf of small groups of people."Next Up a talk by Wade Davis. Wade Davis is perhaps the most articulate and influential western advocate for the world's indigenous cultures. A National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence, he has been described as “a rare combination of scientist, scholar, poet and passionate defender of all of life’s diversity.” Trained in anthropology and botany at Harvard, he travels the globe to live alongside indigenous people, and document their cultural practices in books, photographs, and film. As a speaker, he parlays that sense of wonder into passionate concern over the rate at which cultures and languages are disappearing -- 50 percent of the world's 7,000 languages, he says, are no longer taught to children. He argues, in the most beautiful terms, that language is much more than vocabulary and grammatical rules. Every language is an old-growth forest of the mind. Later in the program we’ll also hear The premiere podcast episode of Ram Dass Here and Now! Raghu Markus of the Love Serve Remember foundation explores the origin and early years of Ram Dass. Some consider Ram Dass to be a contempoary american mystic. This episode will introduce you to the man and his work