The Game of Thrones politics of Kurdistan is fascinating and neglected, involving family and tribal dictators, international intrigue from the likes of Turkey, Iran and Israel, and the elusive PKK. Rania Khalek spoke with Kamal Chomani, a political analyst from Iraqi Kurdistan. They discussed the nuances of the political parties that make up the leadership in Iraqi Kurdistan, their relationship to the Iraqi government and its neighbors, the plight of the Yazidis, the Kurdish issue in other parts...
Sep 10, 2021•2 hr 38 min•Transcript available on Metacast In February, the Chinese government celebrated the eradication of extreme poverty within its borders. This would be a massive achievement for any country, but for China it’s even more so as it is home to some 1.4 billion people and is considered a developing country. China is credited with lifting over 800 million people out of poverty, which accounts for 70 percent of the world’s total poverty reduction. This is an incredible feat and it’s worth understanding how China did it. To discuss this a...
Sep 08, 2021•1 hr 17 min•Transcript available on Metacast Rania Khalek was joined by @Daniel Dumbrill , a political commentator on China-related issues who is based in Shenzhen, to speak about his experiences in Hong Kong, his recent trip to Xinjiang and how it relates to America's new Cold War.
Aug 31, 2021•1 hr 26 min•Transcript available on Metacast As the situation in Ethiopia continues to escalate, the war over narratives is in full force. Who are the good guys and who are the bad guys? Is it even that black and white? Is the TPLF fighting a war for liberation of the Tigrayan people against a cruel government or is it executing a war of aggression to regain power after losing it? And what should we make of recent developments such as the Oromo Liberation Front joining the TPLF in its fight against the state? What does it all mean for the ...
Aug 20, 2021•2 hr 31 min•Transcript available on Metacast All eyes are on Afghanistan as the Taliban has rapidly taken over the entire country. Most coverage is focused on what this means for the US. But in reality, the West is removed and distant, Iran, on the other hand, is Afghanistan's neighbor and hosts about 2 million official or unofficial Afghan refugees and will likely absorb even more. Iran had a bad relationship with the Taliban in the 90s, which killed its diplomat. Iran now has to deal with this new reality on its border. To discuss t...
Aug 18, 2021•2 hr 38 min•Transcript available on Metacast Rania Khalek was joined by Daniel Bessner, associate professor of international studies at the University of Washington and co-host of the podcast American Prestige, to talk about US foreign policy under Biden. What’s changed? What hasn’t changed? Is the US empire collapsing? And what should a progressive foreign policy look like?
Aug 14, 2021•1 hr 1 min•Transcript available on Metacast Rania Khalek was joined by Jordan Chariton, journalist and co-founder of Status Coup, to discuss the massive cover-up of the toxic water scandal in Flint, the ongoing eviction crisis in spite of the moratorium, corporate Democrats tanking Nina Turner’s campaign, and the crisis in left media, where censorship and underhanded algorithms suppress content that challenges the corporate media line as the left media ecosystem has descended into a bickering match between personalities.
Aug 13, 2021•1 hr 8 min•Transcript available on Metacast It's been one year since the Beirut port exploded, killing over 200 people and wounding thousands. And it's been almost two years since Lebanon's Ponzi scheme economy started crashing. The West often blames the devastation that has befallen Lebanon on government mismanagement, sectarianism, bureaucratic incompetence, internal corruption, and their favorite boogeyman, Hezbollah. But you can't speak honestly about Lebanon's problems without mentioning the constant US, Saud...
Aug 05, 2021•2 hr 32 min•Transcript available on Metacast The situation in Ethiopia has continued to escalate, with accusations of genocide, warnings of famine, and threats of sanctions. What began as a war between the TPLF in Tigray and the Ethiopian government is spilling into neighboring areas as the TPLF appears to launch more offensives in the Afar and Amhara regions. The growing violence threatens to destabilize Ethiopia, Africa's second most populous country, and the greater Horn region should it continue unabated. To help us understand wha...
Jul 30, 2021•1 hr 13 min•Transcript available on Metacast Tunisia is where the Arab uprisings erupted in December 2010, spreading east and ushering in 10 years of change, chaos, and wars. It’s also the only “Arab Spring” country that could claim some success in transitioning to democracy. That’s why many were shocked to see Tunisia’s President Kais Saied oust the government and freeze parliament, using the army. Some Tunisians are celebrating what has been denounced as a coup by the ruling parties, and there are allegations of Emirati assistance. Is th...
