"Don’t be evil." It’s an iconic phrase that was written into Google’s code of conduct during the early days of the company. It conveyed a utopian vision for technology that would make the world better, safer and more prosperous. But twenty years later, has big tech lived up to its founding principles or has it lost its soul? Rana Foroohar, Global Business Columnist at The Financial Times and Global Economic Analyst at CNN, documents the bigger implications for how tech companies now operate.  In her conversation with World Affairs CEO, Philip Yun, Foroohar looks at the extent to which the FAANGs (Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix and Google) threaten democracies, livelihoods and our thinking. 

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Harvard Business School professor Rebecca Henderson talks with Markos Kounalakis about how to reimagine capitalism in a way that aligns with our moral and ethical values. Henderson says it’s not only possible, but it’s profitable to move beyond an obsessive focus on shareholder value to solve global problems like income inequality, climate change, and the coronavirus pandemic. How can capitalism drive systemic change worldwide?

If you appreciate this episode and want to support the work we do, please sign up for a World Affairs membership. Your donation enables us to produce programs you value and it connects high school students directly with leaders in the field of international relations while engaging them in critical global issues. We cannot do this work without your help. Thank you.

What does it take to avoid the worst of the pandemic and allow a country to return to some sense of normalcy? Producer Teresa Cotsirilos and Radio New Zealand’s Indira Stewart explain how Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern managed to nearly eradicate the virus from New Zealand. And New York Times Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Nicholas Kristof has been sheltering in place in his home town of Yamhill, Oregon. Already devastated by the opioid epidemic, working class communities like Yamhill are reeling as the pandemic exacerbates America’s inequities. To learn more about Yamhill, check out Kristoff and co-author Sheryl WuDunn’s book Tightrope: Americans Reaching for Hope.

If you appreciate this episode and want to support the work we do, please sign up for a World Affairs membership. Your donation enables us to produce programs you value and it connects high school students directly with leaders in the field of international relations while engaging them in critical global issues. We cannot do this work without your help. Thank you.

When the novel coronavirus began to spread beyond China, we were told to stay home and flatten the curve. Many countries have been able to do that, to varying degrees, so what happens next? On this week’s episode, we’re taking a look at how governments around the world are struggling to re-open their economies. Timothy Martin, the Korea bureau chief at the Wall Street Journal, updates us on the latest outbreak in South Korea, a country being praised for how well it’s handled the pandemic. NPR reporters Joanna Kakissis and Rob Schmitz, explain how Germany and Greece may have avoided the worst of it, but are struggling to keep cases down during their reopenings. And former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, coronavirus advisor to former Vice President Joe Biden and  author of the new book, Fast Carbs, Slow Carbs, David Kessler, discusses lessons learned during the HIV/AIDS pandemic that could inform the search for  COVID-19 vaccines and drug treatments.   If you appreciate this episode and want to support the work we do, please sign up for a World Affairs membership. Your donation enables us to produce programs you value and it connects high school students directly with leaders in the field of international relations while engaging them in critical global issues. We cannot do this work without your help. Thank you.

At the age of 22, Amaryllis Fox was recruited to work for the CIA, making her one of the youngest female operators in the CIA’s history. After training, Fox was deployed to the Middle East where she infiltrated networks to disrupt acts of terrorism and stop illegal sales of arms and explosives. In her memoir, Life Undercover: Coming of Age in the CIA, she emphasizes that her biggest strength was her ability to connect with terrorists on a personal level rather than through tough negotiations. Out of government for over 10 years, she is now a peace activist and a mother. Fox sat down with KQED journalist Mina Kim to share her fascinating story of her time in the clandestine world of spycraft and how her perspective about her work at the CIA has evolved since she left.

 

If you appreciate this episode and want to support the work we do, please sign up for a World Affairs membership. Your donation enables us to produce programs you value and it connects high school students directly with leaders in the field of international relations while engaging them in critical global issues. We cannot do this work without your help. Thank you.

As we’ve learned from this pandemic, human beings can act quickly in the face of immediate danger. However, we’re not so good at taking action against slow-moving threats. The threat posed by nuclear weapons is now as high as it’s been since the Cold War. This week on WorldAffairs, we talk about North Korea with veteran aid worker Katharina Zellweger, Pulitzer-nominated journalist Jean Lee and North Korean defector Joseph Kim. We also discuss Russia and nuclear proliferation with Dr. Ernest Moniz, who served as Secretary of Energy in the Obama Administration.

If you appreciate this episode and want to support the work we do, please sign up for a World Affairs membership. Your donation enables us to produce programs you value and it connects high school students directly with leaders in the field of international relations while engaging them in critical global issues. We cannot do this work without your help. Thank you.

Host: Philip Yun

Producer: Teresa Cotsirilos

Senior producer: Jarrod Sport

Executive producer: Joanne Elgart Jennings

While many of us are able to shelter in place through the pandemic, immigrants are disproportionately on the front lines, working essential jobs such as nurses, EMTs, home health aides and doctors. About 27,000 of these healthcare workers are adult children of undocumented immigrants that are authorized to work under an Obama-era program called Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. Their future hangs in the balance as they await a US Supreme Court ruling on whether the Trump administration can legally end the program. And, for the many foreign born health workers, who have legal documentation, their ability to send remittances to families in their home countries has been compromised by the pandemic.

On this week’s episode, we hear from immigrant healthcare workers, journalists and representatives from non-profits who are fighting for workers’ rights. 

If you appreciate this program and want to support the work we do, please sign up for a World Affairs membership. Your donation enables us to serve the public and high school students and connect them to critical global issues – engaging and informing them along the way.

While many of us are able to shelter in place through the pandemic, immigrants are disproportionately on the front lines, working essential jobs such as nurses, EMTs, home health aides and doctors. For the many foreign born health workers, who have legal documentation, their ability to send remittances to families in their home countries has been compromised by the pandemic.

On this week’s episode, we hear from:

Rosalie Villanueva, nurse in Galveston, Texas

Jason DeParle, New York Times Global Poverty Reporter and Author of A Good Provider Is One Who Leaves: One Family and Migration in the 21st Century

Host: Ray Suarez

Producer: Teresa Cotsirilos

Senior producer: Jarrod Sport

Executive producer: Joanne Elgart Jennings

If you appreciate this program and want to support the work we do, please sign up for a World Affairs membership. Your donation enables us to serve the public and connect high school students  to critical global issues.

How will we navigate a historic global recession? On this week’s episode, Financial Times US editor-at-large Gillian Tett talks with Markos Kounalakis about how this economic breakdown might unfold in the next few months. Next, New Yorker executive editor David Rohde talks about his new book IN DEEP, which investigates whether there really is a “deep state” controlling parts of the US government. He examines whether President Trump’s belief in the “Deep State” impeded the administration’s Coronavirus response. And last, filmmaker Jun Stinson and founder of Futbolistas 4 Life, Dania Cabello, join us to share their story of uplifting a community of undocumented youth in Oakland through soccer.

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Around the world, governments are limiting freedoms by requiring people to stay home and prohibiting large gatherings. Though many of these actions are necessary, authoritarian regimes are using the pandemic as an excuse to abuse their power. In Egypt, for example, many citizens are encouraged to shelter in place, yet the realities of the outbreak are being censored. Also of concern is an economy that’s largely dependent on the informal sector, making social distancing a luxury. Now that large gatherings are prohibited in most countries, causing huge economic losses, cultural practices are also being disrupted. Will sports games continue without audiences? This week on WorldAffairs, we talk about how journalism, sports and religion persist through a global crisis.

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