111: Death and Corruption in the Shadows - The Global Arms Trade

While the global arms industry may only account for about one percent of global trade, it’s important to note what that one percent actually buys. Beyond the price tags on the weapons themselves, arms and arms sales have a tremendous impact on all other aspects of global trade, and on relations between trade partners and competitors.

This week's episode is a collaboration between journalist Paul Cochrane and Latitude Adjustment Podcast.

Our guest, Andrew Feinstein, is the author of the best-selling book, "The Shadow World: Inside the Global Arms Trade", published in 2011. In his review Noam Chomsky writes, "This shocking expose unveils a shadow world of corruption, greed, slaughter, and other horrors, tawdry and gruesome in its criminality. It must be brought to a quick and final end".

 
Shadow World was turned into an award winning documentary film, premiering at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2016.

Andrew currently resides in the UK with his wife and children, and much of his current work is focused on Shadow World Investigations, an investigative news website focused on global corruption, often involving, but not limited to, the global arms trade. 

104: Iran-Saudi Detente & Iran Protests

On September 13th of last year 22-year-old Mahsa Amini was visiting Tehran with her family, having traveled from Irans’ Kurdish region. While in Tehran she was stopped by Iran’s morality police for improperly wearing her hijab, or head covering. Three days after her arrest she was dead. In the days, weeks, and months following her death Iran has seen nationwide protests, and while protests are not a particularly new thing in Iran, what’s unprecedented about these protests are the calls not simply for reforms but for the toppling of Iran’s theocratic regime, a regime that has been in power since the Iranian Revolution of 1979. Today’s episode provides an update on the protests.

Last month also saw another seismic event in Iranian, and Middle East politics. After decades of saber rattling, proxy wars, and general hostility, China helped to negotiate the reestablishment of diplomatic ties between The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the Islamic Republic of Iran. What this means for the two regional super powers, for those within their spheres of influence, and for geopolitics will be the focus of the second half of our show.

Dr. Assal Rad received her PhD in Middle Eastern History from the University of California, Irvine in 2018. Her PhD research focused on Modern Iran, with an emphasis on national identity formation, and identity in post-revolutionary Iran. She’s also author of ““The State of Resistance: Politics, Culture, and Identity in Modern Iran”. 

Dr. Pouya Alimagham is a historian of the modern Middle East at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His areas of expertise range from revolutionary movements, Political Islam and post-Islamism, terrorism, US foreign policy, and contemporary politics. He’s also the author of “Contesting the Iranian Revolution: The Green Uprisings" (Cambridge University Press).

Episode 43: Kashmir

Our guest this week is a young Kashmiri woman currently living in Mumbai.

Situated in a mountainous region between India and Pakistan, Kashmir has been a nominal part of India since shortly after India and Pakistan both gained independence from the British in 1947. It’s also India’s only Muslim majority state and was the battleground in two separate wars between India and Pakistan and several armed conflicts between the two nuclear-armed rivals, including one limited engagement earlier this year.

Under article 370 of the Indian constitution Kashmir was guaranteed broad autonomy, including a separate constitution, and freedom to administer its own affairs in all areas except for currency, communications, defense, and foreign policy. Over the past few decades much of this autonomy has been slowly rolled back by the central government in Delhi, but one key feature that remained was Kashmiris exclusive rights to buy and own land in Kashmir. This key remaining feature of Kashmiri autonomy was eliminated when Hindu Nationalist Prime Indian prime minister Narendra Modi’s government eliminated article 370 from the Indian constitution earlier this month. Since that time landlines, mobile communication links, and the Internet have been cut, and Kashmiris have been cut off from the rest of the world and their families in India.

Taken in Gaza City, Palestine, April, 2013. Photo credit: Eric Maddox

Episode 42: Stateless - Myanmar's Rohingya People

In 1982 the Myanmar (Burmese) military government passed a citizenship law that effectively stripped the Rohingya community of their nationality overnight. They’ve been stateless ever since, and subject to institutionalized discrimination and coordinated persecution that has greatly restricted their movement and their access to jobs and to education.

Although there have been reports of attacks and massacres in the past, in August of 2017 Myanmar’s military began a campaign to drive many Rohingya out of their homes in Rakhine state, with the result that roughly 900,000 refugees have fled the country, with reports of widespread and coordinated attacks utilizing arson, rape, and mass killing that bear signs of genocide. Refugee camps in neighboring Bangladesh have long since been filled past overflowing, and many have been reduced to living in squalid and unsafe conditions in and around the camps.

JN Joniad fled his home in Rakhine state 6 years ago, and is currently registered in with UNHCR in Indonesia as a refugee, while he awaits resettlement elsewhere. His story not only illuminates the condition of fellow Rohingya, but also uncovers what appears to be a global trend amongst wealthy nations (the US, EU, and Australia) to outsource their border enforcement policy to developing nations through a strategy of deterrence and obscured accountability.

J N Joniad’s Blog

Episode 38: Hong Kong Protests - Local Perspectives

In June more than 2 million Hong Kong residents took to the streets to protest a proposed law that could see residents of the global financial center subject to extradition and criminal prosecution in China, undercutting the delicate "one country, two systems" policy that was to remain in place for 50 years after the 1997 handover from the British. Today, on the anniversary of the handover, the protestors stormed and occupied the Hong Kong legislature.

For this show we speak with two guests: a professor of cultural studies in Hong Kong whose research focuses on youth activism, and an anonymous guest from Hong Kong who returned to participate in the protests in June.

Photo credit Nextvoyage on Pexels