What does leaving Iraq really mean?

On the next Your Call, we'll speak with Andrew Bacevich, author of Washington Rules: America's Path to Permanent War, and Iraqi historian Thabit Abdullah. President Obama has promised to pull out all but 50,000 troops by the end of this month. How many contractors will be left? How will this affect Iraqis? What is life like in Iraq today? Join us live at 11 or send an email to feedback@yourcallradio.org. What is the Obama administration's plan for the future of Iraq and the surrounding region? It's Your Call with Rose Aguilar and you.

Guests:
Andrew Bacevich, retired U.S. army officer, professor of history and international relations at Boston University, and author of Washington Rules: America's Path to Permanent War

Thabit Abdullah, associate professor of Middle East history at York University

Click to Listen: What do you want from Your Call?

Have We Learned to Love the Taliban?

Have we learned to love the Taliban? And how did this major shift happen so quickly? On the next Your Call, we'll have a conversation about the recent plans to start negotiations with the Taliban. Afghan President Hamid Karzai wants to talk to Taliban leaders, and his backers in the U.S. and Europe are all for it. What does this shift mean for the future of Afghanistan?

Join us live at 11 or send us an email at feedback@yourcallradio.org. Are you ready for U.S. troops pulling out of Afghanistan, regardless of what it means for the future of the Afghan people? It's Your Call, with Rose Aguilar and you.

Guests:
Alam Payind, director of the Middle East Studies Center at Ohio State University.

Aunohita Mojumdar, a freelance journalist covering Afghanistan for the last six years for the Christian Science Monitor, AlJazeera.com, Eurasianet and other outlets.

Click to Listen: Have We Learned to Love the Taliban?

Are U.S.-Israel Relations at a Turning Point?

On the next Your Call we'll be joined by Joel Schalit, author of Israel Versus Utopia, to discuss the future of Israel. Israel is the number one recipient of U.S. economic and military aid, but its right-wing Likud government has bristled at Obama Administration calls for an end to illegal settlements. Meanwhile, the J Street Project is setting a new course for the Jewish-American relationship with Israel. Could a new U.S.-Israeli relationship emerge? And will any of it make real change for the Palestinians?

Join us live at 11 or drop us an email at feedback@yourcallradio.org. What's the future of US-Israel relations? It's Your Call, with Sandip Roy and you.

Guest:
Joel Schalit, author of Israel Vs. Utopia

Click to Listen: Wednesday: Are U.S.-Israel Relations at a Turning Point?

Your Call 072209 What is the state of the protest in Iran?

What is the state of the protest in Iran? On the next Your Call we will discuss this Saturday's demonstration in support of the Iranian opposition at San Francisco City Hall - a demonstration that some groups on the left have decided to boycott. Is the battle in Iran now just a fight amongst the elite for power and money, or is there a grassroots demand for justice driving change? Send us an email at feedback@yourcallradio.org or join us live at 11 a.m. Can the American people play a positive role in Iran despite our government's long history of meddling? It's Your Call with Sandip Roy and you.

Guests:
Shahram Aghamir in San Francisco
Bay Area based activist and producer of Voices of the Middle East and North Africa on KPFA

Kaveh Ehsani in Chicago
Assistant professor of International Studies at Depaul University and a member of the editorial boards of Middle East Report and the Tehran-based Goft-o-gu (Dialogue).

Reese Erlich in Oakland
Reese Erlich is a best-selling book author and Peabody-award winning journalist who writes regularly for the Dallas Morning News, Canadian Broadcasting Corp. Radio and National Public Radio. Erlich is co-author of Target Iraq: What the News Media Didn't Tell You and his latest book Dateline Havana: The Real Story of US Policy and the Future of Cuba was published this year. Reese is just back from a trip to Iran.

Hadi Ghaemi in New York
Spokesperson for United 4 Iran, the organizers of Saturday's rallies. The rally in San Francisco will be from noon to 4 p.m this weekend.

Click to Listen: What is the state of the protest in Iran?

Your Call 070209 What changed in Iraq this week?

What has changed now that American troops have redeployed out of urban centers in Iraq? What still hangs in the balance? On the next Your Call we'll talk about who withdrew and where they went and what it all means. President Maliki declared it National Sovereignty Day, but how much will Iraqi police and military control? Send us an email at feedback@yourcallradio.org or join us live at 11 a.m. A majority of Americans and Iraqis want the troops out of Iraq. Is this a step in the right direction? It's Your Call with Rose Aguilar and you.

