Podcasts about us assistant secretary

Dr. John Hillen, a distinguished CEO of a publicly traded company and former US Assistant Secretary of State, shares his insights on strategic leadership that you won't want to miss. With his latest book, "The Strategy Dialogues," Dr. Hillen demystifies the art of strategy through engaging conversations, making it approachable for everyone. As we unpack the attributes that differentiate a visionary leader from the rest, Dr. Hillen sheds light on how strategic thinkers see opportunities in challenges and prioritize long-term goals over immediate tasks. We highlight the crucial balance between strategic thinking and planning, providing actionable recommendations for senior executives to weave a strategic mindset into their daily practices, and avoid the common trap of letting meeting schedules drive decision-making.We also examine how organizations can leverage strategic thinking to gain a competitive edge in rapidly changing landscapes. By aligning with emerging trends and staying true to their strengths, businesses can not only survive but thrive amidst digital transformation. Empathy, communication, and understanding AI's role are presented aspivotal elements in leading change effectively. Most importantly, we emphasize that strategic thinking is not an exclusive privilege of big corporations; it's a vital tool for organizations of all sizes aiming to succeed in today's dynamic world.What You'll Learn- Attributes of visionary leaders and how they transform challenges into opportunities.- Balancing strategic thinking with effective project management for organizational growth.- Leveraging empathy, communication, and AI in leading change.- Practical strategies for aligning with emerging trends and gaining a competitive edge.Podcast Timestamps(00:00) – What Does Strategy Actually Mean?(13:21) – The Qualities and Practices of Strategic Leaders(24:15) – The Balance Between Strategy and Execution(41:22) – Using Strategy for Competitive Advantage and Differentiation(52:20) – Strategy in the Digital EraKEYWORDSPositive Leadership, Strategic Leadership, Strategy, Visionary Leader, Strategic Thinker, Strategic Planning, Digital Transformation, Empathy, A.I., Competitive Advantage, Leading with Innovation, Mergers and Acquisitions, Effective Change Management, Adapting to Technology, CEO Success

Middle East Focus Presents: 'Taking the Edge Off the Middle East' with Brian Katulis. A series of casual conversations with leading policy professionals on the most important happenings in the Middle East today - hosted by MEI's Senior Fellow Brian Katulis.  Barbara A. Leaf is a seasoned diplomat and expert on the Middle East, having served as the US Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs and held key positions in US embassies across the region. In this episode, Barbara joins Brian to discuss the array of “black swan” events currently unfolding in the Middle East, and how the second Trump administration may respond to these challenges. They discuss the broader implications of these developments for US foreign policy, national security, and regional stability.

Iran says it's had no direct contact with the new Islamist leaders of Syria, its one-time close ally. The US, in contrast, sent its top regional diplomat, Assistant Secretary of State Barbara Leaf, to meet the de-facto leader in Damascus, Ahmed al-Sharaa; we hear how the meeting went. Also in the programme: Nissan and Honda announce merger plans which would create the world's third-largest car-maker; and we hear from the Mexican women celebrated and damned for helping migrants trying to reach the United States.(IMAGE: A delegation of US diplomats, including US Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Barbara Leaf (C, in green), leaves a hotel in Damascus, Syria 20 December 2024 / CREDIT: Hasan Belal/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock)

As details continue to emerge about the circumstances surrounding the attempted assassination of Donald Trump, Richie is joined by two terrific journalists and geopolitical analysts. To discuss what happened last Saturday and the many questions that remain unanswered, Richie is joined by the founder and editor of The Last American Vagabond, Ryan Cristian and the former US Assistant Secretary of The Treasury, Dr. Paul Craig Roberts. https://www.thelastamericanvagabond.com/https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/

Richie is joined by Clifford Miller and Paul Craig Roberts. The British media is blaming former doctor Andrew Wakefield for an outbreak of measles in the midlands. In 1998, Wakefield, along with a dozen colleagues, published a study in the Lancet Journal linking the MMR jab to autism. It was peer reiewed. Later, the British Medical Journal and The Sunday Times claimed that the study was fraudulent. Wakefield was later struck off the medical register for professional misconduct. Clifford Miller is a former lawyer who also holds a degree in physics. He represented Wakefield in a defamation case. Clifford is about to launch a series of films entitled: "How the Case Against Andrew Wakefield Was Fixed - In Eight Steps - A 21st Century Medical Controversy." For more information DO follow this link and subscribe to the Euripides substack:https://euripides.substack.com/p/main-bmj-wakefield-fraudPaul Craig Roberts is an author, journalist and former US Assistant Secretary of the Treasury. Paul is a recurring guest on The Richie Allen Show. On today's show, Paul discusses the tension in the Middle East, The WHO Pandemic Treaty, why a cashless society MUST be resisted and much more. https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/

In this episode of Goldman Sachs Exchanges, Edward P. Djerejian, former US Ambassador to Israel and Syria, and former US Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, and Emile Hokayem, Director of Regional Security and Senior Fellow for Middle East Security at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, break down the risks of the Middle East conflict and explain how it could erupt into a wider regional or even broader war. This episode is based on Goldman Sachs Research's latest Top of Mind report, Middle East Risks.

RR The Wire 1830Z December 9, 2023PRECEDENCE: ROUTINE RRDTG: 183009Z DEC 23ICOD: 173009Z DEC 23CONTROLS: Public ReleaseQQQQBLUF: ELECTION TURMOIL IN GUATEMALA. U.S. BEGINS PROCESS OF EXPEDITING AFGHAN IMMIGRANTS FROM PAKISTAN. -----BEGIN TEARLINE------International Events-South America: Political turmoil strikes Guatemala regarding recent elections. The Public Prosecutor's office is calling for criminal charges against President-Elect Bernardo Arévalo due to “election irregularities”. AC: Despite the claims of a coup grabbing headlines, there is more to the story than meets the eye. The specific “irregularities” that have been found by the Public Prosecutor's office involve the alleged falsification of polling station certificates, and the manipulation of computer systems. However, the forensic evidence of these claims has not yet been made public. The claims of a “coup” have come about after the Public Prosecutor's office has submitted a complaint to the Supreme Electoral Tribunal to nullify and investigate the election.Middle East: Following the visit of US Assistant Secretary of State Juliana Noyes to Pakistan a few days ago, the U.S. has begun the process of expediting the immigration of Afghan refugees into the United States. As a reminder, Pakistan began the process of deporting all undocumented immigrants last month, which included around 1.7 million Afghan refugees.South Africa: Yesterday the Economic Freedom Fighter (EFF) party carried out a large nationwide voter registration campaign, along with rallies in support of the EFF.-Homefront-USA: The Senator Menendez corruption scandal continues following the revelation of new information. In June of 2022, the FBI raided Senator Bob Menendez's home, finding $480,000 in cash, and a stack of gold bars. Recent disclosures highlight that some of the serial numbers on these gold bars match those of gold bars that were reported as being stolen during an armed robbery in 2013. These gold bars were allegedly used as payment for a bribe by the Egyptian government to influence the Senator.-Analyst Comments-In South Africa, the electoral interests of the EFF are certain to increase tensions during the 2024 election season, and could result in boiling points being reached in an already tumultuous society. Recent voter registration events are certainly a move intended to expand their influence and solidify political control in provinces such as Western Cape (which historically has been challenging for the EFF to get a foothold in). As a reminder, the EFF is South Africa's third-largest political party, having recently risen to prominence following controversy surrounding the routinely militant and violent tactics used by supporters. The leader of the EFF is Julius Malema, who has been at the center of controversy following his calls for violence against white farmers.-----END TEARLINE-----Analyst: S2AEND REPORTNNNN

Richie is joined by Róisín Michaux and Paul Craig Roberts. Why have countries around the world introduced gender self-identification laws in lockstep? Who or what is behind this? Those are very important questions. Róisín Michaux is an Irish journalist based in Brussels. She tells Richie what she has uncovered in her own investigation into the phenomenon. It's a must-listen conversation. https://peaked.substack.com/https://4w.pub/you-meet-more-perverts-when-poor/https://twitter.com/RoisinMichauxPaul Craig Roberts is an economist, author and former US Assistant Secretary of the Treasury. On today's show, Paul and Richie discuss calls for the return of mask mandates by US journalists and politicians, the media's refusal to talk about covid vaccine injuries, the Trump indictments and much more.www.paulcraigroberts.org

