Talk World Radio

This week on Talk World Radio, we're talking about people in the United States who are fasting in solidarity with the people of Gaza who are being starved by the government of Israel and its supporters in the U.S. and other governments. We're talking with one person who is fasting, Mike Ferner, longtime member of and former President of Veterans For Peace, a former City Council Member in Toledo, Ohio, author of Inside the Red Zone: A Veteran For Peace Reports from Iraq. See: https://veteransforpeace.org

This week on Talk World Radio, we are talking about the past and future and design of Europe. Our guest Ulrike Guérot is Professor of Political Science and Co-Director of the European Center Ernst Robert Curtius at the University of Bonn. Prior to 2021, she was a professor and head of the Department of European Politics and Democracy Studies at Danube University in Krems, Austria. Prior to 2016, she worked for around 25 years in European think tanks and at various universities in Paris, Brussels, London, Washington, New York, and Berlin. She has been a recipient of the French L'Ordre pour le Mérite and of the Paul Watzlawick Ring of Honor and of the Salzburg State Prize for Future Studies. Ulrike Guérot is the author of at least 18 books, including Why Europe Should Become a Republic, and including two new books in German, one called ZeitenWenden and one called Ulrike Guérot on Halford J. Mackinder's Heartland Theory. See also: https://www.thomasfazi.com/p/enemy-of-the-state-the-political https://europeanpeaceproject.eu https://www.europeandemocracylab.org https://ulrike-guerot.de

This week on Talk World Radio we're talking about the single biggest and least mentioned place that U.S. tax dollars are going. Our guest Stephen Semler is a senior fellow at Center for International Policy and author of Polygraph, a newsletter on Substack, which you can find at stephensemler.com

This week on Talk World Radio we're talking about Palestine with Kathy Kelly who is board president of World BEYOND War. From 2022 to 2024, she co-coordinated the Merchants of Death War Crimes Tribunal. Since the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, she has co-coordinated an international network to assist young Afghans forced to flee their country. She made over two dozen trips to Afghanistan from 2010 – 2019, living with young Afghan Peace Volunteers in a working-class neighborhood in Kabul. With Voices in the Wilderness companions, from 1996 – 2003, she traveled twenty-seven times to Iraq, defying the economic sanctions and remaining in Iraq throughout the Shock and Awe bombing and the initial weeks of the invasion. She joined subsequent delegations to the West Bank’s Jenin Camp in 2002 during and after Israeli attacks, to Lebanon during the 2006 summer war between Israel and Hezbollah and to Gaza, in 2009, during Operation Cast Lead and following the 2013 Operation Pillar of Defense. Kathy has been an educator for most of her life, but she believes children of war and those who are victims of violence have been her most important teachers. We Were So Close: Life After Conscience and the Abraham Accords https://worldbeyondwar.org/we-were-so-close-life-after-conscience-and-the-abraham-accords

This week on Talk World Radio we are talking about a new book by Noam Chomsky and our guest Nathan J. Robinson titled The Myth of American Idealism: How U.S. Foreign Policy Endangers the World.

This week on Talk World Radio we are talking about the Revolving Door Project with Assistant Director Andrea Beaty. The Revolving Door Project tracks corporate influence in politics with a focus on the executive branch. Its website is https://therevolvingdoorproject.org

This week on Talk World Radio we are talking about Cop City with two organizers of the movement to prevent it and co-editors of the new book No Cop City, No Cop World: Lessons from the Movement. You can pre-order the book, and we'll have a link to it at TalkWorldRadio.org. Our guests are Micah Herskind and Mariah Parker. Pre-order the book: https://bookshop.org/p/books/no-cop-city-no-cop-world-lessons-from-the-movement-kamau-franklin/21645107?ean=9798888903742&next=t

This week on Talk World Radio, we're discussing efforts to prevent the United States from putting military bases back into Ecuador. Our guest Bosco Vera Delgado, speaking to us from Ecuador, was representative to the Cantonal Council of Manta until 2023 and deputy director of Heritage and Culture Management of the same city government. He chairs the Tribu Azul Foundation and is Deputy Coordinator of Iskra, Multipolar Integration & Strategic Cooperation Latin America.

This week on Talk World Radio we're speaking with Andy Shallal about his new book, A Seat at the Table: The Making of Busboys and Poets. See https://orbooks.com/catalog/A-seat-at-the-table

This week on Talk World Radio, we are speaking with one of the greatest chess players ever and the author of the new book Rebel Queen: The Cold War, Misogyny, and the Making of a Grandmaster. Our guest, Susan Polgar, started winning chess tournaments at age 4 in Hungary, won the top female player in the world ranking at age 15, was the first woman to earn the men's Grandmaster title by norms and rating, is the only player ever to earn all six of the world's most prestigious chess crowns, holds a world record for playing 326 simultaneous games and winning 309 of them. I could go on. She is also the only woman to coach a men’s Division 1 collegiate team (Texas Tech 2007–2012 and Webster University 2012–2021). Her teams in the past 10 years have won more world championships, national championships, major titles, and Olympiad medals than all other collegiate chess programs in the United States combined. She is also founder of the Susan Polgar Foundation, a nonprofit that promotes chess.

