Full Program

Part 1

We begin with the attempt by Turkey’s Prime Minister to commemorate the 100^th anniversary of the Armenian genocide while still strenuously denying that the genocide took place and calling the Pope part of an “evil front” for using the term. David Phillips, the Director of the Peace-Building and Rights Program at the Institute for the Study of Human Rights at Columbia University, who headed up diplomatic efforts at reconciliation between Turkey and Armenia known as the Turkish-Armenian Reconciliation Commission, joins us to discuss a major reversal by Turkey’s top trading partner in Europe, Germany, who is now joining France, the European parliament and Pope Francis in calling what happened to the Armenians in 1915 genocide.  

Part 2

Then we examine unexplored avenues of inquiry into the untold story leading up to 9/11 and its aftermath, in particular the role of Saudi Arabia since 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudi citizens. Senator Bob Graham, the former chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee and the co-chairman of the 2002 joint congressional inquiry into the 9/11 terrorist attacks, joins us to discuss his push for the disclosure of the 28 pages of the congressional inquiry that remain classified and the extraordinary coincidences involving meetings between Saudi officials and the hijackers in San Diego and ties between the hijackers and a Saudi family in Sarasota, Florida who abruptly left the U.S. under suspicious circumstances just before 9/11. 

Full Program

Part 1

We begin with China’s President Xi Jinping’s $46 billion investment in Pakistan to build a new Silk Road known as the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, a network of roads, railway and pipelines between China and the Pakistani port of Gwadar on the Indian Ocean. Political and strategic analyst Shuja Nawaz, the Director of the South Asia Center at the Atlantic Council and author of “Crossed Swords: Pakistan, its Army, and the Wars Within” joins us to discuss Monday’s extravagant summit in Islamabad where these ambitious plans were announced and possible impediments it faces from restive Uighurs in China’s far-Western provinces and a separatist insurgency in Baluchistan where the new Silk Road will meet the sea.  

Part 2

Then following an admission by Senator McCain, we examine the payback Senate Republicans are inflicting on the Democrats by slow-walking their nominees in retaliation for the so-called nuclear option used in the last Congress to overcome a bottleneck of blocked appointments held up by Republican filibusters. A 21 year veteran of the U.S. Senate, Jim Manley, who was senior adviser to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, joins us to discuss how this infantile behavior has ground the government to a halt.

Part 3

Then finally we assess the just-concluded IMF spring meeting in Washington at which the renewed possibility of Greece leaving the Eurozone got most of the attention. Dominico Lombardi, the Director of the Global Economy Project at the Center for International Governance Innovation joins us to discuss Greece as well as other global financial concerns about falling oil prices and the rising dollar.