Hello and welcome to Background Briefing, available 24-7 at Background Briefing.org, I'm Ian Masters, and today we'll examine a number of stories and issues in the news.

We'll begin with intensifying Israeli attacks on Hezbollah that have prompted an exodus

of civilians leaving southern Lebanon as fears of a wider war increase.

Joining us to discuss why Biden and Harris are tied to Netanyahu and appear unable to stop

a war that will hurt the vice president's

election chances is Habib Batar, a New York and Beirut-based investigative journalist, filmmaker,

and founder of Beirutreport.com.

A contributor to The Guardian, BBC World, Al Jazeera, Lebanon's daily style newspaper and others,

he has covered Lebanon and the Middle East for over 20 years and previously taught journalism and media studies at the American University of Beirut and now teachers at St. Lawrence University in New York.

Then we'll get an update on the election in which Trump is not trying to win over voters, but rather has the Maga Republic and GOP focused on preventing Democrats from voting,

along with gumming up the works when it comes to counting the votes.

Joining us is Ari Berman, a national voting rights correspondent for Mother Jones,

and a reporting fellow at Type Media Center. He is the author of Give Us the Ballot,

the Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America, and his latest book is Minority Rule,

The Right Wing Attack on the Will of the People and the Fight to Resist it. We will discuss his

article and Mother Jones, MAGA Republicans pass new election rules in Georgia that could rig the state for Trump.

Then finally, we'll look into the weekend's quad meeting with the Prime Ministers of Australia, India and Japan,

Biden hosted in Delaware and speak with Claire Pascal, a non-resident senior fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies,

focusing on the Indo-Pacific region and the strategic implications of the intersection of geopolitical,

geo-economic, and geophysical change. She has briefed government departments of the United States,

United Kingdom, the European Union, India and many others, and is the author of Global

Warring, how environmental, economic and political crises will redraw the world map.

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