Following the 2019 uprising that deposed longtime leader Omar Bashir, Sudan is suffering from an economic disaster, another military coup, neoliberal rot and foreign interference from countries in the region and the West. To understand what’s happening and why, Rania Khalek was joined by Magdi El Gizouli, a Sudanese academic and fellow of the Rift Valley Institute, as well as frequent commentator and writer on Sudanese affairs on his blog Still Sudan. Time Codes: 0:00 Intro 2:02 2019 uprising: W...
May 10, 2022•1 hr 24 min
When most people think of Sweden, or more broadly, the Scandinavian countries, they imagine a more egalitarian and advanced model to which we should aspire. Some assume without investigating that Sweden and the other Scandinavian countries, Denmark and Norway, have figured out how to be prosperous “socialist” countries. But this Swedish model is uglier than it might appear to be, with a brutal history and a dangerous present. To discuss the imperialism on which Scandinavian living standards are ...
May 05, 2022•1 hr 35 min
Whether or not there was a U.S.-backed coup against Pakistan’s deposed leader Imran Khan is a point of great debate. On a recent episode of Dispatches, Rania Khalek spoke with Pakistani professor Taimur Rahman, who argued that it was not a coup: https://youtu.be/nA5UCTz4oys But judging by the crowds in the street, many Pakistanis believe that there was in fact a coup and that the US played a major role. To understand why so many Pakistanis are demonstrating in support of Imran Khan, Rania Khalek...
Apr 30, 2022•1 hr 14 min
Two months into the war on Ukraine, why have Europeans allowed the US, which is of course not part of Europe, to dictate reckless policies against Russia over what are purely European issues? Is this a desperate last ditch effort to halt American and Western decline? To discuss the future of Europe and the Western-dominated order, Rania Khalek was joined by Wolfgang Streeck, a sociologist and emeritus director at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies. Listen to every episode of Ran...
Apr 28, 2022•1 hr 1 min
One year after Zionist extremists in Jerusalem provoked a defiant response from Palestinians in occupied Gaza, the same scenario is now repeating. Israelis are attacking Palestinian worshippers at Al Aqsa mosque during Ramadan, executing Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and once again bombing Gaza, but without any of the Western sympathy expressed for Ukrainian victims or condemnation against their aggressors. In fact, the very nations most zealously supporting the Ukrainains are the ones ...
Apr 23, 2022•1 hr 19 min
While the world has been distracted by the war in Ukraine, Pakistan is in the middle of massive political upheaval. Imran Khan was removed as prime minister through a parliamentary vote of no confidence, which he blamed on a US-backed coup. Was it US interference? Or was this just local Pakistani politics? To understand what happened and how Pakistani politics came to be dominated by a right-wing and military elite, Rania Khalek was joined by Taimur Rahman, a Pakistani Marxist who is Secretary G...
Apr 21, 2022•1 hr 26 min
The war in Ukraine has led to a closing of the ranks in the West, with media and politicians in lockstep united against Russia, and some self-described leftists have joined in. As with many recent conflicts the left has been riven by divisions over what is the correct position to take, with “Putinism” replacing “Assadism” as the new term used to excommunicate opponents of NATO and American intervention. To understand the history of the Western left and how wars over the last century have caused ...
Apr 11, 2022•1 hr 21 min
For those who just discovered Ukraine two months ago, the fact that Ukrainian nationalism has been dangerously intertwined with fascism might sound like Russian propaganda. But is it? How powerful is the Ukrainian far right? Are they really linked to Nazis? Why is the corporate-owned media denying this? To place this war and the Ukrainian far right in its historical context, Rania Khalek was joined by Tarik Cyril Amar, a historian from Germany, who is currently associate professor of history at ...
Apr 07, 2022•1 hr 44 min
The war in Ukraine is turning geopolitics upside down, in a global order that already seemed brittle. We have an oil shock, a financial shock, a cold war, a hot war, an ongoing global pandemic all at the same time. Now global supply chains, upon which modern human life depends, have been severed. Supplies of food and fertilizer are threatened for those most dependent on it at a time when global warming curtails our agriculture. This makes urgent once again the so-called “agrarian question,” look...
Apr 02, 2022•1 hr 19 min
Mainstream media are whipping up a frenzy against leftists who oppose US imperialism and NATO, smearing them as “Russian agents” for trying to analyze this conflict and its causes with nuance rather than emotion or jingoism. With Western media exclusively focused on Ukraine, simply reminding people that Afghanistan is being starved due to U.S. policies, that Yemen is still being bombed and besiged, and that Syria, Cuba, Iran and Venezuela are still being sanctioned leads to accusations of “whata...
