The Final Service

The 2022 FIFA World Cup, the world’s most popular sporting event, is hosted by Qatar, and over 5 billion viewers are expected to tune in. Even if you’re not a diehard soccer fan, you might be familiar with some of the serious controversies surrounding this year’s games. From allegations of corruption and bribery around Qatar’s bid to the host’s flagrant human rights abuses, the World Cup has already had a heavy financial and human cost.

Ray Suarez teases the tournament’s most interesting storylines with Alex Kay-Jelski, the editor-in-chief of the Athletic UK. Kay-Jelski is England’s first openly gay sports editor, and he shares what it’s like covering the games in Qatar – where homosexuality is a crime. Then, economist Andrew Zimbalist tries to untangle FIFA’s complicated ledger to explain why the games are so expensive.

Guests:

Alex Kay-Jelski, the editor-in-chief of The Athletic UK

Andrew Zimbalist, American economist, Robert A. Woods professor of economics at Smith College

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.

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.

In August, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi landed in Taipei and stood shoulder-to-shoulder to Taiwanese officials. She said her visit was to honor the US’s unwavering support for Taiwanese sovereignty. Leaders in mainland China – who have made the annexation of Taiwan a key political priority – were furious.

This week, Ray takes a close look at Taiwan: its colonial past, vibrant democratic tradition, and what recent disputes over independence could mean for its people — and national security – today. We hear directly from a range of Taiwanese voices on the ground, including speakers from the two major political parties vying for influence in the country’s domestic sphere. 

Guests:  

Jeremy Huai-Che Chiang, Taiwanese student and research assistant with Taiwan-Asia Exchange Foundation

Syaru Shirley Lin, professor at the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia

Guan Fu, research associate at Taiwan Democracy Progressive Party (DPP)

Steven Wang, former staffer the Kuomintang (KMT) Party

Host:

Ray Suarez, host of On Shifting Ground with 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.

New name...same award-winning insights.

"On Shifting Ground with Ray Suarez" drops on October 31st.

When Joe Biden took office, he promised to pull the US out of costly wars in the Middle East and take a harsher stance toward human rights violations in the region. But this past year, Putin’s invasion of Ukraine – and the ensuing energy crisis – have thrown a wrench in Biden’s strategy. And longtime ally Saudi Arabia is giving the US the cold shoulder, cutting oil production weeks before midterm elections.

This week, Ray Suarez sits down with two Middle East policy experts to debate the best path forward for US engagement in the region. Quincy Institute Executive Vice President Trita Parsi and Brookings Institution senior fellow Shadi Hamid break down their new books, that OPEC news, and the uneasy policy balance between oil, guns, and human rights.

Guests:

Shadi Hamid, senior fellow in the Center for Middle East Policy at Brookings Institution

Trita Parsi, co-founder and executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft

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.

In the past few years, there’s been a growing number of high-profile acts of violence inspired by the “great replacement theory,” an extremist doctrine based on the unsubstantiated belief that non-white populations will “replace” and subjugate white majorities across the globe. Once confined to the radical fringe, replacement theory has now entered mainstream conservative rhetoric. 

On this week’s episode, Ray Suarez sits down with Daniel Byman, a counterterrorism expert and author of Spreading Hate: The Global Rise of White Supremacist Terrorism, to discuss the roots of the global white power movement, how extremism spreads, and what the mainstreaming of violence as a political tactic means for targeted communities–and democracy–in the world today.

Guest: 

Daniel Byman, Senior Fellow at Brookings Institution and professor at Georgetown University

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.

President Barack Obama delivered over 450 speeches during his tenure, but one of his most famous was entirely unscripted. Back in 2015, as the country mourned the victims of Charleston church shooting, the president spontaneously began to sing. And for longtime staff speechwriter Cody Keenan, Obama’s famous “Amazing Grace” speech epitomized the power of oration to guide Americans in times of immense national crisis. 

This week, Keenan joins Ray to discuss his new book, “Grace: President Obama and Ten Days in the Battle for America.” In it, he pulls back the curtain on the presidential writers’ room, and how the administration strove to bring a country together. 

Guest:

 
Cody Keenan, partner at Fenway Strategies and former White House Director of Speechwriting

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.