May 7 – Nigeria’s Corrupt Elite Exposed; A Witness to the Massacres in South Sudan; The Brain’s Amygdala and Conservative Politics

Full Program

Part 1

We begin with the escalating violence by the brazen insurgent Islamist group Boko Haram in Nigeria who kidnapped up to 300 schoolgirls and have now massacred villagers as they flocked to a town market. John Campbell, a former U.S. Ambassador to Nigeria and author of “Nigeria: Dancing on the Brink”, joins us to discuss growing protest across Nigeria and whether the offer of a $300,000 reward will help find and rescue the schoolgirls who were kidnapped more than three weeks ago.

Part 2

Then we discuss sanctions imposed on the head of South Sudan’s presidential guard force and the military leader of the rebel forces responsible for what Secretary of State Kerry calls “unthinkable violence” that has killed thousands and displaced more than a million people in the world’s newest country. Author, filmmaker and journalist Robert Young Pelton joins us to discuss the chances that the peace talks between South Sudan’s president and the rebel leader scheduled for Friday in Ethiopia will end the tribal-based carnage and the violence he witnessed that has documented in this month’s issue of the newsmagazine VICE and in a 40 minute documentary that goes up on Monday at VICE.com.

Part 3

Then finally we speak with Stephan Schwartz, a Senior Fellow at the Samueli Institute and the editor of the daily web publication Schwartzreport.net. We discuss his latest article at Explore “From One to the Many: The Social Implications of Nonlocal Perception” and examine whether it is possible a mass of people having an individual but linked experience could have an effect when a great event such as the threat to planet from global warming synchronizes the feelings of millions of people to achieve what facts and logic cannot.