November 8, 2009....Torture and War with Ret. Major General Paul Eaton

Ret. Major General Paul Eaton and I spoke about torture, Iraq, Afghanistan and the ethics of warfare.

More information coming soon.

November 4, 2009.....Inside the Health Insurance Industry with Wendell Potter

Listen Now!

Wendell Potter is a former health insurance industry insider who has become and advocate for health care reform. His testimony in July before the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce exposed unfair and deceptive practices by the industry.

He gave a great interview on Bill Moyers' Journal this summer:











Bill Moyers and Wendell Potter on "Profits Before Patients"

October 25, 2009...Gillian Sorensen on Faith, Justice and the United Nations

Gillian Sorensen is a senior adviser and national advocate for the United Nations Foundation. She moved to New York City in her early 20s and began her career as a "diplomat's diplomat" not long thereafter, when she served as the New York City Commissioner for the United Nations and Consular Corps.

After this, she served as a policy adviser under Secretary-General Boutros-Boutros Ghali, and then under Secretary-General Kofi Annan as Assistant Secretary-General for External Relations. In this role, she worked with "parliamentarians, the academic world, religious leaders and other groups committed to peace, justice, development and human rights."

Ms. Sorensen and I discussed the role of faith groups in working with the United Nations, as well as broader challenges facing the UN in the 21st century, including peacekeeping, development and climate change.

October 18, 2009....Jake Colvin on the Global Financial Crisis, U.S. Cuba policy, and carbon trading

Jake Colvin is the Vice President of the National Foreign Trade Council, a business organization that advocates a rules-based world economy. We spoke about the role of tariffs and protectionism in exacerbating economic crises, the benefits of opening trade and lifting other barriers in relations with Cuba, and some of the nuances of global carbon emissions trading.

Prior to joining the NFTC , Colvin was a consultant with the Washington, DC-based firm International Business Counselors (IBC), where he advised U.S. and foreign corporate clients on economic and trade matters. Colvin has appeared on nationally-syndicated talk radio programs and has written for national publications on a variety of international economic and tax topics. Originally from Long Island, New York, he earned an M.A. in International Economics from the Johns Hopkins School for Advanced International Studies and a B.A. from the University of Richmond.

October 11, 2009....An Afghan activist speaks out

I spoke with Zoya, an activist in the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan, about the impact of U.S. and NATO involvement on the people of Afghanistan. She is a vocal women's rights activist and critic of both foreign involvement and fundamentalist influence. She speaks eloquently about her view that the Afghan people have suffered under the cynical political manipulation of her country by foreign governments. Author of the critically acclaimed Zoya's Story: An Afghan Woman's Struggle for Freedom, she has a compelling personal story as well as a strong political stance.

After both her parents were killed by the predecessors of the Taliban, the Mujahideen, Zoya took up her mother's work in RAWA, the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan and, with her grandmother, journeyed to Pakistan, where she could receive an education at a school run by RAWA. A few years later, Zoya returned to Afghanistan to help her people and get firsthand accounts of the horrors of the Taliban reign. Zoya herself witnessed public executions and amputations, but she also witnessed heartening displays of courage--women defying the Taliban by holding secret classes and shopping in the marketplace. Zoya remains skeptical about the future of Afghanistan after the Taliban, afraid that after the U.S. involvement ends, the Mujahideen will return to their old ways.

--Kristine Huntley, Booklist. Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Zoya's visit to Iowa City was sponsored by the Feminist Leadership Majority Alliance, and the Afghan Women's Mission.

October 4, 2009..."Rising from Ashes": Monira Rahman speaks on acid violence against women in Asia

Acid-throwing is a form of particularly viscous violence against women that is prevalent throughout South and Southeast Asia. Victims of acid attacks are often left with permanent physical and psychological wounds. Many suffer burns that expose the bone and leave permanent damage, including scarring and blindness. These attacks are motivated by rejections of sexual advance, demands for dowry and land disputes.

Monira Rahman is a remarkable woman from Bangladesh who founded the Acid Survivors Foundation. The foundation provides medical assistance, including reconstructive surgery, legal intervention, and social reintegration services to victims of acid attacks. They also advocate for tougher laws against this type of violence and justice for perpetrators. Perhaps most importantly, they equip women who have suffered from this kind of attack to view themselves not as victims but as advocates.

We spoke about the causes and consequences of acid violence, its prevalence, barriers to justice and the work of the Acid Survivor's Foundation in helping victims as well as advocating for its end.

My thanks to Barbara Latenser for sponsoring Ms. Rahman's visit to Iowa City.

September 27, 2009....Two African legal scholars discuss their battle to reform women's rights in Mauritius and Senegal

Listen to my conversation with two African women visiting the United States as part of a State Department-sponsored International Visitors Leadership Program delegation on "Women and the Law." We discussed the state of the legislative and justice systems as they pertained to women's rights in their countries, and some of the broader struggles that women across Africa are facing. They told me about their plans to form a network of women working for justice and the work they have already done to advance women's rights in Africa.

I also interviewed the entire delegation on Iowa City's Public Access Television. They told me about their hopes for women's rights in the future and their view of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's initiatives to mainstream gender issues: