100 episodes

Geopolitical turmoil. A warming planet. Authoritarians on the rise. We live in a chaotic world that’s rapidly shifting around us.

“On Shifting Ground with Ray Suarez” explores international fault lines and how they impact us all.

Each week, NPR veteran Ray Suarez hosts conversations with journalists, leaders and policy experts to help us read between the headlines – and give us hope for human resilience.

A co-production of World Affairs and KQED.

On Shifting Ground World Affairs

    • News
    • 4.4 • 208 Ratings

Geopolitical turmoil. A warming planet. Authoritarians on the rise. We live in a chaotic world that’s rapidly shifting around us.

“On Shifting Ground with Ray Suarez” explores international fault lines and how they impact us all.

Each week, NPR veteran Ray Suarez hosts conversations with journalists, leaders and policy experts to help us read between the headlines – and give us hope for human resilience.

A co-production of World Affairs and KQED.

    For Palestine, Biden’s Uncommitted Voters Won’t Be Trump Shamed

    For Palestine, Biden’s Uncommitted Voters Won’t Be Trump Shamed

    Earlier this year, a grassroots movement emerged in the key battleground state of Michigan calling on Democratic voters to cast “uncommitted votes” in protest of president Joe Biden’s policy towards Israel’s war on Gaza. And in the months since, it’s gone national. But are Arab and Muslim American voters willing to gamble a second Trump presidency to hold Biden accountable for his Israel policy?
     
    Nihad Awad, a CAIR Action board member, joins Ray Suarez to share why Arab and Muslim voters feel abandoned by the Democratic party, and why they won’t be bullied into accepting the “lesser of two evils.” 
     
    Guest:
     
    Nihad Awad, Board Member of Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) Action
     
    Host:  
     
    Ray Suarez
     
    If you appreciate this episode and want to support the work we do, please consider making a donation to World Affairs. We cannot do this work without your help. Thank you.

    • 28 min
    Bear Hugs with Israel and Ballot Box Blues

    Bear Hugs with Israel and Ballot Box Blues

    Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's staunch opposition to a ceasefire in Gaza — and a future Palestinian state — is putting President Joe Biden in a vulnerable position at home. And as the 2024 election quickly approaches, it’s becoming clearer that US-Israel policy will be a lingering concern. 
     
    Ray Suarez sits down with Zack Beauchamp, a senior correspondent at Vox, to unpack how the political winds on Israel may be shifting.
     
    Guest:
     
    Zack Beauchamp, Senior Correspondent at Vox
     
    Host:
     
    Ray Suarez
     
    If you appreciate this episode and want to support the work we do, please consider making a donation to World Affairs. We cannot do this work without your help. Thank you.

    • 25 min
    Why is America Always in Cuba’s Business?

    Why is America Always in Cuba’s Business?

    The US has once again ignored the United Nations’ annual resolution calling for an end to its decades-long embargo on Cuba, even as Cubans took to the streets to protest the island nation’s worst economic crisis in decades, with shortages of food and fuel. And when the US Embassy urged the Communist-led regime to “attend to the legitimate needs” of its people, the Cuban government criticized the comment as “open interference in Cuba’s domestic affairs.” For Cuba, Washington's long standing role in the current crisis makes their complaints a “hypocrisy.” 
     
    In this episode, we revisit Ray’s conversation with Pulitzer-Prize-winning author Ada Ferrer on just how intertwined the histories of the US and Cuba are, and why we’re so inseparable. 
     
    Guest:
     
    Ada Ferrer, Julius Silver Professor of History and Latin American Studies at New York University and Pulitzer-Prize-winning author of Cuba: An American History 
     
    Host(s):
     
    Ray Suarez
     
    If you appreciate this episode and want to support the work we do, please consider making a donation to World Affairs. We cannot do this work without your help. Thank you.

    • 31 min
    From Crisis to Normalization – and Back Again: A Conversation with the Cuban Ambassador

    From Crisis to Normalization – and Back Again: A Conversation with the Cuban Ambassador

    Cuba is facing its worst economic crisis in decades, and shortages of food, fuel, medicine — and opportunity — have fueled a record-breaking surge of Cuban immigrants at America’s borders. But the US shows no signs of changing its policy towards the embargoed island, nor reversing former President Trump’s designation of the communist-led nation as a “state sponsor of terror.”
     
