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This week on Talk World Radio, we're talking with Alfred de Zayas, author of Building a Just World Order. He is former UN Independent Expert on international order (2012-18), senior lawyer with the UN Office of High Commissioner for Human Rights, Secretary of the UN Human Rights Committee and Chief of the Petitions Department.

This week on Talk World Radio, we're talking about Western Sahara and a book -- now out in an updated second edition -- called Western Sahara: War, Nationalism, and Conflict Irresolution by Stephen Zunes and Jacob Mundy. Our guest, Stephen Zunes is professor of politics and international studies at the University of San Francisco. His books include Tinderbox: U.S. Middle East Policy and the Roots of Terrorism.

This week on Talk World Radio we're talking about Smedley Butler with the author of a terrific new biography called Gangsters of Capitalism: Smedley Butler, the Marines, and the Making and Breaking of America's Empire. The author, Jonathan Katz, based here in Charlottesville, Virginia, as most of the coolest people are, received the James Foley/Medill Medal for Courage in Journalism for reporting from Haiti. His first book, widely praised, was The Big Truck That Went By. You can find him at https://jonathanmkatz.com For more on the topic of World War II try Leaving World War II Behind.

This week on Talk World Radio we're talking about debt, including student debt. Our guest Braxton Brewington is a spokesperson and organizer for The Debt Collective. See https://debtcollective.org The Debt Collective is the nation's first debtors union fighting for debt abolition and a transformation to our economy. Braxton is a North Carolina native and graduate from North Carolina A&T State University.

This week on Talk World Radio, we're talking about the saga of Julian Assange with Richard Hillgrove who was hired by Assange in 2018 to lobby British MPs for his release, and worked for him until September 2020. You can find Richard Hillgrove at https://6hillgrovepr.com

This week on Talk World Radio we're discussing nuclear weapons and war with Ken Mayers from Veterans For Peace, which has -- in anticipation of the Biden administration's nuclear posture review -- released its own nuclear posture review. See https://veteransforpeace.org About Ken Mayers: The Marine Corps paid Ken’s way through Princeton as an NROTC scholarship holder. He graduated with a degree in Electrical Engineering in 1958 and accepted a commission as a regular Marine Corps Officer, intending to make the service his career. However, his experience as an instrument of US foreign policy drove him out of the Corps at the end of 1966 when he returned to graduate studies at UC Berkeley, earning a Ph.D. in so-called Political Science. In 1986 Ken was recruited into Veterans for Peace by then President John Barr, another former career Marine Corps Officer. In July 2002, Ken co-founded the Santa Fe Chapter of VFP. Ken was a member of the national VFP Board of Directors from 2004 through 2009 and national treasurer from 2005 through 2009. He was again elected to the Board in 2020.

This week on Talk World Radio we're talking about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., media, activism, and related topics with Jared A. Ball, who is a Professor of Communication and Africana Studies at Morgan State University in Baltimore, Maryland, and author of The Myth and Propaganda of Black Buying Power. Ball is also host of the podcast “iMiXWHATiLiKE!”, co-founder of Black Power Media which can be found at BlackPowerMedia.org, and his decades of journalism, media, writing, and political work can be found at http://imixwhatilike.org

This week on Talk World Radio, we're talking about the difficulty the U.S. government has in ceasing to threaten war on Iran or even committing to uphold future commitments. Our guest, Robert Fantina, is a Member of the Board of Directors of World BEYOND War. He is based in Canada. Bob is an activist and journalist, working for peace and social justice. He writes extensively about the oppression of the Palestinians by apartheid Israel. He is the author of several books, including Empire, Racism and Genocide: A History of U.S. Foreign Policy. His writing appears regularly on Counterpunch, MintPressNews, and several other sites. Originally from the U.S., Bob Fantina moved to Canada following the 2004 U.S. presidential election, and now resides in Kitchener, Ontario.

This week on Talk World Radio we're talking about peace activism in 2021 and looking ahead to 2022. Our guest Greta Zarro is Organizing Director for World BEYOND War, where I'm Executive Director. Greta previously worked as New York Organizer for Food & Water Watch. There, she campaigned on issues related to fracking, genetically engineered foods, climate change, and the corporate control of our common resources. Greta and her partner run Unadilla Community Farm, a non-profit organic farm and permaculture education center in Upstate New York.

This week on Talk World Radio, we're discussing the state of war and peace in the world with peace activist Kathy Kelly. Kathy's efforts to end wars have led her to living in war zones and prisons over the past 35 years. In 2009 and 2010, Kathy was part of two Voices for Creative Nonviolence delegations which visited Pakistan to learn more about the consequences of U.S. drone attacks. From 2010 - 2019, the group organized dozens of delegations to visit Afghanistan, where they continued learning about casualties of U.S. drone attacks. Voices also helped organize protests at U.S. military bases operating weaponized drone attacks. She is now a co-coordinator of the Ban Killer Drones campaign and serves on the Advisory Board for World BEYOND War.

