Full Program

Part 1

We  begin with the partial withdrawal of Russian troops at the Ukrainian border and the visit by Russia’s Prime Minister to Crimea that the new government in Kyiv is condemning. We will speak with Andrew Kuchins, a senior fellow and director of the Center for Strategic and International Relations’ Russia and Eurasia Program and discuss his criticism of President Obama’s handling of the crisis with Putin over Russia’s annexation of Crimea and Andrew Kuchins’ article at CNN “Does Obama Really Understand Putin?” We  also explore possible ways to avoid a new tit-for-tat Cold War dynamic that seems all but inevitable as the recent talks between Secretary of State Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov appear to have gone nowhere and relations between Putin and the United States continue to deteriorate.

Part 2

Then, with the release of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s latest report that global warming poses a growing threat to security, food supply and human life, with a warning that the worst is yet to come, Elizabeth Kolbert, a long-time staff writer for The New Yorker and author of the new book “The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History” joins us. We  discuss whether the message that comes out of this report that the world has to adapt and mitigate, means that is too late to stop global warming, and look into what can be done to overcome the organized denial of the problem that is thwarting efforts to address an impending catastrophe.

Full Program

Part 1

We begin with the conviction of Osama Bin Laden’s son-in-law on terrorism charges in a federal court in New York that the Attorney General Eric Holder considers a vindication, saying “it was appropriate that this defendant, who publicly rejoiced over the attacks on the World Trade Center, faced trial in the shadow of where those buildings once stood.” A human rights lawyer representing prisoners detained at Guantanamo, David Remes, a professor at the Institute for Law, Science and Global Security at Georgetown University, joins us to discuss whether this conviction will lead to the closing of Guantanamo, something the president has pledged to do that the Republicans in Congress have blocked.

Part 2

Then we examine the effectiveness of E.U. and U.S. sanctions on Putin’s Russia, and what might be on the agenda when Obama meets with the Saudis on Friday. Juan Cole, a professor of Modern Middle Eastern and South Asian History at the University of Michigan and author of “Engaging the Muslim World”, joins us to discuss whether the Saudis could squeeze the Russian economy and punish Putin for keeping the Assad regime alive in Syria by flooding the market with oil as they did after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and, with General Sisi announcing he’s running for president of Egypt, we look into how long the Saudis can prop up Egypt’s military government.

Part 3 

Then finally we speak with Elizabeth Wydra, Chief Counsel of the Constitutional Accountability Center who witnessed the Supreme Court’s deliberations over whether a business can opt out of the Affordable Care Act’s mandate to provide contraception coverage for female employees based on religious objections. We discuss the likely consequences of a ruling in favor of the evangelical Christian family-owned business whose owners are imposing their religious beliefs on their employees, and whether this will lead to more state laws allowing businesses not to serve LGBT customers based on religiously-sanctioned bigotry.