December 18 – Anger and Disgust in Hollywood at Sony’s Capitulation; North Korea’s Attack on a Japanese Company May End Up Helping Sony’s Rival Sumsung; An Update From Havana on Cuban’s Reaction to Normalization

Full Program

Part 1

We begin with the backlash in Hollywood against the sellout by Sony and the major American theater owners who have bowed to terrorist threats from North Korea and have refused to show the Seth Rogen/James Franco comedy “The Interview”. Jonathan Handel, who practices transactional entertainment and technology law at the University of California Gould School of Law and is a contributing editor to The Hollywood Reporter, joins us to discuss anger and disgust in the movie-making community responsible for producing one of America’s most successful global export products, motion picture and television entertainment.

Part 2

Then we look into North Korea’s provocative actions that coincide with a 116 to 20 vote in the U.N. General Assembly referring North Korea to the International Criminal Court to face charges of crimes against humanity. Bruce Cumings, a Professor of History at the University of Chicago and author of “Korea’s Place in the Sun” and “The Origins of the Korean War” joins us to discuss the extent to which Sony was attacked because it is a Japanese company and that ironically the devastating and perhaps crippling blow that Sony has taken will end up helping its South Korean rival Samsung.

Part 3

Then finally we go to Havana, Cuba for an update on the Cuban reaction to the historic agreement between President Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro to begin normalization after an almost sixty year-long anachronistic and counterproductive Cold War relationship between the giant of the Western hemisphere and its tiny island neighbor. Marc Frank, a freelance journalist based in Cuba who works for Thompson Reuters and the Financial Times and is the author of “Cuban Revelations: Behind the Scenes in Havana”, joins us to discuss why Cuba made the deal and who was swapped in the prisoner exchange.