Suzette Grillot

Venezuelan poet Arturo Gutierrez-Plaza has spent his career crafting poems exploring the scenes of everyday life. He told KGOU’s World Views he views poetry as a way to maintain the experience of childhood discovery as you learn new words, and how to use those words to unfold the tapestry of language.

Rebecca Cruise and Suzette Grillot discuss the conflict in Ukraine that likely led to the surface-to-air missile attack on Malaysian Airlines Flight 17, and the increased flow of unaccompanied minors over the U.S.-Mexico border.

Later, a conversation with Francis Rooney, the former U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See. President Bush appointed him to the post in 2005 shortly after the death of Pope John Paul II, and he's just written a book about his three-year tenure called The Global Vatican: An Inside Look at the Catholic Church, World Politics, and the Extraordinary Relationship between the United States and the Holy See.

The United States has had a long-but-rocky relationship with the Vatican and didn’t formally establish diplomatic relations and appoint an ambassador until 1984. That 21-year stretch of U.S. representatives serving with a single pope ended when John Paul II died in 2005.

Rebecca Cruise and Suzette Grillot discuss the escalating situation between Israel and Palestine, both the real and potential impact of host nation Brazil’s loss this week in the World Cup.

Then a conversation with national security analyst Linda Robinson about her book One Hundred Victories: Special Ops and the Future of American Warfare. She spent two years in Afghanistan joining U.S. Special Forces on combat missions, while still knowing when to stay out of the way.

The so-called “light footprint strategy” has been a hallmark of President Obama’s military engagement strategy as he pulled U.S. troops out of Iraq and winds down the U.S. presence in Afghanistan. That drawdown of massive units of soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines and civilian support staff means a stronger reliance on smaller, more elite military groups.

Turkey's ruling party nominated Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to run in Turkey's first directly elected presidential race in August before thousands of cheering supporters on Tuesday.

Erdoğan, in power since 2003, is barred by party rules from running as prime minister again. His candidacy for president could put him at Turkey's helm for five more years.

Rebecca Cruise and Suzette Grillot discuss the French inquiry into former President Nicolas Sarkozy’s campaign fundraising, and Japan’s constitutional reinterpretation that allows it wage conflicts on foreign soil for the first time since World War II.

Later, a conversation with Marmara University in Istanbul political scientist Barış Doster about Turkey, its neighbors, and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

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Suzette Grillot and Rebecca Cruise discuss the North Korean response to the Seth Rogen and James Franco film The Interview, and the report released this week  reviewing the increased use of drones by the United States.

And a conversation with University of Oklahoma Latin America historian Alan McPherson. His new book The Invaded explores early 20th century conflicts in Nicaragua, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic.

Eighty years after President James Monroe announced his opposition to any European intervention in Latin America, President Theodore Roosevelt expanded on the idea and justified the United States’ aggressive pursuit of its own economic and political interests in the region during his 1904 State of the Union address.

Joshua Landis joins Suzette Grillot for a conversation about the situation in Iraq and the U.S. response to the escalating violence by Sunni militants.

And Rebecca Cruise and University of Oklahoma Iranian Studies professor Afshin Marashi speak with Mohamad Tavakoli, a professor of history and Near and Middle Eastern civilizations at the University of Toronto. He studies Persianate society – arguing that in the pre-modern world, Iranians, the Ottoman Empire, the South Asian Indian Mogul empire, and even Central Asians all spoke a common language.