The Final Service

The Pandora Papers, a massive data leak connecting individuals to offshore accounts and tax havens, shined a light on the shadow world where celebrities, politicians, dictators and drug traffickers hide their money. In the second installment of our three-part series on Putin’s Russia, investigative journalist Luke Harding explores a trail of documents and properties linked to Vladimir Putin’s inner circle, which show how “Putin and the people around him became fantastically rich, even more rich once he became president.”

Then, we go inside “Putin’s Palace,” a secretive and sprawling luxury complex on the Black Sea allegedly owned by the Russian president. Images of the palace were exposed in a documentary released by Alexei Navalny’s organization, the Anti-Corruption Foundation. But who is Navalny really, and what politics does he embody? For that, we turn to Jan Matti Dollbaum, Morvan Lallouet, and Ben Noble, co-authors of “Navalny: Putin's Nemesis, Russia's Future?”

Guests:

Luke Harding, author and journalist, The Guardian
Jan Matti Dollbaum, postdoctoral researcher, Bremen University
Morvan Lallouet, PhD candidate, University of Kent
Ben Noble, associate professor, University College London

Hosts:

Ray Suarez, co-host, WorldAffairs

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 about 30 years since the fall of the Soviet Union, and in many post-Soviet countries, people are still fighting for basic rights. From Belarus to Central Asia, to the Caucasus, to Russia itself, people still struggle under regimes that flout democratic norms. Unresolved border disputes sometimes lead to devastating wars.

In this episode, we look at democracy movements fighting to survive in the shadow of a Russian government that’s determined to consolidate power. We start in Armenia. This is part of a 3-part series on Putin’s Russia.

Guests:

Harout Manougian, elections expert, EVN Report
Elize Manoukian, associate producer, World Affairs
Simon Ostrovsky, PBS NewsHour special correspondent
Arzu Geybulla, journalist and founder of Azerbaijan Internet Watch

Hosts:

Teresa Cotsirilos, senior producer and co-host, WorldAffairs
Ray Suarez, co-host, WorldAffairs

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.

When delegates from 50 countries met in San Francisco to sign the UN Charter in 1945, the goal was to maintain peace and security through international cooperation and to prevent another world war. Today’s UN has 193 member countries and is facing a new era of uncertainty.

As world leaders gather in Glasgow for the United Nations Climate Change Conference, also known as COP26, we revisit an episode we produced last year as the United Nations turned seventy-five. We look at the UN’s achievements, its shortcomings and what the future holds for international cooperation. Ray Suarez talks with author James Traub, Rt. Hon Kim Campbell, former prime minister of Canada, and Jorge Castañeda, former foreign minister of Mexico.

Guests:

Jorge Castañeda, former foreign minister of Mexico

Rt. Hon. Kim Campbell, Canada's 19th prime minister

James Traub, fellow at New York University’s Center on International Cooperation

Hosts:

Ray Suarez, co-host, World Affairs

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.

How do we know when it’s time to take a risk and push, or if it’s better to step back and negotiate?

In this episode, a co-production with Foreign Policy, we’re talking about calculated risks in high stakes situations. Retired four-star general Stanley McChrystal talks with Foreign Policy’s pentagon and national security reporter Jack Detsch about his new book Risk: A User’s Guide, ​​US withdrawal from Afghanistan and the risks that leaders face everyday. Then, we give you a preview of a new podcast series called The Negotiators. Wendy Sherman, currently Deputy Secretary of State, talks about the tactics she deployed in negotiating the Iran nuclear agreement. We close with an update on Iran nuclear negotiations with Jenn Williams, deputy editor at Foreign Policy, and Ali Vaez, director at the International Crisis Group.

Guests:
Stanley McChrystal, US Army General (Ret.), co-founder and partner, McChrystal Group

Wendy Sherman, Deputy Secretary of State

Ali Vaez, director, International Crisis Group

Hosts:
Teresa Cotsirilos, senior producer, WorldAffairs

Jack Detsch, Pentagon and national security reporter, Foreign Policy

Jenn Williams, deputy editor, Foreign Policy

If you appreciate this episode and want to support the work we do, please consider making a donation to WorldAffairs. We cannot do this work without your help. Thank you.

How are cities from Pittsburgh to Bogotá using sustainable development goals to guide pandemic recovery and increase health and equity?

We talk with Mamta Murthi, VP of human development at the World Bank, about the World Health Organization’s decision to endorse the first vaccine for malaria. The preventable disease kills around 500,000 people a year, mostly children in Africa. Then, we talk with global development veteran Tony Pipa and Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto, about a bottom-up approach cities and communities are taking to drive local progress with the goal of making global change.

Guests:
Mamta Murthi, vice president for human development, The World Bank
Bill Peduto, mayor of Pittsburgh
Tony Pipa, senior fellow, Center for Sustainable Development, Brookings Institution

Hosts:
Philip Yun, CEO, World Affairs
Ray Suarez, co-host, WorldAffairs

If you appreciate this episode and want to support the work we do, please consider making a donation to WorldAffairs. We cannot do this work without your help. Thank you.

