As US military involvement increases once again in Iraq, so too does the urgency of addressing the needs of Iraqi refugees. Many individuals and families are awaiting asylum for years in Jordan, Syria and other neighboring countries. We speak to the director of the Iraqi Refugee Assistance Project (IRAP), Becca Heller and Chair of NYU's IRAP student group, Alex Zetes on the challenges faced by Iraqi refugees. IRAP is the first organization to provide comprehensive legal representation to individual refugees seeking resettlement.

This segment is brought to us by the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung - New York Office. The organization was present at the most recent Left Forum conference in June to document a talk featuring Seattle Councilperson Kshama Sawant, as she discussed the importance of engaging in electoral politics and using electoralism as a platform to strategically push forward concrete policy changes, as well as radical movements for change, especially from the Leftist perspective with visions of socialism as a viable system in the U.S.

For more information on Councilmember Kshama Sawant and her policy campaigns, you can check out Socialist Alternative.

This past Saturday, September 6th, 2014, youth, artists, and organizers joined together to celebrate the completion of a new public mural on 148th St. and Brook Ave in the Mott Haven section of the Bronx. The mural came out of a summer-long collaboration between youth from CAAAV Organizing Asian Communities, Justice Committee, and Streetwise And Safe, working with artist Raul Ayala. Through the mural as well as the unveiling event, the groups spread awareness about new Yorkers’ rights when dealing with the police and the all too often harmful if not fatal consequences of the NYPD’s Broken Windows Policing practices. We hear from members of CAAAV's Asian Youth in Action (AYA) as they discuss how Broken Windows Policing and discriminatory policing practices have affected Asian communities, particularly Asian immigrant communities.