Mar 29, 2022•1 hr 34 min
Many experts on Russia and Ukraine are calling for de-escalation and genuine diplomacy but are being drowned out by a unanimous chorus led by the media and a cacophony of hawkish frauds demanding more war. To break through the war fervor, Rania Khalek spoke to Anatol Lieven, a senior research fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft and author of “Ukraine and Russia: A Fraternal Rivalry.” TIME CODES 0:00 Intro 5:38 The West could have prevented this war 13:00 US policy is prolon...
Mar 24, 2022•1 hr 9 min
The fighting in Ukraine might be a European war but its consequences are global, and it may even cause changes in geopolitical balances, relations and multipolarity. How can we understand this war as anti-imperialists? What will its global economic consequences be? And what will be the result of the unprecedented sanctions imposed on Russia? To help make sense of it all, Rania Khalek was joined by Marxist economist Prahbat Patnaik, professor emeritus at JNU and author of “A Theory of Imperialism...
Mar 18, 2022•1 hr 1 min
Mainstream media coverage of the war in Ukraine has sought to erase the U.S. and NATO role in setting the stage for the conflict, the Western history of attacking Russia, and Europe’s violent and racist past and present. Joseph Massad, Professor of Modern Arab Politics and Intellectual History at Columbia University, joins Dispatches with Rania Khalek to remind us of the hypocrisy and history the West has attempted to erase as it escalates the war against Russia in Ukraine....
Mar 16, 2022•56 min
The impacts of Russia’s war in Ukraine isn’t isolated to Europe. As the US and NATO pour weapons into a Ukrainian insurgency, the risk for confrontation between nuclear-armed power is rising. Does this mark the end of unipolarity and the beginning of a multipolar world? If so, what does that mean? How will support for a Ukrainian insurgency feed into the rise of the global far right? What will be the impact of the war and sanctions on Russia, which are already causing wheat, fertilizer and gas p...
Mar 14, 2022•1 hr 23 min
BreakThrough coverage has emphasized the US and NATO role in instigating the violence in Ukraine, which is precisely what the Western media has tried to obscure in recent weeks. We've also hosted many voices from different segments of the left about the war. One of those voices joining Rania Khalek from the Russian left is Alexey Sakhnin, an anti-war activist, journalist and academic of the Soviet era.
Mar 11, 2022•21 min
It’s not for nothing that the US has been called the “United States of Amnesia.” The same leaders who invaded Iraq and killed a million people, who are starving Yemenis and Afghans, who label Palestinians "terrorists" for throwing rocks, and who took every opportunity to escalate rather than de-escalate the conflict in Ukraine since 2014, have suddenly dusted off their international law books with regard to Russia and are celebrating and promising to arm the Ukranian resistance. To dis...
Mar 02, 2022•1 hr 24 min
After weeks of sky-high tension, ambiguity and threats, the Russian military crossed into Ukraine and the country's eight year civil war became a war between two post-soviet armies. While the extent of Putin's goals in the war are unclear, Western countries have been supplying the Ukrainian military with weapons, launched a brutal economic war on Russia, and will support a NATO-backed insurgency against the Russian military. Once war starts, forces are unleashed which can’t easily be c...
Mar 01, 2022•1 hr 3 min
BT’s Rania Khalek paid a visit to the Latin American School of Medicine in Havana, also known as ELAM. Cuba’s socialist government foots the bill for students, who come from all over the world to study medicine for free. Tuition, accommodation and board are free, and they even throw in a government stipend for students to live on. The one condition? Graduates have to return to serve in low-income communities. A testament to Cuba's commitment to internationalism, ELAM is one of - if not the ...
Feb 03, 2022•15 min
Breakthrough News was on the ground in Havana, Cuba where Rania Khalek spoke with Johana Tablada, General Deputy Director of US affairs at the Cuban Foreign Ministry. They discussed the US blockade hampering the country’s development, how socialism makes Cuba’s survival possible, why Cuba has such a strong anti-imperialist foreign policy, how Cuba sees the recent left victories across Latin America, Cuba’s vaccine leadership, “Havana Syndrome,” how Cuba’s medical brigades connect to an internati...
Jan 28, 2022•1 hr 14 min
All things having to do with Russia are seen in the West through a renewed Cold War prism, with simplistic portrayals more befitting a Hollywood villain. Western media has been in a panic about an impending Russian invasion of Ukraine, while they celebrated a countrywide uprising in Kazakhstan that after a few days was put down. So what's really happening? Is it all right-wing color revolutions provoked by the West? Local anger manipulated by elites? Perhaps a bit of both? What are the loca...