This week on Talk World Radio: We're all going to die. Our guest, Helen Caldicott, is founder and president emeritus of Physicians for Social Responsibility, founder of Women’s Action for Nuclear Disarmament, Co-Leader of the 1980 Nuclear Freeze Voter Initiative Campaign, founder of the Nuclear Policy Research Institute (now called Beyond Nuclear), founder of the Helen Caldicott Foundation, and initiator of the movement against French atmospheric tests in Australia and New Zealand. Her website is at http://HelenCaldicott.com She is also a member of the Advisory Board of World BEYOND War and will be hosting an online book club with her book Sleepwalking to Armageddon that you can sign up for at http://worldbeyondwar.org/bookclubs

This week on Talk World Radio, the sneaky and sleazy bipartisan privatizing of Medicare. Our guest, Kay Tillow, is chair of Kentuckians for Single Payer Health Care and Coordinator of Unions for Single Payer Health Care. She is a retired union organizer who has worked for decades with nurses and other hospital workers.

Alfred W. McCoy is the author of a tremendous new book called To Govern the Globe: World Orders and Catastrophic Change. He also holds the Harrington Chair in History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. After earning his Ph.D. in Southeast Asian history at Yale in 1977, his writing has focused on Philippine political history, the history of modern empires, and the covert netherworld of illicit drugs, syndicate crime, and state security. His first book, The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia (1972), sparked controversy over the CIA’s attempt to block its publication. His book A Question of Torture: CIA Interrogation, From the Cold War to the War on Terror (2006) provided the historical dimension for the Oscar-winning documentary feature, Taxi to the Darkside.

This week on Talk World Radio, the U.S. colony of Guam. Our guest, Chris Gelardi is a New York City-based journalist. His work appears in The Nation, The Intercept, and The Appeal, among other publications. His recent article in The Nation is called "Guam: Resisting Empire at the 'Tip of the Spear'."

This week on Talk World Radio, Is Wall Street Taking Over Ownership of Nature? Our guest Randall Wray is a professor of economics at Bard College. His current research focuses on providing a critique of orthodox monetary theory and policy, and the development of an alternative approach. He also publishes extensively in the areas of full employment policy and, more generally, fiscal policy. Wray’s most recent book is A Great Leap Forward: Heterodox Economic Policy for the 21st Century.

This week on Talk World Radio, we're going to hold a bit of a respectful and civil debate. I'm going to take the position that we should be focused on preventing wars and defunding militaries even at the expense of working to reform wars. My guest, Leonard Rubenstein's position includes support for reforming war to protect healthcare workers and patients. Rubenstein is the author of Perilous Medicine: The Struggle to Protect Health Care from the Violence of War. He is professor and director of the Program on Human Rights and Health in Conflict at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. In 2011, he founded and now chairs the Safeguarding Health in Conflict Coalition, a group of 40 humanitarian, human rights, health provider organizations working at the national and global levels that seeks to reduce attacks on and interference with health workers, patients, facilities and transports. Leonard Rubenstein was previously president of Physicians for Human Rights and is a recognized global expert on violence against health care.

Stuart Parkinson is Executive Director of Scientists for Global Responsibility. He has been an expert reviewer for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and provided advice to UK negotiators to the UN climate change convention. He then spent a year working for Friends of The Earth, co-ordinating research and policy work highlighting the link between environmental problems and social injustice. His reports include The environmental impacts of the UK military sector; and Under the radar: the carbon footprint of Europe's military sectors. He is also co-author of a book on the Kyoto Protocol, and an editor of the Responsible Science journal. Stuart Parkinson will be speaking at an event in Glasgow, Scotland, on November 4, presenting a petition to the COP26 conference demanding that militaries be included in climate agreements. You can sign that petition at http://cop26.info

Daniel Ellsberg is a former U.S. military analyst employed by the RAND Corporation who precipitated a national uproar in 1971 when he released the Pentagon Papers, the U.S. military’s account of activities during the Vietnam War, to The New York Times. Ellsberg has continued as a political activist, giving lecture tours and speaking out about current events, and as an author of critically important books, and as a guest on this program and many others. Dan Ellsberg has recently published with Norman Solomon an article in The Nation magazine titled "To Avoid Armageddon, Don't Modernize Missiles—Eliminate Them." See: https://www.thenation.com/article/world/eliminate-nuclear-missiles

Margaret Kimberley is a co-founder and Executive Editor and Senior Columnist for Black Agenda Report, a recipient of the Serena Shim Award for Uncompromising Integrity in Journalism, a board member of Consortium News, and a recipient of a 2021 Women and Media Award from the Women's Institute for Freedom of the Press. Ms. Kimberley is author of the book “Prejudential: Black America and the Presidents,” which we discussed with her last year. She is also a contributor to the anthologies “In Defense of Julian Assange,” “Capitalism on a Ventilator: the Impact of COVID-19 on China and the U.S.,” and “Killing Trayvons: An Anthology of American Violence.” Her activism includes leadership positions in the United National Antiwar Coalition, the Black Alliance for Peace, and the Board of Directors of the U.S. Peace Memorial Foundation.

This week on Talk World Radio: Stand on Guard for Whom? — A People’s History of the Canadian Military. That's the title of the new book, his twelfth, from our guest Yves Engler. His website is YvesEngler.com