    Ray Suarez sits down with Lianys Torres Rivera, Cuban Ambassador to the US, to unpack how migration and economic sanctions are linked.
     
    Guest:
     
    Ambassador Lianys Torres Rivera, Chargée D'Affairs, Embassy of Cuba in United States
     
    Host:  
     
    Ray Suarez
     
    If you appreciate this episode and want to support the work we do, please consider making a donation to World Affairs. We cannot do this work without your help. Thank you.

    • 22 min
    How Europe Paid to Lock Up Migrants… and Threw Away The Key

    How Europe Paid to Lock Up Migrants… and Threw Away The Key

    Mass death and disappearances have become normalized on Europe’s borders. Back in 2015, when more than a million refugees turned up on Europe’s doorstep to request asylum, the European Union cut deals with North African and Middle Eastern nations to hold back the flow of asylum-seekers. Since then, roughly 29,000 people have died or disappeared in the Mediterranean, reports the Missing Migrants Project. 
     
    And for the migrants who were were intercepted while attempting to cross the Mediterranean Sea and forcibly placed in detention centers in Libya, they face inhumane living conditions, beatings, sexual abuse, starvation… and death — consequences of Europe’s ongoing cooperation with nations like Libya on migration and border control.
     
    In My Fourth Time, We Drowned, journalist Sally Hayden reports on the shadowy immigration system created by the European Union which captures and imprisons migrants from Africa to keep them from reaching European soil. In an interview with Senior KQED editor Rachael Myrow, Hayden explains how western institutions are complicit in this humanitarian crisis. 



    Featuring:
     
    Rachael Myrow, senior editor of KQED's Silicon Valley News Desk
     
    Sally Hayden, author of My Fourth Time, We Drowned and Africa correspondent for the Irish Times
     
    If you appreciate this episode and want to support the work we do, please consider making a donation to World Affairs. We cannot do this work without your help. Thank you.

    • 22 min
    Ukraine Diaries: The Ones Who Stayed

    Ukraine Diaries: The Ones Who Stayed

    The 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine has forced millions to flee their homes. And for the Ukrainian civilians caught in the crossfire, war has become a way of life. 
     
    This week, we talked to Ukrainians about the ways that the war unexpectedly changed their lives. Kateryna Lazarevych, an archivist at the PinchukArtCentre in Kyiv, shares how she’s working to improve her country, as if everyday were her last day on earth. Filmmaker Iryna Tsilyk takes us through her decision to leave Kyiv where her husband is fighting as a soldier in Ukraine’s Territorial Defense Forces. And Alex Gerz, a Russian-Ukrainian student living in Germany, records his story from the road, where he provides humanitarian assistance and safe passage to those fleeing Ukraine with a ragtag army of volunteers. 
     
    Guests:  
     
    Kateryna Lazarevych, archivist at the PinchukArtCentre in Kyiv
     
    Iryna Tsilyk, filmmaker and director of “The Earth is Blue as an Orange”
     
    Alex Gerz, Russian-Ukrainian student based in Kassel, Germany
     
    Host:  
     
    Ray Suarez
     
    Producers:
     
    Andrew Stelzer, KALW producer
     
    If you appreciate this episode and want to support the work we do, please consider making a donation to World Affairs. We cannot do this work without your help. Thank you.

    • 39 min

Customer Reviews

4.4 out of 5
208 Ratings

208 Ratings

Scrutonizer ,

Really Interesting Talks, Usually Foreign Policy

Super interesting discussions with experts will deepen your understanding of what’s happening in the world.

This years girl ,

Rays knowledge is encyclopedic

In depth, global coverage

womanbyherradio ,

Ray and Reza

This week’s episode is, as always, fascinating, but also fun, as Ray, who is a wonderful storyteller, interviews another great storyteller, Reza Aslan about the history of an earlier revolution in then, Persia, in which a young Christian missionary English teacher in Persia leads his students in a revolt in the besieged city of Tabriz…and dies. A serious subject, pleasurably told.

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