Jan 13, 2022•1 hr 18 min
As Israel enters its 74th year of occupying Palestine, labeling all its critics as antisemitic, world public opinion is finally changing. But is it shifting fast enough for those being pushed off their land? What is the relationship between, and relative importance of, Western public opinion in connection with regional resistance? How should we deal with the new brand of political leaders who claim solidarity with Palestinians while campaigning but then disappoint when in office? Also, is a mult...
Jan 07, 2022•1 hr 8 min
In 2018, the U.S. unilaterally withdrew from the nuclear deal with Iran, but if you follow mainstream media you’d think Iran was responsible for the deal’s collapse. In the recent seventh round of negotiations to restore the deal, the U.S. government added new sanctions on Iran while Biden was urged to “restore Iran’s fear” with military build-ups. Meanwhile, Israel continues to threaten war. But how do Iranians see all this? Here to explain is Prof. Mohammad Marandi, an advisor to the Iranian n...
Dec 22, 2021•1 hr 10 min
The U.S. government has tried to destabilize the tiny island nation of Cuba for 60 years all as punishment for Cuba daring to have a revolution and forge a path independent of U.S. capitalism. Yet Cuba has survived, and even thrived, most recently developing its own highly effective COVID vaccine while dispatching doctors around the world. How did Cuba keep the revolution alive even as socialist projects in other Global South countries failed with the collapse of the Soviet Union? What was the r...
Dec 03, 2021•1 hr 39 min
China is imposing harsh regulations on private education, big tech, and billionaires. The new Cold Warriors in the U.S. government and media call these moves authoritarian, leftward tyranny, and bad for business. But Chinese president Xi Jinping calls it part of a “common prosperity” agenda to create a more equitable society on the road to building socialism. To help understand the Chinese point of view, Rania Khalek was joined by Tings Chak, a writer and researcher with Dongsheng News and the T...
Dec 01, 2021•1 hr 1 min
Why is the coverage of the war in Ethiopia so one-sided? What’s really happening on the ground? And how does it compare to the narrative being presented in U.S. media? Rania Khalek is joined by Jemal Countess, a photojournalist with Getty Images and Redux Pictures who was formerly based in Ethiopia and has reported from around the country since the war started. He is currently based in the United States.
Nov 23, 2021•1 hr 6 min
Lebanon has endured constant attacks and pressure from Israel, America and their allies for decades, sometimes in the form of direct military confrontation and more recently through a hybrid war involving sanctions, propaganda, violent provocations, social media, western NGOs and embassies -- all to weaken Hezbollah. To discuss all of this Rania Khalek is joined by researcher and journalist Julia Kassem, who has a masters degree from the American University of Beirut and is a contributor to the ...
Nov 19, 2021•1 hr 32 min
Why does capitalism need imperialism? What is the magnitude of colonial and imperial theft of resources from the Global South? How did global capitalism adapt after World War II and in the neoliberal era? And how is it fueling neofascist movements today? Rania Khalek was joined by renowned Marxist Economist Utsa Patnaik. She is co-author of "A Theory of Imperialism" and the more recent "Capital and Imperialism: Theory, History, and the Present," with Prabhat Patnaik....
Nov 16, 2021•1 hr 41 min
Chile is set to have its first elections following the 2019 uprising, which was provoked by growing inequality and fueled by a violent and deadly police response. But as the left has made gains, so too has the far right in Chile. Here to break it all down and discuss how it fits into the broader Latin American scene, including Peru and Argentina, is Renato Vélez, a left-wing Chilean activist and researcher currently completing a PhD in Latin American studies.
Nov 11, 2021•1 hr 31 min
When we think of Palestine we think of the struggle for liberation against occupation, settler colonialism, and brutal military oppression. What often gets left out is how this fits into neoliberal capitalism. Adopting private development and neoliberalization under Israeli occupation not only failed to promote Palestinian sovereignty but instead it led to further subjugation to israel. To delve into this topic, Rania Khalek was joined by Kareem Rabie, an assistant professor of anthropology at t...
Nov 11, 2021•49 min
November 4 is the one year anniversary of the TPLF attacks on the Ethiopian government's Northern Command base, kicking off a brutal war. The TPLF is now advancing towards Addis Ababa, prompting the government to declare a state of emergency. The U.S. government has continued to condemn Ethiopia for fighting back against the TPLF insurgency, leading many Ethiopians to believe that Washington is supporting a violent coup in their country. Hermela Aregawi is an Ethiopian-American journalist o...
Nov 06, 2021•1 hr
