Suzette Grillot

Suzette Grillot and Rebecca Cruise discuss China 's move to grab airspace over the East China Sea, and ongoing protests in Ukraine over a jailed political leader, and a scuttled trade pact with the European Union.

The Dallas Morning News Mexico Bureau Chief Alfredo Corchado joins Grillot to talk about his 20-year career. His memoir Midnight in Mexico chronicles his coverage of the country’s war against the drug cartels.

China says it is fully capable of enforcing its newly-declared maritime air defense zone above disputed islands in the East China Sea that has drawn strong denunciations from the U.S., Japan and other nations.

“They're [the islands] not all that impressive, but they happen to be on top of what looks like oil reserves or natural gas,” says Rebecca Cruise, the Assistant Dean of the University of Oklahoma’s College of International Studies. “There are a lot of people in this part of the world that are needing energy, and the demand there rises, so this becomes about resources, and about power.”

Alfredo Corchado has spent nearly 20 years covering his native country as the Mexico bureau chief for The Dallas Morning News.

From first reporting on government protests in Ciudad Juárez in the mid-80s, through five presidential administrations and a violent drug war with no end in sight, he says he’s always left with the fact that it’s not enough.

Earlier this week a six-month deal was reached to curb Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for lighter economic sanctions. Rebecca Cruise joins Suzette Grillot to talk about the reaction among Saudis, Israelis, Americans, and Europeans.

Later, a conversation with LaNelma Johnson, whose Bahá’í faith led her and her family to India in 1971, where they taught children ages five to 18 at a small, rural school in Panchgani. Johnson told the story of her family’s 12 years in India in her memoir Okie in a Saree.

Friday marks 50 years since President John F. Kennedy died by an assassin’s hand in Dallas. University of Oklahoma political scientist Charles Kenney joins Suzette Grillot to discuss Kennedy’s global legacy, especially in Latin America.

Later, a conversation with Michael Covitt, the founder of the Malian Manuscript Foundation, and the producer of the documentary 333 – named after the saints buried in Timbuktu.

When President Kennedy took office in 1961, he immediately set out to combat communism wherever he could.

He didn’t need to look far, and signed off on a plan to overthrow Cuban dictator Fidel Castro put in motion by his predecessor, Dwight D. Eisenhower.

University of Oklahoma political scientist and Latin America scholar Charles Kenney says it’s no coincidence Kennedy launched the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba within a month of a massive ten-year development program for Latin America known as the Alliance For Progress.

For hundreds of years, thousands of manuscripts have been preserved in Timbuktu, chronicling a period from the 12th to 16th Centuries when Mali was the wealthiest nation on Earth.

Michael Covitt is the founder of the Malian Manuscript Foundation, and the producer of the documentary 333 – named after the saints buried in Timbuktu.

A little over a week ago, Typhoon Haiyan slammed into the Philippines, leaving thousands dead and devastating the city of Tacloban. Suzette Grillot also talks with Joshua Landis about a so-called "wild card" in Syria's civil war - private funding by wealthy donors.

Later, Adriana Beltrán from the Washington Office on Latin America joins Suzette Grillot to discuss how clandestine criminal organizations infiltrate Guatemala’s judicial system.

Guatemala signed peace accords in 1996 to end a decades-long civil war. But even though the fighting came to an end, institutional democratic reforms never took place.

The government consolidated power through corrupt relationships with organized crime and a lack of accountability over the next two decades. 

“A very popular phrase is ‘hidden powers’,” says Adriana Beltrán, a Senior Associate for Citizen Security at the Washington Office on Latin America, and the author of a study of the same name. “Established institutions like the judicial sector, the police… they’ll use them to prevent any kind of conviction when it comes to human rights cases to protect in case of criminal wrongdoing.”