President Bush at the U.N. — a two-hour special. We’ll bring you the President live from the U.N., analysis from former Secretary of State Madeline Albright, along with domestic and international reaction.

Guests:

John Ruggie, former Assistant Secretary General and chief advisor for UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, currently Professor of International Affairs and Director of the Center for Business and Government at the JFK School of Government at Harvard University

Guillaime Parmentier, Director of the French Institute of International Relations in Paris, France.

She served as ambassador to the United Nations and as Secretary of State when Al Qaeda first attacked American embassies. Her analysis sets up a two hour special, with President Bush’s speech live from the U.N.

Guests:

Madeleine Albright, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations (1993-1996), U.S. Secretary of State (1996-2001), author, “Madam Secretary”;John Ruggie, former Assistant Secretary General and chief advisor for UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, currently Professor of International Affairs and Director of the Center for Business and Government at the JFK School of Government at Harvard University

Guillaime Parmentier, Director of the French Institute of International Relations in Paris, France.

Richard Smalley is a scientist who studies small, and thinks big. In 1996, he won a Nobel Prize for his work in the microscopic world of nanotechnology. Now he spends his days puzzling over what he says is the most pressing issue facing the world today: the coming crisis in energy.

Smalley is predicting that in 50 years, or perhaps much sooner, the world’s oil will run out, and that unless something daring is done to come up with a practical substitute, civilization will simply run out of energy. So Smalley is issuing a call to launch what he imagines could be the world’s next and greatest science project, a kind of Apollo or Manhattan Project devoted to the search for energy.

Guests:

Dr. Richard Smalley, Professor of Chemistry, Physics & Astronomy at Rice University in Houston

Christopher Flavin, president of Worldwatch Institute

President Bush addresses the world…again. Tomorrow, he goes before the United Nations to make the case for his policy in Iraq. Unlike a year ago, when his message was to take on Iraq or face irrelevance, President Bush is reportedly going to say to the assembled leaders of the world that we’re all in this together, and then ask for money and soldiers to help rebuild the country.

While the president is revising his case for U.N. involvement, he is also revising his case for going to war by denying any link between Saddam Hussein and 9/11 itself, something he’s implied in the past. All this, while the president faces increasing resistance to the cost of reconstruction, from Congress and the public at large.

Guests:

John Newhouse, former foreign affairs correspondent for The New Yorker and author of “Imperial America: The Bush Assault on the World Order”

David Sanger, White House Correspondent for The New York Times

Abraham Sofaer, Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution, former legal advisor to U.S. State Department.

If you think your credit card bills are bad, think of how the bean counters in Washington feel. In just the past year, the U.S. government has managed to rack up more that a 400 billion dollar deficit.

Next year, the bill is going to be even bigger, close to 480 billion dollars, and that’s not even counting the billions that the President says he needs for Iraq.

Some say that deficits can be good things, and have even been known to stimulate economies. But New York Times columnist Paul Krugman doesn’t buy the swashbuckling confidence of the supply siders. He says this deficit is a malignant pox — one that offers little promise of growth or stimulus, and will change the way Americans live and work and save for generations to come.

Guests:

Paul Krugman, Professor of Economics and International Affairs at Princeton University, columnist for the New York Times and author of “The Great Unraveling: Losing Our Way in the New Century.”

August 19th, a truck bomb slammed into the United Nations compound in Baghdad. 40 people were killed and the shock waves reverberated around the world.

The organization respected for delivering humanitarian aid and assistance to people in the aftermath of war, had now, itself, become a target, in Iraq. Both the U.N.’s chief in Iraq, Sergio de Mello, and his advisor Ghassan Salame were in their offices when the bomb hit. Mr. de Mello died. Mr. Salame managed to escape from the rubble.

One month to the day the bomb hit, Mr. Salame is still thinking about what it will take to save Iraq, and he has a plan. He says the only way that makes sense is to put power in the hands of the Iraqi people and sooner rather than later. Ghassan Salame one of the leading Arab voices in international affairs, makes his case for Iraq.

Guests:

Dr. Ghassan Salame, senior political advisor to the U.N.’s chief in Iraq

Robin Wright, chief diplomatic correspondent for the Los Angeles Times

On the first page of his new book, The Zanzibar Chest, Aidan Hartley asks: “What is a man’s legacy?” On his own search for an answer, he spends nearly fifteen years as a correspondent for the Reuters news agency, assigned to Africa and witnessing the most harrowing conflicts of the our time. The violence of the Congo. War in Somalia. Famine in Ethiopia. The unforgettable genocide in Rwanda.

But what sets Hartley apart from most other journalists is that the Africa he covered was not just a land of killing.
It is his birthplace and to him, a continent where you hear the song of the nightjar, the chirp of crickets and the chatter of guinea fowl.

Guests:

Aidan Hartley, author of The Zanzibar Chest: A Story of Life, Love and Death in Foreign Lands.

Just when it seemed the California recall election couldn’t get any loopier, it did. This week, a federal appeals court touched off a political firestorm by ruling to delay the election until next March. They based this decision on the fact that some of the state’s counties still rely on punch card ballots that are now famous for producing all manner of chads. Hmm….sound familiar?

In 2000, the Supreme Court used that same principle, the idea that different voting systems create an unequal playing field for voters, to hand the election to George W. Bush. This time around, Democrats are the one’s swinging the equal protection club, while its the Republicans saying that the courts should get out of the way, and leave elections to the voters.

Guests:

Heather Gerken, Assistant Professor of Law, Harvard Law School

Jonathan Turley, Professor at George Washington University School of Law

Claire Cooper, staff writer for the Sacramento Bee

Guests:

Marco Politi, Vatican correspondent for La Repubblica and co-author with Carl Bernstein of “His Holiness: John Paul II & The History of Our Time;” Michael Walsh, papal scholar and author of “Conclave: A Secret and Sometimes Bloody History of Papal Elections”

You’ve been hearing it ever since the days of your wild youth: The message that drugs are dangerous, that you can’t be sure of what you’re getting. That warning used to come from mom and dad. Now, it comes from the FDA. And they’re not talking about non-descript pills from a street corner dealer, they’re talking about prescription drugs, from Canada.

For years, busloads of grandparents have sought cheaper drugs in places like Winnipeg and Windsor. Now, there are web sites and Main Street outposts here in the U.S. American politicians are advocating for these drugs. But the FDA is just saying “No,” that it’s not only illegal to buy your medications abroad, it could be unsafe, as well. Cheaper drugs, at any cost ?

Guests:

Michael Albano, mayor of Springfield, Massachusetts.

William Hubbard, Associate Commissioner for the FDA

Russell Machover, owner of Rx Depot Canada

Stanley Wallack, Associate Dean for Research at The Heller School for Social Policy and Management at Brandeis University — Professor Wallack’s current research is focused on the cost, use, and value of prescription drugs