New twists continue to emerge in the Mueller investigation, including the FBI spying on the Trump campaign and payments received by Michael Cohen on behalf of Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko to arrange talks between him with Trump. Meanwhile, Yulia Skripal has given her first interview since waking up from a coma after a poisoning that became a hotly contested flashpoint for relations between Russia and the West.
Wednesday is Loud & Clear's regular segment Beyond Nuclear, looking at nuclear issues including weapons, energy, waste, and the future of nuclear technology in the United States. Today, the hosts interview award-winning anti-nuclear activists about their work. Kevin Kamps, the Radioactive Waste Watchdog at the organization Beyond Nuclear; Terry Lodge, anti-nuclear attorney and 2018 awardee of the Judith Johnsrood Unsung Hero Award; and David Kraft, co-founder of the Nuclear Energy Information Service and 2017 awardee of the Judith Johnsrud Unsung Hero Award, join the show.
The House of Representatives yesterday approved a plan to roll back banking regulations in response to the 2008 financial crisis. The Senate already had approved the measure, which now goes to President Trump for his signature. The measure leaves the central structure of Dodd-Frank in place, but is the most significant weakening of the law since it was passed a decade ago. Brian and John speak with Brad Birkenfeld, a whistleblower who exposed billions of dollars of financial fraud committed by banking giant UBS and the author of "Lucifer's Banker: The Untold Story of How I Destroyed Swiss Bank Secrecy," whose work is at lucifersbanker.com.
A high-level Syrian official has dismissed the idea that Iran would withdraw its troops from Syria, which are intervening on the side of the country's government. An Iranian withdrawal from Syria is one of the demands listed in Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's "Plan B" war speech earlier this week. Ambassador Peter Ford, the former British Ambassador to Syria, joins the show.
Luis Posada Carriles, a former CIA operative and militant Cuban exile, died yesterday in Miami. Carriles was accused of organizing a string of hotel bombings in Cuba in 1997 and of engineering a 1976 airline bombing in Cuba that killed 73 people. Human rights and transparency activists reacted to Carilles' death by calling him "an unrepentant terrorist and a Frankenstein monster created by the CIA." Gloria La Riva, the Peace and Freedom Party's 2018 California gubernatorial candidate, and Andrés Gómez, the Coordinator of the Antonio Maceo Brigade, join Brian and John.
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro announced yesterday that he would expel the top two US diplomats in Caracas, giving them 48 hours to leave the country. This apparently was in response to a statement by the State Department called Maduro a "dictator". He said, however, said that the US Embassy has overseen a military, economic, and political conspiracy to overthrow him. Secretary of State Pompeo said that the US would respond proportionally. Meanwhile, the Lima Group of 14 nations said that he would "limit" diplomatic contacts with Venezuela. Jeanette Charles, a writer, editor, and solidarity liaison with Venezuelanalysis.com, joins the show.
President Trump opened the door yesterday to a phased dismantling of North Korea's nuclear weapons program, backing away from his earlier demand that Kim Jong Un abandon his arsenal without any American concessions. This new flexibility seems to have put the president at odds with his own National Security Advisor.
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