Rania Khalek Dispatches
229 episodes - English - Latest episode: 7 days ago - ★★★★★ - 148 ratingsCatch Rania Khalek's Dispatches for insight, analysis, investigations, interviews and on the ground reports on global issues from a left perspective.
Homepage Apple Podcasts Google Podcasts Overcast Castro Pocket Casts RSS feed
Episodes
The China Factor: Why Four Middle East Countries Are Joining BRICS
September 21, 2023 17:00 - 44 minutes - 30.3 MBListen to the full interview on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/posts/full-audio-china-89625885 Four of the six new BRICS countries - Egypt, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE - are in the Middle East. What does this mean for the region, for multipolarity, for the Cold War between the US and China and for the future of the Saudi-Iran rivalry? How does a country like Saudi Arabia, which has such a long record in service of the West, fit in? How might it impact Israel? How will Washington react...
Can BRICS Be Anti-Imperialist With Countries Like India and Saudi Arabia? w/ Prabhat PatnaikEpisode
September 01, 2023 20:00 - 32 minutes - 22.1 MBListen to the full interview on our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/posts/full-audio-can-w-88623146 How much of a challenge to Western hegemony does the expansion of BRICS actually pose? How much of this has been brought on by the West’s own hubris? What should we make of the ideological differences among the BRICS countries? Could India and Saudi Arabia act as spoilers? Or are we witnessing the symptomatic decline of American hegemony, with US allies turning toward Washington’s rivals? W...
Untitled Episode
September 01, 2023 20:00 - 32 minutes - 22.1 MBListen to the full interview on our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/posts/full-audio-can-w-88623146 How much of a challenge to Western hegemony does the expansion of BRICS actually pose? How much of this has been brought on by the West’s own hubris? What should we make of the ideological differences among the BRICS countries? Could India and Saudi Arabia act as spoilers? Or are we witnessing the symptomatic decline of American hegemony, with US allies turning toward Washington’s rivals? W...
Can BRICS Be Anti-Imperialist With Countries Like India and Saudi Arabia? w/ Prabhat Patnaik
September 01, 2023 20:00 - 32 minutes - 22.1 MBListen to the full interview on our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/posts/full-audio-can-w-88623146 How much of a challenge to Western hegemony does the expansion of BRICS actually pose? How much of this has been brought on by the West’s own hubris? What should we make of the ideological differences among the BRICS countries? Could India and Saudi Arabia act as spoilers? Or are we witnessing the symptomatic decline of American hegemony, with US allies turning toward Washington’s rivals? W...
How Old Colonial Narratives Are Used to Denigrate Africa’s Ties with China & Russia
August 26, 2023 15:00 - 40 minutes - 28.1 MBListen to the full episode on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/posts/full-audio-how-88285425 We’re told that countries across the Global South are poor and plagued by violence not because of colonialism, imperialism, never ending Western wars, resource theft and destabilization campaigns. Rather, it’s because they’re ruled by corrupt and greedy people who seem to be innately authoritarian and backwards due to some sort of cultural deficiency that prevents respect for human rights and cause...
Russia’s Communist Party on Ukraine: ‘If We Lose This Conflict, We Will Be Destroyed’
August 20, 2023 14:00 - 34 minutes - 23.8 MBListen to the full interview on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/posts/full-audio-party-88241590 The Communist Party of the Russian Federation (KPRF) is the second largest party in Russia, yet their views are often ignored in Western media. How do they view the war in Ukraine, the nature of the Russian state under Putin, and the character of the Ukrainian state under Zelensky? What’s their position on Russia’s foreign policy more generally? How about domestic policy? Where do they stand o...
History of NATO Destruction of Global South & CIA Infiltration of Third World Textbooks
August 18, 2023 13:00 - 36 minutes - 24.8 MBListen to the full episode on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/posts/full-audio-of-of-87855875 To discuss the brutal history of NATO intervention in the Third World and CIA infiltration of education in targeted countries, Rania Khalek was joined by Essam Elkorghli, a Libyan PhD student at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, where he researches the impact of contemporary imperialism on education with a particular focus on Libya. This is just the first half of this episode. The se...
