Putin Warns Against Interference in Russia

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin says the world faces a growing “cult of violence,” and Moscow must not let events like those in Libya and Syria be repeated in Russia. Deborah Lutterbeck reports.

Eastern Europe’s ‘Bloodlands’

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The opening of Soviet and East European archives has provided historians a tidal wave of new information about the crimes of Soviet leader Josef Stalin. Brigid McCarthy reports on one historian’s work. Download MP3
Excerpt of Timothy Snyder’s ‘Bloodlands’

Global Political Cartoons: August 21 – 27, 2010

France expels Gypsies or Roma and sends them packing back to Eastern Europe. The slow trickle of aid to Pakistan; exiting Iraq, and US soldiers watch out for Taliban in Afghanistan.

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World Books Review: Memorable ‘Ghosts of Home’

Marianne Hirsch and Leo Spitzer’s monumental book “Ghosts of Home” is a stunning marriage of intellectual curiosity and personal search, a compelling historical reconstruction of the German-Jewish Central European culture of the embattled city of Czernowitz, once known as the “Vienna of the East.”

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Moorish grafitti and texting in Yiddish

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The Alhambra in Grenada, the crowning glory of Moorish Spain, has more than 10,000 prayers and poems in Arabic inscribed on its walls. We hear about an effort to catalog the inscriptions. Then it’s the second part of the BBC’s documentary on Yiddish. Reporter Dennis Marks takes us to New York, where the language is undergoing a modest revival: among Hasidic Jews in Crown Heights, with a family who text message in transliterated Yiddish, and with a musician a novelist who are re-interpreting the old language of Eastern Europe’s shtetls for new generations. Download MP3

The BBC’s Koneksyon Ayiti + Yiddish forever

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In the latest World in Words podcast: Eleven days after Haiti’s earthquake, the BBC began daily radio broadcasts in Haitian Creole. We hear how the broadcasts kept Haitians abreast of the news and put them in touch with loved ones. Also, the past, present and future of Yiddish. Once spoken by millions in Europe, it was nearly wiped out in the Holocaust and through assimilation. Today it survives, and not only as the language that gave English klutz, kosher, kvetch and many other evocative expressions. Download MP3

Reaction to new missile defense plan

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The World’s Gerry Hadden reports on reaction in Eastern Europe and Russia to President Obama’s decision to switch course on a missile defense program for Europe.

World Books Podcast: A Child’s View of Communism

In this World Books podcast, Hungarian writer Ferenc Barnás talks about his autobiographical novel “The Ninth,” which melds the sophistication of stream-of-consciousness with a child’s eye view of survival amid repression in an authoritarian state.

Eastern European economic ills

The World’s Jason Margolis explains why unhealthy Eastern European economies could spell more trouble for the West. Economists say the U.S. and Western Europe should pay close attention. Listen