October 28 - Mexico in Shock Over the Month-Long Disappearance of 43 Students; Turkey Allows Some Kurds to Join the Fight for Kobani; Unsolved Political Assassinations in Venezuela

Full Program

Part 1

We begin with the possibility of a break in the case of 43 missing students that has shocked Mexico and sparked nationwide protests. Mexico City-based journalist Ioan Grillo, who is the author of “El Narco: Inside Mexico’s Criminal Insurgency”, joins us to discuss the outrage gripping a country that has experienced decades of mayhem and murder perpetrated by drug gangs, and the possibility that a tip-off from members of a drug gang has led authorities to a mass grave that might relieve the anguish of parents agonized over the fate of their children who disappeared a month ago after clashing with police who were ordered by the local Mayor to intercept the students to prevent them from protesting at a speech his wife was giving. She is suspected of being the contact for the drug gang who the police handed the students over to, and she and the mayor have disappeared and are considered fugitives.  

Part 2

Then, we examine Turkey’s decision to allow Iraqi Kurdish pershmerga fighters to cross its territory to join the fight against the Islamic State who have besieged the Syrian border city of Kobani since September. Edmund Ghareeb, an internationally recognized expert on the Kurds and Iraq and author of “The Kurdish Question in Iraq” and “The Kurdish Nationalist Movement”, joins us to discuss the significance of this limited cooperation by Turkey, while at the same time Ankara continues to bar the U.S. access to the NATO base in Incirlik, Turkey, which forces U.S. aircraft engaged in the bombing of I.S. targets in order to lift the siege of Kobani, to fly longer distances and refuel by air.

Part 3

Then finally, we go to Caracas, Venezuela for an update on the October first political murder of a rising young star of the governing party, Socialist Deputy Robert Serra, who was stabbed to death along with his partner Maria Herrera. Virginia Lopez a Caracas-based journalist who covers Latin America and Venezuela for the UK Guardian, joins us to discuss what factors prompted Venezuelan President Nicholas Maduro to announce on Monday a thorough purge of the police, accusing a group in the Caracas force of  being “at the service of Colombian paramilitary mafias to kill this leader of the Venezuelan youth”.