Institute for War and Peace Reporting
Iran's Project Manager at the Institute for War and Peace Reporting and a teaching fellow in the Department of Communication Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; former senior editor at several of Iran's reformist dailies
Iran's Presidential Election: Interesting after All Four years ago, widespread protests over President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's re-election appeared to threaten Iran's clerical leadership. Some dissidents are still in jail. Now that Ahmadinejad is termed out, candidates to succeed him in tomorrow's election have been picked to minimize controversy. Even two former presidents who wanted to run have been declared "ineligible." But the campaign has seen a flicker of life in the past two days. Could a relative moderate win, or at least force a run-off election? What could that mean for the economy, relations with the US and Iran's nuclear program?
White House budget proposal slashes and burns President Trump's first budget request is considered dead on arrival in Congress — a familiar development in Capitol Hill. We hear what it reveals about the priorities of the new administration. What's likely to die… and what might survive?
Human Rights in the era of Donald Trump President Trump’s UN Ambassador, Nikki Haley, said today the US might pull out of the United Nations’ Human Rights Council. Serious violators of human rights are members of the Council itself–and a US resignation could make things worse. Later on today’s show, now that he’s into his second term, comedian turned US Senator Al Franken is telling jokes again.
Ex-FBI Director Comey tells his side of the story Today, former FBI Director James Comey came close to calling the President who fired him a liar. The White House denied the claim and called it insulting, but Republican Senators did not challenge Comey’s truthfulness. Many questions remain: did the President try to obstruct a federal investigation? Later, we’ll go behind the “velvet rope” for a look at 5-Star health care for the richest Americans.