Renowned investigative journalist, author and documentary film-maker John Pilger will be joining us to look back on half a century of reporting from around the world.
As the United States begins to prepare to leave Afghanistan, the message being portrayed by the media is that the Afghan National Army (ANA) is taking control and running operations.
But when foreign troops have gone home can Afghanistan depend on the ANA to keep the country from civil war?
WIth: Dawood Azami, visiting scholar and award winning broadcast journalist working for the BBC World Service in London.
With Loretta Napoleoni.
With speaker Nick Dearden
With speaker Rana Kabbani.
Speaker Dr David Nally. Today, an estimated 10 million people are facing starvation across a vast swathe of Africa including Somalia, Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda, and in some areas a child is dying every 6 minutes. Yet hunger is not a natural disaster; it is a human-induced problem that demands political solutions. Fewer than 170 years ago, a similarly terrible famine occurred within the British Isles, then an integral part of the United Kingdom and thus a constituent of the most economically advanced region in the world.
Speaker Dr Douglas Parr, Chief Scientist at Greenpeace. Europe and UK face challenges in delivering for the needs of its citizens in a secure and sustainable way. This talk will explore the challenges facing the UK as part of a European energy system and the routes that we can take to deliver on all fronts. Dr Douglas Parr is Chief Scientist and Policy Director at Greenpeace UK.
Speaker Tony Wood. The March 2012 elections in Russia seem likely to return Vladimir Putin to power for a third presidential term, despite rising levels of discontent and the ruling party’s dwindling popularity. What is the nature of the system over which Putin has presided, and how has it dealt with the challenges facing this vast multi-ethnic state in the wake of the traumas of the 1990s and in face of the global downturn since 2008? Tony Wood is Deputy Editor of the New Left Review, contributes regularly to Le Monde Diplomatique, and has written extensively about Russia.
Speaker Dr Adam Hanieh. In the wake of the uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia, international financial institutions such as the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, in partnership with the Gulf Arab States, have rushed to offer loans and investment packages to the new transitional regimes. The possible conditionalities attached to these aid packages have provoked widespread concern from the region’s political movements, and need to be seen in the context of ongoing struggles to achieve the social and economic demands that underpinned the uprisings. Dr.
