In August 2017, US President Donald Trump announced that the United States would withdraw from the Paris Climate Agreement asserting that it holds nations such as the United States to strict limits while allowing others such as China and India to meet much lower targets because they are deemed to be “developing nations.” The Democratically-controlled House of Representatives recently passed a law compelling the United States to remain in the Paris Agreement, but the GOP-controlled Senate is unlikely to approve that measure. Han Chen, Energy Policy Manager, at the Natural Resources Defense Council and Jordan McGillis, Policy Analyst at the American Energy Alliance spar over the pros and cons of the US withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement with guest host Jeffrey Young.

What are the roots and ramifications of escalating tensions between Washington and Tehran? Is Washington goading Iran into conflict or is Iran inciting the United States? Host Carol Castiel talks with Ambassador Gerald Feierstein, former U.S. Ambassador to Yemen, now Vice President at the Middle East Institute (MEI), and Nicholas Heras, Senior Fellow in the Middle East Security Program at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS), about the dangers of miscalculation and prospects for a diplomatic off-ramp leading to negotiations rather than confrontation.

The Electoral College, the process by which the United States chooses its president, has emerged as an issue in the 2020 race for the White House. John Fortier, Director of the Democracy Project at the Bipartisan Policy Center, and James Thurber, Distinguished Professor of Government and the founder and former Director of the Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies at American University, discuss the arguments for and against the Electoral College and efforts to replace it with the national popular vote.

On the next edition of Encounter, we’ll examine the current situation in Libya, where an opposition force, supported by Egypt and several other nations is challenging a UN recognized government. Ambassador Jonathan Winer, from the Middle East Institute and Graeme Bannerman from the Middle East Institute and U.S. Institute for Peace joins guest host and VOA Senior Analyst, Jeffrey Young for the discussion.

Dr. Caleb Alexander, Co-Director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Drug Safety and Effectiveness and Dr. Wilson Compton, Deputy Director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse at the National Institutes of Health, join host Carol Castiel for an update on the opioid epidemic in the United States and what can be done to combat it.

Stephen White, Executive Director of The Catholic Project at the Catholic University of America, and Msgr. Stephen Rossetti, Research Associate Professor also at Catholic University, join host Carol Castiel to examine the latest developments in the worldwide Catholic Church sexual abuse crisis and their ramifications for the papacy of Pope Francis and the future of the Catholic Church.

Despite facing indictment on corruption charges and a strong challenge from a center-left coalition, Benjamin Netanyahu is heading toward an unprecedented fifth term as Israeli prime minister. David Makovsky, Director of the Project on Arab-Israel Relations at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, and Lucy Kurtzer-Ellenbogen, Director of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Program at the U.S. Institute of Peace, analyze the outcome and implications of the recent parliamentary elections in Israel.

The threat from violent white supremacists is on the rise worldwide. The techniques used to spread the ideology are comparable to those used by Islamist extremists. Host Carol Castiel talks with Kathleen Belew, author of "Bring the War Home: The White Power Movement and Paramilitary America,” and Ali Soufan, former supervisory FBI agent and the CEO of the Soufan Group, about the scope of the threat in the wake of the recent massacre at two New Zealand mosques, and what must be done to combat it.

John Fortier, Director of The Democracy Project at the Bipartisan Policy Center, and Jim Kessler, Senior Vice President for Policy at Third Way, join host Carol Castiel to discuss the fallout from US Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report into Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential election and ties to the Trump campaign. They spar over the four-page summary of principal conclusions by Attorney General William Barr and discuss the pros and cons of demands by Democratic lawmakers for prompt release of the full report.

Eric Farnsworth, Vice President of the “Council of the Americas and the Americas Society,” and Kristin Tennyson, Chair of the Western Hemisphere Area Studies Division at the Foreign Service Institute, talk with host Carol Castiel about the latest developments in the political and humanitarian crisis in Venezuela as well as discuss warming US-Brazilian relations in the wake of President Jair Bolsonaro’s recent visit to the White House.