On Shifting Ground

“It's not a given that the democratic values will rule the 21st century. This is the first real test of what those values will be.” Congressman Ami Bera, a Democrat from California, joined Ray Suarez to talk about countering aggression from Russia and China, why immigration is such an important part of American history, and overcoming political disunity in foreign policy. 

Guest: Rep. Ami Bera (D CA-7), physician and chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Asia, the Pacific, Central Asia, and Nonproliferation.

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.

Direct download: Bera_Segment_for_podcast_feed.mp3
Category:News & Politics -- posted at: 2:00am PDT

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. 

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.

Direct download: Farmer_Segment_for_podcast_feed.mp3
Category:News & Politics -- posted at: 3:00am PDT

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

 

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.

Direct download: 2-21_World_Affairs_for_podcast_feed.mp3
Category:News & Politics -- posted at: 2:00am PDT

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

 

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.

Direct download: 2-14_World_Affairs_for_podcast_feed.mp3
Category:News & Politics -- posted at: 2:00am PDT

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

 

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.

Direct download: 2-7_World_Affairs_for_podcast_feed_REV1.mp3
Category:News & Politics -- posted at: 2:00am PDT

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

Direct download: Iryna_Segment_for_podcast_feed.mp3
Category:News & Politics -- posted at: 3:00am PDT

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