Tonight, we’ll be joined in the studio by Tatsuo Kobayashi, who lives in Miyagi prefecture, one of the areas worst affected by the recent Japanese nuclear disaster. He survived the earthquake and is in New York this week to deliver signatures from the Japanese public to the United Nations calling for negotiations on the international convention to ban nuclear weapons.

For the past four and half years, villagers of Jeju Island in South Korea have been waging fierce resistance against the construction of a naval base. The base will house 25,000 troops and 20 warships, including two US aegis destroyers that will be connected by satellite to the US missile defense system. On September 2, the South Korean government deployed 1000 armed riot police to the remote island village to crack down on the growing protest. Currently, ten people are still detained, including three Catholic priests and the mayor of Gangjeong Village. We will speak with activist Sung-hee Choi who is on Jeju Island and artist Koh Gill-chun.

Join us for a conversation with with award-winning poet Ed Bok Lee about his new book of poetry, Whorled. The book "looks toward a global future...From gambling Buddhists to a Russian rave, Lee's ever-wandering cultural and spiritual nomads struggle to make sense of what it means to be a citizen of an increasingly homeless world." Lee will read at the Asian American Writers Workshop this Friday, October 7th.