April 10 - Why Russians Do Not Believe Putin is Corrupt; The Pope's Call for Love to Prevail Over Judgement; Greece as the Holding Pen for Desperate Refugees

Full Program

Part 1

We begin with the fallout from the publication of the “Panama papers” in Russia by the only independent newspaper that the Kremlin does not control, Novaya Gazeta, and speak with Dr. Pavel Felgenhauer, a defense analyst and regular commentator on Russian domestic and foreign policy with Novaya Gazeta, which the Kremlin is threatening to shut down. We discuss why the Russian people support Putin and do not consider him corrupt even though his best friend, a humble cellist, has $2 billion stashed offshore in Panama added to which are the revelations in the Panama papers that the wife of Putin’s spokesman Dimitri Peskov, registered an offshore shell company in the British Virgin Islands.

Part 2

Then we speak with a former priest, civil rights worker, antiwar activist and community organizer, James Carroll,11 a Distinguished Writer in Residence at New York University and author of a number of best-sellers the latest of which is “Christ Actually: The Son of God for the Secular Age”. We discuss his latest article at The New Yorker ‘The New Morality of Pope Francis” and Pope Francis’ latest apostolic exhortation “The Joy of Love” that is more of a call for love to prevail over judgement than a change in the Catholic church’s rules, many of which the laity ignore, as it welcomes divorced couples back while turning no one away. 

Part 3

Then finally we get an update on how the new rules on returning refugees agreed to by the E.U. and Turkey are turning Greece into a holding pen for asylum seekers who are becoming increasingly desperate as they face deportation back to Turkey. Daryl Grisgraber, who heads Refugees International research and advocacy related to the Middle East and North Africa dealing mainly with the Syrian displacement crisis, joins us to discuss the human cost of the E.U. Turkey deal and how the lack of an overall European refugee policy poses a greater danger to the E.U. itself.