Fortress Imperialism: Border Industrial Complex Is Meant to Kill, from the U.S. to Europe
August 12, 2023 15:00 - 34 minutes - 23.9 MBBorder policy in the Global North has been crafted to intentionally cause people to die of thirst in the Arizona desert and drown in the Mediterranean sea as a form of deterrence. But why are people picking up and leaving their countries in the first place? Why are they being subjected to so much cruelty on their journey no matter who’s in charge in Europe or the U.S.? Where does the Israeli occupation of Palestine fit in? How about climate change? And how is this feeding in to the rise of t...
Will US & France Intervene in Niger? Anti-Colonial Sentiment Explodes Across West Africa, w/ Eugene Puryear
August 08, 2023 21:00 - 1 hour - 58.7 MBBreakthrough News journalist Eugene Puryear joins Rania Khalek for a special live episode of Dispatches on Tuesday August 8 at 12pm ET to discuss the latest developments in Niger following threats of military intervention by Western governments and their regional allies meant to reverse an explosion of anti-colonial sentiment across Africa’s Sahel.
East Germany Re-Examined: Why Its Legacy of Socialism & Anti-Imperialism Still Matters
August 03, 2023 15:00 - 29 minutes - 20.4 MBListen to the full interview on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/posts/full-audio-east-87132481 East Germany, or the German Democratic Republic (GDR), is remembered in the West as the antithesis to freedom and democracy. But the history and reality of the GDR was far more complex. Not only was the GDR a socialist state built on antifascist principles following the Second World War. It also practiced solidarity with other socialist states, countries and liberation movements fighting for inde...
East Germany Re-Examined: Why It’s Legacy of Socialism & Anti-Imperialism Still Matters
August 03, 2023 15:00 - 29 minutes - 20.4 MBListen to the full interview on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/posts/full-audio-east-87132481 East Germany, or the German Democratic Republic (GDR), is remembered in the West as the antithesis to freedom and democracy. But the history and reality of the GDR was far more complex. Not only was the GDR a socialist state built on antifascist principles following the Second World War. It also practiced solidarity with other socialist states, countries and liberation movements fighting for inde...
Is the US Proxy War in Ukraine Making Europe Poorer? w/ Tarik Cyril Amar
July 31, 2023 17:00 - 37 minutes - 26.1 MBListen to the entire interview on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/posts/full-audio-is-us-86956303 Western sanctions on Russia, previously Europe’s biggest natural gas supplier, has lowered European living standards in the sweltering heat while exacerbating fuel and food shortages around the world. And that’s not all — military spending has increased while social budgets have been cut. To discuss this downplayed aspect of the war in Ukraine and its horrific consequences, Rania Khalek is a...
Chinese ‘Foreign Agents’ and the New Era of McCarthyism, w/ Amanda Yee
July 21, 2023 21:00 - 35 minutes - 24.2 MBListen to the entire interview on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/posts/full-audio-and-w-86459089 The Red Scare is back. This new era of McCarthyism depends on loose and selective interpretation and enforcement of existing legal measures with some racial profiling and guilt-by-association mixed in. People are being accused of being foreign agents based on their political views. Chinese nationals have been chased out of academia. And wild and easily disproved stories about China, often so...
Anti-Palestinian Fanatics Target Professors in the US: How Rabab Abdulhadi Won
July 18, 2023 21:00 - 41 minutes - 28.2 MBListen to the full interview on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/posts/full-audio-anti-86303559 For decades anti-Palestinian fanatics have harassed and attacked professors and students who dare to speak out against Israeli apartheid, going after their reputations and livelihoods with media smears and legal assaults. Why is it so important to document and understand such attacks on academic freedom? How does it fit into the context of Zionism and imperialism? What is the role of imperial fem...
US Ruling Class United Against China But Split on How to Counter Empire’s Decline, w/ Ben Norton
July 14, 2023 19:00 - 32 minutes - 22.7 MBListen to the full interview on our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/posts/full-audio-us-on-86104940 The US is escalating a bipartisan Cold War, pumping up the military industrial complex, fueling proxy wars and gutting what’s left of the welfare state. But there is a split in the ruling class on how best to guarantee US hegemony. On one side is the far-right America First crowd led by Trump, who claim to want out of Ukraine. That’s only because they want to divert the country’s Cold War re...
France on Fire: The Killing of Nahel Marzouk & Long Shadow of Colonialism
July 10, 2023 21:00 - 32 minutes - 22.4 MBListen to the full interview on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/posts/full-audio-on-of-85896805 France is on fire after police were filmed shooting and killing unarmed 17-year-old Nahel Merzouk, a French citizen of Moroccan and Algerian descent, in the suburbs of Paris during a traffic stop. This shocking display of French state violence triggered large-scale protests, particularly amongst the country’s Muslim, African, and Arab populations, long boiling over racist and classist structures...
Terrorist or Political Prisoner? Lebanese Man Speaks Out After Release from US Prison for Alleged Hezbollah Support
July 06, 2023 18:00 - 32 minutes - 22 MBListen to the full interview on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/posts/full-audio-or-us-85690029 In 2003, Mohamad Youssef Hammoud, a Lebanese-American, was sentenced to 155 years in prison on allegations of "providing material support" to the Lebanese organization Hezbollah with funds garnered from cigarette smuggling. Characterized by prosecutors as an “enemy combatant” and “terrorist financier,” he was the first person in the United States to be charged for material support to an alleged ...
The Rise and Fall of US Dollar Supremacy & How Sanctions Backfire w/ Prabhat Patnaik
June 22, 2023 20:00 - 34 minutes - 23.9 MBAccess the entire interview on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/posts/full-audio-rise-84975377 The power of the dollar sustains U.S. imperialism. But rising multipolarity, an overuse of U.S. sanctions, the rise of alternative trading arrangements that sidestep the dollar, and a very obvious crisis of western capitalism have led to panic about a decline in dollar hegemony. What gives the dollar so much power in the first place? What would a world without dollar hegemony look like? What would...
Canada Wins Best Supporting Actor in US Imperial Order, w/ Justin Podur
June 20, 2023 17:00 - 35 minutes - 25 MBListen to the entire interview on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/posts/full-audio-wins-84859698 In popular culture, Canada is seen as the nicer version of the US, the harmless northern neighbor. Behind that shiny exterior is a country that plays a crucial supporting role in US aggression abroad and providing it with a layer of liberal respectability. Canada remains the “good cop” to the US “bad cop” in wars and coups from the Middle East to Latin America. This is no great departure for a ...
Ignoring US Demands, Gulf States Deepen Ties with China and Russia
June 13, 2023 15:00 - 52 minutes - 36 MBFull episode here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/full-audio-us-84510217 The Gulf states have been reliable partners of U.S. imperialism since their inception. But that hasn’t stopped them from deepening their ties with Russia and China, leading to tectonic shifts across the Middle East that have many DC insiders losing sleep. What’s behind these shifting alliances across the Gulf? Will they continue to oppose the new Cold War? Or are they too wedded to the U.S. to truly forge paths independ...
Iran’s Anti-Imperialism: Where It Comes From, Why It’s Not Going Away, w/ Prof. Nina Farnia
June 08, 2023 20:00 - 40 minutes - 28.1 MBWhy is Iran under constant US attack? Is it really about women’s rights and democracy? Or is it because Iran, since its revolution, has been a staunch supporter both ideologically and materially, of resistance to US imperialism across the Middle East? To discuss this and more, Rania Khalek was joined by Nina Farnia, Assistant Professor of Law at Albany Law School, a longtime activist and a scholar of Critical Race Theory, with a focus on US imperialism and its impact on domestic law. This i...