There are a lot of issues going on in developing countries and undeveloped countries. One of them is the hijab and the basic human rights problem in Iran. Iran and Iraq are one of those few countries that are believed to discriminate between men and women when it comes to basic human rights. We have Goli with us to tell us in depth about the current situation in Iran and what she is doing at Startitup. About Goli Amer She is the Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of StartItUp. She is a former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State. She is the recipient of the Ellis Island Medal of Honor. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/tbcy/support

We “Zoomed” in the Honorable Lance Robertson and we will be discussing what are “Listening Sessions” and when do they meet? Though out the State of Oklahoma for our 50+ & Their Adult Children! Oklahoma is developing a Master (or MultiSector) Plan on Aging, a bold commitment to better serving aging Oklahomans today and the decade to come. We would like to provide an overview and really stress the need for stakeholder feedback during the week of May 8th through May 12th, 2023 (listening sessions being held in 5 locations statewide). All sessions are at No Cost held from 1:00pm to 3:30pm: MAY 8- Woodward, OK MAY 9- Tulsa, OK MAY 10- McAlester, OK MAY 11- Lawton, OK MAY 12- Oklahoma City, OK Go to the this link to get the location of each “Listening Sessions” The primary link for what we will be discussing is this one: https://oklahoma.gov/okdhs/services/cap/mpa.html. The Honorable Lance Robertson is the former US Assistant Secretary for Aging and Administrator of the federal agency responsible for 140 million older Americans and people with disabilities, the HHS Administration for Community Living. For a decade prior to federal service, he served as Oklahoma's Director of Aging Services. He is currently a Director with Guidehouse.

Jay Bryson, Wells Fargo Chief Economist, still sees the Fed hiking by 25 basis points in May following the March CPI print. Jeff Rosenberg, BlackRock Systematic Multi-Strategy Fund Portfolio Manager, says the direction of the banking crisis is "clear" but "the magnitude is not." Adam Posen, Peterson Institute for International Economics President & former BOE Monetary Policy Committee member, discusses the problems with subsidies in global trade. Tim Adams, Institute of International Finance President and CEO & former Under Secretary of Treasury for International Affairs, says this isn't a banking crisis. Mark Kimmitt, former US Assistant Secretary of State for Political-Military Affairs & Retired Brigadier General, discusses the leak of classified documents. Get the Bloomberg Surveillance newsletter, delivered every weekday. Sign up now: https://www.bloomberg.com/account/newsletters/surveillance See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Richie is joined by Marilyn Hawes and Paul Craig Roberts. The home secretary has announced that people working with children in England will have a new legal duty to report knowledge or suspicions of child sex abuse. To discuss the implications of this, Richie is joined by Marilyn Hawes from Freedom From Abuse UK. www.freedom-abuse.uk  Paul Craig Roberts is a journalist and author who served as US Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. On today's show, Paul tells Richie how the legal profession in the US has become over-run by lawyers who use the law to push through a woke agenda that is all-pervasive in society. Paul believes that this is devastating for America's children. Paul also discusses former US President Donald Trump's arrival in New York where he faces a court hearing over a payment made to a porn star. www.paulcraigroberts.org  

Lance Robertson is the Director of Healthcare at Guidehouse, and past 5th US Assistant Secretary for Aging and Administrator of the HHS Administration for Community Living. During this podcast we address some of the strategic challenges facing the vision loss field, and frame the Strategic Discussion at our CEO Summit “Leveraging Collective Impact through Public Policy”. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/visionserve-alliance/message

Richie is joined by Anjem Choudary and Paul Craig Roberts. Prince Harry has claimed in his autobiography that he killed 25 members of the Taliban when he served in Afghanistan. To discuss the implications of this, Richie is joined by the Islamic scholar and former solicitor Anjem Choudary. Paul Craig Roberts is a journalist who once served as US Assistant Secretary of the Treasury. On today's show, Paul tells Richie why he is convinced that the mRNA Covid shots are part of a genocidal deep-state agenda. www.paulcraigroberts.org 

Teodora Miljojkovic, RevDem assistant editor, interviews Professor John Shattuck, international legal scholar, diplomat, human rights leader and previous CEU rector. In his early career, Professor Shattuck was a visiting lecturer at the Woodrow Wilson School of Politics at Princeton University and lecturer at the Harvard Law School. In the early post-Cold War years, Professor Shattuck, while serving as the US Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, had a key role in the negotiations of the Dayton Peace Agreement and he was instrumental in the establishment of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. Today, Professor Shattuck is a senior fellow at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard University and Professor of Practice at the Fletcher School at Tufts University. Teodora and Professor Shattuck discussed the book “Holding Together - the Hijacking of Rights in America and How to Reclaim Them for Everyone” by Professor Shattuck, Sushma Rahman and Matthias Riss from the Carr Centre for Human Rights Policy at Harvard University, which was published by The New Press. This followed the launch event for the book at the CEU in Vienna.

In our SPECIAL EPISODE this week we have David H Stevens, CMB, CEO - Mountain Lake Consulting, Inc. here to discuss the ICE/Black Knight Merger, and how it will affect everyone concerned.Want to know more about David H Stevens?David H. Stevens CMB, (Dave) is the CEO of Mountain Lake Consulting, Inc. Dave is a 38-year veteran of the Mortgage Banking industry.Dave previously served as the President and CEO of Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) and prior to this role, Dave served as the US Assistant Secretary of Housing and Federal Housing Commissioner at HUD (US Department of Housing and Urban Development). Dave has served a variety of key industry leadership roles prior to his work in Washington including as President and Chief Operating Officer of the Long & Foster Real Estate Companies, Inc., Executive Vice President of Wholesale Lending at Wells Fargo Home Mortgage, and Senior Vice President in charge of Single-Family Lending at Freddie Mac, and Group Senior Vice President at World Savings Bank. Dave currently sits on the Board of real estate investment trust Dynex, Inc.Dave works on advisory projects in real estate finance and provides technical and strategic consultation to financial institutions and intermediariesIn 2018 David was named Mortgage Professional Of The Year by National Mortgage Professional Magazine, has been named one of Bloomberg's 50 most powerful people in real estate, and Inman's 100 top most influential leaders. He received the Founders Award from NAHREP in 2013. David is often cited in the media having appeared on CNBC, PBS, and Bloomberg TV and quoted in major media. He has testified before the US Senate and House of Representatives multiple times and continues to influence policymakers in Washington.Dave received his CMB (Certified Mortgage Banker) designation in 2015 and holds a BA in Political Science from the University of Colorado at Boulder.Opinion: The risk of ICE, Black Knight deal is in the dataLYKKEN ON LEADERSHIP PODCAST-David Stevens, CEO of MBA

Richie is joined by Paul Craig Roberts and Tony Gosling. Paul is a former US Assistant Secretary of The Treasury. He is an author and journalist. Read him at www.paulcraigroberts.orgTony presents "Not The BCFM Politics Show" every Friday from Bristol. He's an author and former BBC journalist. www.bilderberg.orgOn today's show, Richie and his guests discuss the latest horrific school shooting in the US, a possible resolution to the Ukraine war, Monkeypox, Covid vaccine injuries, Partygate and much more. 

"Lies are being turned into truth, and fiction is being turned into fact."—PCR We are joined once again by Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, former US Assistant Secretary to the Treasury for Economic Policy, for an in-depth interview on the current Ukraine Crisis. In this conversation, recorded on 22 March 2022, Dr Roberts shares with us his perspective on the ongoing Crisis, setting the tragic events in their historical, geographical and political contexts. "In addition to having held numerous senior academic positions in universities, Dr. Roberts was an associate editor and columnist for The Wall Street Journal, and was appointed by US President Reagan as Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy during Reagan's first term in office, following which he served as a consultant to both the US Department of Defense and the US Department of Commerce. Dr. Roberts is now the Chairman of the The Institute for Political Economy." [For show notes please visit https://themindrenewed.com]

"Lies are being turned into truth, and fiction is being turned into fact."—PCR We are joined once again by Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, former US Assistant Secretary to the Treasury for Economic Policy, for an in-depth interview on the current Ukraine Crisis. In this conversation, recorded on 22 March 2022, Dr Roberts shares with us his perspective on the ongoing Crisis, setting the tragic events in their historical, geographical and political contexts. "In addition to having held numerous senior academic positions in universities, Dr. Roberts was an associate editor and columnist for The Wall Street Journal, and was appointed by US President Reagan as Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy during Reagan's first term in office, following which he served as a consultant to both the US Department of Defense and the US Department of Commerce. Dr. Roberts is now the Chairman of the The Institute for Political Economy." [For show notes please visit https://themindrenewed.com]

"Lies are being turned into truth, and fiction is being turned into fact."—PCR We are joined once again by Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, former US Assistant Secretary to the Treasury for Economic Policy, for an in-depth interview on the current Ukraine Crisis. In this conversation, recorded on 22 March 2022, Dr Roberts shares with us his perspective on the ongoing Crisis, setting the tragic events in their historical, geographical and political contexts. "In addition to having held numerous senior academic positions in universities, Dr. Roberts was an associate editor and columnist for The Wall Street Journal, and was appointed by US President Reagan as Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy during Reagan's first term in office, following which he served as a consultant to both the US Department of Defense and the US Department of Commerce. Dr. Roberts is now the Chairman of the The Institute for Political Economy." [For show notes please visit https://themindrenewed.com]

Julian Charles speaks with Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, former US Assistant Secretary to the Treasury for Economic Policy, for an in-depth interview on the current Ukraine Crisis. In this conversation, recorded on 22 March 2022, Dr Roberts shares with us his perspective on the ongoing Crisis, setting the tragic events in their historical, geographical and political contexts.