This week on Talk Word Radio we are speaking with Dmitry Babich in Russia about U.S.-Russian relations. Dmitry Babich is a journalist who has focused on Russian politics. He has been a senior correspondent at the Komsomolskaya Pravda daily, RIA Novosti, and Russia Profile magazine. Between 1999 and 2003 Babich was foreign editor at The Moscow News before returning to Russia Profile in 2009 as acting editor-in-chief. His core areas of focus include Russia’s modern political history, international relations.

This week on Talk World Radio we're talking about how popular culture fuels war. Our guest Mimi Healy is an Associate with the Costs of War project where she provides research assistance and editing. Most recently, she is one of the co-editors on Costs of War's latest research series "Consuming War." Costs of War’s Consuming War research series showcases how, every day, Americans are inundated with cultural products promoting militarism. The first report in the series is titled, "The Militarization of Movies and Television." See: https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/papers/2025/consumingwar https://www.instagram.com/costsofwar

This week on Talk World Radio we are talking about the corporate media with Jeff Cohen who was an associate professor of journalism at Ithaca College. He founded the media watch group FAIR in 1986, and cofounded the online activist group RootsAction.org -- where I work -- in 2011. He is the author of Cable News Confidential: My Misadventures in Corporate Media. He has been a TV commentator at CNN, Fox News and MSNBC, and was senior producer of MSNBC's Phil Donahue primetime show until it was terminated for political reasons three weeks before a U.S. invasion of Iraq. His website is jeffcohen.org

This week on Talk World Radio we're speaking with Harley Lippman, an Executive Committee member on the American Israel Public Affairs Committee or AIPAC. He serves by Presidential appointment and Senate confirmation as a member of the U.S. Commission for the Preservation of America’s Heritage Abroad. He is a board member of the Yale School of Management Board of Advisors and is a member of the Dean’s Advisory Board at Columbia University’s Graduate School of International and Public Affairs.

This week on Talk World Radio, we're talking about U.S. foreign policy and starting with a little test the so-called Space Force recently did that you probably heard nothing about, preparing for a nuclear war. Our guest, returning to the program, is our friend the terrific peace activist Elizabeth Murray who was once the U.S. Deputy National Intelligence Officer for the Near East in the National Intelligence Council. She specialized in Middle Eastern political and media analysis, and has lived and traveled extensively in the region. Elizabeth Murray is a member of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity and the Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence. In 2018 and 2024 she was an activist aboard the Gaza Freedom Flotilla. She has been a Member-in-Residence at the Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action in Washington State.

This week on Talk World Radio we are speaking with Craig Unger. He is the New York Times bestselling author of six books on the Republican Party’s assault on democracy, including House of Bush, House of Saud; House of Trump, House of Putin; and now Den of Spies, a real life political thriller about how master spy William Casey put together a treasonous covert operation in 1980 that hijacked American foreign policy and stole the election for Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush.

This week on Talk World Radio we are speaking with Natasha Hakimi Zapata, the author of the new book Another World Is Possible: Lessons for America from Around the Globe. Natasha Hakimi Zapata, who is joining us from London, is an award-winning journalist, university lecturer, and literary translator. Her work has appeared in The Nation, Los Angeles Review of Books, In These Times, and elsewhere. She is former foreign editor of Truthdig.

This week on Talk World Radio, we're speaking with Annelle Sheline, a research fellow in the Middle East program at the Quincy Institute who was previously a Foreign Affairs Officer at the U.S. State Department, where she worked on human rights in the Middle East but resigned over the genocide in Gaza. Her most recent work for Quincy has focused on how Israel's ambition to annex the West Bank would not only render a future state of Palestine impossible, but would destabilize Jordan, a key U.S. ally: For Responsible Statecraft: "Jordan braces as Israeli annexation of West Bank looms Jordan braces as Israeli annexation of West Bank looms" Longer report on this for Quincy: "Jordan on the Edge" See also: "Joe Biden Gaza ceasefire Biden & Trump take credit for Gaza ceasefire"

This week on Talk World Radio we welcome back Scott Horton, whose new book is called PROVOKED: How Washington Started the New Cold War with Russia and the Catastrophe in Ukraine. Scott Horton is director of the Libertarian Institute, editorial director of Antiwar.com, host of Antiwar Radio on Pacifica, 90.7 FM KPFK in Los Angeles, California and podcasts the Scott Horton Show from ScottHorton.org. His books include Enough Already: Time to End the War on Terrorism, and Fool’s Errand:Time to End the War in Afghanistan.

This week on Talk World Radio, we're speaking with John Paul Lederach, author of The Pocket Guide for Facing Down a Civil War: Surprising ideas from everyday people who shifted the cycles of violence.