Host Per Fagereng speaks with William Pepper, an American lawyer who practices international human rights law, about the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. on April 4th, 1968.

Pepper was present at Martin Luther King's April 4, 1967 Riverside Church speech in which King launched a strong campaign against the Vietnam War.

Pepper thought that King's assassination was part of a government conspiracy and became James Earl Ray's last attorney. Following Ray's death Pepper represented the King family in a wrongful death suit.

William Pepper's books include Orders to Kill: The Truth Behind the Murder of Martin Luther King, 1995, and An Act Of State: The Execution of Martin Luther King, 2003.

Host Per Fagereng speaks with writer, reporter, photographer and humanitarian Ann Jones about her article "In Afghanistan, a Woman's Place Is at the Peace Table," which says "Let women play a bigger role in the country's affairs and see what happens to the peace process."

www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-jones-afghanistan-women-20110113-11,0,7690540.story 

Host Per Fagereng speaks with Palestinian scholar and social entrepreneur Dr. Nasser Abufarha, author of The Making of a Human Bomb: An Ethnography of Palestinian Resistance (The Cultures and Practice of Violence).

Abufarha earned his PhD in Cultural Anthropology and International Development from the University of Wisconsin in 2006. His first book, which focuses on landscapes, the environment and violence, was published by Duke University Press in 2009.

Abufarha is the founder of the Palestine Fair Trade Association and Canaan Fair Trade, which is bringing Palestinian olive oil and other traditional foods to mainstream American and European markets, while also improving economic conditions for more than 1,700 farmers in the West Bank. Canaan Fair Trade today is the largest exporter of certified fair trade and organic Palestinian olive oil to America and Europe.

Nasser Abufarha will present a free public talk called "Insisting on Life" in the Equal Exchange office at 1033 SE Main, Portland, OR 97214 on Thursday, January 20, 2011. 
There is a reception prior to the presentation starting at 5:00 pm in Banyan Tree Portland
at 18 SW 1st Avenue, Portland 97204 (in the Mercy Corps building), with an informal talk at 5:30pm.

There will be fair trade olive oil tasting and sales at both locations on Thursday. Equal Exchange will provide fair trade coffee, tea and chocolate for the evening presentation. 

Host Per Fagereng speaks with historian Alfred McCoy about his article “The Decline and Fall of the American Empire, Four Scenarios for the End of the American Century by 2025” McCoy says the demise of the United States as the global superpower could come far more quickly than anyone imagines.

www.tomdispatch.com/archive/175327/

Alfred McCoy is the noted University of Wisconsin historian and author most recently of Policing America's Empire: The United States, the Philippines, and the Rise of the Surveillance State (and most famously) of The Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade.