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2015 Program Archive
2015 Program Archive
September 3 - Funding the UNHCR and Dealing With the Crisis at Its Core; Hungary Warns Europe That Its "Christian" Future Is at Stake From Refugees; Kentucky Clerk, Acting on God's Authority, Is Jailed
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We begin with the tragic image of a Turkish police officer cradling the lifeless body of a 3 year old Syrian Kurdish boy found washed ashore after the rickety boat carrying his family to Greece capsized, drowning his 5 year old brother and mother as well. Jana Mason, the Senior Advisor for Government Relations and External Affairs at the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Washington D.C. where she represents the agency’s interests with the U.S. government, joins us. We discuss how Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan have taken in over 4 million Syrian refugees so far but insufficient funding of the UNHCR by donor nations, particularly in Europe, has led to shortfalls in caring for the continuing outflow of Syrians fleeing the civil war, leading refugees to risk their lives in the hands of callous human traffickers as they cross the Mediterranean in unseaworthy boats to Europe. |
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Then we speak with Daryl Grisgraber, who leads Refugees International’s research and advocacy related to the Middle East and North Africa, focusing mainly on the Syrian displacement crisis. She joins us to discuss efforts today in Brussels at an emergency meeting of European leaders to deal with the growing crisis, where Hungary’s right wing Prime Minister Viktor Urban warned that Europe’s “Christian” future is at stake as he blamed Germany for creating the migration crisis by offering asylum to refugees. |
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Then finally we examine the sentencing today of a county clerk in Kentucky who, acting on God’s authority, has defied the Supreme Court by continuing to refused to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Carl Tobias, the Chair and Professor of Law at the University of Richmond who has tracked same-sex marriage litigation across the country, joins us to discuss whether jailing Rowan County’s Kim Davis instead of fining her will make her a “Christian” martyr soon to appear at a mega-church near you. |
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September 2 - Obama Has the Votes to Uphold the Iran Deal; The European Refugee Crisis Deepens; A County Clerk Who Gets Her Authenticity From Go
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We begin with today’s passage over the threshold with enough Democratic senators now pledged to support the P5+1 deal with Iran, meaning the Republicans will not be able to override President Obama’s veto of their expected rejection of the deal. Mansour Fahrang, a professor of international relations at Bennington College who resigned as revolutionary Iran’s first ambassador to the U.N. and is the author of “The U.S. Press and Iran: Foreign Policy and the Journalism of Deference”, joins us. We discuss the failure of the massive lobbying effort aimed at House and Senate Democrats and the symbiosis between rejectionists in the U.S. and hardliners in Iran opposed to the deal. |
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Then we go to Geneva, Switzerland to speak with Joel Millman, a press officer for the International Organization for Migration, and discuss the European migration crisis as thousands more refugees from the Middle East arrive in Greece while hundreds of refugees remain trapped at the main train station in Budapest unable to board trains for Germany even though they have tickets, where on top of their misery, they have to endure abuse from Neo-Nazis belonging to Hungary’s Jobbik Party. |
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Then finally we speak with Ronald Krotoszynski Jr., a constitutional law expert at the University of Alabama, who has followed same-sex marriage cases, about the standoff in Kentucky where a clerk refuses to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couple claiming her authority to defy the Supreme Court comes from God. |
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September 1 - The "You Stink" Movement in Lebanon; The Undeclared Cyberwar Between the US and China and the US and Russia; Egypt's Jails Are Overflowing
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We begin and go to Beirut. Lebanon and speak with Thanassis Cambanis who writes “The Internationalist” column for The Boston Globe and discuss the growing “You Stink” movement that has occupied the offices of Lebanon’s environment minister whose resignation they are demanding because of the piles of uncollected garbage festering in the streets as a result of a political dispute. A Beirut-based journalist, Thanassis now finds himself living amongst mountains of trash that highlights the country’s gridlock and corruption and its political dysfunction and paralysis.
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Then we examine the undeclared cyber war underway between the U.S. and China and the U.S. and Russia and speak with August Cole a writer and analyst specializing in national security issues. He is a senior fellow at The Atlantic Council where he directs the Art of Future Warfare project and is the co-author with Peter Singer of “Ghost Fleet: A Novel of the Next World War”. We discuss how China’s and Russia’s intelligence services are aggressively aggregating and cross-referencing hacked data from U.S. government databases as well as medical records and other data hacked from private companies like Ashley Madison that allows them to build dossiers on all U.S. spies. |
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Then finally we look back on the Egyptian revolution and the Arab Spring that brought hope for change in the Middle East only to provoke a counterrevolution financed by Saudi Arabia that brought back Egypt’s military ruler who have long-dominated the country and are now jailing so many political opponents and reformers that the jails are overflowing. Noha Radwan, a Professor of Arabic and Comparative Literature at the University of California, Berkeley, who participated in the 2011 Tahrir protests, joins us to discuss the current sad realities of life in Egypt today. |
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August 31 - Obama's Mixed Message in Alaska; Behind the Sentencing of Journalists in Egypt; The Ugly Face of Ukrainian Nationalism
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We begin with President Obama’s three day trip to Alaska which is meant to highlight how much the United States is being affected by global warming and rising oceans and go to Alaska to speak with Lois Epstein, the Arctic Program Director for the Wilderness Society. She currently serves on the ocean, energy and safety advisory committee for the Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement. We will discuss Obama’s mixed message of warning about global warming while allowing Shell Oil to drill in the Arctic.
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Then we examine what is behind the sentencing of the three al-Jazeera journalists by an Egyptian court that appears to be petty, cruel and vindictive and based on absurd charges and laughable evidence. An expert on the Arab media, Marwan Kraidy, the Anthony Shadid Chair of Global Media, Politics and Culture and the Director for Advanced Research in Global Communications at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania joins us. We discuss the sentencing of journalists for practicing journalism that has been widely condemned and examine the broader issue of the many more victims of injustice in Egypt. |
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Then finally we examine the ugly violence that took place in front of the Ukrainian parliament where members of the far-right nationalist Svoboda Party tossed smoke bombs then grenades into the crowd killing one national guardsman and wounding 122 others, 11 critically. Alexander Motyl, a professor of political science at Rutgers University and the author of “The Turn to the Right: The Ideological Origins and Development of Ukrainian Nationalism 1919-1929” joins us to discuss the difficulty Ukraine’s President Poroshenko is having selling the Minsk agreement to the country’s restive pro-government paramilitary groups. |
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August 30 - Turkey's Role in the Syrian Refugee Crisis; Austria Faces a Refugee Crisis; A Possible Presidential Candidate in the Democratic Primary
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We begin with the origins of the European refugee crisis and go to Turkey to speak with Antonia Rados, an award-winning veteran Middle East correspondent and crisis reporter for the German television network RTL , where since 2009, she has been the chief foreign correspondent. We discuss how much Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon have borne the brunt of the Syrian refugee crisis so far and Turkey’s plans to set up safe zones inside of Syria to try to deal with the crisis at its source.
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Then we go to Vienna, Austria to speak with Christian Schueller, a reporter and correspondent currently based in Austria for the Austrian TV network ORF, who for the last five years, reported from Turkey and Iran for ORF. We will discuss the shocking discovery of 71 bodies inside a truck abandoned by the highway near to a palace where European leaders were meeting to try to develop an EU policy to deal with the refugee crisis. We also look into the growing pressure from the right that Eastern European countries, in particular Hungary are feeling as Germany prepares to take in over 800,000 asylum-seekers this year. |
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Then finally we speak with Lawrence Lessig, a possible candidate in the Democratic primary now considering a run for president of the United States. A Professor of Law and Leadership at Harvard Law School and author of “Republic Lost: How Money Corrupts Our Congress – and a Plan to Stop It” and “One Way Forward: The Outsider’s Guide to Fixing the Republic”, we discuss his article at The Huffington Post “On "Dumbing Down’ the Democratic Debate” and why we can’t govern ourselves effectively and what change would make effective governing possible. |
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