Jul 27, 2021•1 hr 3 min•Transcript available on Metacast July 9th marked the 10th anniversary of the creation of South Sudan. The US State Department lamented that the young country has “seen much suffering” and “the promise of peace and prosperity that independence represented remains unfulfilled.” To help us understand why the optimism of the West and South Sudanese in 2011 remains unfulfilled, Rania Khalek was joined by Joshua Craze, an anthropologist who spent many years researching in South Sudan and has taught in various universities. He's ...
Jul 27, 2021•1 hr 23 min•Transcript available on Metacast Ethiopia has been in the headlines in recent months as the TPLF, a Tigrayan rebel group that ruled the country for three decades, violently seized the northern Ethiopian state of Tigray from the government. As of this recording, the Ethiopian government had declared a ceasefire. However, the TPLF has continued fighting to expand its control over Tigray's border areas and threatening to push the war into neighboring countries. The Western media has largely cheered on the TPLF and demonized t...
Jul 22, 2021•1 hr 18 min•Transcript available on Metacast After seemingly forgetting Afghanistan for years, Western media has rediscovered it in time to provide panicked and hand-wringing coverage of the US-led coalition's withdrawal, as well as the apparent rapid gains made by the Taliban. Is the country on the verge of collapse? What will happen and what do Afghanistan’s people want? To help make sense of this, Rania Khalek is joined by Obaidullah Baheer, a lecturer at the American University of Afghanistan and Kardan on peace and conflict resol...
Jul 16, 2021•44 min•Transcript available on Metacast US officials and their corporate media mouthpieces were elated at the sight of protests in Cuba in recent days against deteriorating living conditions that are a direct result of the US blockade, which Trump increased and Biden has maintained during the pandemic to deliberately heighten suffering at a time when Cuba was sending doctors around the world to fight the disease. As is often the case when an adversary country experiences protests of any kind, it was immediately weaponized to push for ...
Jul 14, 2021•57 min•Transcript available on Metacast Assal Rad, a Senior Research Fellow at NIAC (the National Iranian American Council) joins Rania Khalek Dispatches to discuss the ongoing suffering of Iranians from US sanctions, the return to the Iran nuclear deal, and how little has actually changed under Biden as his team seems to escalate.
Jul 13, 2021•1 hr 18 min•Transcript available on Metacast Fred M’membe, leader of the Socialist Party of Zambia, is running for president in the upcoming August election. Can he win? He joins Rania Khalek Dispatches to discuss the failure of capitalist policies on the African continent and how his party's platform can fix it
Jul 09, 2021•38 min•Transcript available on Metacast Rania Khalek is joined by Ali Abunimah, director of The Electronic Intifada and author of The Battle for Justice In Palestine, to discuss developments in Palestine and regionally following the formation of a new Israeli government and Israel’s war on Gaza. From Israel’s ethnic cleansing through forced demolitions in Silwan to the Palestinian Authority acting as puppet to the occupier, Israel’s war on Palestine hasn’t let up. How are Palestinians resisting? Who is supporting that resistance? Does...
Jul 08, 2021•1 hr 12 min•Transcript available on Metacast The Green New Deal has become a popular slogan among progressive Democrats in recent years. But we need to be wary of the capitalist class co-opting the energy around climate change to maintain the imperialist global order they benefit from. To discuss this and more, Rania Khalek is joined by Max Ajl, a post doc at Wageningen University and a researcher with the Tunisian Observatory for Food Sovereignty and, relevant to this discussion, he is the author of the new book “A People’s Green New Deal...
Jul 06, 2021•1 hr 29 min•Transcript available on Metacast German support for Israel appears to be unshakable no matter what the Israelis do to Palestinians. The irony of course is that much of this support for Israel is justified as necessary to make up for the German Holocaust against European Jews. It seems Palestinians are paying for Europe’s crimes. To discuss this phenomenon Rania Khalek is joined by Denijal Jegic, German author and post doctoral researcher at the Lebanese American University with a PhD in American studies who wrote about this top...
Jun 28, 2021•49 min•Transcript available on Metacast Breakthrough’s Rania Khalek was joined by Professor of English Literature and Orientalism at the University of Tehran Mohammad Marandi on her program Dispatches to discuss the results of the Iranian presidential election and some of the simplistic and misleading media portrayals of Iran that have come with that coverage.
