WorldAffairs host Ray Suarez remembers Paul Farmer, the late physician and champion of global public health who inspired many by example. Beyond opening clinics and distributing life saving medications in Haiti and other developing nations, Dr. Farmer worked to change the way healthcare is delivered to the world’s most vulnerable–through compassion and genuine partnership. 

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According to the USDA, shoppers are paying more than seven percent more than they were last year for their groceries. In developing countries, it’s even worse. The UN says thirty-seven nations are in urgent need of food, but can't afford it. But while food prices soar, so do Wall Street’s profits.

 

WorldAffairs host Ray Suarez talks with Rupert Russell about his new book and film, “Price Wars: How the Commodities Markets Made Our Chaotic World.” He introduces us to people whose lives have been upended by skyrocketing food and gas prices around the world and explains how the global financial system drives famine, conflict, and crisis.

 

Guest:

 

Rupert Russell, author and director of Price Wars: "How Commodities Markets Made Our Chaotic World"

 

Host:

 

Ray Suarez, co-host, WorldAffairs

 

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Is the US on the verge of a second Civil War? Acclaimed author Barbara Walter suggests that American exceptionalism, the belief that things are different here, may have blinded us to patterns we’ve seen previously around the world.

 

From the former Yugoslavia to South Africa to Brazil, Walter and WorldAffairs host Ray Suarez examine risk factors that can contribute to the outbreak of violence, and how social media adds fuel to the fire. If bipartisan discord and events like January 6 are signs of instability within American democracy, what can we do to turn it around?

 

Guest:

 

Barbara Walter, author of “How Civil Wars Start”

 

Host:

 

Ray Suarez, co-host, WorldAffairs

 

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The Winter Olympics have begun. China wants the Beijing Games to showcase the country’s meteoric rise, but American legislators and an international coalition of activists see the Games as an opportunity to spotlight China’s human rights record.

 

First, we hear from U.S. track and field star Raven “Hulk” Saunders about the Olympic podium protest ban. Then, WorldAffairs host Philip Yun talks with a former State Department colleague, Bennett Freeman, about the campaign to pressure China to change. Finally, journalist Mary Kay Magistad speaks with two leaders from China’s persecuted Uyghur minority about surveillance, repression, and state violence in the shadow of the Winter Olympics. 

 

Guests:

 

Raven Saunders, 2021 silver medalist for U.S. Olympic Track and Field team

Bennett Freeman, former deputy assistant secretary of state, democracy, human rights and labor 

Zumretay Arkin, program manager at World Uyghur Congress

Nury Turkel, vice chair of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom and senior fellow at the Hudson Institute

 

Hosts: 

Philip Yun, co-host, WorldAffairs

Mary Kay Magistad, associate director at Center on U.S.-China Relations at Asia Society

 

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Imagine yourself explaining to your child how to stay safe during a military attack while you try to remain focused on your job and enjoy life in the face of impending war. These seemingly incompatible and contradictory goals have become a daily routine in Ukraine and they're at the heart of Iryna Tsylik's award winning film, The Earth is as Blue as an Orange. Tsylik takes us inside the lives of a family living in Eastern Ukraine, in the declining coal region of Donbass, where a low-grade war has been going on since 2014. The war has outlasted more than two dozen ceasefires between Ukraine, Russia, and Russian-backed armed separatists. With more than 13,000 casualties to date and troops already in the region, Donbass is one of the many routes by which Russia could launch a larger scale invasion in the near future. WorldAffairs producer Andrew Stelzer spoke with Iryna Tsylik about her film and how her identity as a Ukrainian has been shaped by art, politics and a war that’s now been going on for almost 8 years.

If you have not already done so, please be sure to listen to Ukraine Part 1: A Young Country with an Old History, where you’ll learn about Ukraine’s Maidan revolution, which precipitated war in the Donbass.

Guests:  

Iryna Tsilyk, filmmaker and director of The Earth is Blue as an Orange

Hosts: 

Ray Suarez, co-host, WorldAffairs

Andrew Stelzer, producer, WorldAffairs

The Russian military is on the move toward the border with Ukraine. President Biden and European leaders have warned Russia against an invasion, suggesting military action will trigger a response. Caught in the middle, and almost completely drowned out in the din, are the voices of more than 40 million Ukrainian people living in one of the biggest countries in Europe.

