Government & Politics

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.

Film critic David Edelstein reviews Capturing the Friedmans, a new documentary by Andrew Jarecki about a family torn apart by charges of pedophilia and child molestation.

He was recently abducted and expelled from Zimbabwe by government authorities. He had been The Guardian's Zimbabwe correspondent, and was the last foreign journalist allowed to file from the country.

She was the founding executive director of the Harvard University Carr Center for Human Rights Policy. She's written for U.S. News and World Report, The Atlantic Monthly, The Economist and The New Yorker. Her book, A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide, is winner of the Pulitzer Prize.

An expert on energy and the Middle East, he is a senior fellow on the Council on Foreign Relations. Previously, Ibrahim was a foreign correspondent for The New York Times, and Tehran bureau chief. He also covered energy for The Wall Street Journal. He is currently working on a book about oil and war.