Amal Elderat was among those who celebrated in Libya after news of Moammar Gadhafi’s capture and death in October 2011. Photo by Marco Longari/AFP/Getty Images

Imagine this horrifying scenario: Your father and brother get arrested by a foreign government. You believe they’re being tortured and forced to give false confessions. Soon, they’ll be facing a trial that could lead to a lifetime in prison, possibly even the death penalty. Amal Elderat, a 28-year-old Libyan-American is living this nightmare right now.

LISTEN: The real story behind your cup of tea

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Elderat grew up in California, but her family is from Misrata, Libya. Her father and brother are now on trial, possibly for life, in the United Arab Emirates, where they had been living and working. They are charged with aiding terrorists in Libya during Moammar Gadhafi’s regime. The family claims they were sending humanitarian aid to their hometown of Misrata during the uprising. They are being targeted, she says, because the UAE has backed fighters from a different part of Libya.

On his Shortwave podcast this week, P.J. Tobia reports on the story of how this Libyan family suffered under Moammar Gadhafi’s regime, and how after he was captured and killed, things got much, much worse.

Shortwave is a podcast that you listen to. With your ears.

The post How sending aid landed one Libyan family in prison appeared first on PBS NewsHour.

Overseas products processed by child or slave labor, in some cases shrimp, now face tougher restrictions for coming into the U.S. Photo taken on August 28, 2015. Photo by Reuters

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Last month, activists working to end child and forced labor got a big win. Congress passed a regulation banning the import of goods made by slave labor. Soon after, President Obama signed the bill into law.

The companies that make these products now face tougher regulations for getting into the U.S. marketplace. But there are still big hurdles to screening goods for fair labor practices.

This week on Shortwave, we talk about what comes next with Melysa Sperber of the Alliance to End Slavery and Trafficking.

The post U.S. cracks down on products made by slave labor, but hurdles remain appeared first on PBS NewsHour.

File photo of a tea-leaf harvester in India by Utpal Baruah/Reuters

When you wrap your hands around a toasty cup of tea this winter, consider the source.

The U.S. imports about 400 million pounds of tea each year, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Tea makers often market their product with the idea that sipping tea is a relaxing, nearly spiritual experience. But for many of the people who produce our tea, life is hardly tranquil.

The United Nations, nongovernmental organizations and human rights lawyers describe tea-leaf pickers living and working in vile, dangerous conditions. Child labor is prevalent, as is wage theft and even human trafficking on tea plantations across the globe.

This week on Shortwave, we tell you all about where your cup of tea comes from with Peter Rosenblum, a lawyer and professor at Bard College who spent two years investigating Indian tea plantations and produced this report. We also spoke with Ruth Dearnly, director of Stop the Traffick, an organization that produced “Not My Cup of Tea,” a report on human trafficking in the industry.

Shortwave is a podcast. That you listen to. With your ears.

The post Here’s the real story behind your cup of tea appeared first on PBS NewsHour.

Shortwave is a podcast. That you listen to. With your ears.

The multi-billion dollar private surveillance industry does some of the U.S. government’s most critical electronic snooping. From “deep packet inspection” — that includes tracking and filtering emails — to phone taps, private contractors play a key role for law enforcement and intelligence agencies.

Besides the U.S. government, some of these companies count the world’s worst human rights violators as clients, according to privacy advocates.

This week on Shortwave, we speak with James Bamford, a writer and documentary film producer who specializes in stories about mass surveillance.

The post Meet the private companies that sell spy tech to the NSA and Sudan appeared first on PBS NewsHour.

Shortwave is a podcast. That you listen to. With your ears.

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This week on Shortwave, we bring you Part Two in our series on tracking terrorists on U.S. soil. We speak with former Department of Homeland Security Expert Juliette Kayyem, who hosts “The Security Mom” podcast and will soon publish a book by the same name.

You can listen to Part One of our series, “Who Watches the Watchlist?” here.

The post The government’s making a watchlist and checking it twice appeared first on PBS NewsHour.

Migrant Offshore Aid Station founder Christopher Catrambone, left, and Will Turner of Doctors Without Borders just before they departed on a six-month mission to search for and rescue migrants in the Mediterranean. Photo by Darrin Zammit/Reuters

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In 2013, Louisiana native Christopher Catrambone was doing well for himself. His war-zone insurance company had made him rich, and he was able to take some time for a luxury cruise on the Mediterranean Sea with his Italian wife Regina.

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“The reality started to sink in that basically, this beautiful water that we were enjoying was a hell for so many.”

So Catrambone and his wife decided to take action. They bought a boat, hired a crew, and in 2014, launched the Migrant Offshore Aid Station. Now, his crew trawls the ocean, rescuing migrant boats, and they’re expanding to Asia.

This week on Shortwave, we speak with Cantrambone about his work, his life and what’s next for his unique organization.

This is a podcast. That you listen to. With your ears. Click on the link above.

