April 20 - China's $46 Billion Silk Road to Pakistan; Republicans Slow-Walk Nominees as Payback; Greece and the IMF on a Collision Course

Full Program

Part 1

We begin with China’s President Xi Jinping’s $46 billion investment in Pakistan to build a new Silk Road known as the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, a network of roads, railway and pipelines between China and the Pakistani port of Gwadar on the Indian Ocean. Political and strategic analyst Shuja Nawaz, the Director of the South Asia Center at the Atlantic Council and author of “Crossed Swords: Pakistan, its Army, and the Wars Within” joins us to discuss Monday’s extravagant summit in Islamabad where these ambitious plans were announced and possible impediments it faces from restive Uighurs in China’s far-Western provinces and a separatist insurgency in Baluchistan where the new Silk Road will meet the sea.  

Part 2

Then following an admission by Senator McCain, we examine the payback Senate Republicans are inflicting on the Democrats by slow-walking their nominees in retaliation for the so-called nuclear option used in the last Congress to overcome a bottleneck of blocked appointments held up by Republican filibusters. A 21 year veteran of the U.S. Senate, Jim Manley, who was senior adviser to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, joins us to discuss how this infantile behavior has ground the government to a halt.

Part 3

Then finally we assess the just-concluded IMF spring meeting in Washington at which the renewed possibility of Greece leaving the Eurozone got most of the attention. Dominico Lombardi, the Director of the Global Economy Project at the Center for International Governance Innovation joins us to discuss Greece as well as other global financial concerns about falling oil prices and the rising dollar.