April 20 - Obama's "Pivot" to Asia as he Heads to Japan, South Korea, Malaysia and the Philippines This Week; The Shaky Truce in Ukraine; A Turnaround with the Detroit Bankruptcy

Full Program

Part 1

We begin with an analysis of the state of Obama’s foreign policy “pivot” towards Asia on the eve of his eight day trip starting on Tuesday to Japan, South Korea, Malaysia and the Philippines. Steve Clemons, the Washington editor-at-large for The Atlantic and editor-in-chief of Atlantic LIVE who co-foundered with Chalmers Johnson the Japan Policy Research Institute, joins us to discuss what appears to the Chinese to be a policy of containing them, and the failed “reset” of relations with Russia now that Obama seems to have written off Putin as we head in the direction of a new Cold War with a containment policy to isolate and make Russia a pariah state.

Part 2

Then we speak with a leading international expert on contemporary Ukraine, Taras Kuzio who is a fellow with the Center for Transatlantic Relations at the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University. We look into the shaky truce between armed separatists in Eastern Ukraine and a weak, inept government in Kyiv trying to exert authority over restive provinces thoroughly infiltrated by Russian intelligence and paramilitary forces who appear to have staged a shooting at a checkpoint, given the speed with which the Russian TV network controlled by Putin’s close friend Dimitry Kislyov showed up at the scene and stoked outrage across the Russian media. 

Part 3

Then finally, we discuss the Detroit bankruptcy and the change of fortune for the city’s pensioners, who previously were going to get pennies on the dollar while the banks who entangled Detroit in risky financial deals that blew up with the 2008 Wall Street crash, were about to be made largely whole. A former investment banker at Goldman Sachs Wallace Turbeville, now a Senior Fellow at Demos and author of their report “The Detroit Bankruptcy”, joins us to discuss this turn-around and what is behind it.