Global Connections Television Podcast

John Feffer, author of Splinterlands and current director of Foreign Policy in Focus at the Institute for Policy Studies, summarizes how Donald Trump pursued illiberal internationalism versus liberal internationalism of Joe Biden.  Trump was semi-isolationist, cavorted with authoritarian leaders, and wanted to militarize the border between the US and Mexico.  Biden’s emphasis was to engage the US...

Dr. Augusto Lopez-Claros, Executive Director of the Global Governance Forum , highlights his recent book,, “ Global Governance and the Emergence of Global Institutions for the 21st Century.” Global institutions, such as the United Nations, confront the world’s major problems, such as climate change, Israeli-Hamas War, Russian invasion of Ukraine, attacks on democracies, and nuclear proliferation....

David Betz is Professor of War in the Modern World in the Department of War Studies, King’s College London, and is a Senior Fellow of the Foreign Policy Research Centre. His most recent book is “The Guarded Age: Fortification in the 21st Century.”  A fortification can be defined as a piece of militarized architecture that focuses an enemy into doing something they normally would not do. Major exam...

Dr. Robert Farley has taught security and diplomacy courses at the Patterson School of Diplomacy and International Commerce at the University of Kentucky since 2005. Dr. Farley is the author of Grounded: The Case for Abolishing the United States Air Force   and Patents for Power: Intellectual Property Law and the Diffusion of Military Technology .     The Ukraine and Gaza conflicts are two of most...

Kris Kimel is the Founder of Humanity in Deep Space, an initiative exploring the challenges and hard problems facing humans as we transition to deep spacefaring species. He is the Co-founder of the commercial space company Space Tango.  His major focus is how humans can do deep space exploration physically, safely, and ethically. Legal, ethical and physiological concerns are some of the most chall...

Ward Wilson, founder and executive director of RealistRevolt, is widely acknowledged as one of the leading sources of innovative pragmatic arguments against nuclear weapons.  The title of his recent book is “ It Is Possible: A Future Without Nuclear Weapons .”  Nuclear weapons, of which there are about 13,000, are some of the most devastating threats on Earth.  The nine nuclear countries are: the...

Yasmine Sherif is Director of the Education Cannot Wait (ECW) Program, which is the global fund for education in emergencies and protracted crises. Yasmine Sherif is a lawyer specialized in International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights Law, plus she has over 30 years of experience with the United Nations and international NGOs. ECW’s mission is to generate greater shared political, operational,...

Rolf Schwarz has served as a political adviser for the Middle East and Africa at NATO Headquarters and as a professor at the NATO Defense College. He is a senior adviser at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Mr. Schwarz holds a Ph. D. in International Relations from the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, University of Geneva He is the author of sev...

Ken Heydon is a former Australian government trade official and senior member of the OECD Secretariat and a Visiting Fellow at the London School of Economics. His latest book is “The Trade Weapon: How Weaponizing Trade Threatens Growth, Public Health and the Climate Transition”.  His earlier works include “The Rise of Bilateralism” and “The Ashgate Research Companion to International Trade Policy....

Felix Dodds is Director, Multilateral Affairs at Rob and Melani Walton Sustainability Solutions Service at Arizona State University . He is Adjunct Professor at the Water Institute University of North Carolina and Associate Fellow, Tellus Institute. His Latest book is “ Heroes in Environmental Diplomacy: Profiles in Courage .”  Mr. Dodds recently attended the United Nations COP28 conference in Dub...

Harlan Russell Green, a former Peace Corps Volunteer in Turkey, is the 2023 Winner of the Peace Corps Writers’ Publisher’s Award for his latest book on “Building Community: Answering Kennedy’s Call.”  Mr. Green is a Rotarian, retired Mortgage Banker, and Editor/Publisher of Popular Economics Weekly, a financial wire service he began in 2000. The US Peace Corps put him on an international trajector...

Dr. John Casey is a professor in the Marxe School of Public and International Affairs at Baruch College, City University of New York (CUNY).  Dr. Casey has been an active practitioner, educator and researcher in the public nonprofit sector in Australia, Spain and the USA for over 20 years.   His new book,  “ The Nonprofit World: Civil Society and the Rise of the Nonprofit Sector,”  describes the d...

