In this episode of Centre Stage, our guest is Humza Yousaf, the former first minister of Scotland who made history as the first Muslim to lead a Western country. Yousaf talks about the challenges of being an ethnic-minority leader in an often hostile political climate, the rise of the far-right in Europe and how five countries holding a veto at the UN Security Council ought to be considered a relic of the past.

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Patrick Haenni, an author and researcher specialising in Syria, shares his expertise on Hayat Tahrir al-Sham. Haenni discusses HTS’s origins and ideological transformation and reveals how the armed group played a key role in achieving what no other faction could — ending the Assad regime.

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British plastic surgeon, Dr Victoria Rose, travelled to Gaza twice this year to provide life-saving medical care to children wounded by the genocide in Gaza. Rose talks about her difficult experiences of working in the Gaza Strip despite the continued attacks on healthcare facilities and medics by the Israeli military, and what the medical community is doing to try to affect change.

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In this episode of Centre Stage, our guest is Palestinian American activist and adjunct professor Amin Husain. New York University suspended Husain indefinitely for statements he made off campus about Palestine. Husain is also the founder of Decolonize This Place, an art collective that promotes social justice.

He talks about why Israel’s war on Gaza resonates with students and faculty on university campuses in the US, and how protest and resistance can help marginalised groups empower themselves.

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John Mearsheimer is a political scientist and influential scholar in international relations who is best known for his theory of offensive realism.

Mearsheimer talks to Al Jazeera’s Rawaa Auge about the wars in Gaza, Ukraine and Lebanon and how global and regional powers support and arm the belligerent parties. Mearsheimer also weighs in on the 2024 US presidential election, and the minefield that is US foreign policy.

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Jeremy Scahill is an American investigative journalist and author. He co-founded Drop Site News, a non-partisan organisation dedicated to reporting on major stories while focused on accountability and accuracy.

Scahill joins Al Jazeera’s Phil Lavelle, to dissect the 2024 US presidential election, American interests in the Middle East, Israel’s war on Gaza and what the future of journalism may look like.

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Chase Oliver is the Libertarian Party’s presidential candidate in the 2024 US election. He joins Centre Stage to talk to Al Jazeera’s Phil Lavelle about why having more voting options is important, and what the US would be like under Libertarian governance. Oliver also offers his take on US foreign policy, how he’d tackle diplomacy with allies and addresses current conflicts.

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Arab Americans are expected to play a critical role in the upcoming US presidential election. And, while they’ve traditionally voted Democrat, that seems to be changing, leading some to talk about a political chasm within the Arab American community in the wake of Israel’s war on Gaza, and American support for that war.

In this episode:

• Maya Berry (@iMayaBerry), executive director of the Arab American Institute

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In part 2 of this episode of Centre Stage, we conclude our interview with Clive Stafford Smith, a civil rights lawyer who represents Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani American woman serving an 86-year prison sentence — a victim, says Stafford Smith, of the United States’s so-called “war on terror”.

In this episode:

• Clive Stafford Smith (@CliveSSmith), civil rights lawyer and legal counsel for many of the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay
• Maryam Nemazee (@MaryamNemazee), presenter at  Al Jazeera

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In part 1 of this episode of Centre Stage, our guest is Clive Stafford Smith, a civil rights lawyer and legal counsel for many of the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. His best-known client is Aafia Siddiqui, who he says is a victim of circumstance, and should never have ended up on the FBI’s Most Wanted list after the 9/11 attacks in the US. 

In this episode:

• Clive Stafford Smith (@CliveSSmith), civil rights lawyer and legal counsel for many of the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay
• Maryam Nemazee (@MaryamNemazee), presenter at  Al Jazeera

Connect with us:

@AJEPodcasts on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook