Places & Travel

Head of Afghanistan’s Human Rights Commission, Dr. Sima Samar. She was appointed to the position in July. Previously she served as the country’s first Minister for Women’s Affairs appointed by the interim Afghan government. Dr. Samar is an internationally-renowned feminist and human rights activist. Samar defied the Taliban and continued to operate schools for girls and health clinics in Afghanistan’s provinces and refugee camps in Pakistan. Samar was born in Ghazani, Afghanistan and is a Hazara, one of the most persecuted of the ethnic minorities.

We remember Israel's first ambassador to the United Nations and the United States, Abba Eban. He died yesterday in Israel at the age of 87. This interview first aired Dec. 2, 1992

Journalist Bill Keller is a columnist for The New York Times and senior writer for the magazine section. He just returned from a trip to Russia. Hell discuss Russias position on Iraq

The Cuban Missile Crisis took place 40 years ago this week. We talk with historian and former Kennedy aide Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. and Peter Kornbluh who directs the National Security Archive's Cuba Project. The organization obtained newly declassified documents about the Crisis. They've published the information in the new book The Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962. The National Security Archive also helped organize the historic 40th anniversary conference held in Cuba last week.

Journalist Jonathan Landay co-wrote an article in yesterday's Philadelphia Inquirer called "Officials' Private Doubts on Iraq War." Landay and his co-writers say that "Intelligence professionals and diplomats... privately have deep misgivings about the administration's double-time march toward war." The report says the White House is spreading misinformation that includes distortion of Saddam Hussein's ties with al Qaeda, overstatement of international support, and understatement of repercussions of a Middle East war.

Pulitzer Prize-winning economist Daniel Yergin will talk about the changing economy of oil in light of the possibility of war with Iraq. Yergin's 1991 book, The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money and Power, is highly acclaimed. He is president of Cambridge Energy Research Associates. His new book, co-authored with Dr. Joseph A. Stanislaw, is The Commanding Heights: The Battle Between Government and the Marketplace that is Remaking the Modern World. The Prize was adapted into an eight-hour PBS/BBC series.

Book critic Maureen Corrigan reviews The Good Women of China: Hidden Voices (Pantheon) a collection of stories of real women in China taken from a call-in talk show in China by journalist Xinran. Xinran was host of the talk show.

Iraq expert Kenneth Pollack's new book is The Threatening Storm: The Case for Invading Iraq. He has studied Iraq and Saddam Hussein for 15 years. During the Clinton administration, Pollack served as director for Gulf affairs at the National Security Council, where he was one of the people responsible for implementing U.S. policy toward Iraq. Before that, he was a Persian Gulf military analyst in the CIA. In 1990, Pollack was among the very few analysts to predict the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. He is also the author of Arabs at War: Military Effectiveness, 1948-1991.

Novelist Rohinton Mistry was born in Bombay and now lives in Canada. His new novel is Family Matters. The book is set in 1990s Bombay and is about an elderly professor with Parkinson's disease who is forced to move into the crowded apartment of his daughter and her family. Mistry is also the author of A Fine Balance and Such a Long Journey which were both short-listed for the Booker Prize.

Charles Tripp is senior lecturer in the Department of Political Studies, at the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London. He's the author of A History of Iraq.

Two editors from Jane's Information Group talk about the war on terrorism and the potential attack on Iraq. Charles Heyman is the editor of Jane's World Armies and the author of The Armed Forces of the United Kingdom. Alex Standish is the editor of Jane's Intelligence Digest. Standish also produces television and radio documentaries for the BBC.

Muslim journalist M.J. Akbar is founder and editor-in-chief of The Asian Age, an English language newspaper published in India. He's also the author of five books, including his latest, The Shade of Swords: Jihad and the Conflict Between Islam & Christianity.

Writer Sarah Vowell is a contributing editor for public radio's This American Life. She's also the author of the book Take the Cannoli, and the new book of her pieces, The Partly Cloudy Patriot

New York City Police Detective Dave Fitzpatrick. He took thousands of photographs on Sept. 11, many of them from a police helicopter high above the city. He also spent two months at Ground Zero photographing the rescue efforts. Many of his photographs and that of other police officers are featured in the book, Above Hallowed Ground: A Photographic Record of September 11, 2001.

New York Times reporters James Glanz and Eric Lipton. The two have written extensively about the structure of the World Trade Center towers since Sept. 11. They've written a biography of the towers, looking into the design decisions that unwittingly helped lead to their collapse. Their story appears in this Sunday's (Sept. 8, 2002) New York Times Magazine section.

New York Times journalist Thomas L. Friedman. His new book, Longitudes and Attitudes: Exploring the World After September 11, is a collection of recent Times columns. They span the period from December 2000 to June 2002. Friedman was awarded the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for Distinguished Commentary for these columns. This is Friedman's third Pulitzer. His other books are From Beirut to Jerusalem and The Lexus and the Olive Tree: Understanding Globalization.

Actress Cynthia Nixon is one of the stars of HBO's Sex and the City. She plays Miranda Hobbes, a corporate lawyer who is also a new mother in the current season of the show. Nixon recently starred in the Broadway production of the classic 1930 Clare Boothe Luce play, The Women. She also appeared at the age of 18 in the broadway plays Hurlyburly, and The Real Thing. She's a founding member of the Drama Dept., an Off-Broadway theater company. Her film roles inclue, Amadeus, Prince of the City, The Pelican Brief, and The Out-of-Towners.

Comedian Dave Attell . He*s the host of Comedy Central*s Insomniac with Dave Attell. It airs Wednesday nights at 10:30 pm. Attell explores American after-hours culture, traveling to many cities to film his show.

His new book is Heat Wave: A Social Autopsy of Disaster in Chicago. It*s about a 1995 heat wave in that city which proved to be an insidious natural disaster. Streets buckled, electric power blew, and over 700 people died. Klinenberg is an associate professor of Sociology at New York University.

Father James Martin is associate editor of America the national Catholic magazine. Hes written a new memoir,Searching for God at Ground Zero, (Sheed & Ward) about the days following the September 11th attacks when he abandoned his editing duties to go and be with the rescue workers at the site of the ruined World Trade Center. Hes also the author of a memoir about his spiritual journey from the corporate world to the priesthood: In Good Company: The Fast Track from the Corporate World to Poverty, Chastity and Obedience