Talk World Radio

This week on Talk World Radio we are talking about peace activism and Gaza, and the recent global march to Gaza. Our Guest, Cymry Gomery, is a community organizer and activist who founded Montréal for a World BEYOND War in November 2021, after attending the inspiring WBW NoWar101 training. This fledgling Canadian chapter came into being just on the cusp of the Russia-Ukraine war, Canadian government decision to purchase bombers and so much more—our members have had no shortage of actions in which to participate! Cymry is passionate about nature and the rights of nature, the environment, anti-speciesism, anti-racism and social justice. She cares deeply about the cause of peace because our ability to live in peace is the barometer by which we can judge the success of all human endeavor, and without peace it is impossible for humans or other species to flourish. Email Cymry at montreal@worldbeyondwar.org

This week on Talk World Radio we are hearing and discussing poetry about Gaza. Our guest, Anita Barrows, is a poet, novelist, and translator from French, German and Italian. She has eighteen published books and a nineteenth on its way. She and Joanna Macy have translated four volumes of the work of Rainer Maria Rilke, and many of their translated poems have been used in weddings and other ceremonies, and set to music. Anita is a clinical psychologist and teaches in a psychology doctoral program, The Wright Institute, Berkeley, where she is a tenured Institute Professor. She maintains a clinical practice where she sees children and adults with a history of trauma or neurodivergence. Anita Barrows worked for five summers at The Palestinian Counseling Center in Ramallah (in the Occupied West Bank) and she has had a longstanding commitment to the liberation of Palestine. See https://poemsforgaza.com

This week on Talk World Radio, we're talking about the Gaza Flotilla with Ann Wright who has spent 22 years as a leader in the peace movement.

This week on Talk World Radio, we're talking about people in the United States who are fasting in solidarity with the people of Gaza who are being starved by the government of Israel and its supporters in the U.S. and other governments. We're talking with one person who is fasting, Mike Ferner, longtime member of and former President of Veterans For Peace, a former City Council Member in Toledo, Ohio, author of Inside the Red Zone: A Veteran For Peace Reports from Iraq. See: https://veteransforpeace.org

This week on Talk World Radio, we are talking about the past and future and design of Europe. Our guest Ulrike Guérot is Professor of Political Science and Co-Director of the European Center Ernst Robert Curtius at the University of Bonn. Prior to 2021, she was a professor and head of the Department of European Politics and Democracy Studies at Danube University in Krems, Austria. Prior to 2016, she worked for around 25 years in European think tanks and at various universities in Paris, Brussels, London, Washington, New York, and Berlin. She has been a recipient of the French L'Ordre pour le Mérite and of the Paul Watzlawick Ring of Honor and of the Salzburg State Prize for Future Studies. Ulrike Guérot is the author of at least 18 books, including Why Europe Should Become a Republic, and including two new books in German, one called ZeitenWenden and one called Ulrike Guérot on Halford J. Mackinder's Heartland Theory. See also: https://www.thomasfazi.com/p/enemy-of-the-state-the-political https://europeanpeaceproject.eu https://www.europeandemocracylab.org https://ulrike-guerot.de

This week on Talk World Radio we're talking about the single biggest and least mentioned place that U.S. tax dollars are going. Our guest Stephen Semler is a senior fellow at Center for International Policy and author of Polygraph, a newsletter on Substack, which you can find at stephensemler.com

