Places & Travel

Middle East peace expert Sari Nusseibeh is the founder of the Palestinian Consultancy Group and the Israeli-Palestinian Science Organization, the president of Al-Quds University in Jerusalem and a professor of Islamic philosophy. He co-wrote the People's Voice Initiative to build grassroots support for a two-state solution. Until December 2002, he was the representative of the Palestinian National Authority in Jerusalem.

Anthony Shadid of The Washington Post has been reporting from Lebanon. Shadid won the Pulitzer Prize in 2004 for international reporting. His latest book, Night Draws Near: Iraq's People in the Shadow of America's War, has just come out in paperback. Shadid is of Lebanese descent and grew up in Oklahoma City, Okla.

TV critic David Bianculli previews When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts, Spike Lee's two-part HBO documentary about New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

Fiction writer Claire Messud has twice been a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner award. Our book critic says Messud's just-published novel, The Emperor's Children, might just be the one to propel her out of the "finalist" category and win her the gold.

Matt Dillon, who recently starred in the comedy You, Me and Dupree, next plays the lead role in Factotum, based on a novel by Charles Bukowski. Dillon was nominated for an Oscar for his performance in the film Crash.

Augustus Richard Norton is a professor of international relations and anthropology at Boston University and has been writing about Lebanon for 25 years. He is an expert on the Shiite political movements, including Hezbollah. A member of the Council on Foreign Relations, Norton's books include Amal and the Shi'a: Struggle for the Soul of Lebanon and Civil Society in the Middle East.

British diplomat and journalist Rory Stewart walked alone across Afghanistan following the fall of the Taliban. The former fellow at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Havard's Kennedy School of Government wrote about it in the memoir The Places in Between. Stewart was later appointed a provincial governor in post-invasion Iraq, and has a memoir about that experience as well.

Oliver Stone's new film World Trade Center, starring Nicolas Cage and Michael Pena, follows two Port Authority policemen trapped in the rubble of the towers. Our critic says the film raises a lot of questions about how we grieve.

Deputy Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction Ginger Cruz oversees the audit, inspection and investigation operations established to prevent waste, fraud and abuse in the U.S. reconstruction of Iraq. Cruz just returned from Iraq.

Palestinian author, journalist and literary critic Samir El-Youssef was born in a refugee camp in Lebanon. He now lives in London, and has collaborated with his friend, Israeli writer Etgar Keret, on a book, Gaza Blues. El-Youssef provides his views on recent events in the Middle East.

New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman just returned from a trip to Israel, Jordan and Syria. He talks with us about the war between Israel and Hezbollah, and where Syria fits in. Friedman's most recent book is The World is Flat: A Brief History of the 21st Century.

Syrian dissident Ammar Abdulhamid is a visiting fellow with the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution. He says that while growing up in Syria in the '70s and '80s, it wasn’t fears of an Israeli attack that kept him up at night. His concern was the dreaded Syrian security apparatus and certain government officials.

Christopher Dickey, Paris bureau chief and Middle East regional editor for Newsweek magazine, discusses the crisis in the Middle East.

Miami Vice, the '80s TV sensation starring Don Johnson and Philip Michael Thomas as two vice squad detectives, has been given a makeover by its former executive producer. Michael Mann directs an updated version for the screen, starring Colin Farrell and Jamie Foxx. Our film critic has a review.

Professor Daniel Byman talks about new book, Deadly Connections: States That Sponsor Terrorism. He explores the symbiotic relationship between terrorist organizations and their state sponsors. Byman is associate professor in Georgetown University's Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service and director of Georgetown's Security Studies Program and Center for Peace and Security Studies.

Washington Post senior Pentagon correspondent Thomas Ricks. His new book is called Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq. Ricks is a Pulitzer Prize winning reporter. He talks about the possibility of U.S. involvement in the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hezbollah in southern Lebanon. This is the first of a two part interview.

Julia Choucair is an associate in the Democracy and Rule of Law Project at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and the deputy editor of the Carnegie's e-monthly, the Arab Reform Bulletin.

A few years ago, writer Jeffrey Goldberg spoke with Hezbollah leaders for a 2002 article in called "In the Party of God: Are Terrorists in Lebanon Preparing for a Larger War?" Goldberg will help us understand the background of the current unrest in Lebanon. Goldberg serves as Washington correspondent for The New Yorker.

New York Times reporter Dexter Filkins has been covering the war in Iraq and is back for a brief visit to the United States. Filkins updates us on the situation in the Middle East. Last year, he received the George Polk Award for War Reporting for his riveting, firsthand account of an eight-day attack on Iraqi insurgents in Falluja.

Steven Erlanger, New York Times bureau chief in Jerusalem, joins us to talk about intensified fighting in the region. Erlanger has reported from all over the world, serving in Moscow, Bangkok, Prague and other cities. Prior to his tenure at the Times, he wrote for The Boston Globe.