Nasr, a professor at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, and the author of “Forces of Fortune: The Rise of the New Muslim Middle Class and What it Will Mean for Our World,” argues that the protests reflect the aspirations of Iran’s educated young people.

For more, view our Voices of Iran extended coverage page and listen to our online radio show on Baha’i faith and modern Iran.

Chile’s economic “miracle” has lifted many Chileans from poverty and become a fiscal model for Latin America. Since the 1980s, Chile’s has halved the number of people below the poverty line.

But while the middle class grows, the divide between rich and poor deepens. Moreover, middle-class Chileans are under more stress and working longer hours than before.

Martin Savidge hosts Peter Winn and Victoria Hurtado to discuss the underside of Chile’s prosperity, focusing on the middle class, growing inequality and the younger generation.

On the streets of Santiago, Chile.

GUESTS:

Victoria Hurtado is a lawyer from Universidad de Chile who worked at the finance ministry and now teaches about democracy and governance at Universidad Adolfo Ibañez. She is the founder of Tendencias Politicas and Orbitando, websites that aggregate more than 30,000 Chilean blogs. She has also published two bilingual children books, “The Vegetarian Mosquito” and “The Psychic Penguin,” to enhance values for global citizens. Currently, she collaborates as a writer for “Que Pasa” magazine.

Peter Winn is professor of history and international relations at Tufts University and a senior research associate at Columbia University’s Institute of Latin American Studies. Winn has authored and edited several books on Latin America, including an oral history of Allende’s Chile, Weavers of Revolution, Victims of the Chilean Miracle: Workers and Neoliberalism in the Pinochet Era, and Americas: The Changing Face of Latin America and the Caribbean, a companion volume to the PBS series of the same name.

Credits:
Host: Martin Savidge
Producers: Lisa Biagiotti and Ben Piven
Researchers: Michael Ramirez and Geneva Sands-Sadowitz

Kenya’s middle class has grown to 10 percent of the urban population — or 1.5 million people — making Kenya home to one of the largest middle class populations in sub-Saharan Africa.

Government deregulation and stimulated economic growth turned “Nairobbery” — a former nickname for the city — into a booming economic center. Nairobi reflects this trend with multinational businesses, towering office buildings and a growing middle class.

Worldfocus correspondent Martin Seemungal and producer Yuval Lion report from Nairobi on middle class Kenyans, who are educated, optimistic and upwardly mobile.