Guests:
Vijay Prashad in Hartford, Connecticut
George and Martha Kellner Chair in South Asian History and professor of International Studies at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut. He is the author of eleven books, most recently The Darker Nations: A People's History of the Third World.

Nabil Al-Tikriti in Fredericksburg, Virginia
Assistant professor of History of the University of Mary Washington. From 1992-2003, Dr. Al-Tikriti was a context and liaison officer, administrator and logistician for Mdecins Sans Frontires. Al-Tikriti was a member of the team that operated the Catholic Relief Services humanitarian assistance project in Iraq in 1991-1992.

Basma AlKhateeb in Baghdad
Gender and Youth Project manager for the Iraqi AlAmal Association in Baghdad.

Click to Listen: What changed in Iraq this week?

Your Call 062509 What has changed in Iran?

What has changed in Iran? On the next Your Call, we'll have a conversation about the disputed presidential election in Iran and how protesters have used social media in their protests. What are the protesters' demands? Send us an email at feedback@yourcallradio.org or join us live at 11 am. How should organizers and citizens use social media? It's Your Call, with Rose Aguilar and you.

Guests:
Janet Afary, a professor of Religious Studies and Feminist Studies at UC Santa Barbara.

Kaveh Ehsani, an assistant professor of International Studies at DePaul University and a member of the editorial boards of Middle East Report and the Tehran-based Goft-o-gu (Dialogue).

Shahram Aghamir, Bay Area based activist and producer of Voices of the Middle East and North Africa on KPFA

Click to Listen: What has changed in Iran?

Your Call 052209 Media Roundtable

On the next Your Call it's our Friday media roundtable where we bring in reporters from the mainstream, alternative and international press to discuss the week in American media. This week, California voters -- those who voted, anyway -- rejected the slate of budget reform ballot measures. Congress passed credit card reform and Binyamin Netanyahu visited the White House. We'll be joined by independent journalist Danny Schecter, Brian Leubitz of Calitics and Lawrence Pintak, from Arab Media & Society. Send us an email at feedback@yourcallradio.org or join us live at 11 am. Where did you see the best reporting this week and where did it fall short? It's Your Call with Rose Aguilar and you.

Guests:
Lawrence Pintak in Cairo
Director of the Adham Center for Journalism Training and Research at The American University in Cairo and Publisher & Co-Editor of Arab Media & Society. He is a former CBS News Middle East correspondent who has been writing about the region for the past 30 years. On Aug. 17, he will become the founding dean of the Murrow College of Communication at Washington State University.

Danny Schechter in New York
Founder and executive editor of MediaChannel. His work has been honored with Emmy awards, the IRIS award, the George Polk Award, the Major Armstrong Award, and honors from the National Association of Black Journalists.

Brian Leubitz in San Francisco
Publisher & editor of Calitics.com, a news and commentary site about California politics from a progressive perspective.

Click to Listen: Media Roundtable

Your Call 040709 How should we understand Hamas?

How should we understand Hamas? On the next Your Call, we'll have a conversation with Paul McGeough, former executive editor of Australia's Sydney Morning Herald and the author of Kill Khalid: The Failed Mossad Assassination of Khalid Mishal and the Rise of Hamas. Paul McGeough argues that Israel's attempt to assassinate Hamas' leader Khalid Mishal has had a significant impact on Palestinian politics. You can join the conversation by email at feedback@yourcallradio.org. How did Hamas rise to power? It's Your Call, Rose Aguilar and you.

Guest:
Paul McGeough, former executive editor of Australia's Sydney Morning Herald and author of Kill Khalid: The Failed Mossad Assassination of Khalid Mishal and the Rise of Hamas.

Click to Listen: How should we understand Hamas?

Your Call 021109 Did the Iranian Revolution Change the World?

How did the Iranian revolution change the world? On the next Your Call we will follow the trail of one of the monumental events of the 20th century and see how we are still living with the repercussions in the 21st. After nearly a decade and a half in exile Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini returned to Tehran on February 1, 1979. Soon after, Time magazine speculated that the revolution threatened "to upset the world balance of power more than any political event since Hitler's conquest of Europe." How did the Iranian revolution reshuffle the deck in the Middle East and Central Asia? How did it shift the political conversation within the Muslim world, from Morocco to Indonesia? And 30 years on, what do we still need to understand about the Iranian revolution?

