When it comes to solving an international conflict can one person really make a difference? Eric Reeves thinks it’s possible. Six years ago he was not an activist. Reeves was teaching Shakespeare to students at Smith College. But he’d also spent some of his time helping out Doctors Without Borders and that is how he first learned about conflict in Sudan.

Reeves became so interested in, and so disturbed by, what was happening that he has made it his business for the past six years to track the story of Sudan’s civil war, the involvement of western companies there, and now, the death toll in Darfur.

Reeves publishes his research on a website and is constantly writing newspaper op-eds and letters to government officials that now make the case for foreign intervention in Darfur.

Guests:

Eric Reeves, Professor of English Language and Literature at Smith College. He has spent the past six years working full-time as a Sudan researcher and analyst;Jonah Fisher, BBC Sudan correspondent.

You won’t find “booze, butts or bets” in Amy Domini’s $1.5 billion Social Equity Fund. In the world of finance, she is known as a pioneer who came up with the idea for socially responsible investing decades ago.

Unlike most mutual funds that base their holdings on the earnings of a company, rather than the ethics, Domini will not invest in companies that don’t protect the environment or respect their workers.

Making those choices isn’t easy. You won’t find WalMart or General Electric in her portfolio but you will see McDonalds, Merck and JP Morgan Chase. Changing their ways, she says, is part of the game. While her fund is not in the list of top-performers, Domini says it’s doing very well — mixing morals and money.

Guests:

Amy Domini, founder, Domini Equity Fund

Jeff Tjornehoj, research analyst with Lipper;

Benazir Bhutto has been out of power for almost a decade, but still holds a place in public imagination. She was twice elected as Pakistan’s Prime Minister, but both times, she was removed from office accused of corruption.

As she remains in self-exile in Dubai, her Pakistan People’s Party is making overtures to the government of President General Pervez Musharaff. She is widely assumed to be pushing for early elections, and a chance to return to Pakistan, to once again run for the office of Prime Minister.

In a country where power cycles between civilian governments and the military, voter’s have every reason to be cynical about the promises of leaders, but this year, when citizens from Beirut to Baghdad to Kabul, are on the streets or in the voting booths, what chance does Pakistan have for real reform?

Guests:

Benazir Bhutto, Former Prime Minister and Chairperson of the Pakistan Peoples Party;Talat Masood , Former General and Political Analyst

Ayesha Siddiqa, Fellow at Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars

After a 60-day cross-country social security road show that never seemed to gain a lot of traction, President Bush is now trying something different. He is not abandoning his idea of private accounts, but he is pushing for changes that he says would make social security solvent.

The idea is called “progressive indexing” and it would cut Social Security benefits for higher income workers while protecting benefits for others. It is the brainchild of the mutual fund guru Robert Pozen.

Pozen is a Democrat who says this plan would preserve social security while making sure that the workers who need help the most get it. Critics, however, warn that his ideas would turn Social Security into a welfare program.

Guests:

Robert Pozen Chairman of MFS Investment Management in Boston, former president of Fidelity Management & Research Company — and was part of President George Bush’s Commission to Strengthen Social Security from 200 – 2002

Jason Furman, Senior Fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities based in DC, and served as Special Assistant to President Clinton for Economic Policy.