Michael Cairo, Professor of Political Science and Program Director of International Affairs at Transylvania University’s, most recent book is  “ American Presidents and Israeli Settlements since 1967 .” Events such as Bush illegally invading Iraq in 2003, Trump giving Israel carte blanche and withdrawing from the Iran Nuclear Deal, and Biden ignoring the problem until October 7 contributed to the...

Xiao Yin Zhao is Executive Director of the World Affairs Council (WAC) of Kentucky and Southern Indiana.  The Council is a 501 c 3 organization that is part of a network of 90 WACs, all of which are located in the US. In addition to international exchange programs, Xiao Yin has overseen dozens of programs and events that brought top diplomats, experts and authors to the Kentucky-Indiana region, pr...

  Mark D. Walker, a Returned U.S. Peace Corps Volunteer from Guatemala, is an award-winning writer and President of Million Mile Walker. His new book is “The Guatemala Reader: Extraordinary Lives & Amazing Stories”. In the book are graphs comparing Guatemala from 1970 to now, a map and a section on “How Can I Make a Difference,” and how local NGOs made a difference in Guatemala.  Prior to that...

Dr. Ivana Nikolić Hughes, President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, is a senior lecturer in Chemistry at Columbia University, as well as being a member of the Scientific Advisory Group to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW).   Nine nuclear weapon states possess nearly 13,000 nukes in the world.  If there were a nuclear exchange, over 5 billion people would die from starvat...

 John Cavanagh, former director of the Institute for Policy Studies, is the co-author of 12 books and numerous articles on a wide range of social and economic issues. His newest book is “ The Water Defenders: How Ordinary People Saved a Country from Corporate Greed .  He just returned from a factfinding trip to El Salvador whereupon he identifies how El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele reduced th...

  Dr. Antonello Provenzale, Director of the Institute of Geosciences and Earth Resources at the National Research Council of Italy, discusses his recent book “ History of Climate Change: From the Earth's Origins to the Anthropocene .”   Climate change is the number one challenge for the world. The rise in temperature of the last fifty years has been extremely fast, making it difficult for the...

Dr. Gilles Guiheux, author, historian and sociologist at the Université Paris Cité, highlights his   book “ Contemporary China: 1949 to the Present .”   He posits that China’s combining integration into the capitalist world economy with authoritarian political practice may be sustainable.  Some political observers doubted this delicate juggling act could succeed. In 1949, the stake for Mao was to...

Joe Lurie has spent most of his adult life interacting and engaging with other cultures and promoting cross-cultural understanding. As a young man, he served in the US Peace Corps in Kenya, the beginning of his life of “intercultural encounters.” For 20 years, Lurie was the executive director of the University of California’s International House whose mission is to “foster intercultural respect an...

Dr. Bernie Strenecky presently serves as the Scholar in Residence at Western Kentucky University in Bowling Green KY, USA. He is a member of the diplomatic corps of the country of Barbados, an active member of the Prospect Goshen Rotary Club, a member of the board of the United Nations Association-Kentucky Division, and he was integral in developing the Play Ball Puerto Rico (PBPR) project. Bernie...

Steve Schlesinger is a Fellow at the Century Foundation in New York City. Mr. Schlesinger authored "Act of Creation: Founding of the United Nations," And he is an expert on the UN and international issues. He offers an update on the 78th Session of the UN. The UN has changed dramatically since its creation in 1945, especially in aid to refugees, economic development, climate change, cult...

Dr. Jean Krasno is on the faculty of the Department of Political Science at the City College of New York and is a lecturer at Columbia University.  She teaches courses on the United Nations, peacekeeping, international law, and international organizations at City College and at Columbia University. Her most recent book is titled “United Nations: Policy and Practice.”  The UN is a rapidly changing...

Judge Thomas G. Moukawsher is a Connecticut complex litigation judge and a former lawyer, legislator, and lobbyist. He is the author of “ The Common Flaw: Needless Complexity in the Courts and 50 Ways to Reduce it.”   Some recommendations to improve the judicial system are to streamline trials, deliver prompt decisions, accept fewer motions and appeals, control evidence gathering process (discover...

Hussein Solomon, Senior Professor in the Centre for Gender and Africa Studies at the University of the Free State in Bloemfontein, South Africa and co-author of “African Security in the Anthropocene,” depicts how humans have created more dangerous situations through the use of fossil fuels that are accelerating climate change, squabbling over natural resources, hunger and terrorism.   Africa, whic...