How the Israel Lobby Brought Down Jeremy Corbyn & What the Left Must Learn, w/ Asa Winstanley
June 01, 2023 20:00 - 38 minutes - 26.8 MBFull episode on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/posts/full-audio-how-w-83919972 After Jeremy Corbyn became leader of the British Labour Party, the right wing of the party joined with the Israel lobby and the Israeli state to bring down Corbyn and purge the party of leftists using false accusations of anti-semitism. The witch-hunt continued even after Corbyn’s downfall. No reporter has covered the weaponization of anti-semitism in British politics as rigorously as Asa Winstanley, associate...
How China’s Rise Has the Middle East Declaring Independence from US, w/ Ali Abunimah
May 26, 2023 20:00 - 44 minutes - 30.8 MBIt’s a new era of global power dynamics where countries sometimes have the option to say no to the U.S. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the Middle East. Almost 12 years after being kicked out of the Arab League, Syria has been welcomed back into the fold by many of the U.S.-allied countries that tried to destroy it. All this time Israel was banking on normalization with Saudi Arabia and the opposite happened, with China overseeing a Saudi peace deal with Iran. Why? What does this multi...
Why China’s Diplomatic Assertiveness Scares the U.S., w/ Tings Chak
May 23, 2023 15:00 - 35 minutes - 24.3 MBAccording to U.S. politicians, military leaders and the media, everything China does on the international stage – brokering peace deals, expanding economic initiatives, building ports — is part of an aggressive campaign to weaken the United States. While China is becoming more assertive diplomatically, is the U.S. interpretation of why accurate or is it projection and delusion? And how does it relate to China’s internationalist past? What does it mean for the future of the Global South and t...
Operation Gladio: The CIA’s Secret Nazi-Collaborating Terror Armies in Europe & Beyond
May 18, 2023 20:00 - 51 minutes - 35.1 MBSee full episode on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/posts/83205814 Collaboration between the US and fascists is a pattern that stretches back to the end of World War II and NATO’s founding, when the US and British intelligence services established secret far-right terror network armies across NATO countries made up of fascists, Nazi collaborators and actual Nazis. This is just the first half of this episode. The second half is available for Breakthrough News Members only. Become a member...
North Korea Truth & Lies: Challenging the Propaganda, w/ Ju-Hyun Park
May 10, 2023 21:00 - 48 minutes - 33.4 MBIn the U.S. we’re taught that North Korea is a horrible backwards dictatorship where every person is captive to an evil regime run by a mad man who has an inexplicable hatred of the U.S., freedom and democracy – and is always on the edge of launching a nuclear missile to destroy the world. This, we’re told, is the reason we have to isolate the country and occupy South Korea with thousands of U.S. soldiers. The purpose of such a simplistic narrative is to prevent Americans from getting curiou...
Pakistan’s Power Struggle, w/ Junaid Ahmad
May 05, 2023 21:00 - 33 minutes - 22.8 MBLast April, Pakistan’s Imran Khan was ousted as Prime Minister, which he blamed on an American-backed coup due to his non-aligned foreign policy. His removal has been followed by political instability that continues to roil the country with some of the largest protests in Pakistan’s history, both in support of him but also in opposition to the traditional ruling elites. The current government has responded by cracking down on Khan and his supporters, and preventing new elections. To help u...
Why U.S. Media & Politicians Are Smearing AMLO & Threatening To Invade Mexico
April 27, 2023 16:00 - 36 minutes - 25.2 MBSince taking office in 2018, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, or AMLO, has reasserted more state control over Mexico’s natural resources, nationalizing its lithium reserves, while vocally opposing US interference in Mexico. So it’s no surprise that the corporate media in Washington is following along with the program of labeling him a strongman, an authoritarian, and anti-democratic. while U.S. politicians like Lindsay Graham invoke drugs and violence to threaten military inter...
Inside the Saudi-Iran Peace Deal & How It Shakes Up Europe
April 21, 2023 23:00 - 32 minutes - 22.2 MBWith Saudi Arabia and Iran making peace as part of a deal brokered by China, much has been made about the absence of the U.S. and what it means for U.S. hegemony. But what about the implications for the region? What might it look like in practice? Who are the potential spoilers? And why did this happen now? Also, what does it mean for the U.S. empire's greatest global partner, Europe? To discuss this and more, Rania Khalek was joined by Adnan Tabatabai, the co-founder and CEO of the German...