After all the "fact check" organizations assured us it was "Russian disinformation" and "fake news," US Assistant Secretary of State Victoria "F the EU" Nuland admitted the existence of biolabs in Senate testimony and stated that the US was working with Ukraine to keep the "research" at those labs from falling into Russian hands. Also today: the bizarre Polish jet fighter saga, political persecution of a Jan. 6th protester, and Florida OKs off-label treatments for covid.

In this episode, Dane talks with Alejandra Castillo, the Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Economic Development and the head of the Economic Development Administration. We discuss: Ms. Castillo's background and how she became the country's chief economic developer The Economic Development Administration and the US Commerce Department The Build Back Better Regional Challenge Supply chains Worker training and workforce development Regional, cluster-based, and place-based economic development Infastructure Building capacity at the local level Recovery and resiliency in your local community Making your community more competitive globally Collaboration in economic development, and who the EDA collaborates What the EDA is doing to promote diversity, equity and inclusion Special Guest: Alejandra Castillo.

US Assistant Secretary of the Air Force Tidal McCoy speaks with John Catsimatidis, Lidia Curanaj, Governor David Paterson and Judge Richard Weinberg to speak about the war in Ukraine. The Ukrainian troops have a possible advantage because the Russians are using old weapons and their troops are novice troops and not well trained. So as the advance continues, the Ukrainians will be better prepared. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Richie is joined by Paul Craig Roberts.Paul is a journalist, author, economist and former US Assistant Secretary of the Treasury. Today, Paul discusses the crisis engulfing Eastern Europe, where it's heading, the UK censorship of RT (Russia Today), why Vladimir Putin participated in the World Economic Forum's Young Leaders Programme and much more.www.paulcraigroberts.org Plus, Richie rounds up the day's biggest stories. 

New INSS Podcast: A panel discussion from the INSS 15th Annual International Conference on the US presence in the Middle East. What is the Biden administration's policy on the ME? Ms. Dana Stroul, US Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for the Middle East and Mr. David Schenker, Taube Fellow and Director of the Program on Arab Politics, The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, former US Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs explain, in a conversation with Col. (res.) Adv. Pnina Sharvit Baruch, Senior Research Fellow, INSS

Riche is joined by Paul Craig Roberts and also by Mike, a UK based paramedic. Paul Craig Roberts is an economist, author and former US Assistant Secretary of The Treasury. Russian President Vladimir Putin's spokesman said on Sunday that Russia began its military buildup along the Ukrainian border because it could no longer "tolerate" NATO's eastward expansion and "gradual invasion" of Ukraine. Washington and NATO has said that there will be severe consequences for Russia if Putin doesn't back down. Will Russia invade Ukraine? What would happen then? Don't miss Paul Craig Roberts.Mike is a vastly experienced paramedic. If he doesn't have a covid jab by February 3rd, Mike will in all likelihood lose his job in April. Mike discusses this with Richie. He tells him why he has declined the jab and shares his personal experience of leading an ambulance crew throughout the pandemic. This is a must-listen interview.  

Rachel Levine Trained as a paediatrician, before becoming firstly the state of Pennsylvania's Physician General, then its Health Secretary. During president Joe Biden's administration, she was nominated to become the U.S.'s assistant secretary of health. That lead to her becoming a four-star admiral in the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, and thus the first openly transgender four-star officer in the US. In this podcast, we discussed the pandemic - but also wider problems affecting Americans' health, notably climate change, inequality and the opioid crisis. We also discuss the health and care of LGBT+ people, in the U.S, and around the world. This interview was recorded on the 16th of December 2021.

Meanwhile, former US Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy, Paul Craig Roberts, joins the broadcast to raise alarm over the escalating cold war with Russiahttp://www.infowars.comBREAKING: the globalists are planning a massive worldwide cyber attack as the smokescreen for a controlled financial collapse designed to usher in a surveillance currency!

Has the U.S lost credibility after withdrawing from Afghanistan? Rick speaks with Mary Beth Long, former US Assistant Secretary of Defense.

Amid the chaotic US withdrawal from Afghanistan, former US Assistant Secretary for Terrorist Financing Marshall Billingslea joins Nate Sibley to discuss how the Taliban funded its 20-year campaign, what kind of economy it will oversee, and what the US and its allies should do to keep its malign activities in check.

The people of Cuba are rising up against their government and calling for freedom and basic rights. Enabled by new access to social media, protestors are demanding liberty after decades of political and economic abuses exacerbated by the weight of the pandemic. Will the Cuban people finally throw off their dictators? Roger Noriega joined Dany and Marc to talk about the decades-long political and economic oppression that led to the current demonstrations, how social media has enabled opposition to the regime, and how the US and international community can help the Cuban people win their freedom. Roger Noriega is the founder and managing director of the consultant firm VisiónAméricas LLC. He has served as both US Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs and as US Ambassador to the Organization of American States. Noriega was also a visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute from 2005-2020. https://www.aei.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Noriega-Final-Transcript-7.14.21.pdf (Download the transcript here.)

In “TODAY THROUGH JEWISH EYES”, I cover Jewish themes from a biblical worldview. Topics will vary between ethics, spirituality and culture. From Antisemitism to Zionism and everything in-between. I intend to help you to tackle these issues in your own communities and spheres of influence. • Should we care about what happens in Israel? • Is Israel currently at risk? • What is the agenda of the current administration regarding Israel?

COVID-19 has provided a vivid reminder of the power of biological threats. But the threat doesn't come from natural sources alone. Weaponized contagious diseases — which were abandoned by the United States, but developed in large numbers by the Soviet Union, right up until its collapse — have the potential to spread globally and kill just as many as an all-out nuclear war. For five years today’s guest — Andy Weber — was the US Assistant Secretary of Defense responsible for biological and other weapons of mass destruction. While people primarily associate the Pentagon with waging wars, including most within the Pentagon itself, Andy is quick to point out that you can't have national security if your population remains at grave risk from natural and lab-created diseases. Andy's current mission is to spread the word that while bioweapons are terrifying, scientific advances also leave them on the verge of becoming an outdated technology. Links to learn more, summary and full transcript. He thinks there is an overwhelming case to increase our investment in two new technologies that could dramatically reduce the risk of bioweapons and end natural pandemics in the process. First, advances in genetic sequencing technology allow direct, real-time analysis of DNA or RNA fragments collected from the environment. You sample widely, and if you start seeing DNA sequences that you don't recognise — that sets off an alarm. Andy says that while desktop sequencers may be expensive enough that they're only in hospitals today, they're rapidly getting smaller, cheaper, and easier to use. In fact DNA sequencing has recently experienced the most dramatic cost decrease of any technology, declining by a factor of 10,000 since 2007. It's only a matter of time before they're cheap enough to put in every home. The second major breakthrough comes from mRNA vaccines, which are today being used to end the COVID pandemic. The wonder of mRNA vaccines is that they can instruct our cells to make any random protein we choose — and trigger a protective immune response from the body. By using the sequencing technology above, we can quickly get the genetic code that matches the surface proteins of any new pathogen, and switch that code into the mRNA vaccines we're already making. Making a new vaccine would become less like manufacturing a new iPhone and more like printing a new book — you use the same printing press and just change the words. So long as we kept enough capacity to manufacture and deliver mRNA vaccines on hand, a whole country could in principle be vaccinated against a new disease in months. In tandem these technologies could make advanced bioweapons a threat of the past. And in the process contagious disease could be brought under control like never before. Andy has always been pretty open and honest, but his retirement last year has allowed him to stop worrying about being seen to speak for the Department of Defense, or for the president of the United States – and we were able to get his forthright views on a bunch of interesting other topics, such as: • The chances that COVID-19 escaped from a research facility • Whether a US president can really truly launch nuclear weapons unilaterally • What he thinks should be the top priorities for the Biden administration • The time he and colleagues found 600kg of unsecured, highly enriched uranium sitting around in a barely secured facility in Kazakhstan, and eventually transported it to the United States • And much more. Job opportunity: Executive Assistant to Will MacAskill Producer: Keiran Harris. Audio mastering: Ben Cordell. Transcriptions: Sofia Davis-Fogel.

