On Shifting Ground

The deadly civil war in Syria has raged for almost a decade. For besieged civilians, accessing basic services, like health care, comes with extraordinary risks. In his Academy Award® nominated documentary film, The Cave, director Feras Fayyad reveals a world of hope and safety inside a subterranean hospital. The hospital’s director is 29-year-old Dr. Amani Ballour. In a patriarchal society, she is a force and an inspiration as she keeps the hospital running through air bombardments, chronic food shortages and the threat of chemical attacks. Ray Suarez talks with Fayyad and Ballour about the National Geographic film and the current situation in Syria.

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Direct download: 02_24_20_Syria_The_Cave.mp3
Category:News & Politics -- posted at: 1:00am PDT

US - India relations are back in the spotlight as President Trump travels to the world’s largest democracy. The visit comes as India faces the slowest economic growth since 2009 and social unrest against Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government, which has been pushing a Hindu nationalist agenda. Ray Suarez gets a debrief from Tanvi Madan, director of the India Project at The Brookings Institution and author of Fateful Triangle: How China Shaped U.S.-India Relations During the Cold War.

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Direct download: 02_22_20_India_Trump_Modi.mp3
Category:News & Politics -- posted at: 1:00am PDT

Are we witnessing the end of Hong Kong as we know it - or is this the biggest challenge yet to China’s authoritarian rule? This week on the podcast, we’re looking at what’s driving the protests in Hong Kong and why the demonstrations have persisted for so long. We walk through the history of Hong Kong, right up to today with: Jeffrey Wasserstrom, professor of history at UC Irvine and author of Vigil: Hong Kong on the Brink, and former East Asia Correspondent for NPR and PRI’s The World, Mary Kay Magistad.

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Direct download: 02_17_20_Hong_Kong_Brink.mp3
Category:News & Politics -- posted at: 1:00am PDT

American kids today are 55 percent more likely to die by the age of nineteen than children who grow up in other industrialized countries. Is the American dream an outdated one? Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn explore this question in their latest book, "Tightrope: Americans Reaching for Hope." It chronicles the lives of people Kristof grew up with in rural Oregon, where roughly a quarter of the children who rode the school bus with him, died in adulthood from drugs, alcohol, suicide or accidents. In conversation with KQED’s Mina Kim, Kristoff and WuDunn discuss why so many Americans are struggling with poverty, addiction and depression despite living in the wealthiest country in the world.

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Direct download: 02_10_20_Kristof_WuDunn.mp3
Category:News & Politics -- posted at: 1:00am PDT

One question at the heart of the impeachment case against Donald Trump is whether the president threatened to withhold US military assistance from Ukraine. In this episode, we explore why the US has been supporting Ukraine in Europe’s only active war and why Ukraine needs help defending itself against Russian aggression. John E. Herbst, Atlantic Council and former US Ambassador to Ukraine, Oxana Shevel, Tufts University, and Simon Ostrovsky, Filmmaker and Journalist at the PBS NewsHour, speak with Ray Suarez.

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Direct download: 02_03_20_Ukraine-Explained.mp3
Category:News & Politics -- posted at: 1:00am PDT

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