November 16 - Russia's Growing Isolation; U.S. Strategy in Iraq Driven by Domestic Politics; Outrage Intensifies in Mexico

Full Program

Part 1

We begin with an analysis of the just-completed G-20 summit in Australia at which Vladimir Putin was the odd man out in terms of being ganged up on because of escalating Russian aggression in Ukraine, while the host, Australia’s Prime Minister Tony Abbott, was the odd man out in trying to keep global warming off the summit’s agenda while, based on racist ignorance, isolating Australia from global effort to combat Ebola as the only advanced nation refusing to allow its doctors and healthcare workers to go to west Africa. Salvatore Babones, an Associate Professor in Sociology and Social Policy at the University of Sydney, Australia, joins us from China where he is just returning from Vladivostok in Russia’s far east where he was able to assess the reactions of Russians to their growing global isolation.

Part 2

Then we speak with Iraq expert, Juan Cole, about the latest beheading by the Islamic State of an American aid worker and the surprise visit of America’s top general Martin Dempsey who met with the new Iraqi Prime Minister Abadi in Baghdad before going on to Erbil to meet with the Kurdish Prime Minister Barzani. We discuss how much domestic American politics are shaping America’s strategy in Iraq that does not appear to make any sense as the U.S. becomes the Air Force of the Iranian-backed Shia.

Part 3

Then finally we get an update on the growing outrage in Mexico over the disappearance of 43 students at the hands of a drug gang with ties to local politicians of the leftist PRD Party in Guerrero State. Tim Johnson, the Mexico City bureau chief for McClatchy Newspapers joins us to discuss how this latest atrocity in the on-going mayhem from the war on drugs in Mexico has turned into the last straw that broke the camel’s back and is now threatening the administration of President Pena Nieto as corruption scandals linked to him and his wife begin to surface.