Government & Politics

In 1985, Maull was sentenced to 25 years in prison for drug smuggling. Since then, he has devoted most of his time in prison to working with dying prisoners, and to teaching Buddhist practice and meditation. In 1988, Maull helped establish the National Prison Hospice Association, which establishes hospices to help dying prisoners prepare for death. Maull is also a devout Buddhist. After establishing a meditation group in his own prison in Springfield, Missouri, he founded the Prison Dharma Network, for prisoners who want to become involved in Buddhist study and meditation.

Dibango is considered one of the founders of world music. His first album, "Soul Makossa," was a big hit in 1973. His latest album is called "Wakafrika" and blends traditionally African music with European pop. This album features such artists as Youssou N'Dour, Peter Gabriel and Sinead O'Connor. His new autobiography is "Three Kilos of Coffee."

Susan Walker is refugee specialist working with Physicians for Human Rights, an organization of health professionals which investigates and tries to prevent violations of international human rights law. She was recently a member of a team that conducted an "early warning" assessment of Burundi, the country which borders Rwanda. The team warns that Burundi may soon face a bloody civil conflict similar to Rwanda's.

Marty Moss-Coane talks to the Turki about his youth in Palestine and how the Israeli-Arab conflict influence his politics. His new book is called "Exile's Return." Turki now lives in the United States.

A broadcast of a panel held at New York University in April called "Cops and Writers: Crime and Punishment in Literature and Real Life." The panel, sponsored by the PEN American Center and The New York Review of Books, features police officials and writers, including crime writer Walter Mosley and author Joyce Carol Oates. The panel focuses on the fine line between crime fiction and crime reality. The writers talk about the fact that crime novelists generally draw on real criminals and real crimes to create their characters and plot.

Music by blues singer and guitarist Robert Pete Williams has just been reissued. Williams, like Leadbelly, was a convicted murderer who sang his way out of prison. Commentator Milo Miles has this review.

Film critic Stephen Schiff reviews "A Clear and Present Danger," a macho and intelligent espionage thriller starring Harrison Ford.

Sindiwe Magona is a fiction writer who was born and educated in South Africa. Her autobiography, "To my Children's Children," traces her life under the apartheid system. In her memoir, she describes her childhood in a poor South African town, and the hasty end a teenage pregnancy put to her career as a teacher. The memoir won an honorable mention from the 1991 Noma Award for Publishing in Africa. Magona has also published a novel, "Forced to Grow," and a collection of short stories. She currently works as a translator for the United Nations.

TV critic David Bianculli reviews the new BBC-produced documentary that premieres Sunday on the Discovery Channel.

Thomas Friedman is a Middle East correspondent for "The New York Times," and author of the Pulitzer-Prize winning book "From Beirut to Jerusalem." He'll talk about last week's pact between Israel and Jordan.

Schorr is the Senior News Analyst for National Public Radio. He was the CBS Chief Watergate Correspondent, and is now narrating a five-part BBC documentary, "Watergate." After ending up on Nixon’s "enemy list," Schorr resigned from CBS in 1976, and wrote a book about the Watergate scandal called "Clearing the Air." Before joining CBS, he was a foreign correspondent for the Christian Science Monitor and The New York Times.

Biographer Laurence Bergreen has just written a biography of Al Capone, called "Capone: The Man and the Era," which challenges many of America's popular beliefs about the famous gangster. Bergreen reveals the complexity of Capone's life by focusing on the personal details of his life -- his marriage, his role as a loving father, and generous giver. Bergreen has also written biographies of James Agee and Irving Berlin.

Commentator Maureen Corrigan reviews Thomas Mallon's new novel, "Henry and Clara," about a real life couple who was present at the Lincoln's assassination.

Last week, a cholera epidemic broke out in Rwanda, and the country now has limited medical facilities and few physicians. Dr. John Sundin worked during May and June at the Red Cross hospital in Kigali, Rwanda. He'll talk about the cholera epidemic, and about his experiences working as the only surgeon in Kigali.

Ladd is a 24-year-old writer who has just published an autobiography, "Out of the Madness." He writes about growing up in the Dallas housing projects with his mother, who was a heroin addict. Ladd describes how he struggled to educate himself and eventually became a writer. His book started out as an article, written when he was 20, and published in "Dallas Life." Ladd currently writes for the "Dallas Morning News," and attends college.

Jazz critic Kevin Whitehead substitutes for Stephen Schiff and reviews the new movie "The Client," based on John Grisham's bestselling legal thriller.

Belli's first novel, "The Inhabited Woman," is about a young architect whose body becomes inhabited by the soul of an Indian woman from the time of the Conquistadors. The soul urges the young woman to abandon her privileged lifestyle and join an underground movement against the dictatorship. Belli is from an affluent Nicaraguan family. She studied English and advertising abroad before returning to Nicaragua and joining the Sandinistas and playing a role in the overthrow of Nicaragua's dictator Somoza.

The Cuban-born poet and essayist has just written his first novel, "The Marks of Birth." It explores the experience of exile through the eyes of a young character whose family is forced to flee the political unrest of a Caribbean island-nation, and begin again in America. Medina has also written two collections of poems: "Pork Rind and Cuban Songs" and "Arching into the Afterlife," and a book of personal essays entitled "Exiled Memories: A Cuban Childhood."

Frank Smyth is a freelance journalist who has written on Rwanda for "The Village Voice," "The Nation," and "The New Republic," and an investigative consultant for Human Rights Watch/Africa. He wrote a report for Human Rights Watch/Africa based on his visit to Rwanda in May and June of 1993. The report, "Arming Rwanda," is about the arms trade and the human rights violations in that country.

Film Critic Stephen Schiff reviews the new Arnold Schwarzenegger/Jamie Lee Curtis film. Schiff says it features small-scale wit and large-scale pyrotechnics -- though it never manages to blend the two.