On the occasion of the commemoration of the Independence Manifesto Day, HM King Mohammed VI has granted his pardon to 756 convicts, said a statement by the Ministry of Justice. A high-level US delegation, led by Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs David Schenker, on Sunday visited the premises of the future Consulate General of the United States in Dakhla. The US delegation, accompanied by minister of Foreign Affairs, African Cooperation and Moroccans Abroad, Nasser Bourita, and the US ambassador to Morocco, David Fischer, toured the various offices of this future US diplomatic representation. During this visit, the Wali of the Dakhla-Oued Eddahab region, governor of the province of Oued Eddahab, Lamine Benomar, and the presidents of the elected councils were also present. The US Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs arrived on Saturday afternoon in Dakhla, the second stop on a tour in the Moroccan Sahara after Laayoune. The visit to Dakhla of this high-level US delegation is the result of the telephone conversation held, on December 10, 2020, between HM King Mohammed VI and US President Mr. Donald Trump who had announced the signing of a proclamation, with all that this act entails as an undeniable legal and political force and with immediate effect, on the decision of the United States of America to recognize, for the first time in its history, the full sovereignty of the Kingdom of Morocco over the entire region of the Moroccan Sahara. In this regard, and as the first concrete expression of its sovereign initiative of great importance, the United States of America has decided to open a consulate in Dakhla, with a primarily economic vocation, to encourage U.S. investments and contribution to economic and social development, mainly for the benefit of the inhabitants of the southern provinces. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/aziz-mustaphi/message

