A private American company hired by the government of the United Arab Emirates has sent former US special forces soldiers to Yemen as mercenaries to carry out assassinations of political and religious figures there, according to a Buzzfeed investigation. The killings began in 2015 and, so far, dozens of people have been assassinated. Brian and John speak with Mark Sleboda, an international relations and security analyst.
New video in the police shooting of Ricardo "Ricky" Hayes, an autistic 18 year old in Chicago, was recently released.The footage contradicts the police assertion that Hayes was armed, and is related to a lawsuit filed on behalf of Hayes. Kofi Ademola, an activist and organizer with the Black Lives Matter movement, joins the show.
Taliban gunmen this morning assassinated several leaders of the regional government in Kandahar in the country's south. Press reports indicate that the governor, provincial military leader, and intelligence director of Kandahar Province were killed when their own bodyguards opened fire on them. The target of the attack appears to have been US General Scott Miller, but he escaped unharmed. Two American soldiers were wounded. Jeremy Kuzmarov, a professor of American history at the University of Tulsa whose latest book is "The Russians Are Coming, Again: The First Cold War as Tragedy, the Second as Farce," joins Brian and John.
The Jordanian government said today that 300 members of the White Helmets rescue group who fled Syria for Jordan three months ago have now been resettled in Canada, Germany, and the UK. The Israeli and US governments have said that they aided the Jordanians in the resettlement. Meanwhile, the government continues to consolidate its control over the country's international borders. Ambassador Peter Ford, the former UK Ambassador to Syria, joins the show.
Donald Trump issued his strongest threat yet against a caravan of migrants attempting to safely reach the United States. Trump stated that he would deploy the military to close down the Mexican border to stop the caravan's arrival, and implied that the US-Mexico-Canada trade agreement might be in jeopardy. Brian and John speak with Jackie McVicar, a member of the Atlantic Region Solidarity Network, working in solidarity with people struggling for social justice and environmental protection in Latin America, the Caribbean and Atlantic Canada, and a former co-coordinator of the Maritimes-Guatemala Breaking the Silence Solidarity Network.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that the Trump Administration would give the Saudi government more time to explain what happened to journalist Jamal Khashoggi and President Trump expressed reticence in punishing the Saudis in any way. Meanwhile, Code Pink is leading demonstrations at the State Department and the Saudi Embassy in Washington tomorrow to protest Khashoggi's death. Brian and John are joined by Mansour Alhadj, a journalist, author, and a member of the Board of Directors of the Center for Democracy and Human Rights in Saudi Arabia
Thursday's weekly series "Criminal Injustice" is about the most egregious conduct of our courts and prosecutors and how justice is denied to so many people in this country. Paul Wright, the founder and executive director of the Human Rights Defense Center and editor of Prison Legal News (PLN), and Kevin Gosztola, a writer for Shadowproof.com and co-host of the podcast Unauthorized Disclosure, join the show.
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