 

In part one of a two-part story about Ukraine, we fill in some of the blanks on the backstory of Ukraine. Historians Katherine Younger and Emily Channell-Justice tell Ray Suarez the story of modern Ukraine, and why embracing Western values has made Ukraine a threat to Vladimir Putin. 

 

Guests:

Katherine Younger, research director, Ukraine in European Dialogue at The Institute for Human Sciences

Emily Channell-Justice, director, Temerty Contemporary Ukraine Program at Harvard University.

 

Host:

 

Ray Suarez, co-host, WorldAffairs

 

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In 2008, Jason Rezaian made a life changing decision to move to Iran and follow his dream of being a foreign correspondent. He fell in love, became a reporter for the Washington Post, and even played host to Anthony Bourdain in the Iran episode of Parts Unknown. Then, Jason’s life was turned upside down when he was arrested and held hostage in Tehran’s notorious Evin prison for 544 days. At least forty Americans are currently held captive around the world–not by terrorist groups but by foreign governments.

On this week’s episode, we hear Jason’s story and why he thinks it’s essential that the US government and media change the way they talk about American hostages abroad so we can finally bring them home.

Guests:

Jason Rezaian, Washington Post global opinions writer, host of 544 Days and author of Prisoner 

Yeganeh Rezaian, senior researcher at the Committee to Protect Journalists

Kate Woodsome, documentary filmmaker at the Washington Post

Host:

Ray Suarez, co-host, WorldAffairs

If you appreciate this episode and want to support the work we do, please consider making a donation to World Affairs. We cannot do this work without your help. Thank you.

 

With the rapid spread of Omicron and CDC guidelines changing on a near-daily basis, the pandemic can feel more confusing than ever. To help make sense of it all, we bring you this week’s episode two days ahead of schedule.

Even in the face of a highly infectious variant, COVID vaccines still offer the best protection from severe illness and death, but 40% of the world’s population, mostly in low income countries, have yet to receive a first dose. With so many people unvaccinated, new variants will continue to emerge. So, what can be done to break vaccine gridlock and bring this pandemic to an end?

On this week’s episode, Dr. Luciano Cesar Azevado, an ICU doctor in São Paulo, explains how Brazil went from being a COVID hotspot to a world leader in vaccinations. Then, Dr. Seth Berkley, CEO of GAVI, the Vaccine Alliance, talks with Ray Suarez about overcoming the challenges of vaccine distribution in hard to reach areas.

Guests: 

Dr. Luciano Cesar Azevado,  ICU physician and professor of critical care and emergency medicine, Sírio-Libanês Hospital in São Paulo, Brazil

Dr. Seth Berkley, CEO, GAVI, The Vaccine Alliance

Hosts:

Philip Yun, CEO, World Affairs

Ray Suarez, co-host, World Affairs

When footage of rioters storming the US Capitol streamed live in 2021, some far-right extremists in Germany watched it like a soccer game. The European nation has spent decades confronting its dark history, but neo-Nazi and conspiracy theorist movements continue to rise in Germany, and around the world.

 

In this rebroadcast from last year, Ray Suarez talks with two domestic intelligence agents: one in Germany and the other in the United States. What have they learned in their fight against violent extremism?

 

Guests:

Stephan Kramer, chief of intelligence for the German state of Thuringia

Michael German, Brennan Center for Justice at NYC Law School and former FBI agent

 

Host:

Ray Suarez, co-host of WorldAffairs

 

If you appreciate this episode and want to support the work we do, please consider making a donation to World Affairs. We cannot do this work without your help. Thank you.

One year after supporters of former President Donald Trump violently stormed the Capitol,  how do we make sense of the January 6 insurrection? Historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat returns to WorldAffairs to discuss modern authoritarians and the “leader cult” created around former president Donald Trump. With a majority of Republicans believing the false claim that voter fraud helped Joe Biden win the 2020 election, could Donald Trump be reelected in 2024? If weaknesses in our democratic institutions aren’t addressed, Ben-Ghiat warns, the real danger lies in the blueprint left for future leaders.

 

Guest: Ruth Ben-Ghiat, professor of history and Italian studies at New York University and author of Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present

Host: Ray Suarez, co-host of WorldAffairs

If you appreciate this episode and want to support the work we do, please consider making a donation to World Affairs. We cannot do this work without your help. Thank you.