Hello and welcome to Background Briefing, available 24 7 at Background Briefing.org.

I'm Ian Masters, and today we'll look into a number of stories and issues in the news.

We'll begin with the assassination attempt on Robert Fico, the Prime Minister of Slovakia,

who is close to Hungary's Orban and Russia's Putin,

and the murky background of the assassin, who professes to be a poet and appears to have ties

to the Russian neo-Nazi motorcycle gang the Kremlin supports

and Putin hangs out with the night wolves.

Joining us is Kim Lane Shepley, a professor of sociology and international affairs at Princeton

University from 1994 to 1998.

She lived in Budapest doing research on the Constitutional Court of Hungary

and teaching at both the University of Budapest and at Central European University.

She studied the emergence of constitutional law in Hungary and Russia, living in both places for extended

periods, and is the author of 9-11, The Rise of Global Anti-Terrorism Law.

Then we'll examine the summit underway in Beijing between Xi Jinping and Putin,

which is the 40th time the two leaders have met,

at which they condemn the U.S. and pledged to deepen defense and military ties.

Joining us is Orr Voschelle, who was formerly the dean of the Graduate School of

Journalism at the University of California at Berkeley, and currently is the Arthur Ross

Director of the Asia Society's Center on U.S.-China Relations. His books include

Mandate of Heaven, the legacy of Tiananmen Square and the next generation of China's leaders,

and wealth and power China's long march to the 21st century. Then finally we'll get an update on

the so-called hush money trial in New York, with Trump's lawyer relentlessly attacking Michael

...