Welcome to the history of computing podcast. Today we're going to talk about the use of big data in elections. But first, let's start with a disclaimer. I believe that these problems outlined in this episode are apolitical. Given the chance to do so I believe most politicians (or marketers), despite their party, would have jumped on what happened with what is outlined in this podcast. Just as most marketers are more than happy to buy data, even when not knowing the underlying source of that data. No offense to the parties but marketing is marketing. Just as it is in companies. Data will be used to gain an advantage in the market. Understanding the impacts of our decisions and the values of others is an ongoing area of growth for all of us. Even when we have quotas on sales qualified leads to be delivered.  Now let's talk about data sovereignty. Someone pays for everything. The bigger and more lucrative the business, the more that has to be paid to keep organizations necessarily formed to support an innovation alive. If you aren't paying for a good or service, then you yourself are the commodity. In social media, this is represented in the form of a company making their money from data about you and from the ads you see. The only other viable business model used is to charge for the service, like a Premium LinkedIn account as opposed to the ones used by us proletariat.   Our devices can see so much about us. They know our financial transactions, where we go, what we buy, what content we consume, and apparently what our opinions and triggers are. Sometimes, that data can be harnessed to show us ads. Ads about things to buy. Ads about apps to install. Ads about elections. My crazy uncle Billy sends me routine invitations to take personality quizzes. No thanks. Never done one. Why? I worked on one of the first dozen Facebook apps. A simple rock, paper, scissors game. At the time, it didn't at all seem weird to me as a developer that there was an API endpoint to get a list of friends from within my app. It's how we had a player challenge other players in a game. It didn't seem weird that I could also get a list of their friends. And it didn't seem weird that I could get a lot of personal data on people through that app. I mean I had to display their names and photos when they played a game, right? I just wanted to build a screen to invite friends to play the app. I had to show a photo so you could see who you were playing. And to make the game more responsive I needed to store the data in my own SQL tables. It didn't seem weird then. I guess it didn't seem weird until it did.  What made it weird was the introduction of highly targeted analytics and retargeting. I have paid for these services. I have benefited from these services in my professional life and to some degree I have helped develop some. I've watched the rise of large data warehouses. I've helped buy phone numbers and other personally identifiable information of humans and managed teams of sellers to email and call those humans. Ad targeting, drip campaigns, lead scoring, and providing very specific messages based on attributes you know about a person are all a part of the modern sales and marketing machine at any successful company.  And at some point, it went from being crazy how much information we had about people to being - well, just a part of doing business. The former Cambridge Analytica CEO Alexander Nix once said “From Mad Men in the day to Math Men today.” From Don Draper to Betty's next husband Henry (a politician) there are informal ties between advertising, marketing and politics. Just as one of the founders of SCL, the parent company of Cambridge Analytica had ties with royals having dated one and gone to school with others in political power. But there have also always been formal ties. Public Occurrences Both Foreign and Domestick was the first colonial newspaper in America and was formally suppressed after its first edition in 1690. But the Boston News-Letter was formally subsidized in 1704. Media and propaganda. Most newspapers were just straight up sponsoring or sponsored by a political platform in the US until the 1830s. To some degree, that began with Ben Franklin's big brother James Franklin in the early 1700s with the New England Courant. Franklin would create partnerships for content distribution throughout the colonies, spreading his brand of moral virtue. And the papers were stoking the colonies into revolution. And after the revolution Hamilton instigated American Minerva as the first daily paper in New York - to be a Federalist paper. Of course, the Jeffersonian Republicans called him an “incurable lunatic.” And yet they still guaranteed us the freedom of press.  And that freedom grew to investigative reporting, especially during the Progressive Era, from the tail end of the 19th century up until the start of the roaring twenties. While Teddy Roosevelt would call them Muckrakers, their tradition extends from Nellie Bly and Fremont Older to Seymour Hersch, Kwitny, even the most modern Woodward and Bernstein. They led to stock reform, civic reforms, uncovering corruption, exposing crime in labor unions, laying bare monopolistic behaviors, improving sanitation and forcing us to confront racial injustices. They have been independent of party affiliation and yet constantly accused over the last hundred years of being against whomever is in power at the time. Their journalism extended to radio and then to television. I think the founders would be proud of how journalism evolved and also unsurprised as to some of the ways it has devolved. But let's get back to someone is always paying. The people can subscribe to a newspaper but the advertising is a huge source of revenue. With radio and television flying across airwaves and free, advertising exclusively became what paid for content and the ensuing decades became the golden age of that industry. And politicians bought ads. If there is zero chance a politician can win a state, why bother buying ads in that state. That's a form of targeting with a pretty simple set of data.  In Mad Men, Don is sent to pitch the Nixon campaign. There has always been a connection between disruptive new mediums and politics. Offices have been won by politicians able to gain access to early printing presses to spread their messages to the masses, those connected to print media to get articles and advertising, by great orators at the advent of the radio, and by good-looking charismatic politicians first able to harness television - especially in the Mad Men fueled ad exec inspired era that saw the Nixon campaigns in the 60s. The platforms to advertise become ubiquitous, they get abused, and then they become regulated. After television came news networks specifically meant to prop up an agenda, although unable to be directly owned by a party. None are “fake news” per se, but once abused by any they can all be cast in doubt, even if most especially done by the abuser.  The Internet was no different. The Obama campaign was really the first that leveraged social media and great data analytics to orchestrate what can be considered to really be the first big data campaign. And after his campaign carried him to a first term the opposition was able to make great strides in countering that. Progress is often followed by lagerts who seek to subvert the innovations of an era. And they often hire the teams who helped with previous implementations.  Obama had a chief data scientist, Rayid Ghani. And a chief analytics officer. They put apps in the hands of canvassers and they mined Facebook data from Facebook networks of friends to try and persuade voters. They scored voters and figured out how to influence votes for certain segments. That was supplemented by thousands of interviews and thousands of hours building algorithms. By 2012 they were pretty confident they knew which of the nearly 70 million Americans that put him in the White House. And that gave the Obama campaign the confidence to spend $52 million in online ads against Romney's $26 million to bring home the win. And through all that the Democratic National Committee ended up with information on 180 million voters. That campaign would prove the hypothesis that big data could win big elections. Then comes the 2016 election. Donald Trump came from behind, out of a crowded field of potential Republican nominees, to not only secure the Republican nomination for president but then to win that election. He won the votes to be elected in the electoral college while losing the popular vote. That had happened when John Quincy Adams defeated Andrew Jackson in 1824, although it took a vote in the House of Representatives to settle that election. Rutherford B Hayes defeated Samuel Tilden in 1876 in the electoral college but lost the popular vote. And it happened again when Grover Cleveland lost to Benjamin Harrison in 1888. And in 2000 when Bush beat Gore. And again when Trump beat Hillary Clinton. And he solidly defeated her in the electoral college with 304 to her 227 votes.  Every time it happens, there seems to be plenty of rhetoric about changing the process. But keep in mind the framers built the system for a reason: to give the constituents of every state a minimum amount of power to elect officials that represent them. Those two represent the number of senators for the state and then the state receives one for each member of the house of representatives. States can choose how the electors are instructed to vote. Most states (except Maine and Nebraska) have all of their electors vote for a single ticket, the one that won the state. Most of the states instruct their elector to vote based on who won the popular vote for their state. Once all the electors cast their votes, Congress counts the votes and the winner of the election is declared.  So how did he come from behind? One easy place to blame is data. I mean, we can blame data for putting Obama into the White House, or we can accept a message of hope and change that resonated with the people. Just as we can blame data for Trump or accept a message that government wasn't effective for the people. Since this is a podcast on technology, let's focus on data for a bit. And more specifically let's look at the source of one trove of data used for micro-targeting, because data is a central strategy for most companies today. And it was a central part of the past four elections.  We see the ads on our phones so we know that companies have this kind of data about us. Machine learning had been on the rise for decades. But a little company called SCL was started In 1990 as the Behavioral Dynamics Institute by a British ad man named Nigel Oakes after leaving Saatchi & Saatchi. Something dangerous is when you have someone like him make this kind of comparison “We use the same techniques as Aristotle and Hitler.” Behavioural Dynamics studied how to change mass behavior through strategic communication - which US Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs Robert Hastings described in 2008 as the “synchronization of images, actions, and words to achieve a desired effect.” Sounds a lot like state conducted advertising to me. And sure, reminiscent of Nazi tactics. You might also think of it as propaganda. Or “pay ops” in the Vietnam era. And they were involved in elections in the developing world. In places like the Ukraine, Italy, South Africa, Albania, Taiwan, Thailand, Indonesia, Kenya, Nigeria, even India. And of course in the UK. Or at least on behalf of the UK and whether directly or indirectly, the US.  After Obama won his second term, SCL started Cambridge Analytica to go after American elections. They began to assemble a similar big data warehouse. They hired people like Brittany Kaiser who'd volunteered for Obama and would become director of Business Development.  Ted Cruz used them in 2016 but it was the Trump campaign that was really able to harness their intelligence. Their principal investor was Robert Mercer, former CEO of huge fund Renaissance Technologies. He'd gotten his start at IBM Research working on statistical machine translation and was recruited in the 90s to apply data modeling and computing resources to financial analysis. This allowed them to earn nearly 40% per year on investments. An American success story. He was key in the Brexit vote, donating analytics to Nigel Farage and an early supporter of Breitbart News.  Cambridge Analytica would get involved in 44 races in the 2014 midterm elections. By 2016, Project Alamo was running at a million bucks a day in Facebook advertising. In the documentary The Great Hack, they claim this was to harvest fear. And Cambridge Analytica allowed the Trump campaign to get really specific with targeting. So specific that they were able to claim to have 5,000 pieces of data per person.  Enter whistleblower Christopher Wylie who claims over a quarter million people took a quick called “This is Your Digital Life” which exposed the data of around 50 million users. That data was moved off Facebook servers and stored in a warehouse where it could be analyzed and fields merged with other data sources without the consent of the people who played the game or the people who were in their friend networks. Dirty tactics.  Alexander Nix admitted to using bribery stings and prostitutes to influence politicians. So it should be as no surprise that they stole information on well over 50 million Facebook users in the US alone. And of course then they lied about it when being investigated by the UK for Russian interference and fake news in the lead to the Brexit referendum. Investigations go on.  After investigations started piling up, some details started to emerge. This is Your Digital Life was written by Dr Spectre. It gets better. That's actually Alexandr Kogan for Cambridge Analytica. He had received research funding from the University of St Petersburg and was then lecturing at the Psychology department at the University of Cambridge. It would be easy to make a jump that he was working for the Russkies but here's the thing, he also got research funding from Canada, China, the UK, and the US. He claimed he didn't know what the app would be used for. That's crap. When I got a list of friends and friends friends who I could spider through, I parsed the data and displayed it on a screen as a pick list. He piped it out to a data warehouse. When you do that you know exactly what's happening with it.  So the election comes and goes. Trump wins. And people start asking questions. As they do when one party wins the popular vote and not the electoral college. People misunderstand and think you can win a district due to redistricting in most states and carry the state without realizing most are straight majority. Other Muckraker reporters from around the world start looking into Brexit and US elections and asking questions.  Enter Paul-Olivier Dehaye. While an assistant professor at the University of Zurich he was working on Coursera. He started asking about the data collection. The word spread slowly but surely. Then enter American professor David Carroll, who sued Cambridge Analytica to see what data they had on him. Dehaye contributed to his Subject Access request and suddenly the connections between Cambridge Analytica and Brexit started to surface, as did the connection between Cambridge Analytica and the Trump campaign, including photos of the team working with key members of the campaign. And ultimately of the checks cut.  Cause there's always a money trail.  I've heard people claim that there was no interference in the 2016 elections, in Brexit, or in other elections. Now, if you think the American taxpayer didn't contribute to some of the antics by Cambridge Analytica before they turned their attention to the US, I think we're all kidding ourselves. And there was Russian meddling in US elections and illegally obtained materials were used, whether that's emails on servers then leaked to WikiLeaks or stolen Facebook data troves. Those same tactics were used in Brexit. And here's the thing, it's been this way for a long, long time - it's just so much more powerful today than ever before. And given how fast data can travel, every time it happens, unless done in a walled garden, the truth will come to light.  Cambridge Analytica kinda' shut down in 2017 after all of this came to light. What do I mean by kinda? Well, former employees setup a company called Emerdata Limited who then bought the SCL companies. Why? There were contracts and data. They brought on the founder of Blackwater, Mercer's daughter Rebekah, and others to serve on the board of directors and she was suddenly the “First Lady of the Alt-Right.” Whether Emerdata got all of the company, they got some of the scraped data from 87 million users. No company with the revenues they had goes away quietly or immediately.  Robert Mercer donated the fourth largest amount in the 2016 presenting race. He was also the one who supposedly introduced Trump to Steve Bannon. In the fallout of the scandals if you want to call them that, Mercer stepped down from Renaissance and sold his shares of Breitbart to his daughters. Today, he's a benefactor of the Make America Number 1 Super PAC and remains one of the top donors to conservative causes.  After leaving Cambridge Analytica, Nix was under investigations for a few years before settling with the Federal Trade Commission and agreed to delete illegally obtained data and settled with the UK Secretary of State that he had offered unethical services and agreed to not act as a director of another company for at least 7 years.  Brittany Kaiser flees to Thailand and is now a proponent of banning political advertising on Facebook and being able to own your own data.  Facebook paid a $5 billion fine for data privacy violations and have overhauled their APIs and privacy options. It's better but not great. I feel like they're doing as well as they can and they've been accused of tampering with feeds by conservative and liberal media outlets alike. To me, if they all hate you, you're probably either doing a lot right, or basically screwing all of it up. I wouldn't be surprised to see fines continue piling up.  Kogan left the University of Cambridge in 2018. He founded Philometrics, a firm applying big data and AI to surveys. Their website isn't up as of the recording of this episode. His Tumblr seems to be full of talk about acne and trying to buy cheat codes for video games these days.  Many, including Kogan, have claimed that micro-targeting (or psychographic modeling techniques) against large enhanced sets of data isn't effective. If you search for wedding rings and I show you ads for wedding rings then maybe you'll buy my wedding rings. If I see you bought a wedding ring, I can start showing you ads for wedding photographers and bourbon instead. Hey dummy, advertising works. Disinformation works. Analyzing and forecasting and modeling with machine learning works. Sure, some is snake oil. But early adopters made billions off it. Problem is, like that perfect gambling system, you wouldn't tell people about something if it means you lost your edge. Sell a book about how to weaponize a secret and suddenly you probably are selling snake oil.   As for regulatory reactions, can you say GDPR and all of the other privacy regulations that have come about since? Much as Sarbanes-Oxley introduced regulatory controls for corporate auditing and transparency, we regulated the crap out of privacy. And by regulated I mean a bunch of people that didn't understand the way data is stored and disseminated over APIs made policy to govern it. But that's another episode waiting to happen. Suffice it to say the lasting impact to the history of computing is both the regulations on privacy and the impact to identity providers and other API endpoints, were we needed to lock down entitlements to access various pieces of information due to rampant abuses.  So here's the key question in all of this: did the data help Obama and Trump win their elections? It might have moved a few points here and there. But it was death by a thousand cuts. Mis-steps by the other campaigns, political tides, segments of American populations desperately looking for change and feeling left behind while other segments of the population got all the attention, foreign intervention, voting machine tampering, not having a cohesive Opponent Party and so many other aspects of those elections also played a part. And as Hari Seldon-esque George Friedman called it in his book, it's just the Storm Before the Calm.  So whether the data did or did not help the Trump campaign, the next question is whether using the Cambridge Analytica data was wrong? This is murky. The data was illegally obtained. The Trump campaign was playing catchup with the maturity of the data held by the opposition. But the campaign can claim they didn't know that the data was illegally obtained. It is illegal to employ foreigners in political campaigns and Bannon was warned about that. And then-CEO Nix was warned. But they were looking to instigate a culture war according to Christopher Wylie who helped found Cambridge Analytica. And look around, did they?  Getting data models to a point where they have a high enough confidence interval that they are weaponizable takes years. Machine learning projects are very complicated, very challenging, and very expensive. And they are being used by every political campaign now insofar as the law allows. To be honest though, troll farms of cheap labor are cheaper and faster. Which is why three more got taken down just a month before the recording of this episode. But AI doesn't do pillow talk, so eventually it will displace even the troll farm worker if only ‘cause the muckrakers can't interview the AI.  So where does this leave us today? Nearly every time I open Facebook, I see an ad to vote for Biden or an ad to vote for Trump. The US Director of National Intelligence recently claimed the Russians and Iranians were interfering with US elections. To do their part, Facebook will ban political ads indefinitely after the polls close on Nov. 3. They and Twitter are taking proactive steps to stop disinformation on their networks, including by actual politicians. And Twitter has actually just outright banned political ads.  People don't usually want regulations. But just as political ads in print, on the radio, and on television are regulated - they will need to be regulated online as well. As will the use of big data. The difference is the rich metadata collected in micro-targeting, the expansive comments areas, and the anonymity of those commenters. But I trust that a bunch of people who've never written a line of code in their life will do a solid job handing down those regulations. Actually, the FEC probably never built a radio - so maybe they will. So as the election season comes to a close, think about this. Any data from large brokers about you is fair game. What you're seeing in Facebook and even the ads you see on popular websites are being formed by that data. Without it, you'll see ads for things you don't want. Like the Golden Girls Season 4 boxed set. Because you already have it. But with it, you'll get crazy uncle Billy at the top of your feed talking about how the earth is flat. Leave it or delete it, just ask for a copy of it so you know what's out there. You might be surprised, delighted, or even a little disgusted by that site uncle Billy was looking at that one night you went to bed early. But don't, don't, don't think that any of this should impact your vote. Conservative, green, liberal, progressive, communist, social democrats, or whatever you ascribe to. In whatever elections in your country or state or province or municipality. Go vote. Don't be intimated. Don't let fear stand in the way of your civic duty. Don't block your friends with contrary opinions. If nothing else listen to them. They need to be heard. Even if uncle Billy just can't be convinced the world is round. I mean, he's been to the beach. He's been on an airplane. He has GPS on his phone… And that site. Gross. Thank you for tuning in to this episode of the history of computing podcast. We are so, so, so lucky to have you. Have a great day. 

