May 10 – Obama to Visit Hiroshima; The New President of the Philippines Who Makes Trump Look Like a Choir Boy; Another Perspective on Rodrigo “The Punisher” Duterte

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Full Program

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Part 1

We begin with the announcement by the White House that President Obama will visit Hiroshima on May 27thduring his G-7 summit trip, making Obama the first American president to visit the site of where the first atomic was dropped in 1945 killing up to 200,000 people. Thomas Berger, a Visiting Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars and the author of “War, Guilt and World Politics After World War 11” joins us to discuss how Obama intends to highlight his commitment to a world without nuclear weapons and will not be offering an apology for the United States’ use of the atomic bomb, in contrast to Donald Trump who suggested Japan and South Korea should attain nuclear weapons, something that Japan is more than capable of doing, but has long renounced.

Part 2

Then we examine the election of a new president of The Philippines who is being widely compared to Donald Trump, although Rodrigo “the Punisher” Duterte’s murderous rhetoric, sexual bravado, foul mouth and promise to take a jet ski and a flagpole to the disputed islands where he would plant the Filipino flag and challenge the Chinese to “kill me”, make Trump seem like a choir boy. Two experts on The Philippines join us to offer their perspectives. First we will speak with Lynn White, a Professor Emeritus of Politics and International Affairs and a Senior Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University. He joins us to discuss the angry, violent populism behind the victory of Duterte.

Part 3

Then we speak with Gerard Finin, Director of the Pacific Islands Development Program at the East-West Center in Hawaii and author of “The New Pacific Way? Gambling on a Gambler: High Stakes for the Philippine Presidency”. He joins us to discuss Duterte’s encouragement of vigilantism and his promise to pardon police who kill criminals and whether the new president will deliver on the Filipino people’s yearning for a political system that serves them and not the 40 oligarchic families who control three quarters of the nation’s wealth.