A series of powerful bombs ripped through three Madrid train stations earlier today, killing at least 173 and injuring 600 others. The explosions, which European officials are calling a “declaration of war on democracy,” occurred just days before Spain’s general election.

Spanish officials are blaming the Basque separatist group ETA for the attacks. If the Basque separatists are responsible, it would be the most savage attack in their decades-old campaign to carve out an independent homeland in northern Spain. The ETA has already claimed more than 800 lives since its 1968 launch of the independence fight.

The Connection looks at whether today’s blasts have renewed fears of terrorism and added a new dimension to the global fight against it.

Guests:

Stephen Hugh-Jones, senior editor of The Economist and former Deputy Europe Editor for The Economist

Joseba Zulaika, professor and director of the Center for Basque Studies at the University of Nevada, Reno

Daniel Trotta, Reuters correspondent based in Madrid

“Justice Department: Do the Right thing. Free Obain – Let him Teach.” That was just one of the posters held by Boston high school students, calling for the release of Obain Attouoman.

Jail is not an entirely unfamiliar place for a man who was a political prisoner in his Ivory Coast home, but that was years ago. For the past decade, Obain has been in Boston, working as a teacher in the city’s public school system. But when he missed an immigration hearing, he found himself, once again, behind bars.

Obain’s lawyer blames tough, new immigration regulations put in place after 9/11. And although her client is now free — thanks in part to the outpouring of outrage by his students and colleagues — his future remains uncertain. Navigating the immigration maze with Obain Attouoman.

Guests:

Obain Attouoman, teacher at Fenway High School in Boston, MA

Susan Cohen, Partner with Mintz Levin, and Manager of the firm’s Immigration Department

Brian Rose, student at Fenway High School.

Two and a half years ago, the U.S. went to Afghanistan in search of the mastermind behind September 11th attacks. American forces were told in no uncertain terms to interrogate anyone who might lead them to Osama Bin Laden.

But in the process, Human Rights Watch says the U.S.-led forces have been breaking humanitarian law. That’s the conclusion of a new report accusing American soldiers of mistreating detainees: depriving them of sleep, shackling them naked, and sometimes beating them.

Human Rights Watch also says innocent civilians are getting caught — and killed — in the crossfire of arrests. All serious charges, all met by the military response that, well, there’s a war on. Rules of engagement and human rights in the heat of war.

Guests:

John Sifton, researcher with Human Rights Watch

Scott Silliman, professor at the Duke University Law School

Lieutenant Colonel Bryan Hilferty, serving with the U.S.-led coalition in Afghanistan.

It’s getting hard these days to find good news about food. Most recently, it started with the beef. Stampeding mad cows sent consumers running to the fish counter, only to learn that their beloved farm-raised salmon was tainted with toxins. Then the chickens got the flu, and there’s that buzz about coffee increasing the risk of miscarriages. The list doesn’t stop there.

Daily headlines herald new fears and spark new phobias: mercury-poisoned swordfish, killer cheese, and so-called spring water that’s really from the tap.

The flood of information has many of us scratching our heads in the produce department, wondering what is safe to eat.

Guests:

Barbara Haber, food historian and author

Bill Buford, staff writer for The New Yorker.

Guests:

THIS IS A PLACEHOLDER

The nation that put Mao on the map and made Communism a religion is now one of the world’s most formidable capitalist engines, with a roaring annual growth rate near 8 percent.

The state still has its stake in economic endeavors, but China’s burgeoning private sector is creating so much wealth that even the Communists are becoming entrepreneurs.

But the story of China’s booming economy is a tale of two countries: one where urban residents reap the rewards and rural dwellers scrape by. This dichotomy is at the heart of China’s annual Party Plenum taking place this week.

Guests:

Russell Flannery, China bureau chief, Forbes magazine

Minxin Pei, senior associate and co-director of the China Program, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

Doug Guthrie, author of “Dragon in a Three-Piece Suit: The Emergence of Capitalism in China,” and associate professor of Sociology, New York University

Dateline: Gaza. The weekend news out of this war-torn part of the Middle East is characteristically tragic. Israeli armed forces raid refugee camps in the Gaza Strip in search of Palestinian militants.

It’s being called the deadliest such raid in more than a year. Earlier in the weekend, four Palestinian suicide bombers attack a single Israeli-controlled border crossing. The weekend’s death toll is, as always, too high, and it never stops there, because the fighting that scars bodies scars psyches, as well.

For doctors working in the region, it’s an all-too-familiar story. Two of them, an Israeli and a Palestinian, join us to discuss the work they do, and why, despite everything, they think peace still has a chance.

Guests:

Dr. Zeev Wiener, family physician, psychiatrist and psychotherapist and a volunteer with Physicians for Human Rights-Israel

Dr. Jumana Odeh, pediatrician and founding member of Physicians for Human Rights-Palestine.

Guests:

Frederick Hitz, professor of Public and International Affairs, Woodrow Wilson School, Princeton University, and former Inspector General, CIA

John Ruggie, professor of International Affairs, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University

and TBA.

Bloodshed marks the first Sunday since President Jean-Bertrand Aristide’s departure from Haiti. Five people are killed when a massive demonstration outside the presidential palace turns deadly, the crowd is fired on by people thought to be militant Aristide supporters. The march reportedly began when a few hundred people flanked a convoy of U.S. Marines, French soldiers and Haitian police outside a church in a suburb of Port-au-Prince. Six hours later, the crowd’s tally was in the thousands, a sea of people calling for a new government, a new army, and the arrest of Aristide’s prime minister.

It’s all made worse by the persistent belief among Haitians that Aristide was yanked from office by the U.S., which means substantially less credibility for the Marines standing between the pro and anti-Aristide factions.

Guests:

Ira Kurzban, U.S. Attorney for Jean-Bertrand Aristide

Ambassador Timothy Carney, Former U.S. Ambassador to Haiti

Sarah Sewall, Former United States Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Peacekeeping during the Clinton Administration

Paul Knox, correspondent for The Toronto Globe and Mail

After nearly three thousand broadcasts, spanning 58 years and 11 presidents, Alistair Cooke reads his final “Letter from America” later today. Since its debut in the early 1940s, his BBC radio chats on American life gave many Brits their first taste of this great, mysterious giant across the ocean. Most Americans got to know Alistair Cooke as the dignified, courtly host of Masterpiece Theatre during the 70s and 80s.

He was both the ultimate outsider who never lost the wide-eyed perspective of an immigrant, and an insider at ease with the American way of life. Playwright Arthur Miller once called him an Englishman who makes us feel “there is something steady underneath us.” A look at the legacy of the world’s longest running radio program and the last page of Alistair Cooke’s Letter from America.

Guests:

Nick Clarke, Alistair Cooke’s biographer