March 20 - Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince's Arrival Coincides with a Vote on Yemen; The World's Worst Humanitarian Crisis Created by Saudi Arabia; The British Government's Anger at Cambridge Analytica and Facebook

Full Program

Part 1

We will begin with today’s White House visit by Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman known as MBS whose arrival coincided with a rare vote in the U.S. Senate on the War Powers Act being invoked to end U.S. involvement in a devastating war in Yemen that MBS escalated in 2015 with a brutal bombing campaign and a blockade that has created the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. Brian Katulis, a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress who focuses on national security policy in the Middle East and recently met with MBS in Saudi Arabia, joins us to discuss the public relations campaign underway to portray MBS as a reformer ahead of his expected promotion as the next king of Saudi Arabia, replacing his ailing father on the throne. We will assess the extent of the co-mingling of statecraft and business interests between MBS and his new friend Jared Kushner, and remarks made by MBS in a recent 60 Minutes interview in which he talked of Saudi Arabia acquiring nuclear weapons. With a likely step in that direction being an announcement by Trump that the U.S. will sell the Saudis dual-use nuclear reactors.

Part 2

Then we look into the war MBS is waging against Yemen and the vote today in the senate of 55 to 44 which killed a bi-partisan resolution to end U.S. complicity in the bombing and starving of Yemeni women and children. Shireen Al-Adeimi, a graduate student at Harvard University who is originally from Yemen, joins us to discuss the nature of U.S. military support for MBS’s war on Yemen and the complex internecine fighting that is destroying Yemen which is already the poorest country in the Middle East.

Part 3

Then finally we go to the U.K. to speak with Mike Harris, the CEO of 89up and the publisher of Little Atoms. He writes on human rights, surveillance and free speech and joins us to discuss the angry reaction in the British parliament to revelations that Cambridge Analytica used personal data from Facebook to influence the Brexit vote along with helping Trump win the U.S. election. We will discuss a video sting by Channel Four in the U.K. that exposes the head of Cambridge Analytica boasting on hidden camera about his role in defeating Hillary Clinton and his offer to supply Ukrainian girls to entrap rival politicians.