China’s Saudi-Iran Peace Deal Is a Major Setback for US Empire, w/ Prof. Mohammad Marandi
April 18, 2023 14:00 - 39 minutes - 27.2 MBThe historic deal brokered by China for a Saudi-Iran rapprochement reflects not only a changing region, but a shifting world order. While the US focuses on its proxy war in Ukraine, with US officials essentially blocking meaningful peace discussion both there and in Yemen, its “strategic competitor” China now looks like the adult in the room. Its diplomatic initiatives have become a force for stability in the biggest conflict regions, from Yemen to Syria. To better understand what's going ...
EXCLUSIVE | Interview with Mexico’s Leading Presidential Contender Claudia Sheinbaum
April 15, 2023 15:00 - 28 minutes - 19.4 MBRania Khalek of Breakthrough News and Zoe Alexandra of Peoples Dispatch sat down with Dr. Claudia Sheinbaum, the head of government in Mexico City and one of the founders of Morena, the party of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador. She is a rising figure in Mexican national politics and a leading contender for the 2024 presidential elections.
Regime Change Failed But the Plot to Destroy Syria Continues
April 10, 2023 16:00 - 1 hour - 53.1 MBBefore 2011, Syria was a relatively stable country that had decent electricity, one of the best medical sectors in the region and produced much of its own food and medicine. Today Syria has collapsing infrastructure, dire food insecurity, crippling fuel shortages, severe brain drain and only has control over part of the country’s territory. Mainstream US media places all the blame on President Assad while covering up the role of US sanctions. To discuss the decades-long US war on Syria, Ra...
On the Ground In Donbas: Ukraine, Russia & ‘Unworthy Victims,’ w/ Fergie Chambers
March 28, 2023 21:00 - 1 hour - 44 MBWhen most people in the West think of the war in Ukraine, they think of February 24, 2022 when Russia launched its invasion. But for 8 years prior, there had been a war raging in the eastern part of the country that received little attention because its reality was inconvenient for mainstream Western narratives. In the Donbas region, an estimated 15,000 people had died following what many there described as a US-backed coup in 2014 that gave rise to an anti-Russia government and helped empo...
Guilty of Journalism: The Political Case Against Julian Assange | New Book by Kevin Gosztola
March 24, 2023 17:00 - 1 hour - 46.1 MBTo discuss the war on whistleblowers, the U.S. government’s prosecution of Julian Assange and how the case against him poses a threat to journalism everywhere, Rania Khalek spoke to Kevin Gosztola, managing editor of Shadowproof, co-host of the Unauthorized Disclosure podcast and author of the newly published book “Guilty of Journalism: The Political Case Against Julian Assange.” You can purchase Kevin’s book here: https://www.project-censored.org/shop/p/guilty-of-journalism-the-political-...
Foreign Fighters and the Ukraine Blowback — Lessons from Syria and Iraq
March 17, 2023 22:00 - 59 minutes - 40.8 MBWhatever happened to Ukraine’s foreign fighters? What are the parallels between Syria and Ukraine? And where does the Cold War against China fit into it? To discuss this and more, Rania Khalek was joined by investigative journalist Seth Harp, a contributing editor for Rolling Stone and author of the forthcoming book The Delta Force Murders, which will be published by Viking Press. Seth’s articles discussed in the episode: https://theintercept.com/2022/06/30/ukraine-azov-neo-nazi-foreign-...
French Military Kicked Out: Explosion of Anti-Colonial Sentiment in Africa’s Sahel, w/ Eugene Puryear
March 17, 2023 14:00 - 1 hour - 47.2 MBAfrica’s Sahel region is experiencing historic shifts as anti-colonial sentiment sweeps across the region, with the French military being kicked out of one country after another after failing to rout insurgencies fueled by their own policies. France and its allies have responded by blaming disinformation, authoritarianism, and the west’s favorite boogeyman: Russia. Meanwhile the security situation in the Sahel continues to deteriorate. To help break it all down, Breakthrough News journalist...