Jun 24, 2021•1 hr 27 min•Transcript available on Metacast In December outgoing president Donald trump pulled one more shocking foreign policy decision when he recognized Morocco’s claim to Western Sahara in exchange for Morocco normalizing relations with Israel. Western Sahara has been disputed since the Spanish withdrew in 1975 and the conflict between Morocco and the Polisario front, an armed liberation movement, continued until the 1991 ceasefire. Last year the Polisario Front, which is backed by neighboring Algeria, declared the ceasefire over. Mos...
Jun 23, 2021•58 min•Transcript available on Metacast As Iran prepares for presidential elections, Rania Khalek is joined by Iranian scholar at Columbia University Navid Zarrinnal on her program Dispatches to discuss developments in Iran, from the coming elections to the tumultuous Trump years, relations with the Biden administration, Iran’s role in the region and more.
Jun 18, 2021•1 hr 14 min•Transcript available on Metacast What is imperialism? Is it a stage of capitalism, as Lenin described it, or was it always essential to capitalism? Can capitalism exist without imperialism? Prahbat Patnaik, professor emeritus at JNU, joins Rania Khalek on her program Dispatches to discuss the argument he lays out in his book A Theory of Imperialism, which argues that capitalism was always a function of imperialism. But today’s imperialism takes a subtler less visible form than during colonialism , keeping large parts of the wor...
Jun 15, 2021•2 hr 33 min•Transcript available on Metacast PBS Frontline released a long anticipated documentary featuring Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, formerly the head of Jabhat Al Nusra, the al Qaeda affiliate in Syria, which is now called Hayat Tahrir al Sham, or HTS. Jolani is attempting to rebrand himself and his organization in an effort to be removed from the US terrorism list so he can be legitimized as the leader of Idlib in northern Syria. Has Jolani and his group’s allegiance to al Qaeda really changed? Or is this a sinister charm offensive to ma...
Jun 11, 2021•1 hr 14 min•Transcript available on Metacast Human rights lawyer Steven Donziger has been thrust into an epic battle with one of the biggest oil companies in the world. He helped win a multi billion dollar lawsuit against the Oil Giant Chevron for polluting the Amazon in Ecuador and poisoning the indigenous community who lives there. Ever since then Chevron has waged a relentless and global campaign to avoid accountability and to punish Doziger. In what reads like a Hollywood thriller, a US judge with ties to Chevron has conspired with the...
Jun 03, 2021•38 min•Transcript available on Metacast Joseph Massad, Professor of Modern Arab Politics and Intellectual History at Columbia University, joins Dispatches with Rania Khalek to help break down everything from Israel’s value as an outpost of US imperialism and why the Arab uprisings failed to the recent victory of Palestinian resistance forces and why it’s crucial to incorporate anti-imperialism in our understanding of the Zionist project.
Jun 02, 2021•1 hr 26 min•Transcript available on Metacast While it’s not often in the news, the Horn of Africa is volatile and often the scene of violence and its countries are victims of international interventions and interference that has played a destabilizing role, from Djibouti and Eritrea to Somalia and Ethiopia. As western imperialism continues to prop up dictators while blocking any moves towards independence, the western-backed Gulf States are transforming the region into a battlefield against Iran and each other. Why is this region subjected...
Jun 02, 2021•46 min•Transcript available on Metacast Lowkey joins Rania Khalek to talk Palestine and global resistance to Zionist apartheid.
May 26, 2021•1 hr 9 min•Transcript available on Metacast As the violence continues across Israel-Palestine, to help make sense of how we got here and what happens next, Rania Khalek is joined by Amira Hass, an Israeli journalist at Haaretz who is based in Ramallah and has spent years reporting from Gaza and the West Bank. Hass provides an in-depth analysis on the radicalization of Israeli Jewish society, which is becoming increasingly right-wing as the religious settler mentality is exported from the West Bank into Israeli cities. “Settler colonialism...
May 18, 2021•53 min•Transcript available on Metacast The rising violence in Israel-Palestine has reached new levels of depravity, with roving gangs of Israeli Jewish mobs hunting for Palestinian citizens of Israel to attack while chanting for genocide, at times with the protection of the police. Suha Salman-Mousa, the executive director of the Mossawa Center, which advocates for Palestinian citizens of Israel, joins Rania Khalek on BT’s program Dispatches to help us understand the explosion of hate consuming Israel from within and the danger it po...
May 17, 2021•44 min•Transcript available on Metacast 
