Places & Travel

Psychiatrist, peace activist and feminist Dr Ruchama Marton. She teaches at the Tel Aviv University Medical School Institute for Psychotherapy. She is also President of Physicians for Human Rights, Isreal.

Andrew Kromah lives and works in Sierre Leone. The country has been rated the most dangerous country in the world for journalists. For eight years now Kromah has run an independent radio station (KISS-FM) in Freetown and has reported on the rebels and government. Each week, as Mr. Owl he investigates local corruption. Twice his building has been burned down. During the 1996 election there, Kromah and his staff were forced to broadcast from the bush to escape injury.

Writer Alice Randall is the author of the controversial new parody of Gone with the Wind. Her book The Wind Done Gone (Houghton Mifflin). Randall retells the story of the antebellum South from the viewpoint of Cynara, a beautiful illegitimate mulatto woman, the daughter of a plantation-owning father, and a slave mother.

Editor and writer Walter Kirn's new novel Up in the Air (Doubleday) is about 35 year-old Ryan Bingham, a well-traveled business man who has a goal of accumulating one million miles in his frequent flyer account. Kirn is the literary editor for GQ and a contributing editor to Time and Vanity Fair. His fiction and non-fiction work has appeared in The New Yorker and the New York Times Magazine. He also the author of two other novels, and a selection of short stories.

Book critic Maureen Corrigan reviews McSorleys Wonderful Saloon by Joseph Mitchell.

New York Times reporters David Barstow and Don Van Natta, Jr. went to Florida following the closest presidential election in history. During a six month investigation, the two journalists found –under intense pressure from the Republicans, Florida officials accepted hundreds of overseas absentee ballots that failed to comply with state election laws.— (NYT 7/15/01) However, the outcome of the investigation is inconclusive. If all invalid overseas ballots had been thrown out, Bush would have still maintained a narrow margin over Gore.

Film critic Henry Sheehan reviews Moulin Rouge, starring Nicole Kidman.

El Tiempo is one of Columbia's leading dailies. Enrique Santos Calderon will talk about putting out a newspaper under the threat of kidnapping, torture or death from leftist guerillas and right wing paramilitary groups. In Columbia, more journalists have been killed in the past five years than in any other country.

Journalist Michela Wrong is the author of the new book In the Footsteps of Mr Kurtz: Living on the Brink of Disaster in Mobutu's Congo. The book examines the 1960 CIA plot to murder Patrice Lumumba who was then leader of newly independent Congo. The plot led to Lumumba's removal from power and the ascension of Mobutu Sese Seko. Wrong is a staff reporter with The Financial Times.

Film critic Henry Sheehan reviews the new Australian film Chopper.

Iranian filmmaker Bahman Farmanara. He began making films 30 years ago in his native country. Recently he returned to Iran after many years living in Canada, running a film festival and teaching. He's also returned to filmmaking. His new film Smell of Camphor, Fragrance of Jasmine is his first in 20 years. He also stars in the film about a fictional film director making a film about his own death.

Journalist Mark Bowden's new book is called Killing Pablo: The Hunt for the Worlds Greatest Outlaw (Atlantic Monthly Press.) Its an investigation into the US government's role in bringing down Colombian cocaine kingpin and terrorist Pablo Escobar. BOWDEN will talk about Escobar, the world of drug trafficking and US/Colombia relations. MARK BOWDEN is a reporter with the Philadelphia Inquirer. His previous book was the award winning bestseller Black Hawk Down. A film adaptation is in the works.

Sherpa Jamling Tensing Norgay. Author of the new book Touching My Father's Soul, Norgay was Climbing Leader for the 1996 Everest IMAX Filming Expedition and summitted the Mountain that year. He's also the son of Tenzing Norgay, one of the first men in history to summit Mt. Everest. In his book, Jamling Norgay recounts his 1996 Mt. Everest ascent: the climb and its familial meaning. He now heads Tenzing Norgay Adventures which is based in India.

Irish writer Nuala OFaolain. Her first novel, My Dream of You, (Riverhead Books) has just come out in paperback. Her critically acclaimed 1998 memoir, Are You Somebody? The Accidental Memoir of a Dublin Woman was on the New York Times bestseller list. OFaolain is also a columnist for the Irish Times; she has been at the paper for over 12 years.

Film director Rob Sitch. He and his creative team at Working Dog, got their start in morning radio, then switched to TV. They made their first feature film The Castle in 1997. Their newest film The Dish is based on the true story of how three Australian scientists made possible the worldwide broadcast of Neil Armstrongs first steps on the moon. The film stars Sam Neill and Patrick Warburton ("Puddy" on Seinfeld).

Junger traveled to Afghanistan to profile Ahmad Shah Massoud, (known as the Lion of Panjshir), the legendary leader of the guerrilla war against the Soviets, who is now fighting the Taliban. Junger traveled with photographer Reza Deghati who spent several years covering the war there. Jungers article The Lion in Winter appears in the March/April issue of National Geographics Adventure magazine. Its also the subject of a National Geographic Explorer program Into the Forbidden which aired march 4 on CNBC.

This Friday, George W. Bush embarks on his first presidential trip outside the US. He will travel to Mexico to meet the new president of Mexico, Vincente Fox. We talk about Mexico with Journalist Sam Quinones. He has been covering Mexico for 7 years. His new book is called, True Tales from Another Mexico: The Lynch Mob, the Popsicle Kings, Chalino, and the Bronx. Quinones work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Baltimore Sun, LA Weekly, and Ms Magazine.

Human Rights Lawyer Asma Jahangir. Shes been at the forefront of the movements for womens rights, human rights and peace in Pakistan for twenty years. She co-founded the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan. In her work shes defended a boy against the charge of blasphemy-the penalty would have been death. Shes defended the right of women to chose their own husbands. Because of her efforts shes been arrested, received death threats, and been the target of hostile propaganda.

Peter Hessler is the author of River Town: Two Years on the Yangtze (HarperCollins). Its about his two years in Fuling, China as a Peace Corps volunteer, teaching English and American literature at a local college. The book was serialized in The New Yorker.

Hes just published his first novel The Death of Vishn. The book follows the lives of the many inhabitants of a Bombay apartment building—including Vishnu, the homeless man who lives in the buildings stairwell. Based on the writers childhood in Bombay, the book has met praise from critics for its inclusion of Hindu mythology and cinema. When not writing, Mr Suri is a Professor of Mathematics at the University of Maryland.