Aired 03/02/12

Iranians went to the polls in parliamentary elections today. With many reformists and opposition leaders not participating, the vote is a contest between hard-line supporters of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Pressure from the West over Iran’s nuclear program has been a central issue. Barbara Slavin is Washington correspondent for AL-Monitor.com, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, and the author of Bitter Friends, Bosom Enemies: Iran, the US and the Twisted Path to Confrontation.

Guests: Barbara Slavin: AL-Monitor.com, @barbaraslavin1

Also Vladamir Putin is almost certain to regain the presidency in elections in Russia on Sunday, but that victory may be more a reflection of voters’ resignation than broad support for his twelve-year rule. Putin, who has been suggesting Russia could walk away from the Start II treaty and is accusing Hillary Clinton of funding protests in his country, is heavily favored. Matthew Rojansky is Deputy Director of the Russia and Eurasia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Guests: Matthew Rojansky: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, @MatthewRojansky

 

 

Aired 03/27/11

ROBIN WRIGHT has reported from more than 140 countries on 6 continents for numerous news organizations, including The Sunday Times in London, CBS News ,The Washington Post ,The Christian Science Monitor ,The New York Times ,The New Yorker ,The Atlantic Monthly, Foreign Policy and the International Herald Tribune.

She has covered nine wars and several revolutions, and won the Overseas Press Club Award for "best reporting in any medium requiring exceptional courage and initiative" for her work during the Angolan war. Wright was one of the first journalists to write about the emergence of Mideast terrorism and Islamic extremism, which she has covered since the 1970s.

Currently a fellow at the U.S. Institute of Peace and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, she won the 1989 National Magazine Award for her reporting from Iran for The New Yorker. Her last book was DREAMS AND SHADOWS: The Future of the Middle East and her next is ROCK THE CASBAH: How Street Vendors, Sheiks, Rappers, and Women are Shattering the Old Order.

http://www.robinwrightblog.blogspot.com/

http://www.robinwright.net/

 

Aired 07/25/10

TAD DALEY, author, APOLCALYPSE NEVER: Forging the Path to a Nuclear Weapon Free World

TAD DALEY, J.D., Ph.D., is the Writing Fellow with International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, the 1985 Nobel Peace Laureate organization. He spent several years as a member of the International Policy Department at RAND, where many of the nuclear theories of the Cold War era originally were forged. He has served as a speechwriter and policy advisor to Congressman Dennis Kucinich, Congresswoman Diane Watson, and the late Senator Alan Cranston -- and once ran for U.S. Congress himself to represent mid-city Los Angeles. The LA WEEKLY said about his campaign: "Tad Daley boasts the most impressive credentials and much the most thoughtful platform of all the 16 candidates in the race .... (His ideas are) as sensible as they are unconventional."

Daley has written for the Los Angeles Times, USA TODAY, the Christian Science Monitor, Tikkun, and frequently in the at HuffingtonPost.com, TruthDig.com, AlterNet.org, TruthOut.org, and CommonDreams.org. His first book, APOLCALYPSE NEVER: Forging the Path to a Nuclear Weapon Free World, has recently been published.

 

Aired 07/25/10

VALERIE PLAME, CIA agent outed by Bush White House Her focus: non-proliferation of nuclear weapons. She's featured in the film 
COUNTDOWN TO ZERO, playing in NY and DC opening in LA July 30th.

http://www.globalzero.org/

How big a threat is North Korea? Will Iran go nuclear? Will Israel attack Iran? Are nukes safe in Pakistan? Are they safe in the former Soviet Union? Will Obama move seriously toward disarmament?

The globalization of the 21st century has produced positive and peaceful exchanges between peoples and nations, and it has given birth to global terrorism. Today a nuclear attack caused by accident, miscalculation or madness is a real possibility. The film COUNTDOWN TO ZERO (playing in NY and Washington and opening July 30th in LA) makes clear the nuclear threat and calls on us to commit to their abolition.

COUNTDOWN TO ZERO traces the history of the atomic bomb from its origins to the present, where nine nations possess nuclear weapons capabilities, and others race to join them. The world lives in a delicate balance that could be obliterated by an act of terrorism, failed diplomacy, or a simple accident.

The film, which includes Jimmy Carter, Mikhail Gorbachev, Pervez Musharraf and Tony Blair, was written and directed by Lucy Walker (Devil's Playground, Blindsight), produced by Lawrence Bender (Inglourious Basterds, An Inconvenient Truth) and developed, financed and executive produced by Participant Media, together with World Security Institute.

 

Aired 11/15/09

Malalai Joya is an Afghan politician who has been called "the bravest woman in Afghanistan." As an elected member of the Wolesi Jirga from Farah province, she has publicly denounced the presence of what she considers warlords and war criminals in the parliament.

The daughter of a former medical student who lost a foot while fighting the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, Malalai Joya was 4 years old when her family fled Afghanistan in 1982 to the refugee camps of Iran and later Pakistan. After the Soviet withdrawal, Malalai Joya returned to Afghanistan in 1998 during the Taliban's reign. As a young woman she worked as a social activist and was named a director of the non-governmental group, Organisation of Promoting Afghan Women's Capabilities (OPAWC) in the western provinces of Herat and Farah

Title of Joya's autobiography "Raising My Voice", which was published in the US/Canada under the title of "A Woman Among Warlords" was published in October 2009

Noam Chomsky writes: "Perhaps the most remarkable feature of this inspiring memoir is that despite the horrors she relates, Malalai Joya leaves us with hope that the tormented people of Afghanistan can take their fate into their own hands if they are released from the grip of foreign powers, and that they can reconstruct a decent society from the wreckage left by decades of intervention and the merciless rule of the Taliban and the warlords who the invaders have imposed upon them."

http://malalaijoya.com/index1024.htm