Full Program

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Part 1

As this New Year begins we look into Wednesday’s editorials in the New York Times and the UK Guardian calling on President Obama to find a way to bring the NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden in from the cold. One of the leading investigative journalists specializing in national security issues who has published two bestsellers about the NSA “the Puzzle Palace” and “The Shadow Factory: Inside the Ultra-Secret NSA, from 9/11 to Spying on America”, James Bamford, joins us to discuss the possibility of amnesty for Edward Snowden.

Part 2

Then we be joined by the former U.S. Ambassador to Turkey James Jeffrey who has an article in The Wall Street Journal with Sonar Cagaptay “The Islamist Feud behind Turkey’s Turmoil”. We discuss the bitter estrangement between Turkey’s Prime Minister Erdogan and his former spiritual muse Fethullah Gulen, which has led to a political scandal that threatens Erdogan’s political future and has shaken the very foundation of his Justice and Development Party, the AKP.

Part 3

Then finally we get an update on the bombings is the south of Russia four hundred miles from the site of the upcoming Winter Olympics that has prompted Russian President Putin to vow that he “will fiercely and consistently continue the fight against terrorists until their complete annihilation”. A leading expert on Russia’s internal threats, Gordon Hahn, the author of “Russia’s Islamic Threat”, joins us to discuss whether possible terrorist threats to the Sochi Olympic Games can be eliminated by Putin’s use of brute force which so far has not entirely worked.