The discovery of mass graves at residential schools for indigenous children in Canada has shed new light on a disturbing chapter in North American history---the abuse and neglect of Indigenous children at the hands of the American and Canadian governments. This week, we look at Canada’s journey towards truth and reconciliation with its native people. From the late 19th century until the last school closed in 1996, the Canadian government took indigenous children from their families and forced them to attend schools run by churches. Little learning happened in these institutions, which were the sites of widespread abuse. Children were separated from their siblings and stripped of their native language and culture. First we speak with Connie Walker, an investigative journalist whose family members were forced to attend these schools. Then, we speak to Ry Moran, an indigenous archivist who works to preserve the testimonies of residential school survivors.

Guests:

Ry Moran, The University of Victoria Associate University Librarian - Reconciliation

Connie Walker, host of Stolen: The Search for Jermain, Gimlet Media

Hosts:

Teresa Cotsirilos, senior producer, WorldAffairs

Ray Suarez, co-host, WorldAffairs

Wildfires are devastating Northern California, threatening the region’s famous dairy and wine country. More than 7,000 miles away, Iran is grappling with a water crisis, after one of the driest years on record.

This week, we take a look at farming communities on opposite sides of the world: both struggling to adapt to climate change, and to better manage our most precious natural resources. In this episode, WorldAffairs producer Teresa Cotsirilos investigates a program that puts low-wage farm workers inside wildfire zones. Next, we travel to the pistachio groves of Kerman, Iran, where farmers cope with drought, mismanagement of water resources, a failing groundwater supply, and US sanctions. Then, Ray Suarez talks with Kaveh Madani, an Iranian environmental scientist and former Deputy Vice President, who led a crusade to improve water policy in Iran until he was forced to flee.

This episode was produced in partnership with the Food & Environment Reporting Network and Reveal, from the Center for Investigative Reporting, with funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Guests: Zohreh Soleimani, documentary filmmaker & photojournalist; Kaveh Madani, scientist at Yale University and Imperial College London & former Deputy Vice President of Iran

Hosts: Teresa Cotsirilos, senior producer, WorldAffairs; Ray Suarez, co-host, WorldAffairs

If you appreciate this episode and want to support the work we do, please consider making a donation to WorldAffairs. We cannot do this work without your help. Thank you.

It’s not just you. Considering that one in three Americans experienced a natural disaster this summer, it’s no wonder that a majority of us admit to being anxious about climate change. As Arctic permafrost thaws and the Amazon burns, stress about the future is intensifying worldwide. According to a newly published global study, 75% of young people are frightened by climate change and over half believe humanity is doomed.

In this episode, Caroline Hickman, a co-author of the study and a climate psychology researcher at the University of Bath, joins co-host Ray Suarez to discuss eco-anxiety—and how we can channel it into climate action.

Guests: Caroline Hickman, lecturer in climate psychology at the University of Bath

Hosts: Ray Suarez, co-host, WorldAffairs; Philip Yun, CEO, World Affairs

If you appreciate this episode and want to support the work we do, please consider making a donation to WorldAffairs. We cannot do this work without your help. Thank you.

Nearly 100 years ago, Congress passed a law making it a felony to reenter the US after being deported. Known as Section 1326, this obscure line of immigration code is the most prosecuted federal crime in America. Now, a federal judge has declared it unconstitutional and racist.

In this week’s episode, we look at the far-reaching effects of a single deportation after the 2019 ICE raid of a chicken processing plant in Mississippi. Pulitzer Prize winning reporter Emily Green tells us the story of Edgar Lopez, a grandfather of four who was killed trying to make his way back home to the US. Then, we talk with historian Kelly Lytle-Hernandez and legal scholar Ahilan Arulanantham about the origins of this law and why it might be unconstitutional.

Guests: Emily Green, Pulitzer prize winning reporter for VICE News based in Mexico City; Kelly Lytle-Hernandez, UCLA professor and leading expert on race, immigration, and incarceration; Ahilan Arulanantham, Co-Director of the Center for Immigration Law and Policy at UCLA School of Law

Hosts: Ray Suarez, Co-host, WorldAffairs; Teresa Cotsirilos, Co-host & Senior Producer, WorldAffairs

If you appreciate this episode and want to support the work we do, please consider making a donation to WorldAffairs. We cannot do this work without your help. Thank you.

Just weeks after the assassination of Haiti’s president, the island nation was rocked by a 7.2 magnitude earthquake. More powerful than the deadly 2010 earthquake that killed more than 200,000 people, the 2021 quake hit a remote part of Haiti, but it still killed more than 2,000 people and destroyed tens of thousands of homes.

We start with an audio diary from Jean Simon Féguens, an English teacher from Les Cayes, one of the cities hardest hit by the disaster. Next, former US Ambassador to Haiti Pamela White reflects on lessons learned about aid distribution after the 2010 earthquake.

Then, we turn to Haitian author Évelyne Trouillot and historian Leslie Alexander, for a conversation about Haiti’s turbulent history since its revolution. In 1804, Haiti became the first nation to free itself from slavery. According to Trouillot and Alexander, it has been paying for its freedom ever since. 

Guests: Leslie Alexander, Professor of History at Arizona State University, activist and author; Evelyne Trouillot, Author, Poet and Professor of French at Universite d’Etat d’Haiti; Pamela White, Former US Ambassador to Haiti, 2012-2015; Jean Simon Féguens, English Teacher in Les Cayes, Haiti

Hosts: Ray Suarez, Co-host, WorldAffairs; Teresa Cotsirilos, Co-host & Senior Producer, WorldAffairs

If you appreciate this episode and want to support the work we do, please consider making a donation to WorldAffairs. We cannot do this work without your help. Thank you.