This week on Talk World Radio we're talking about Palestine with Kathy Kelly who is board president of World BEYOND War. From 2022 to 2024, she co-coordinated the Merchants of Death War Crimes Tribunal. Since the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, she has co-coordinated an international network to assist young Afghans forced to flee their country. She made over two dozen trips to Afghanistan from 2010 – 2019, living with young Afghan Peace Volunteers in a working-class neighborhood in Kabul. With Voices in the Wilderness companions, from 1996 – 2003, she traveled twenty-seven times to Iraq, defying the economic sanctions and remaining in Iraq throughout the Shock and Awe bombing and the initial weeks of the invasion. She joined subsequent delegations to the West Bank's Jenin Camp in 2002 during and after Israeli attacks, to Lebanon during the 2006 summer war between Israel and Hezbollah and to Gaza, in 2009, during Operation Cast Lead and following the 2013 Operation Pillar of Defense. Kathy has been an educator for most of her life, but she believes children of war and those who are victims of violence have been her most important teachers. We Were So Close: Life After Conscience and the Abraham Accords https://worldbeyondwar.org/we-were-so-close-life-after-conscience-and-the-abraham-accords

This week on Talk World Radio we are talking about a new book by Noam Chomsky and our guest Nathan J. Robinson titled The Myth of American Idealism: How U.S. Foreign Policy Endangers the World.

This week on Talk World Radio we are talking about the Revolving Door Project with Assistant Director Andrea Beaty. The Revolving Door Project tracks corporate influence in politics with a focus on the executive branch. Its website is https://therevolvingdoorproject.org

This week on Talk World Radio we are talking about Cop City with two organizers of the movement to prevent it and co-editors of the new book No Cop City, No Cop World: Lessons from the Movement. You can pre-order the book, and we'll have a link to it at TalkWorldRadio.org. Our guests are Micah Herskind and Mariah Parker. Pre-order the book: https://bookshop.org/p/books/no-cop-city-no-cop-world-lessons-from-the-movement-kamau-franklin/21645107?ean=9798888903742&next=t

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.

This week on Talk World Radio, we're speaking with Annelle Sheline, a research fellow in the Middle East program at the Quincy Institute who was previously a Foreign Affairs Officer at the U.S. State Department, where she worked on human rights in the Middle East but resigned over the genocide in Gaza. Her most recent work for Quincy has focused on how Israel's ambition to annex the West Bank would not only render a future state of Palestine impossible, but would destabilize Jordan, a key U.S. ally: For Responsible Statecraft: "Jordan braces as Israeli annexation of West Bank looms Jordan braces as Israeli annexation of West Bank looms" Longer report on this for Quincy: "Jordan on the Edge" See also: "Joe Biden Gaza ceasefire Biden & Trump take credit for Gaza ceasefire"

This week on Talk World Radio we welcome back Scott Horton, whose new book is called PROVOKED: How Washington Started the New Cold War with Russia and the Catastrophe in Ukraine. Scott Horton is director of the Libertarian Institute, editorial director of Antiwar.com, host of Antiwar Radio on Pacifica, 90.7 FM KPFK in Los Angeles, California and podcasts the Scott Horton Show from ScottHorton.org. His books include Enough Already: Time to End the War on Terrorism, and Fool's Errand:Time to End the War in Afghanistan.

This week on Talk World Radio, we're speaking with John Paul Lederach, author of The Pocket Guide for Facing Down a Civil War: Surprising ideas from everyday people who shifted the cycles of violence.

This week on Talk World Radio, we're talking about shutting down military air shows. We have two guests who are working together on this project. Taylor Smith-Hams is U.S. Senior Organizer with 350.org, a global climate justice organization, and Gary Butterfield is Treasurer with San Diego Veterans For Peace. He is a Vietnam-era draftee veteran, a lifetime member of Veterans for Peace, and a member of San Diego 350.org. https://www.veteransforpeace.org/take-action/climatecrisis/no-mas https://act.350.org/signup/no-mas/?source=get_involved_dynamic https://www.veteransforpeace.org/take-action/climatecrisis

This week on Talk World Radio, we're talking about Guantanamo with Andy Worthington, author of The Guantanamo Files. Worthington has worked with the United Nations and WikiLeaks, runs two websites, andyworthington.co.uk and closeguantanamo.org and also has a band, The Four Fathers, playing protest music: https://thefourfathers.bandcamp.com What's happening this week: https://www.andyworthington.co.uk/2025/01/06/guantanamo-at-23-global-vigils-on-january-11-and-an-ongoing-photo-campaign-marking-8400-days-on-january-9

This week on Talk World Radio, a new analysis finds that over the past decade the U.S. government has given to foreign nations' militaries 40 times the money it has paid into the Green Climate Fund. We have two guests from the Institute for Policy Studies. Aspen Coriz-Romero is the 2024-25 IPS New Mexico Fellow. And Hanna Homestead is a Research Analyst with the National Priorities Project at the Institute for Policy Studies.

