Skip to main content

International Affairs

Filter by

Select Air Date

to

Select Segment Types

Segment Types

766 Segments

Sort:

Newest

17:00

Two Dissident Writers in Exile Because of the Yugoslav War

Two winners of the P.E.N./Freedom to Write Awards: Serbian dissident writer Svetlana Slapsak and Bosnian writer Zoran Mutic. Both fled Sarajevo and Belgrade respectively to avoid repercussions because of their outspokenness and are living in exile in Slovenia. Mutic is of Serb/Muslim background and is a translator who translated Rushdie's "Midnight Children," into Serbian. Slapsak wrote the widely acclaimed essay, "When Words Kill." She is president of the Committee for the Liberty of Expression.

18:09

Novelist Amitav Ghosh on the Political Landscape of India

Ghosh was born in Calcutta and studied in India, Britian, and Egypt. He has a new novel, "In An Antique Land," which tells the story of two Indians in Egypt: a 12th century slave who Ghosh had read about, and Ghosh himself. He'll talk with Terry about the current violence in India between Muslims and Hindus.

Interview
44:14

A German Soldier Documents the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising

Today is the 50th Anniversary of the beginning of the uprising in the Warsaw Ghetto. Terry talks with Rafael Scharf. He's compiled a new book of photographs, "In The Warsaw Ghetto Summer 1940." The photographs were taken one summer day in 1941 by German soldier and have never been published before. Scharf was born in Poland, but left the country shortly before World War II. He is one of the founders of "The Jewish Quarterly," a London literary and political magazine. Many of his relatives were killed during the Holocaust.

Interview
51:59

Award Winning Journalist Tom Gjelten on Covering the Siege of Sarajevo

Foreign Correspondent for NPR, Tom Gjelten He's been reporting from Bosnia. Terry will talk with him about what it's been like to cover the war in the former Yugoslavia. Gjelten just won the prestigious George Polk Award for his piece, "Massacre on the Mountain," about a massacre of 200 Bosnian Muslim men. Gjelten also reported on the Gulf War and on the conflicts in Central America.

Interview
22:08

The Governmental Standoff in the Soviet Union

Boris Yeltsin may be forced out of office tomorrow when the Congress of People's Deputies meets in a special session. William Taubman, a political science professor at Amherst College, was in Russia this January, and has visited the beleaguered country five times in the last 18 months. He talks about the current chaotic state of Russian politics.

Interview
15:22

Author Olga Carlisle on Literature's Place in Contemporary Russia

Carlisle is the granddaughter of renowned Russian writer Leonid Andreyev. She grew up in Paris, but travelled to Russia in the 1960s, where she befriended that country's most prominent writers. For 20 years she was exiled from Russia because of her friendship with Alexander Solzhenitsyn, whose work she published in the west. She returned to her native country in 1989 to find it vastly changed. Her new memoir is "Under A New Sky: A Reunion with Russia."

14:40

What the United States Knew About Salvadoran Human Rights Abuses

Thomas Blanton, of the National Security Archive, a group that declassifies government documents, using the Freedom of Information Act. Recently, they accessed documents indicating that the Reagan administration was aware of human rights abuses in El Salvador in the 1980s. During that time, the administration was required to report to Congress about conditions in El Salvador, with the understanding that if the Salvadorian military did not improve it's human rights record, the U.S. would no longer send aid.

Interview
15:58

Reporting on American Intervention Around the World

Journalist Ray Bonner lived in Africa from 1988 until January of this year. He has a new article in "Mother Jones" about why the U.S. sent Marines into Somalia. He questions our role as the world's "missionary." Bonner also reported from Central America. Just recently he was exonerated for reporting on a massacre in El Salvador. Officials denied the event, but archeologists have since uncovered a mass grave.

Interview
22:31

A Journalist Calls Attention to the Somali Crisis

New York Times journalist Jane Perlez has been covering Africa since 1988 and has been credited with recognizing stories before the rest of the media. She was reporting on the trouble in Somalia, and the threat of famine a year ago, long before it became the focus of world attention.

Interview
15:58

Uncertainty in Heisenberg's Role in Germany's Atomic Bomb Program

Investigative journalist Tom Powers has written a new book about the German attempt to get an atomic bomb, the threat that terrified American scientists and military during World War II. The book is "Heisenberg's War." At the center of the story is German physicist and Nobel laureate Werner Heisenberg. While other preeminent scientists left Germany with the rise of the Reich, Heinsenberg chose to stay to defend what was left of "good science." The program weapons program failed.

14:42

International Law and Its Impact on War Crimes

Journalist, professor, and historian Christopher Simpson teaches at American University in Washington, D.C. Last month the U.N. Security Council voted to create a new international tribunal to try those accused of war crimes in the Balkan conflict. Simpson has written a new book about the use of mass murder as an instrument of state power, beginning with World War I, called "The Splendid Blond Beast." Simpson shows how those who commit such crimes are rarely punished, like high-ranking SS killers from World War II.

22:36

A Journalist on Anticipating the Balkan Crisis

Journalist Robert Kaplan has been a foreign correspondent for "The Atlantic," and "The New Republic." In the 1980s and early 1990s, he was the first American writer to warn of the coming crisis in the Balkans. His latest book, "Balkan Ghosts: A Journey Through History," is a political travel book about his journeys through southern Austria and Croatia, Old Serbia and Albania, Macedonia, Romania, Bulgaria, and Greece.

Interview
43:25

A War Surgeon on Practicing Medicine While Under Attack

One of the most respected war surgeons, Dr. Chris Giannou. He was director of surgical operations in Somalia with the International Committee for the Red Cross from February '92 until January '93. He helped set up field hospitals, and taught and performed war surgery. Before that, Giannou spent over two years in a Palestinian Refugee Camp, which was under constant siege. Giannou wrote a book about it, called "Besieged: A Doctor's Story of Life and Death in Beirut."

Did you know you can create a shareable playlist?

Advertisement

There are more than 22,000 Fresh Air segments.

Let us help you find exactly what you want to hear.
Just play me something
Your Queue

Would you like to make a playlist based on your queue?

Generate & Share View/Edit Your Queue