The post Meet the millionaire who’s spent a fortune rescuing migrants in the Mediterranean appeared first on PBS NewsHour.

A pro-Beijing radio network spreads its message via American airwaves. Photo by Paula Bronstein/Getty Images

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As China’s economy has exploded like a nitroglycerin firecracker, a campaign of positive messaging has emanated from Beijing.

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This week on our Shortwave podcast, we speak with John Shiffman, who was part of the Reuters team that investigated the Chinese radio initiative, as well as David Shambaugh of George Washington University, author of the book “China Goes Global.” Shambaugh puts the Reuters story in context of what he calls China’s “soft power push.”

Also, this is a podcast. That you listen to. Click on the link above.

The post Podcast: How the Chinese government gets its messages on America’s airwaves appeared first on PBS NewsHour.

A U.S. Air Force MQ-1 Predator unmanned aerial vehicle assigned to the California Air National Guard’s 163rd Reconnaissance Wing undergoes a postflight inspection at the Southern California Logistics Airport in Victorville, California in January 2012. Image by REUTERS/U.S. Air Force/Tech. Sgt. Effrain Lopez/Handout

The predator drone, with its distinctive oblong head and inverted V-shaped tail, has become a sort of mascot for the U.S. global war on terror.

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But that wasn’t always the case.

Lt. Col. T. Mark McCurley spent more than a decade flying drones and commanding a squad of drone pilots. In this week’s episode of NewsHour’s Shortwave podcast, he describes the program in its early days as “a dumping ground for bad pilots.” He also tells us how that perception has radically changed over the last decade.

We also hear from Naureen Shah of Amnesty International. She says too many innocent people are killed with drones and the U.S. military isn’t transparent enough with it targets. P.J. Tobia reports on the history and controversy of this weapon.

The post The inside story of predator drones appeared first on PBS NewsHour.

Mexican border residents and members of the Border Network for Human Rights (BNHR) march on a road towards a detention center for migrants at the border between the U.S and Mexico in El Paso, Texas, August 24, 2014. REUTERS/Jose Luis Gonzalez

In the 1990 romantic comedy Green Card, an American girl played by Andie MacDowell marries French guy Gérard Depardieu. It’s a win-win. He gets citizenship. She gets to put “married” on an application for a fabulous Manhattan apartment that weirdly requires she not be single.

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Marriage and citizenship often go hand in hand in the U.S. Our immigration system privileges people with family ties to this country.

But there’s an exception to the rule. And this exception has affected about half a million people, according to immigration experts. It’s a law, known as the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act, which says that anyone who enters the U.S. illegally, stays for more than a year and then returns to their native country, is barred from entering the U.S. for 10 years. And if they’ve entered the U.S. illegally more than once, it’s a lifetime bar.

For this week’s Shortwave, P.J. Tobia interviews a family that’s been barred for years under this act from returning to the United States.

Last month we reported on deported veterans of the U.S. military. You can listen to that episode here.

The post When marriage and citizenship don’t go hand in hand appeared first on PBS NewsHour.

Qatar Airways is among the Persian Gulf carriers that three major U.S. airlines allege has received unfair subsidies from its government. Photo by Eric Cabanis/AFP/Getty Images)

Bart Jansen, who covers aviation for USA Today calls it “the single biggest trade dispute in history.”

The three biggest U.S. airlines – American, United and Delta – have lodged a complaint with the U.S. government, alleging that three major carriers in the Persian Gulf are receiving unfair subsidies from their governments — $42 billion over the last decade. The Gulf carriers deny the allegation.

For the American airlines, some of their most lucrative routes, plus thousands of U.S. jobs, are on the line. At stake for the Gulf states is access to the wealthiest travel market, along with the future of their rapidly growing airlines.

And this is all happening as flying in this country has become more crowded, expensive and inconvenient.

We take a look at the battle for this week’s Shortwave.

The post U.S. and Persian Gulf airlines clash over $42 billion trade dispute appeared first on PBS NewsHour.

Packets of synthetic marijuana illegally sold in New York City are put on display at a news conference in August. Illegal synthetic marijuana is spreading across New York, particularly the city’s homeless population in search of a cheap high but who often wind up hospitalized or dead, police say. Photo by Sebastien Malo/Reuters

It’s as easy as ordering a pair of shoes from Zappos. Only the product is more dangerous and deadly than a pair of stilettos: synthetic drugs, almost all coming into the country from China. How are these drugs trafficked into the U.S.? And what is being done to stop their distribution?

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Still, there are many reports of these chemicals being manufactured in the open. Many ingredients in these drugs aren’t even illegal there. The U.S. Drugn Enforcement Agency says that most of the pre-curser chemicals in meth also come from China.

It doesn’t help matters that there are plenty of customers in the U.S., with large profit margins for dealers.

On this week’s Shortwave, a deadly trade of an elusive drug.

The post Is China feeding the U.S.’s deadly synthetic drug habit? appeared first on PBS NewsHour.