Government & Politics

In the 1990s he covered Ethiopia, Somalia, Rwanda and the Congo for Reuters. Three of his colleagues were killed by a mob in Somolia during a rebellion against the presence of U.S. forces, and he witnessed the atrocities in Rwanda. Hartley grew up in Africa, the son of a British colonial officer. After the death of his father, Hartley found in a chest his father had given him the diaries of his father's best friend who had died mysteriously 50 years earlier. Hartley set out to find out what happened.

Book critic Maureen Corrigan reviews Jacqueline Winspear's debut novel, Maisie Dobbs.

Comic Bill Maher host of the HBO show Real Time with Bill Maher. Like his previous show, Politically Incorrect, Real Time features a roundtable of guests who make jokes and talk politics. This week's guests are actress Janeane Garofalo and California Gov. Gray Davis. Maher is also the author of When You Ride Alone, You Ride with Bin Laden.

Noah Feldman is a professor of the New York University School of Law with a doctorate in Islamic Thought from Oxford. Until recently he was head of the constitutional team with the Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance in Iraq. He is serving as an adviser as Iraq seeks to draft a new constitution. Feldman is also the author of the new book, After Jihad: America and the Struggle for Islamic Democracy. In the book he argues that it is time for Islamic democracies.

Nigerian-born actor Chiwetel Ejiofor stars in the new Stephen Frears film Dirty Pretty Things. Ejiofor plays an immigrant former doctor who now must make his living in London as a cab driver and hotel clerk. Ejiofor graduated from the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, and was named Outstanding Newcomer in The London Evening Standard Awards 2000. He recently completed a sell-out run at London's National Theatre as Christopher in Blue/Orange. At the age of 19 he had a role in Steven Spielberg's film Amistad.

He's the author of the new book, All The Shah's Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror. It's about the 1953 CIA coup in Iran that put an end to democratic rule, and in turn led the way for the Islamic Revolution of 1979. He writes, "It was the first time the United States overthrew a foreign government. It set a pattern for years to come and shaped the way millions of people view the United States."

Stothard is the author of the new book, Thirty Days: Tony Blair and the Test of History. Stothard chronicles the 30 days leading up to the Iraq war and the early days of the war. Stothard had unprecedented access to Blair during that time. Stothard is currently editor of The London Times Literary Supplement, and is former editor of The Times from 1992 to 2002.

Arn Chorn-Pond is the subject of the new documentary The Flute Player. As a child, Chorn-Pond was held in a Khmer Rouge labor camp where many children starved to death, many others were murdered, and those who survived were forced to work from 5 a.m. to midnight. He was taught to play the flute to play propaganda songs which helped assure his survival. Later at age 14, Chorn-Pond was forced into the Khmer Rouge army to fight the invading Vietnamese. After seeing his friends die, he fled into the jungle.

Film critic David Edelstein reviews Dirty Pretty Things, directed by Stephen Frears.

His work is part of the new Time Magazine book, 21 Days to Baghdad: The Inside Story of How America Won the War Against Iraq. Morris is a contract photographer for Time, and has documented more than 18 foreign conflicts. He has documented drug-related violence in Colombia, guerilla fighting in Afghanistan, and the Persian Gulf war. Morris has won many photojournalism awards during his career.

He covers the economy for The New York Times. He recently returned from Iraq, where he wrote about a number of things, including the country's economy.

Singer wrote the new book, Corporate Warriors: The Rise of the Privatized Military Industry. Over the last decade, private companies have provided tactical support, advice, training, security and even intelligence to the military. In the recent war against Iraq, private military employees handled everything from feeding and housing U.S. troops to maintaining sophisticated weapons like the B-2 stealth bomber. The practice raises troubling ethical questions.

Journalist James Bennet of The New York Times. He's been in the Middle East covering how the crisis there is affecting both Israelis and Palestinians.

Ted Conover is a contributing writer to The New York Times Magazine. He went to Guantanamo Bay to report on the detention of suspected jihadists and terrorists there. He has written about it in the June 29th edition of The New York Times Magazine, "In the Land of Guantanamo." Previously, Conover spent a year as a prison guard inside New York State's infamous Sing Sing prison to experience first hand the conditions within a prison. He wrote about it in his book, Newjack: Guarding Sing Sing.

Performance artist, writer and theater director Rhodessa Jones is co-artistic director of the San Franciso performance company Cultural Odyssey. She is also founder and director of the "Medea Project: Theater for Incarcerated Women," a performance workshop for women in prison in which she helps them develop and stage works based on their own stories. Jones' solo performance works include Hot Flashes, Power Surges, and Private Summers, and Big Butt Girls, Hard-Headed Women.

In his recent columns he has been writing about the intelligence officers who disclosed to him that the Bush administration exaggerated the claims of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq before the war. Kristof recently returned from Iraq.

He responds to concerns about conflict of interest in awarding military contracts to private companies. Pawlik explains how the Army Corps of Engineers gave contracts to put out oil fires in Iraq to Kellogg Brown and Root (KBR), a subsidiary of Halliburton. Vice President Dick Cheney, a former Secretary of Defense, was the CEO of Halliburton before he became vice president.

He's the founder and executive director of the Center for Public Integrity. It's a nonprofit, nonpartisan research organization in Washington, D.C., similar to an investigative journalism outfit but without time and space constraints. Its mission is to expose corruption and power abuse by governments, corporations and individuals. For 11 years, Lewis was an investigative reporter at ABC News, and also worked at CBS on 60 Minutes. His work at the Center for Public Integrity has been widely praised.

In her new memoir, Living History, she writes about growing up in the 1950s, her life in the White House, the Senate, and her husband's sex scandal.

Ricks covers the military for The Washington Post. Ricks recently returned from Iraq where he was semi-embedded with troops in Baghdad.