Guests:
William O. Beeman in St Paul
Professor and Chair of Anthropology and specialist in Middle East Studies at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis-St. Paul. He also maintains the very informative and interesting blog on Middle Eastern affairs,Culture and International Affairs

Behrooz Moazami in New Orleans
Assistant Professor of history Loyola University New Orleans where he is creating a Middle East / Peace Studies interdisciplinary minor program. He is a native of Tehran and also a Visiting Scholar at the Center for European and Mediterranean Studies @ NYU.

Click to Listen: Did the Iranian Revolution Change the World?

Your Call 012309 Media Roundtable

On the next Your Call it's our Friday media roundtable where we bring in reporters from the mainstream, alternative and international press to discuss the week in American media. This week we'll speak with Moises Naim, editor of Foreign Policy about the global coverage of the inauguration. We'll also speak with Jamal Dajani from Mosaic on LinkTV who is just back from two weeks covering the assault on Gaza. What else was going on while we watched the inaguration? Where did you see the best reporting this week and where did it fall short? It's Your Call with Rose Aguilar and you.

Guests:
Moises Nam in Washington DC
Editor of Foreign Policy, a sister publication of Slate and the Washington Post. Dr. Nam served as Venezuela's minister of trade and industry in the early 1990s;

Jamal Dajani in Berkeley
Senior Director of Middle Eastern Programming at Link TV where he produces the program Mosaic, which translates and rebroadcasts Arabic language news broadcasts. He is also a frequent contributor to the Huffington Post;

George Curry in Suburban Washington
Syndicated columnist. From 2001 until 2007, he served as editor-in-chief of the National Newspaper Publishers Association, a news service for the nation's Black newspapers. He was the executive editor of Emerge magazine and a reporter for the Chicago Tribune.

Click to Listen: Media Roundtable

Your Call 010909 Media Roundtable

On the next Your Call, it's our Friday media roundtable where we bring in reporters from the mainstream, alternative and international press to discuss the week in American media. This week we'll speak with investigative reporter AC Thompson from ProPublica about his 18-month-long investigation of vigilante shootings after Katrina. We'll also talk with Tim Redmond from the San Francisco Bay Guardian about the police shooting on BART and Sherine Tadros of Al Jazeera about covering the assault on Gaza. Where did you see the best reporting this week and where did it fall short? It's Your Call with Rose Aguilar and you.

Guests: A.C. Thompson in New York
Award-winning journalist on the staff of ProPublica

Tim Redmond in San Francisco
Editor of the San Francisco Bay Guardian

Sherine Tadros in Gaza
Reporter for Al Jazeera English in Gaza

Click to Listen: Media Roundtable

Your Call 010609 How are Israelis responding to the bloodshed in Gaza?

How are progressive Israelis holding their government accountable for the air strikes and ground invasion in Gaza? On the next Your Call, we'll have a conversation about the response to the siege of Gaza. With Israeli troops now on the ground and more than 550 Palestinians dead, where is Israel's peace movement? And what role do progressives here in the U.S. have in changing the conversation in Israel and in changing policy within the incoming Obama administration? It's Your Call with Rose Aguilar.

Guests: Miko Peled, Israeli peace activist living in the U.S.

Gideon Levy, Ha'aretz reporter

Neve Gordon, chair of the Department of Politics and Government at Ben Gurion University of the Negev in Israel, and author of the book, Israel's Occupation.

Click to Listen: How are Israelis responding to the bloodshed in Gaza?

Your Call 010209 Media Roundtable

In an otherwise quiet news week, Israeli airstrikes have killed hundreds of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and made headlines worldwide. How can journalists tell this story without doing the bidding of Israel or Hamas? Consumer confidence hit an all-time low this week -- how are economic hard times hitting the not-for-profit news media? And all kinds of news media this week were filled with end-of-year rundowns and top ten lists -- was there one of them you found particularly enlightening? Or maddening? Join the conversation with Sandip Roy.

Guests: Blake Hounshell, online editor for Foreign Policy magazine.

Eric Beauchemin, reporter for Radio Netherlands.

Click to Listen: Media Roundtable

Your Call 121908 Media Roundtable

On the next Your Call, it's our Friday Media Roundtable. Chrysler has announced the closure of its 30 factories for at least one month and G.M. needs $4 billion this month to stay afloat. We will talk about continuing crisis in the auto industry with McClatchy's Kevin Hall. The shoe episode has put Iraq back in the headlines but what is not getting enough attention? We will be joined by independent journalist Dahr Jamail and ProPublica's T. Christian Miller. Where did you get the context you needed to make sense of the week's news? It's Your Call, with Rose Aguilar and you.