This week on Talk World Radio we are talking about peace activism in the United States with Al Mytty who has been involved in a variety of social justice and peace programs including Pax Christi, Just Faith, Veterans For Peace, and World BEYOND War. He has been an active supporter of World BEYOND War since 2015 and now serves as the Co-Coordinator for the Illinois chapter. Previously, when he resided in Florida, he served as Co-Coordinator for the WBW Florida chapter. Upcoming Zoom on starting a World BEYOND War chapter: https://actionnetwork.org/events/online-info-session-starting-a-world-beyond-war-chapter?clear_id=true

This week on Talk World Radio, we welcome back Jeremy Brecher whose latest book is called The Green New Deal From Below.

Kathy Kelly is board president of World BEYOND War. From 2022 to the present, she has co-coordinated the Merchants of Death War Crimes Tribunal. Since the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, she has co-coordinated an international network to assist young Afghans forced to flee their country. She made over two dozen trips to Afghanistan from 2010 – 2019, living with young Afghan Peace Volunteers in a working-class neighborhood in Kabul. With Voices in the Wilderness companions, from 1996 – 2003, she traveled twenty-seven times to Iraq, defying the economic sanctions and remaining in Iraq throughout the Shock and Awe bombing and the initial weeks of the invasion. She joined subsequent delegations to the West Bank's Jenin Camp in 2002 during and after Israeli attacks, to Lebanon during the 2006 summer war between Israel and Hezbollah and to Gaza, in 2009, during Operation Cast Lead and following the 2013 Operation Pillar of Defense. Kathy has been an educator for most of her life, but she believes children of war and those who are victims of violence have been her most important teachers.

This week on Talk World Radio we are talking about the 70,000 Korean victims of the U.S. nuclear bombings of Japan. Our guest Brad Wolf is a lawyer and former prosecutor, director of Peace Action Network of Lancaster, PA, and co-coordinator of the Merchants Of Death War Crimes Tribunal. He is also co-coordinator of the International People's Tribunal on the 1945 Atomic Bombings for the Redress of Korean Victims. His new book on the writings of Philip Berrigan was published by Fordham University Press and is entitled “A Ministry Of Risk.” http://abombtribunal.org https://philipberrigan.com

This week on Talk World Radio we are speaking with Emiliana Vegas, author of the new book Let's Change the World: How to Work within International Development Organizations to Make a Difference. Emiliana Vegas has been highly recognized for her career working to inform education policy in the so-called Global South. She has been a leading economist at the World Bank, division chief of education at the Inter-American Bank, and codirector of the Center for Universal Education at the Brookings Institution. She is currently a professor of practice at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

This week on Talk World Radio we're talking about the crime of war in Palestine with Raed Jarrar, advocacy director for DAWN -- the organization founded by slain writer Jamal Khashoggi and found at dawnmena.org.

This week on Talk World Radio we are speaking with Tore Naerland who is the founder and since 1977 has been the president of Bike For Peace, a Norwegian-based peace organization that works to organize peace rides on bicycles all over the world. They collaborate with various peace organizations, schools, and universities to promote and focus on the work in the struggle against nuclear weapons. See https://bikeforpeace.no

This week on Talk World Radio we're speaking with Kevin B. Smith who is the author of the brand new book The Jailer's Reckoning: How Mass Incarceration Is Damaging America. Smith is also the Leland and Dorothy H. Olson Chair of Political Science at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. The book shows that incarceration rates vary dramatically by state, within the United States, and that several factors correlate significantly with variations in those rates.

