Guests:

U.S. Army Staff Sargent Jennifer Raichle [RYE-klee] and U.S. Army Sargent Mark Redmond of the Third Division, First Brigade

and Jeffrey Myers, who son is in the Army Reserves currently serving in Kuwait and Iraq.

It’s been more than 18 months since the U.S. started locking up those so-called enemy combatants at Guantanamo Bay — most of them have not been charged. They live in orange jumpsuits, in wire cages and in a relentless state of legal limbo. They have not been told if they will be charged, how they will be tried, or if they’ll be going home. Civil libertarians have balked since the beginning, saying international law must be respected. Now, former POWs, military brass, and even the International Committee of the Red Cross, are issuing warnings. They say Camp X-Ray sets a frightening precedent for U.S. soldiers who might be captured in the future.

Guests:

John Huston, dean of Franklin Pierce Law Center

Christine Huskey, lawyer with Shearman and Sterling, the law firm that is representing 12 Kuwaiti prisoners

Leslie Jackson, former POW held by German forces from April 24, 1944 to May 1945

From Oslo to Tehran, streets are buzzing over the new winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, Iranian human rights activist Shirin Ebadi. It came as a surprise, the Pope and Former Czech President Vaclav Havel had been rumored to be the top contenders. But instead, the Committee made a choice that some say speaks volumes about the politics behind the prize itself.

It is the first win for an Iranian the first win for a Muslim woman and it is sure to focus international attention on the fight for human rights and the plight of women in Iran. There is a message for the west as well. Ebadi was also congratulated by the Nobel committee, and in a very direct way, for her ability to solve problems using non-violent means. A look at this year’s Nobel winner, Iranian human rights activist Shirin Ebadi.

Guests:

Irwin Abrams, author of “The Nobel Peace Prize and the Laureates”

Ali Banuazizi, co-director Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies Program at Boston College

Mahnaz Afkhami, Iran’s Minister of State for Women’s Affairs

Mehrangiz Kar, Iranian women’s rights activist and Visiting Lecturer at the University of Virginia

Jim Muir, BBC reporter in Tehran

Top guns in the Bush Administration are now engaged in a new war — it is a public relations campaign designed to reinforce the President’s commitment to continuing the war in Iraq.

President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, and Republican members of Congress have headed out across the country to deliver one message: that Saddam Hussein was a very bad man, and that no matter how you look at it — the motivations, the justifications, and the reservations — they say the American-led war on Iraq was a very good thing.

The message puts Iraq, today, at the center of the president’s War on Terror, and recasts support for the war as an act of patriotism and pride at a time when the Administration can no longer be certain they are winning the confidence of Americans.

Guests:

Marvin Kalb, executive director, Washington office, Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy, Harvard University, co-author, “The Media and the War on Terrorism”

Howard LaFranchi, diplomatic affairs reporter for the Christian Science Monitor

There are no wizards in Angela Johnson’s books. No furry animals. No plot lines about a tea party or a space journey or a madcap adventure. But there is a sister struggling with the sudden disappearance of her brother. There is a pair of siblings trying to understand why their parents don’t live together anymore. There is a little girl who never really knew her mother, but who has pictures to remind her.

If Angela Johnson eschews fantasy in her approach to fiction, her head-on treatment of topics like teen pregnancy, racism and mixed race couples challenges the notion that certain conversations are best had beyond a child’s ear shot. When curling up with a good book means reckoning with reality. The enlightening literature of family secrets and difficult truths.

Guests:

Angela Johnson, 2003 MacArthur Fellow and author of, most recently, “The First Part Last” and “I Dream of Trains”

On May 26, 1826 a headline in the Kennebec Journal told of a “A true fish story, Seven thousand shad and nearly a hundred barrels of alewives, taken in Eddington last week by Luther Eaton, Esq. at one haul”. Since that day Mr. Eaton cast his net into the Penobscot, the flow of New England’s second largest river has been checked by dozens of power-generating dams. All manner of migratory fish, like salmon, shad and alewives haven’t been able to travel upstream, and many species are now endangered.

For years environmentalists and power companies have argued over the future of fish in the Penobscot. This week, they announced an unprecedented out of court settlement that has citizens paying the power company for the right to remove two dams and bring back the fish.

Guests:

Scott Hall, manager of environmental services for PPL Maine

John Banks, director of the Department of Natural Resources for the Penobscot Indian Nation

Laura Rose Day , project director representing the Conservation Groups of the Penobscot River Restoration Project.

He hailed from Chile, but to many, he was Pablo Neruda – Poet of the World. Mesmerized by the wonder of language, he published his first poem at the age of thirteen. A half century later, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. In all that time in between, Neruda wrote some of the world’s most highly regarded poems.

He wrote about the personal and the political. He was a voice for those he felt had none. He wrote about Vietnam, the Soviet block, the Spanish Civil War, the Cuban Revolution, and his homeland’s own bloody upheaval. He wrote about himself, and the heart. His love poems are intimate, passionate and poignant. He once said, “I have lived for my poetry and my poetry has nourished everything I have striven for.” A new tour through the poetry of Neruda

Guests:

Ilan Stavans, Professor of Latin American and Latino Culture at Amherst College, editor of “The Poetry of Pablo Neruda.”

Jack Pritchard says bargaining with North Koreans takes just a little longer. He should know. As the top U.S. expert on North Korea Pritchard spent more than a decade pushing and prodding Pyongyang to dismantle its nuclear program. But Pritchard’s bosses don’t favor “go-slow” style of diplomacy.

The President decided that North Korea should be one of the nations on his now infamous Axis of Evil. Others in the Administration have called life in that country a “hellish nightmare.” Some of the hardliners go so far as to say there should be no talks, no contact. So just before the last round of talks with the North Koreans, Jack Pritchard quit. Today, he talks about what works and what doesn’t in dealing with North Korea.

Guests:

Charles L. “Jack Pritchard, former Bush Administration Special Envoy to North Korea

Geoffrey York, correspondent for the Toronto Globe and Mail

The first Israeli air strike on Syrian land in 20 years is being now being described as the first of what could be more such attacks. Israel’s pilots hit an abandoned camp near Damascus belonging to a Syrian group called the “Popular Front.” Israeli officials say the camp had been used by Islamic Jihad, the Palestinian militant organization claiming responsibilty for the deadly suicide bomb attack in Haifa. Middle East observers are now debating the width and breadth of Syria’s links with Palestinian militant groups.

Some say the U.S. should embrace Israel’s determination to step up military action against Syria, others warn that as long as Israel get carte blanche to act outside its borders, it will only widen the conflict, and further mobilize militants.

Guests:

Barbara Plett, BBC Correspondent in Ramallah

Mouin Rabbani, senior Middle East analyst for The International Crisis Group

Matthew Levitt is a senior fellow at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, specializing in terrorism and U.S. policy.

It’s Tuesday, so this must be California. Today, the most populous state will take part in nothing less than a political revolution, otherwise known as the California recall. Golden Staters will first decide if they want to oust their elected Governor, and then they’ll choose someone to finish the last three years of his term. That would be a man called Arnold — the muscle-bound movie star, with Kennedy connections, who has wooed and wowed voters with Terminator talk and celebrity walk.

While Governor Davis struggles to rally the Democratic party faithful and convince people that even bureaucrats deserve a second chance, Arnold is riding his wave with an electorate that’s hungry for change, and demanding more personality in its politics.

Guests:

Robert Scheer, columnist for the L.A.Times

and Lou Cannon, Reagan biographer and author of “Governor Reagan: His Rise to Power” and TBA.