Guests: Dahr Jamail, independent journalist
T. Christian Miller, investigative reporter for ProPublica
Kevin Hall, economic reporter with McClatchy

Click to Listen: Media Roundtable

Your Call 120908 Crisis in Gaza

What is the International Community doing to help the people of Gaza? On the next Your Call, we'll take a look at the worsening humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency has warned that its warehouses in Gaza will be totally empty in two or three days if Israel does not open the crossings to allow the entry of humanitarian supplies. Eighty percent of the population depends on humanitarian aid. What is daily life like for people in Gaza? Who is helping? And who has access to Gaza? It's Your Call, with Rose Aguilar and you.

Guests: Paul LaRudee, the Northern California head of the International Solidarity Movement

Richard Falk, the UN Special Rapporteur for human rights to the Palestinian Occupied territories

Mairead Corrigan-Maguire, Irish Nobel Peace laureate and co-founder of the Community of Peace People

Karen Abu Zayed, the commissioner general of the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) in Gaza

Click to Listen: Crisis in Gaza

Your Call 091508 Iraqi Reality

Is conversation about Iraq over? On the next Your Call, we'll have a conversation with Farnaz Fassihi, the deputy bureau chief for Middle East and Africa for The Wall Street Journal, about her new book, Waiting for an Ordinary Day: The Unraveling of Life in Iraq. What are the realities of Iraq and its future that John McCain ignores and Obama refuses to address? And how should the Iraqi experience figure in the American debate? It's Your Call, weekdays at 11:00, with Rose Aguilar and you.

Guests:
Farnaz Fassihi, the deputy bureau chief for Middle East and Africa for The Wall Street Journal

Click to Listen: Iraqi Reality

Your Call 080508 Non-violence in Israel-Palestine

How strong is the non-violence movement in Israel? On the next Your Call, we'll have a conversation with two Israeli filmmakers, Shai Carmeli Pollack and Rachel Leah Jones, who are using their camera to raise awareness about the Occupation. Sahi Carmeli Pollack's documentary film Bil'in Habibti documents the struggle against the construction of the wall by the residents, internationals and Israelis in the village of Bil'in. So who is watching these films? And do they make any difference? It's Your Call, with Rose Aguilar and you.

Guests:
Rachel Leah Jones, producer of the documentary film, Ashkenaz

Shai Carmeli Pollack, producer of the documentary film, Bil'in my love

Click to Listen: Non-violence in Israel-Palestine

Your Call 072108 What's next in Iran-US relations?

Where is the United States' relationship with Iran heading? On the next Your Call, we'll look at a number of recent developments. In a major policy shift, the U.S. announced to send a high level State Department official to Geneva to meet with Iranians on the nuclear issue. According to the Guardian, the U.S. plans for a diplomatic presence in Iran. What should we make of the recent developments? Where does Israel fit in this equation? It's Your Call, with Rose Aguilar, and you.

Guests:

Thomas Powers, a frequent contributor to the New York Review of Books and the author of Intelligence Wars: American Secret History from Hitler to al-Qaeda.

Mansour Farhang, Iranian-born author and former diplomat. He teaches international relations and Middle Eastern politics at Bennington College, Vermont.

Click to Listen: What's next in Iran-US relations?

Your Call 070308 Women's Rights in the Middle East

What is life like for women in the Middle East, where they've been active agents of change for many decades? On the next Your Call, we'll have a conversation with an Iraqi and a Palestinian about women's rights. What role have women played in their national struggle? What challenges do they face? And how have the policies of the U.S. government affected their struggle? It's Your Call, with Rose Aguilar and you.

Guests:
Nadje Al-Ali is a senior lecturer in social anthropology at the Institute of Arab & Islamic Studies at the University of Exeter, UK.

Isis Nusair, International Studies and Women's Studies Programs at Denison University

Click to Listen: Women's Rights in the Middle East

Your Call 053008 Media Roundtable

On the next Your Call it's our Friday Media Roundtable. This week President Bush's former press secretary Scott McClellan just came out with a tell-all book. The U.S. Senate passed a $165 billion war-spending bill with no timetable for withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq. We'll talk to independent journalist Anna Badkhen who has just returned from Iraq, John Nichols from The Nation and Richard Gizbert from Al Jazeera Television Network. Where did you see the best reporting? It's Your Call with guest host Ben Temchine and you.

Guests:
John Nichols, Washington correspondent for The Nation magazine.

Anna Badkhen, a Massachusetts-based freelance reporter and a former foreign and national reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle.

Richard Gizbert, the host for The Listening Post, Al Jazeera's weekly program that focuses on the media.

Click to Listen: Media Roundtable