This week on Talk World Radio, we're talking about the illegality of the war in Gaza and the utility or lack thereof of international law. Our guest John Quigley is Professor emeritus of international law at Ohio State University, Quigley's books include The Statehood of Palestine: International Law in the Middle East Conflict (Cambridge University Press).

This week on Talk World Radio we're speaking with portrait painter Robert Shetterly whose website is americanswhotellthetruth.org. Robert's paintings and prints are in collections all over the U.S. and Europe. For more than 20 years he has been painting the series of portraits Americans Who Tell the Truth. These portraits have been traveling around the country since 2003. Venues have included everything from university museums and grade school libraries to sandwich shops, the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine in New York City, and the Superior Court in San Francisco. To date, the exhibits have visited 35 states. In 2005, Dutton published a book of the portraits by the same name. In 2006, the book won the top award of the International Reading Association for Intermediate non-fiction. New Village Press in New York City is currently publishing a series of themed books on the portraits. Each volume contains 50 portraits. The first two were Portraits of Racial Justice (2021) and Portraits of Earth Justice (2022). The new one is Portraits of Peacemakers: https://nyupress.org/9781613322567/portraits-of-peacemakers

This week on Talk World Radio: Feroze Sidhwa is a trauma surgeon who volunteered for two weeks in March and April at the European Hospital in Khan Younis, Gaza. He is one of 99 doctors who recently signed an open letter to President Biden and Vice President Harris that estimated Palestinian war deaths in Gaza at no less than 118,908. He is also the author of an October 9th article in the New York Times based on his surveying of 65 healthcare workers, documenting -- among much else -- that Israeli soldiers are regularly shooting children in the head and chest. The New York Times article discussed: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/10/09/opinion/gaza-doctor-interviews.html The letter discussed: https://www.gazahealthcareletters.org/usa-letter-oct-2-2024

This week on Talk World Radio we're talking about the November 3rd 1979 Greensboro Massacre in Greensboro, North Carolina, with Aran Shetterly, the author of a brand new book on the topic, titled MORNINGSIDE: The 1979 Greensboro Massacre and the Struggle for an American City's Soul. To join an online bookclub with Aran Shetterly, go to: https://worldbeyondwar.org/book-club-aran-shetterly-with-morningside-the-1979-greensboro-massacre-and-the-struggle-for-an-american-citys-soul/?clear_id=true

This week on Talk World Radio we are talking about a new book called WE THE POISONED: Exposing the Flint Water Crisis Coverup and the Poisoning of 100,000 Americans. Our guest is the author Jordan Chariton. The book, with a foreword by Erin Brokovitch, is devastating and not just about one town in Michigan but about the United States and beyond, and not just about something in the past, as the outrage is ongoing.

This week on Talk World Radio we're talking about poverty with Karen Dolan who is Project Director of the Criminalization of Race and Poverty Project at the Institute for Policy Studies. Karen has been on before but it's been a long time. We're happy to welcome her back. See https://ips-dc.org/project/criminalization-of-race-and-poverty

This week on Talk World Radio we're talking with Norman Solomon about his book, newly out in paperback: WAR MADE INVISIBLE: How America Hides the Human Toll of Its Military Machine -- with a new afterword on the Gaza War.

This week on Talk World Radio we're talking about war and the Civilian Agenda. Our guest, Ousman Noor, is Co-Director of The Civilian Agenda. The website is https://thecivilianagenda.org

This week on Talk World Radio we're talking about the war in Sudan. Our guest is Omia Mustafa who goes by Zeirra on social media. She is a 21-year-old with an international relations degree. You can find her at: Instagram: zzeirra Twitter : KushiteDictator Tiktok: zeirra7 A petition to sign: https://worldbeyondwar.org/hand-off-sudan