Challenging Anti-Iran Propaganda In the Middle East, w/ Denijal Jegic
March 07, 2023 15:00 - 58 minutes - 40.6 MBThe Middle East is drowning in anti-Iran propaganda emanating from Western, Gulf and oligarch-funded outlets that seek to turn the populations in the region against Iran and other institutions deemed to be “backed by Iran.” In Lebanon this plays out in a sectarian narrative that portrays Hezbollah as an Iranian proxy and depicts Shias as agents of an Iranian occupation of the country. This pattern has also been replicated in neighboring countries in an attempt to turn people against the regi...
Bombshell w/ Seymour Hersh: US Blowing Up Nord Stream Was ‘Act of War’
March 02, 2023 19:00 - 58 minutes - 40.5 MBAward-winning investigative journalist Seymour Hersh joined Rania Khalek on Dispatches to discuss his latest bombshell on how the Biden administration destroyed the Nord Stream pipeline using remotely triggered explosives with the help of the CIA, US Navy divers, and NATO member Norway. This means the US targeted the critical energy infrastructure of its most important European ally, a major violation of sovereignty in what essentially constitutes objectively an act of war against Germany. B...
Ukraine War, China and the Decline of US Hegemony Under Biden
February 23, 2023 17:00 - 1 hour - 42.5 MBTwo years into his presidency, Biden’s foreign policy has been defined by the war in Ukraine and a weakening American hegemony, one that also characterized Trump’s time in office. Some argue the American empire is in decline no matter which party is in control. So where will U.S. foreign policy go from here as the new Cold War era drags on? Does it even matter which party is in charge anymore? How are anxieties of a U.S. decline playing out in the media and in popular culture? And where does...
US Eyes Resources In Latin America, Escalates Against China, w/ Ben Norton
February 13, 2023 16:00 - 1 hour - 50.3 MBWith the United States hyper focused on Russia and China, it’s easy to forget that the empire is still up to its old tricks in the rest of the Global South. What does the insatiable U.S. imperialist appetite mean for the resource-rich countries of Latin America? After all, that copper, gold, zinc, silver, lead, iron, and natural gas in Peru, the lithium in Bolivia, Chile and Argentina, and the oil in Venezuela isn’t gonna steal itself. How is the Cold War with Russia and China playing out th...
NATO’s Fascist Inheritance & the Long War On the Third World, w/ Pawel Wargan
February 09, 2023 16:00 - 1 hour - 51.5 MBTo understand how this new Cold War might play out, we have to understand the foundations of the original Cold War of the 20th century. What was NATO’s role? What did it mean for the Third World back then? What does it mean for the Third World today, particularly those countries that seek an independent, sovereign path? What is the danger of rising fascist movements? And what are the lessons for anti-imperialists who live and organize in the imperial core? To discuss this and more, Rania K...
Why It’s Wrong to Blame ‘Humanity’ in the Abstract for Climate Change, w/ Justin Podur
February 03, 2023 15:00 - 1 hour - 64.1 MBIt’s widely accepted that humans are driving climate change and environmentalism has become mainstream. But what if “humanity” in the abstract isn’t to blame? Is it true that humans are inherently bad for nature? What if the real culprit is the systems we’re forced to operate under — capitalism, imperialism, colonialism— perpetrated by particular sections of humanity over others? So who, or what is to blame is really to blame for climate change? What are the limitations of the mainstream e...
Crypto Convulsions: the Highest Stage of Capitalist Speculation
January 27, 2023 21:00 - 57 minutes - 39.7 MBBitcoin, Stablecoin, Tether, Blockchain, Coinbase, Binance, Etherium, Luna, Celsius, Circle, FTX, NFTs: What’s all this crypto jargon really about? What stage of capitalism does it mean we’re in? How has digital currency been impacted by the pandemic and the war in Ukraine? What are the geopolitical implications for the US cold war with China? And what’s the significance of the downfall of Sam Bankman-Fried? Could we see an even more dramatic unraveling in the crypto world in the future, on...
Will 2023 Be the Year of Backfiring Sanctions for the Overstretched US Empire?
January 24, 2023 21:00 - 1 hour - 52 MBThe year 2022 was defined by the war in Ukraine, the expansion of NATO, and continued encirclement of China as the U.S. prepares for “great power conflict.” But the US empire is so overstretched, that sanctions have become the favorite form of warfare— to disrupt and isolate many countries at once. Could they backfire in 2023? To discuss this and more Rania Khalek was joined by Bikrum Gill, who teaches at the department of political science at Virginia Tech. Mentioned in the episode: https...
Western Media Distorts Overall Success of China’s Fight Against Covid-19, w/ Tings Chak
January 19, 2023 15:00 - 1 hour - 46.2 MBAccording to Western media, China can’t do anything right. First it was doing too little to address COVID, then it was doing too much and needed to reopen, and now it’s wrong to open up as it is. But if you look at things objectively, and take off the Western-colored glasses, is all the criticism really warranted? While the rest of the world rushed to fully reopen, it took three years to study and trace the virus, build medical infrastructure, train workers, and wait until a much less deadly...
Will US Aggression Stop Eurasian Integration or Accelerate It? w/ Vijay Prashad
January 03, 2023 16:00 - 57 minutes - 39.6 MBWhy is the US willing to risk a nuclear apocalypse to weaken Russia and China? Our leaders say it’s about protecting the international rules based order from an authoritarian axis of evil. But this is just a guise. It’s actually about maintaining US unipolar hegemony over the world, which requires preventing or at the very least delaying the integration of Europe and Asia, an integration that is logical, both economically and geographically. To discuss this and more Rania Khalek was joined...
Springtime for Fascists In Israel: Far Right & Theocrats Take Power, with Ali Abunimah
December 19, 2022 16:00 - 1 hour - 54.5 MBIt’s springtime for fascists in Israel as the secular war criminals are being replaced by an alliance of the far-right, with religious extremists and organizers of racist mob violence. The head of America’s Union for Reform Judaism called the appointment of Itamar Ben Gvir as public security minister akin to “appointing David Duke, one of the heads of the KKK, as attorney general.” To discuss this and more, Rania Khalek was joined by Ali Abunimah, director of The Electronic Intifada and auth...
Cold War Terror Against the Left: The Jakarta Method & Why It Still Matters, with Vincent Bevins
December 16, 2022 16:00 - 53 minutes - 36.5 MBThe US-dominated unipolar world has rapidly eroded, and the recent victory of Lula in Brazil provided a new lift for those struggling against imperialism in the Global South. Are imperialist powers less able to impose themselves on the Global South with past tools of invasion, coups, assassinations? To discuss the past and present tools used by the United States against popular movements and revolutionary struggles seeking self determination, Rania Khalek was joined by Vincent Bevins, au...
A Life in Struggle: Exclusive with Leila Khaled, Icon of Palestinian Resistance
December 12, 2022 16:00 - 51 minutes - 35.4 MBBT’s Rania Khalek sat down with Palestinian icon and revolutionary Leila Khaled in Beirut, Lebanon to discuss her life and participation in the Palestinian struggle for liberation.
US & Europe Want to Make Africa a Cold War Battleground Against Russia & China, w/ Mikaela Nhondo Erskog
November 30, 2022 20:00 - 43 minutes - 30.1 MBThe US and Europe have tried to make Africa a battleground in their Cold War against Russia and China. They‘ve even labeled Africa as NATO’s “Southern Neighborhood” and are using AFRICOM as a mechanism to control the continent under the guise of protecting it from malign Chinese and Russian influence. What does this mean for sovereignty and independence across Africa and how are African countries pushing back? To help break it all down Rania Khalek was joined by Mikaela Nhondo Erskog, a re...