The Housing News Podcast is a weekly wrap of the top news stories by HousingWire CEO Clayton Collins.Each week, HousingWire interviews financial services experts who can help make sense of the latest headlines sponsored by our partners at Arch MI and Quicken Loans Mortgage Services.This week, Mountain Lake Consulting's CEO David Stevens, who is the former president and CEO of the Mortgage Bankers Association, joins the Housing News Podcast for episode six.In this episode, Stevens who formerly served as the US Assistant Secretary of Housing for the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development under the Obama administration from 2009 to 2011, discusses his perspectives on the current state of the U.S. housing finance industry, particularly on independent mortgage banks and their role in lending.As the industry knows, market uncertainty continues to increase as more and more borrowers request forbearance on their mortgages due to financial difficulty born out of the coronavirus pandemic.According to Stevens, every person in the mortgage finance sector needs to be prepared for an extended duration of credit constraints being applied to the loans they're attempting to originate.Here are links to the topics discussed:Calabria: No nonbank is too big to failCalabria: No servicer liquidity facility coming, but GSEs may pull servicing from struggling companiesMBA “strongly disagrees” with FHFA Director Calabria's stance on servicingCalabria does not expect widespread delinquencies due to coronavirus[PULSE] A federal liquidity solution for the mortgage servicing industry[PULSE] IMBs are the path to recovery, not the problemAdvertiser Disclaimer: Quicken Loans Mortgage Services (QLMS) – Call for cost information and conditions. Equal housing lender. Licensed in all 50 states. NMLSConsumerAccess.org #3030.

Mortgage lenders are facing unprecedented questions with the outbreak of COVID-19. While the stock market is in tumult and uncertainty is roiling, mortgage rates have again fallen to historic lows. David Stevens, former US Assistant Secretary of Housing, and former CEO of the Mortgage Bankers Association, shared his advice with Mortgage Media on what lenders […] The post What Should Lenders Be Doing as Coronavirus Roils Economy? appeared first on Mortgage Media.

A 2011 agreement known as the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or New START, is the last remaining nuclear arms control treaty between the United States and Russia. The treaty imposes limits on the size and composition of the nuclear arsenals of the world's two largest nuclear powers. And it allows Russia and the United States to inspect each others nuclear arsenals to ensure compliance.  New START is now the only nuclear arms reduction treaty between the United States and Russia because last year, the Trump administration withdrew from a Ronald Reagan era agreement called the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, or INF, that eliminated a certain class of nuclear weapons.  But New START may not last much longer. The treaty officially expires in February 2021. And so far, it is unclear whether or not the Trump administration will seek its extension. Russia has already signaled that it would extend the agreement another five years, but the Trump administration has so far demurred. On the line with me to discuss the significance of New START is Thomas Countryman. He was a longtime career diplomat who served as the US Assistant Secretary of State for International Security and Nonproliferation from 2011 to 2017. He is now the chair of the board of the Arms Control Association.  https://www.undispatch.com/

"The American, British and French governments know they're lying through their teeth... and they're using these [orchestrated] events to take the world to war, the outcome of which could be annihilation."—PCR We are joined once again by Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, former US Assistant Secretary to the Treasury for Economic Policy, for a discussion on the current international crisis focused on Syria. As the war drums continue to beat in the West, Dr. Roberts presents various scenarios that he believes could play out in the coming days, expressing the hope that a catastrophic chain of events leading to WWIII could possibly be prevented by Russia acting swiftly and boldly to escort the USS Donald Cook out of range and marking a line in the waters. Dr. Roberts also gives his reaction to the alleged chemical attack in Douma, and considers the role of the Skripal Affair in the unfolding narrative of lies. (Interview conducted 12 April 2018) (For show notes please visit http://themindrenewed.com)

"The American, British and French governments know they're lying through their teeth... and they're using these [orchestrated] events to take the world to war, the outcome of which could be annihilation."—PCR We are joined once again by Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, former US Assistant Secretary to the Treasury for Economic Policy, for a discussion on the current international crisis focused on Syria. As the war drums continue to beat in the West, Dr. Roberts presents various scenarios that he believes could play out in the coming days, expressing the hope that a catastrophic chain of events leading to WWIII could possibly be prevented by Russia acting swiftly and boldly to escort the USS Donald Cook out of range and marking a line in the waters. Dr. Roberts also gives his reaction to the alleged chemical attack in Douma, and considers the role of the Skripal Affair in the unfolding narrative of lies. (Interview conducted 12 April 2018) (For show notes please visit http://themindrenewed.com)

Dr. Karen De Salvo—Professor of Medicine & Population Health, UT Austin Dell Medical School, former US Assistant Secretary for Health (Acting) & National Coordinator for Health IT—talks with Patrick Pilch, Managing Director and National Leader of BDO’s healthcare advisory practice, about the future of digital health and how data can be leveraged for public health purposes, population health management, planning, and disaster recovery. 