Kathy Kelly has been President of the Board of World BEYOND War since March 2022, prior to which time she served as a member of the Advisory Board. She is based in the United States, but is often elsewhere. Kathy is WBW's second Board President, taking over for Leah Bolger. Kathy's efforts to end wars have led her to living in war zones and prisons over the past 35 years. In 2009 and 2010, Kathy was part of two Voices for Creative Nonviolence delegations which visited Pakistan to learn more about the consequences of U.S. drone attacks. From 2010 – 2019, the group organized dozens of delegations to visit Afghanistan, where they continued learning about casualties of U.S. drone attacks. Voices also helped organize protests at U.S. military bases operating weaponized drone attacks. She is now a co-coordinator of the Ban Killer Drones campaign.

This week on Talk World Radio we're talking about the somehow ever-worsening livestreamed genocide in Gaza. Our guest, Jennifer Loewenstein, is former Associate Director of Middle Eastern Studies and Senior Lecturer at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She has lived and reported from Gaza and Beirut. She highlights a series of critical recent reports.

This week on Talk World Radio we're talking about working for peace in Africa. Our guest Brenda Wanjiru is based in Ghana where she works on peace education, peace activism, aiding children and refugees impacted by war, and rehabilitating child soldiers. We'll talk about all these topics. Find Brenda on Linked In at https://www.linkedin.com/in/brenda-wanjiru-%F0%9F%A7%91%F0%9F%8F%BE%E2%80%8D%E2%9A%96%EF%B8%8F%E2%9A%96%EF%B8%8F-abb234153/

This week on Talk World Radio we're talking about peace activism in Romania and worldwide with Maria Cernat who is the co-organizer and co-founder of World BEYOND War Romania, a chapter of World BEYOND War of which I'm the executive director. Maria Cernat is also the host of a new podcast called Pacifist Barricades. She is also an Associate Professor of Communication and Public Relations, and President of the Institute for Media Research and Human Rights, and lecturer at the Faculty of Communication Sciences and International Relations at Titu Maiorescu University. She is a member of the editorial board of the Journal for Politics and Law published by the Canadian Center for Higher Education. World BEYOBND War: https://worldbeyondwar.org World BEYOND War Romania: https://worldbeyondwar.org/romania Pacifist Barricades Podcast: https://worldbeyondwar.org/category/podcasts/pacifist-barricade

Campaign Nonviolence Action Days are coming up September 21 to October 2. See https://campaignnonviolence.org World BEYOND War's #NoWar2024 is September 20 to 22. See https://worldbeyondwar.org/nowar2024 Rivera Sun is an author and activist whose novels include The Dandelion Insurrection and the award-winning Ari Ara Series. She is the editor of Nonviolence News and the Program Coordinator for Campaign Nonviolence. Her articles are syndicated by Peace Voice and published in hundreds of journals nationwide. Rivera Sun serves on the Advisory Board of World BEYOND War and the board of Backbone Campaign. Her website is riverasun.com

This week on Talk World Radio we are talking about how incredibly hot it is outside and why that might be and what might be done about it. Our guest Dr. Alec Feinberg has a Ph.D. from Northeastern University in Physics. He currently does volunteer climate modeling to help out on the climate crisis. His climate work has focused on urbanization heat flux contributions to global warming, re-radiation modeling for the global mean Earth's energy budget, and the development of solar geoengineering equations for solar radiation modification to reverse global warming trends. He has published in all of these areas focusing on physics based modeling methods. He has a website at BestGlobalWarmingSolution.org

https://nonatoyespeace.org

This week on Talk World Radio we're talking about a new book called How America Works and Why It Doesn't by our guest William Cooper. He is an attorney, national columnist, and award-winning author. His commentary has appeared in hundreds of publications around the world, including the New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, San Francisco Chronicle, Chicago Sun-Times, Dallas Morning News, Huffington Post, Toronto Star, and Jerusalem Post. Publishers Weekly calls his writings about American politics “a compelling rallying cry for democratic institutions under threat in America.”