Rania Khalek podcastit

NATO expansion might have provoked the war in Ukraine, but surrounding Russia isn’t the organization’s only pursuit. NATO participated in the US “war on terror” in Afghanistan, NATO destroyed Libya and today NATO is expanding into Africa. To help break it all down, Rania Khalek was joined by Vijay Prashad, Executive Director of the Tricontinental: …

How is it that judges arbitrarily chosen by presidents who didn't even win the popular vote are appointed for life and can overturn our most cherished rights? What’s with the veneration of the US constitution, which was written by slave owners? Is America really a democracy? To discuss this and more, Rania Khalek was joined by Aziz Rana, a professo…

In his recent Harper's cover piece, “Empire Burlesque,” Daniel Bessner traced the evolution of the foreign policy vision that defined the so-called American century and how it has been reshaped by failures and a changing world order, including a new multipolarity and the rise of China. He draws a distinction between the liberal internationalists an…

A few months ago Democrats bragged that Americans were so supportive of President Biden's "unprecedented" Russia sanctions turning the ruble into rubble, that they couldn't wait to pay higher gas prices. But now that prices are higher with no end in sight, Americans are irate with high costs eating into their earnings, and Democrats and Republicans…

From his perch at the Chapo Trap House podcast, Felix Biederman has been an acerbic observer and commentator. He joined Dispatches with Rania Khalek for a wide-ranging discussion about America’s cultural and political decline. Listen to every episode of Dispatches with Rania Khalek anywhere you get podcasts. Apple: https://apple.co/3zeYpeW Spotify:…

On its face, nothing seems more benign and positive than “wildlife conservation.” But the Wildlife Conservation Society and the German and US governments have now been implicated in supporting organized violence against Congolese villagers, using mortars, RPGs, indisciminate fire, murder and rape. This is the finding of award-winning investigative …

To understand why the European Union exists and how it is changing due to the financial crisis and the war in Ukraine, Rania Khalek was joined by Costas Lapavitsas, a professor of economics at SOAS, author of “The Left Case Against the EU” and a former Syriza MP. He also has a forthcoming book out in 2023 called “The State of Capitalism” published …

Rania Khalek was joined by Arnaud Bertrand, a commentator on economics and geopolitics based in Shanghai, to discuss the sanctions blowback on the West, the narrative management surrounding it, and growing tensions between the US and China. Arnaud on Twitter: https://twitter.com/RnaudBertrand TIME CODES: 0:00 Intro 1:32 Is the West isolating itself…

What’s cryptocurrency really? What are NFTs? Is it as revolutionary as its advocates claim or is it a libertarian fake money Ponzi scheme? Is this digital funny money really the future, and if so why is it tanking? To help break it all down, Rania Khalek was joined by Tom Redshaw, a sociologist and lecturer in digital society at the University of S…

Europe has ceded its core decisions to the US warmongers flooding Ukraine with arms, expediting the global economy’s collapse and extending the war against their own interests. But Ukraine isn’t the only major event stressing the global order: the US flexing against China, global inflation, a possible victory for the left in Colombia, massive prote…

Iran nuclear deal negotiations appear frozen and the Biden administration is busy pouring fuel onto the Ukrainian fire and trying to encircle China. To help us understand why attempts to salvage an agreement with Iran have not succeeded, Rania Khalek was joined by Mohammad Marandi, professor of English literature and orientalism at the University o…

Lebanon’s May 15 elections results were confusing, with contradictory claims of victory and defeat. Much of the mainstream media coverage further obfuscated the results, with journalists celebrating the few self-described independents and reformists as a sign that some kind of change might be coming, while also appearing to cheer the apparent defea…

Africa’s Sahel region encompasses Mauritania, Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso and Chad and has been an arena of French colonialism, liberation struggles, ongoing imperialist interventions, the war on terror, and coups d’etat. To discuss this and more Rania Khalek, was joined by Hannah Rae Armstrong, a long-time researcher with years of experience living …

Libya seems to be trapped in endless conflict between rival militias and outside powers, with migrants trapped in neo-slavery and others drowning in the Mediteranean trying to flee to the European. Prior to the 2011 Arab uprisings and subsequent NATO regime change operation that destroyed the country, most outsiders knew little of Libya except for …

The Palestinian rap group DAM put Palestinian rap on the map and inspired Arab rap in general with songs like Meen Irhabi (Who’s the terrorist?). DAM did not only address Arabs, however. As Palestinian citizens of Israel, they also had Hebrew lyrics, directly challenging their oppressor. Tamer Nafar, one of the group’s founding members, has since l…

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 …

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 ug…

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…

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 …

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 expr…

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 Pakist…

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 ex…

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…

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 t…

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. poli…

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 Statecraf…

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 hel…

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 Kha…

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 in…

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-w…

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 sudd…

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 R…

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…

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 …

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 ha…

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 dea…

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.…

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 …

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…

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…

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 Kh…

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 Theo…

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 i…

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, i…

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, leadin…

Lebanon can’t catch a break. Amidst the worst economic collapse in the modern era, the Saudis and their regional allies are punishing the tiny country over comments criticizing the war on Yemen. To make matters worse, October saw clashes in Beirut on a front line that dates back to the civil war of the 1980s, with a Saudi and U.S.-backed Christian …

As tensions heat up over Taiwan, everything the U.S. does is depicted as defensive while everything China does is framed as menacing, aggressive and authoritarian. But the island’s history has been totally left out of the coverage. How did Taiwan come to be? Is it part of China? How has the U.S. used Taiwan as a weapon against China both historical…

Is there a growing resistance to the unipolar imperial order? Is the US an empire in decline? Will the future be a multipolar one? If so, what does that mean ans how should the left in the imperialist core respond? To discuss this and more, Rania Khalek was joined by Vijay Prashad, Executive Director of the Tricontinental: Institute for Social Rese…

Venezuela’s special diplomatic envoy, Alex Saab, was extradited to the U.S. on Oct. 16 after 491 days of detention and imprisonment in Cape Verde. His alleged crime? Helping the Venezuelan government evade crippling US sanctions to procure fuel, medicine and food. His detention sets a dangerous precedent in violation of all diplomatic protocol and …

The U.S. and EU have accused Ethiopia of every atrocity imaginable and now they’re preparing sanctions. The Ethiopian government insists that it’s legitimately fighting a separatist group, the formerly ruling TPLF, which is attempting to regain power through violence and terrorism. Who’s telling the truth? What explains the one-sided media coverage…