Tribal rights are guaranteed by the US Constitution, but modern court cases – including the Brackeen case currently before the US Supreme Court – are reminders that Indigenous sovereignty and Native lands are still at risk in the United States. And in Canada, Indigenous activists are still fighting back against generations of hardship and forced separation of families. 

Ray Suarez is joined by Tammerlin Drummond, creator and host of the Gold Chains from the Northern California chapter of the ACLU. Then, Jenn Williams, host of Foreign Policy’s co-production with Doha Debates, The Negotiators, talks with Cindy Blackstock, the plaintiff in the largest-ever class action settlement in Canada’s history – $32 billion dollars set aside for Native victims and families harmed by the child welfare system. 

Guests:

Tammerlin Drummond, communications strategist, ACLU of Northern California; creator, host and writer, Gold Chains podcast

Cindy Blackstock, executive director, First Nations Child and Family Caring Society

Hosts:

Ray Suarez

Jenn Williams, host of The Negotiators

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.

The US midterms may be over, but the web of misinformation shaping global politics is everywhere…disrupting elections, destabilizing currencies, and dividing communities around the world. Identifying false information, like deep fakes and conspiracy theories, can be hard – and sites like Facebook and Twitter aren’t making things any easier.

In this week’s episode of On Shifting Ground, we look at the global relationship between misinformation, war, and peace. CEO of PeaceTech Lab, Sheldon Himelfarb, sits down with Ray to discuss what makes our present-day information crisis so unique – and dangerous. Then Alexa Koenig, Executive Director of UC Berkeley’s Human Rights Center, breaks down “The Berkeley Protocol,” a new international standard for verifying online images in war zones, from Myanmar to Ukraine.

Guests:

 
Sheldon Himelfarb, CEO of PeaceTech Lab

Alexa Koenig, Executive Director of the Human Rights Center at UC Berkeley

Host:

Ray Suarez

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.

It’s been three years since the Sudanese Revolution, a massive grassroots campaign that ousted the country’s longtime dictator Omar Al-Bashir. Now, Sudan is back under military control … but calls for change from the country’s pro-democracy movement are only getting louder.

On this week’s episode, Ray brings us to the frontlines of Sudan’s daily street protests, guided by activist and researcher Muzan Alneel. Then, guest host Hana Baba speaks with Declan Walsh, Chief Africa Correspondent for the New York Times, about Russia’s shadow investments in Sudan and how Putin’s aggressive policy in Africa may have predicted his invasion of Ukraine. Hana sits down with Kholood Khair, a Khartoum-based political strategist, and Bakri Ali, a diaspora organizer, to discuss the failings of US policy in Sudan and the revolution’s importance to democracy movements everywhere.

Guests:  

Muzan Alneel, pro-democracy activist and nonresident fellow at The Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy

Declan Walsh, Chief Africa correspondent at The New York Times

Bakri Ali, Sudanese diaspora activist and aerospace engineer

Kholood Khair, political strategist and founder of Confluence Advisory 

Hosts:

Ray Suarez

Hana Baba, guest host of On Shifting Ground, host of KALW’s Crosscurrents

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.

COVID-19 and monkeypox cases may be down for now … but we’re not out of the woods yet. And according to famed epidemiologist and CEO of Pandefense Advisory, Larry Brilliant, these aren’t the last – or even the most destructive – mass outbreaks we could see in our lifetimes. Climate change, population growth, and rampant disinformation will exponentially increase the risks of disease.

On this week’s episode of On Shifting Ground, Brilliant joins Ray Suarez to break down what the global pandemic response community got wrong (and right), the enduring geopolitics of vaccination, and the urgent need to build a more pandemic-resilient society.

Guest: 

Larry Brilliant, physician, epidemiologist, and CEO of Pandefense Advisory

Host:

Ray Suarez

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.