Today, Pakistan celebrates 60 years of independence from Britain. Yet just last week, Prime Minister Pervez Musharraf was on the brink of declaring a state of emergency, following months of conflict over Musharraf’s military rule, his attempted dismissal of the country’s chief justice, and the rise of both Islamic fundamentalism and movement for democracy. We speak to ADIL NAJAM, the moderator of the blog All Things Pakistan. He’ll talk to us about how new media, such as cell phones, is providing an outlet for a new generation of political activists.

Last week’s anniversaries of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki prompted some reflection in the media and elsewhere on the continued threat of nuclear weapons and the belligerent posture of current U.S. foreign policy. But there’s been less discussion of the rise of militarism in Japan itself, whose military has been undergoing its most significant transformation since World War II. We’ll talk to JOHN FEFFER, co-director of Foreign Policy in Focus, about the effort of hawks in Japan to overturn Japan’s peace constitution—and whether that country’s defense posture has already been subverted.

We talk to folks connected to AWAAM, Arab Women Active in the Arts and Media, the Brooklyn based group whose “Intifada NYC” t-shirts indirectly led to the resignation of Debbie Almontaser, the principal of New York’s first public school devoted to Arabic language and culture, which is scheduled to open in a month. An article in the NY Post said the t-shirts were a call for a "Gaza-style uprising in the Big Apple." Almontaser resigned after being criticized for not denouncing the shirts, which are not connected to the school.