December 19 – Putin’s Show of Magnanimity; South Sudan’s Descent into Civil War; Detroit’s Bankruptcy Judge Halts Giveaway to Banks

Full Program

Part 1

We begin with the announcement by Vladimir Putin that he will release his most prominent political prisoner as well as two of the members of the punk rock group “Pussy Riot”. Nina Khrushcheva, a Professor in the Graduate Program of International Affairs at the New School joins us to discuss Putin’s apparent confidence that he can appear magnanimous having got his way in Syria, Ukraine and at home where he has eradicated all opposition and extinguished politics in Russia ahead of hosting his showcase Winter Olympic Games in Sochi.

Part 2

Then we speak with Lako Tongun, a professor of International and Intercultural Studies and Political Studies at Pitzer College. He is from South Sudan and we discuss the leadership struggle between President Salva Kiir and his former Vice President Reik Machar that threatens to break out into a civil war as army mutineers take a key town. We get an analysis of the reasons behind the fratricide in the world’s newest country and one of its poorest that has been at war with its northern neighbor and now appears poised to go to war against itself.

Part 3

Then finally we speak with Wallace Turbeville, a Senior Fellow at Demos and previously an investment banker at Goldman Sachs who has testified on financial reform issues before the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the US Senate and the House Financial Services Committee. He is the author of a new report at Demos “The Detroit Bankruptcy” and we discuss this unnecessary bankruptcy imposed on a Democratic city by a partisan Republican governor and the latest ruling by the Federal bankruptcy judge criticizing the priority of paying back Wall Street banks 82 cents on the dollars while offering police, fire and city pensioners 16 cents on the dollar.