"I think that the Trump presidency is already over. I'm not even sure he qualifies as a figurehead."—PCR We are joined once again by Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, former US Assistant Secretary to the Treasury for Economic Policy, for a discussion on the Trump presidency so far. Dr. Roberts assesses the performance of the new president and his administration with reference to pre-election promises; shares with us his view that the deep state has effectively neutralised Donald Trump as US president; gives his reaction to the so-called "Syrian gas attack" in Idlib, and the subsequent military action by the US against Syria; and considers the very real prospects for war as Washington steps up its warmongering around the globe. (For show notes please visit http://themindrenewed.com)

"I think that the Trump presidency is already over. I'm not even sure he qualifies as a figurehead."—PCR We are joined once again by Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, former US Assistant Secretary to the Treasury for Economic Policy, for a discussion on the Trump presidency so far. Dr. Roberts assesses the performance of the new president and his administration with reference to pre-election promises; shares with us his view that the deep state has effectively neutralised Donald Trump as US president; gives his reaction to the so-called "Syrian gas attack" in Idlib, and the subsequent military action by the US against Syria; and considers the very real prospects for war as Washington steps up its warmongering around the globe. (For show notes please visit http://themindrenewed.com)

"People say, 'Oh the Cold War's started again.' You hear this constantly from pundits. I wish the Cold War would come back, because the Cold War was very carefully managed; tensions were reduced. We've got the opposite of a Cold War; we've got tensions increased beyond any level they ever existed before."—PCR We welcome once again Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, former US Assistant Secretary to the Treasury for Economic Policy, who joins us to discuss the increasingly dangerous geopolitical tensions focused upon Syria. Dr. Roberts argues that unless the European peoples wake up and refuse to co-operate with Washington's insane neocon policy of "world hegemony"—a co-operation that helps facilitate Washington's illegal wars around the globe—the result will almost inevitably be a thermonuclear WWIII: a war that can have no winners. (For show notes please visit http://themindrenewed.com)

"People say, 'Oh the Cold War's started again.' You hear this constantly from pundits. I wish the Cold War would come back, because the Cold War was very carefully managed; tensions were reduced. We've got the opposite of a Cold War; we've got tensions increased beyond any level they ever existed before."—PCR We welcome once again Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, former US Assistant Secretary to the Treasury for Economic Policy, who joins us to discuss the increasingly dangerous geopolitical tensions focused upon Syria. Dr. Roberts argues that unless the European peoples wake up and refuse to co-operate with Washington's insane neocon policy of "world hegemony"—a co-operation that helps facilitate Washington's illegal wars around the globe—the result will almost inevitably be a thermonuclear WWIII: a war that can have no winners. (For show notes please visit http://themindrenewed.com)

The breaking news that a donor to the Clinton Foundation namely, the Lebanon-born Gilbert Chagoury has been denied a visa to the US on the basis of links to the Hezbollah, via his financial patronage of Lebanon's presidential candidate Gen. Michel Aoun came as no surprise to many. The links between the Lebanese-Nigerian Oligarch and presidency-obsessed Aoun are well-known to all parties who have any inkling into Lebanon's murky politics. The US Embassy in Lebanon needed no covert operation to unearth this reality, which is taken at face value as a rich Lebanese businessman buying himself political access. Business as usual in the country of the Cedars one would assume, except that in this case, it was not. Gen. Aoun is allied to Hezbollah the proxy militia of Iran in the Middle East with a military arm and a direct engagement in theatres of operations throughout the Middle East. This organization is labeled by the US State Department, which was till recently headed by no other than Mrs. Hillary Clinton, as a terrorist organization. Mr. Chagoury by financing Gen. Aoun in one hand and donating to the Clinton Foundation in the other, has shortened the distance between the two ends of this arc, former Secretary of State Clinton and Iran's paramilitary henchmen. The current US State Department, which is not beholden to the same commitments to the Clinton Foundation as was its predecessor, took exception at the visa application of the oligarch donor. Nobody at Foggy Bottom risked receiving an angry call from the Clinton Foundation, or from ‘Huma', summoning them to expedite the Chagoury application and to grant him a waiver from US security restrictions. Not that this US State Department under Kerry is unwilling to deal or even pay Iran a ransom of $400 m to free some US hostages. But times have changed and that was a government to government transaction not an individual to foundation transaction. After all, the current US State Secretary has principles. What are they, remains to be seen. Not only did Mr. Chagoury donate money but it seems –according to press reports- that he attempted to get in touch –and probably did- with the top honcho at State overseeing the affairs of Lebanon. That was Jeff Feltman, former US Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs from August 2009 to June 2012 with the rank of Career Minister. He was previously the US Ambassador to Lebanon from July 2004 to January 2008. So Mrs. Clinton and her august Foundation have some questions to answer both to the US and to the Lebanese public. How did the Foundation accept money from someone with such notorious, explicit and well-advertised links to a US-labeled terrorist organization; and what access, influence, intelligence, advantage did such character obtain from the US State Department in connection with Lebanon? These are two interlinked questions that only Mrs. Clinton can and should answer. Not only for the sake of clearing the air during her presidential bid, but for coming out clean about the ways and means the US State Department worked under her watch. Could her tenure be portrayed as one where US influence in foreign affairs was for hire, or worse, for sale?

Liberals on college campuses demand tolerance and equality, but are they actually guilty of being intolerant and bigoted against anyone they deem different? Kim Holmes says yes. His new book The Closing of the Liberal Mind is shaking up the political scene and exposing the flaws of modern liberal progressives. Holmes writes, "There is no respect for the liberty principle as traditionally understood by classic liberals, because the postmodern impulse is not liberal at all but radically egalitarian." On this episode of Talkenomics, Holmes, a former US Assistant Secretary of State, explains how postmodern leftists defeated classic liberals in an attempt to radically change society and undermine free market capitalism. He says, "There are few liberal principles more enduring historically than the distrust of centralized power. Clearly the postmodern left has no such qualms." Anyone who values liberty will find Holmes an invaluable resource of facts in the war against liberal totalitarianism, "Liberals have got a singular problem" he says. "They are caught up in a crippling contradiction. They brandish a sword of zero tolerance in the name of tolerance and they close down debate. Progressive liberalism is at war with what it professes to believe in." Holmes warns that today's liberal progressives use a culture of outrage, social media furor and illiberal exclusion of dissent to silence anyone who poses a threat their agenda.

"Remain" or "Leave"? What does the UK's EU Referendum—scheduled 23rd June—really amount to? Is it simply the opportunity for UK citizens to decide if Britain should stay in the European Union? Or is it something of greater significance, with broader and more serious implications? And just what is this thing called the EU anyway? Joining us, once again, to discuss these questions is Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, former US Assistant Secretary to the Treasury for Ecomonic Policy, who explains the EU's beginnings as a project of the CIA, and assesses its current role as as an anti-democratic tool of corporate control. Whether or not a majority "leave" vote will actually lead to Brexit, Dr. Roberts argues that a decisive rejection of EU membership by UK citizens could embolden other EU member states to follow suit, thus precipitating the break-up of NATO, and in turn, bringing an end to Washington's crazy designs for a New World Order. (For show notes please visit http://themindrenewed.com)

"Remain" or "Leave"? What does the UK's EU Referendum—scheduled 23rd June—really amount to? Is it simply the opportunity for UK citizens to decide if Britain should stay in the European Union? Or is it something of greater significance, with broader and more serious implications? And just what is this thing called the EU anyway? Joining us, once again, to discuss these questions is Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, former US Assistant Secretary to the Treasury for Ecomonic Policy, who explains the EU's beginnings as a project of the CIA, and assesses its current role as as an anti-democratic tool of corporate control. Whether or not a majority "leave" vote will actually lead to Brexit, Dr. Roberts argues that a decisive rejection of EU membership by UK citizens could embolden other EU member states to follow suit, thus precipitating the break-up of NATO, and in turn, bringing an end to Washington's crazy designs for a New World Order. (For show notes please visit http://themindrenewed.com)

