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Background Briefing has a new home at BackgroundBriefing.org.
Please visit and bookmark the new site. You can search show archives here.
2010 Program Archive
Victoria Bruce and Karin Hayes are the authors of a brand new book we are offering up today Hostage Nation: Colombia’s Guerilla Army and the Failed War on Drugs in collaboration with Colombian Journalist Jorge Enrique Botero, the only jouranlist ever to gain access to the American hostages held captive by the FARC. Victoria Bruce is also the author of No Apparent Danger: The True Story of Volcanic Distaster at Galeras and Nevado del Ruiz. And Karin Hayes co-produced the codirected the award-winning documentary film The Kidnapping of Ingrid Betancourt. Again they are the co-aitheros of this brand new book Hostage Nation: Colombia’s Guerilla Army and the Failed War on Drugs which w are offering up for a @15 donation to the Daily Briefing at 818-985-5785
Alexander Zaitchik is a freelance journalist who spend most of 2009 on the road in America, researching and writing his first book, Common Nonsense: Glenn Beck and the Triump of Ignorance (Wiley, 2010). In 2008 he worked out of Miami and Mexico City. In 2007 he was based in Moscow, Russia, where hwas on staff at the Exile, and Enlgish-launguage newspaper with Matt Taibbi. In 2006 he was an investigative reporting fellow at the Souther Poverty Law Center, based in Montgomery, Alabama, and Washington D.C. In 2005 he was based in Delhi, India, focusing on South Asia. We are offering up Alexander’s new book Common Nonsense: Glenn Beck and the Triumph of Ignorance here today for a $125 donation to “The Daily Briefing” at 818-985-5735.
Greta Ehrlich is an American author of 13 books. A prolific traveller, her articles been published extensively in countless news magazines. She was a correspondent for NPR’s Day to Day and has reported from Kosovo, the Arctic, and Africa. She has received a multitude of awards for her works, a Bellagio Fellowship, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Whiting Award, the Harold B. Vurcell Award for distinguished prose from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Having spent the last 20 years visiting the arctic, she is the author of Empire of Ice: Encounters in a changing landscape, recipient of the 2010 Henry David Thoreau Prize, a book we are offering up today for a $125 premium.
Gustav Niebuhr is an associate professor in religion and the media at the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University. Over a 20-year career in journalism, most recently at the New York Times and, prior to that, at the Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and the Atlanta Journal/Constitution, Gustav Niebuhr has established a reputation as a leading writer about American religion. His new book is Beyond Tolerance: Searching for Interfaith Understanding in America, which has been described as a "A bracing rejoinder both to religious fanaticism and to recent books decrying religion."
Bennett Ramberg served as a policy analyst in George H W Bush's Department of State. He is the author of "Nuclear Power Plants as Weapons For The Enemy: An Unrecognized Military Peril" and is a frequent op-ed contributor to the New York Times, The LA Times and The International Herald Tribune among others. He has an article in the current issue of The New Republic, “The Nowhere Bomb: Should Israel Come out of The Nuclear Closet?”
Amir Bar-Lev is an accomplished doumentary filmmaker from Berkeley, California. Has directed a number of documentaries including Fighter and My Kid Could Paint That. Most recently he has directed a feauture documentary, The Tillman Story, narrated by Josh Brolin, which has been scheduled as a Domestic Documentary Finalist at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival and releases in theatres this Friday, August 20th.
Hasan Askari Rizvi was visiting Pakistan Studies Professor at Johns Hopkins University. He is now Professor Emeritus at Punjab University Lahore and Independent Political and Security Consultant. He is one of the leading political science scholars in Pakistan, with over 30 years of teaching and research experience at the post-graduate level. He served on the Faculty of Political Science at Punjab University from 1971 to 2001. From 1995 to 1999, he was the Quaid-i-Azam Distinguished Professor of Public Affairs, where he taught classes on South Asia. In 2002, he was also Visiting Research Scholar at the Cooperative Monitoring Centre at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, where he co-authored a paper on “Nuclear Terrorism and South Asia.” He was published numerous and articles on Pakistan’s politics, society and foreign policy, as well as over 500 newspaper articles in both English-language and Urdu-language publications.
Aaron Glantz is an independent journalist who specializes on the impact of war on those who have experienced it directly: soldiers, civilians, aid workers and journalists. Aaron reported extensively from inside Iraq from 2003 to 2005 and has covered veterans’ issues since his return to the US. His work from Iraq has been syndicated to newspapers around the world by Inter Press News Service as well as other news outlets, including The Nation, The Progressive, San Francisco Chronicle, The American Prospect, Forbes, and Democracy Now! Aaron is a founding producer of Pacifica Radio’s national newscast, Free Speech Radio News. In addition to The War Comes Home, he is author of the San Francisco Chronicle best-seller, How America Lost Iraq, and co-author of Winter Soldier Iraq and Afghanistan.
Morgan Loew is an investigative reporter with KPHO TV Channel 5, the CBS affiliate in Phoenix, Arizona. He uncovers news stories that range from consumer scams to government waste. His reporting has led to new state laws, criminal convictions, and numerous police investigations.Morgan has been reporting in Arizona for more than 15-years and has extensive contacts in federal, state and local law enforcement agencies, as well as the political and business communities. He spent six weeks undercover with white supremacists on Arizona’s southern border and has worked undercover south of the border as well. Morgan was the 2009 recipient of the regional Edward R. Murrow Award for Investigative Reporting. He sees himself as an advocate for consumers and crime victims.
Awais Khan is the President and CEO of the American Pakistan Foundation. He has a wide range of experience in the private and public sector. Most recently, he was a Partner at Ackrell Capital, an investment bank specializing in early stage investments, placements, and cross border joint ventures. Mr. Khan has professional experience in Pakistan in the areas of financial services and Government. He has most recently been focused on innovation and commercialization of clean energy technologies and is currently on the advisory board of Cleantech Jobs Fund, an economic development fund in Silicon Valley.
Dean Baker is the co-founder and co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, a progressive economic think-tank based in Washington DC. He is the author of numerous books, including Plunder and Blunder: The Rise and Fall of the Bubble Economy, The United States Since 1980, The Conservative Nanny State: How the Wealthy Use the Government to Stay Rich and Get Richer, and The Benefits of Full Employment (with Jared Bernstein). He was the editor of Getting Prices Right: The Debate Over the Consumer Price Index, a winner of a Choice Book Award as one of the year’s most outstanding books. His blog, Beat the Press, elaborates critical issues in American media.
Dr. Pamela Starr is associate director of the USC Latin America Initiative, a senior fellow at the USC Center on Public Diplomacy, and a senior lecturer in Public Diplomacy and the School of International Relations, where she focuses on the politics, economy and foreign policy of contemporary Mexico, and more broadly the politics of economic policy-making across Latin America. She spent eight years in Mexico as a professor of Latin American political economy at the Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México (ITAM), a private university in Mexico City. Dr. Starr has held research positions in Argentina and Brazil and at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, DC. Dr. Starr serves on the editorial board of Foreign Affairs en Español, is an associate of the Inter-American Dialogue, and is an active member of the Latin American Studies Association and the American Political Science Association.
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