International affairs

Historian Thant Myint-U is a former U.N. official and a native of Burma. His new book, The River of Lost Footsteps: Histories of Burma — part memoir, part history — explores the problems plaguing the country.

Journalist Zev Chafets is a former New York Daily News columnist and founding editor of the Jerusalem Report. In his new book, A Match Made in Heaven, Chafets explores American evangelical support for Israel.

Writer James Traub discusses his new book, The Best Intentions: Kofi Annan and the UN in the Era of American World Power. Traub recounts the intertwined story of Annan, the United Nations and American foreign policy from 1992 to the present. Traub is a contributing writer for The New York Times Magazine. His other books include City on a Hill and The Devil's Playground.

Gambian attorney Fatou Bensouda is the deputy prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), which deals with genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. The court's first case concerns crimes involving child soldiers. She has served as Attorney General, Secretary of State and Minister of Justice for The Gambia. She is also an authority on gender and violent crimes against women.

Gordon Corera, security correspondent for the BBC, warns in his new book that we may be entering a new era of accelerated weapons proliferation. In Shopping for Bombs, Corera writes about the challenges of halting the proliferation of nuclear weapons and about A.Q. Khan, the man described by a former CIA director as at least as dangerous as Osama bin Laden.

Conservative thinker Michael Ledeen holds the Freedom Chair at the American Enterprise Institute, but prefers the term "democratic revolutionary" to "neoconservative." He discusses the current and future U.S. policy toward Iran, arguing that the United States should encourage change from within the country, rather than launching an all-out attack.

Before most Americans had heard of the Taliban, Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid wrote a book about them. After the Sept. 11 attacks, it became a best-seller. Rashid's recent reporting for English-language newspapers involves Islamist militants in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Hans Blix, the former director of the U.N. Inspection Commission, addresses the UN Thursday with a report on Weapons of Mass Destruction, Tackling the WMD Challenge. Blix is now chairman of the independent Commission on Weapons of Mass Destruction.

Journalist Nicholas Kristof has just won the Pulitzer prize for his New York Times commentary on Darfur. He and John Prendergast of the International Crisis Group deliver an update on the continuing crisis and genocide still under way in the African republic of Sudan.

Madeleine Albright, the former secretary of state under President Bill Clinton, talks about her book The Mighty and the Almighty: Reflections on America, God, and World Affairs. Her previous book is Madam Secretary: A Memoir.