Once again we welcome to the programme Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, former US Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy, who joins us to give his reaction to the Paris Attacks of 13th November, assessing them in relation to current and historical geopolitical realities. In the second half of the interview Dr. Roberts shares with us his analysis of the TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership") and other so-called "trade deals" such as TTIP and TiSA, and raises the question as to whether we are seeing, in these developments, the dawn of the New World Order. "There will be no curiosity, no enjoyment of the process of life. All competing pleasures will be destroyed. But always—do not forget this, Winston—always there will be the intoxication of power, constantly increasing and constantly growing subtler. Always, at every moment, there will be the thrill of victory, the sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless. If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face—forever." (Orwell, 1984) (For show notes please visit http://themindrenewed.com)

Once again we welcome to the programme Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, former US Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy, who joins us to give his reaction to the Paris Attacks of 13th November, assessing them in relation to current and historical geopolitical realities. In the second half of the interview Dr. Roberts shares with us his analysis of the TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership") and other so-called "trade deals" such as TTIP and TiSA, and raises the question as to whether we are seeing, in these developments, the dawn of the New World Order. "There will be no curiosity, no enjoyment of the process of life. All competing pleasures will be destroyed. But always—do not forget this, Winston—always there will be the intoxication of power, constantly increasing and constantly growing subtler. Always, at every moment, there will be the thrill of victory, the sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless. If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face—forever." (Orwell, 1984) (For show notes please visit http://themindrenewed.com)

What is the so-called "Greek Debt Crisis"? Is it simply the result of economic mismanagement by the Greek people and their successive governments, or is there more to it than meets the eye? Joining us to answer this question, we welcome once again Dr. Paul Craig Roberts (former US Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy), who explains that the crisis is not fundamentally about debt at all, but rather the playing out of a strategy by the political and financial elites to establish two main principles: the looting of European countries by the "One Percent", and the systematic destruction of their national sovereignty. We also discuss the Iran Nuclear Deal and the recent address by UK Prime Minister David Cameron on "extremism" (described by Glenn Greenwald as "one of the creepiest and most authoritarian speeches you'll ever hear.") (For show notes please visit http://themindrenewed.com)

What is the so-called "Greek Debt Crisis"? Is it simply the result of economic mismanagement by the Greek people and their successive governments, or is there more to it than meets the eye? Joining us to answer this question, we welcome once again Dr. Paul Craig Roberts (former US Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy), who explains that the crisis is not fundamentally about debt at all, but rather the playing out of a strategy by the political and financial elites to establish two main principles: the looting of European countries by the "One Percent", and the systematic destruction of their national sovereignty. We also discuss the Iran Nuclear Deal and the recent address by UK Prime Minister David Cameron on "extremism" (described by Glenn Greenwald as "one of the creepiest and most authoritarian speeches you'll ever hear.") (For show notes please visit http://themindrenewed.com)

Barack Obama is due to visit Kenya - his father's homeland - next month. When Obama came to power as the first African-American president of the US, hopes were high in Africa that the continent would bask in his reflected glory and enjoy a new focus in US foreign policy. Zeinab Badawi talks to Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the US Assistant-Secretary of State for African Affairs and asks does Obama have a vision for Africa?(Photo: Linda Thomas-Greenfield, US Assistant-Secretary of State for African Affairs. BBC copyright)

Dr. Paul Craig Roberts (former US Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy) returns to the programme for an extended interview on the ongoing tensions between Washington and Moscow. Drawing upon his extensive experience in government, academia and journalism, Dr. Roberts explains how Washington's current hostility towards Russia, with its demonisation of Vladimir Putin, is a bitter fruit of the neoconservative ideology of world hegemony that came to dominate US centres of power from the early 1990s onwards. Assessing the geopolitical landscape with an eye to historical, economic and political realities, Dr. Roberts judges there to be only two hopes for the world to avert nuclear Armageddon: a Europe decisively resistant to Washington diktat, or economic collapse of the US empire itself. We also discuss the murder of Boris Nemtsov, prospects for Washington-agitated colour revolutions in Central Asia/Caucasus, MH17 and the growth of the police state in the US. (For show notes please visit http://themindrenewed.com)

Dr. Paul Craig Roberts (former US Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy) returns to the programme for an extended interview on the ongoing tensions between Washington and Moscow. Drawing upon his extensive experience in government, academia and journalism, Dr. Roberts explains how Washington's current hostility towards Russia, with its demonisation of Vladimir Putin, is a bitter fruit of the neoconservative ideology of world hegemony that came to dominate US centres of power from the early 1990s onwards. Assessing the geopolitical landscape with an eye to historical, economic and political realities, Dr. Roberts judges there to be only two hopes for the world to avert nuclear Armageddon: a Europe decisively resistant to Washington diktat, or economic collapse of the US empire itself. We also discuss the murder of Boris Nemtsov, prospects for Washington-agitated colour revolutions in Central Asia/Caucasus, MH17 and the growth of the police state in the US. (For show notes please visit http://themindrenewed.com)

What can Western nations like the US do to stop Ukraine from breaking up or falling into civil conflict? Hardtalk is at the US Embassy in London to speak to Victoria Nuland, US Assistant Secretary of State. Now that pro-Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine claim they have voted for independence, is Washington powerless to prevent further disintegration?

Dr. Paul Craig Roberts (former US Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy) returns to the programme for a detailed analysis of the crisis in Ukraine, and an assessment of the Western propaganda war being waged against Russia. Setting the discussion in the context of decades of US imperialism, and identifying the current crisis as largely agitated by Washington through its NGOs, Dr. Roberts reveals how Ukraine fits into the neocon game plan for world hegemony. But, as he explains, this insane goal for a nuclear "checkmate" by Washington against its geopolitical opponents on The Grand Chess Board is reckless in the extreme; for just like WWI, it could spiral out of control, but unlike WWI, it could lead to Armageddon. (For show notes, please visit http://themindrenewed.com)

Dr. Paul Craig Roberts (former US Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy) returns to the programme for a detailed analysis of the crisis in Ukraine, and an assessment of the Western propaganda war being waged against Russia. Setting the discussion in the context of decades of US imperialism, and identifying the current crisis as largely agitated by Washington through its NGOs, Dr. Roberts reveals how Ukraine fits into the neocon game plan for world hegemony. But, as he explains, this insane goal for a nuclear "checkmate" by Washington against its geopolitical opponents on The Grand Chess Board is reckless in the extreme; for just like WWI, it could spiral out of control, but unlike WWI, it could lead to Armageddon. (For show notes, please visit http://themindrenewed.com)

On 21 November, former US Assistant Secretary of State and the Lowy Institute’s inaugural Distinguished International Fellow, Dr Kurt Campbell talked about the Australian-Indonesian spying row on ABC Radio National's Breakfast Program. The fallout from the Indonesian phone tapping scandal continues, with Jakarta officially downgrading diplomatic relations with Australia. Yet, Dr Campbell said he believed Indonesia's response to the phone tapping scandal is expected, and can be resolved. (Audio courtesy of ABC Radio National)

Education historian, former US Assistant Secretary of Education, and author of Reign of Error.

Was mainstream media in cahoots with government forces in the lead up to the Iraq War?   In his film, “The War You Don't See,” Australian journalist John Pilger reveals evidence of American and British journalists failing to scrutinize evidence or dig for hard facts in the days before the 2003 invasion. He argues that imbedded news reporters and their outlets simply towed official government lines, and the public sees only a small portion of what's really happening in battlefields. Featuring: John Pilger, journalist; Dan Rather, journalist; Bryan Whitman, US Assistant Secretary of Defense; Melvin Goodman, former CIA analyst: Rageh Omaar, BBC news reporter; Dahr Jamail, independent journalist; David Rose, former Observer journalist; Steve Rendall, Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting; Fran Unsworth, BBC Head of Newsgathering; Scott Ritter, UN Weapons Inspector; Ethan McCord, former US soldier. For More Information: John Pilger's website: http://www.johnpilger.com/   “The War You Don't See” film: http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/war-you-dont-see/   Fair and Accuracy in Reporting: http://www.fair.org/index.php   Iraq War Logs http://www.iraqwarlogs.com/   Iraq Body Count http://www.iraqbodycount.org/   Center for American Progress' Iraq War Ledger http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2010/05/iraq_war_ledger.html   Committee to Protect Journalists http://www.cpj.org/   The post Making Contact – “The War You Don't See” A film by John Pilger appeared first on KPFA.