Barack Obama

To mark the Inauguration we asked poets, actors, and musicians to leave voicemails for the new president. Artists who turned Obama into an icon during the campaign, find themselves in a quandary. And Kurt has an exit interview with departing NEA chairman Dana Gioia. Plus, all of New York City fits into a single room […]

Drones have only been around for a couple of decades, but already, they’re reshaping the contours of conflict and raising ethical quandaries. President Barack Obama launched more than 500 drone strikes during his tenure, 10 times more than President George W. Bush. But Obama’s drones strikes killed far fewer civilians than did Bush’s intervention in Iraq. Still, how much should drones and robotics be used in conflict, and when, and what unintended consequences might this unleash? Peter Singer, Strategist at the New America Foundation and author of “Wired for War: The Robotics Revolution and Conflict in the 21st Century” talks with The World’s Jeb Sharp.

The Maker Movement started to reconnect Americans with the creativity and joy that comes from making things with your hands, after years of outsourcing manufacturing jobs. It’s now been embraced by dozens of countries, including China. And in China, factory of the world for decades, what does the Maker Movement mean? Depends whether you’re a Maker, or a government official — and therein lies the rub.

How are we, and the rest of the world, doing in striking the right balance between protecting Internet rights and serving national security concerns? How much should citizens in democracies get a say in what that balance is? Rebecca MacKinnon, a former CNN correspondent in China and now director of the New America Foundation’s “Ranking Digital Rights Project,” weighs in.

German political strategist Simon Vaut on the European Union and global politics.

President Obama’s announcement to begin normalizing relations with Cuba marks the most significant change in US policy toward the island nation in a half century. But as America looks to make it easier to travel to the country and establish more economic ties, what does that mean for the average Cuban or Cuban American?

The Keystone XL pipeline has been a controversial project in both the United States and Canada. On this edition of America Abroad, audiences in Lincoln, Nebraska and Calgary, Canada engaged in a cross border discussion about how the oil sands industry and the building of the Keystone XL pipeline directly affects their lives. Participants debated the environmental safety of the pipeline, the economic costs and benefits, the legal suits brought by Nebraskan landowners and complaints against it brought by Canada’s First Nation’s tribes and the ways in which it might alter the US global energy position.

This program is a joint production of America Abroad and CBC Alberta and is co-moderated by America Abroad’s Hari Sreenivasan in Lincoln, Nebraska and the CBC’s Donna McElligot in Calgary, Alberta.