Talk World Radio

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.