In mid-March, the government of Turkey announced that is was withdrawing from a key human rights treaty known as the Istanbul Convention. Turkey took this move right in the middle of a major annual united nations conference called the Commission on the Status of Women.

Needless to say the unfortunate irony of Turkey withdrawing from the Istanbul Convention during the Commission on the Status on Women was not lost on many observers, including my guest today Nabeeha Kazi Hutchins, President and CEO of PAI, an international non profit working on universal access to sexual and reproductive health. 

Globalization was always presumed to have a flattening effect; power in a globalized world would be more diffuse and less centralized. A groundbreaking idea, called "Weaponized Interdependence," flips that idea on its head and demonstrates how governments have exploited economic integration to pursue their foreign policy goals and compel foreign adversaries. 

Guest: Daniel Drezner, professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts and co-editor of the new book The Uses and Abuses of Weaponized Interdependence 

https://www.patreon.com/GlobalDispatches 

Health systems in Brazil are collapsing. Hospitals are running out of beds and oxygen as COVID cases in that country are soaring. Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro has long downplayed the severity of COVID and now deaths are spiking in South America's largest country.

Meanwhile, Bolsonaro's rival, former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is poised for a comeback in elections next year after a stunning court decision. 

Guest:  Leticia Casado, a journalist and stringer for the New York Times who is based in Brasilia.

Several American allies have pledged to pursue an explicitely feminist foreign policy. But what does this mean in practice?  

In today's episode, we explore what a feminist foreign policy would mean for the United States and how a feminist foreign policy is one that necessarily must also embrace multilateralism.

Guest: Devon Cone, Senior advocate for women and girls at Refugees International. 

The pandemic has been described as a mass extinction event for journalism. This is true in the United States, Europe and the developed world but even more so in poorer countries. 

A free and independent media is a key guardrail for a free and open society -- yet many media organizations in the developing world are struggling to stay afloat. 

Guest: Nishant Lalwani, managing director of Luminate, and driving force behind a new International Fund for Public Interest Media.

https://www.patreon.com/GlobalDispatches

In early November, a civil war broke out in the Tigray region in Ethiopia. The conflict pitted the federal government and its allies against the regional government of Tigray, known as the TPLF.  

Since then the fighting has gotten worse and the humanitarian impact for people living in Tigray has been catastrophic.

Guest: William Davison, a senior analyst for Ethiopia for International Crisis Group discusses how and why this conflict started, and where it may be headed next. 

Premium subscriptions: https://www.patreon.com/GlobalDispatches 

On February 1st, the Burmese military mounted a coup, deposing and detaining the civilian leadership of the country. The military arrested the de-facto civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi and other key members of her ruling party. 

This coup is a major setback for Myanmar's transition to democracy and a key foreign policy challenge for the new Biden administration. 

Why was there a coup in Myanmar and what happens next? 

Guest:  John Sifton, Asia Advocacy Director Human Rights Watch.

Premium Subscription: https://www.patreon.com/GlobalDispatches 

On February 24 the very first shipments of a COVID-19 vaccine from COVAX arrived in Ghana. COVAX is the international cooperative effort around the development and distribution safe and effective COVID-19 vaccines. Ghana became the first country to receive COVID-19 vaccines through COVAX when 600,000 doses landed at the airport in Accra. 

On hand to receive these doses was an old friend of mine, Owusu Akoto. He is the founder and CEO of a Ghanian cold chain logistics company called Freezelink. 

It was an historic day for COVAX, a hopeful day for Ghana and an exciting moment for my friend who started this company just a couple years ago as a social enterprise to combat food waste in Ghana.  He explains the sometimes unheralded role that cold chain technologies and logistics play in a country's economic and social development.

https://www.humanityinaction.org/ 

The conflict in Yemen is entering a new phase. The Houthi rebel group that controls much of the country is launching a new offensive in an oil rich region of the country. Meanwhile, the Biden administration has breathed new life into international diplomatic efforts to end the war by ending US support to the Saudi Arabia lead military campaign.  This episode examines how the Yemen conflict has evolved over the years and where it may be headed next. 

Guest: Gregory D. Johnsen, Brookings Institute and former member of the UN Security Council's Panel of Experts on  Yemen.

We know that countries around the world sometimes favor coal because it is cheaper. But new research from my guest today Jan Steckel aims to pinpoint some of the political forces that drive investment in coal. 

Scteckel along with his research collaborator Michael Jacob are coordinating a series of global case studies to understand the non-economic factors associated with investment in coal-fired power. This episode, produced in partnership with the Sustainable Energy Transitions Initiative (SETI) examines how politics drives new investments in coal in the developing world.

President Biden must soon make a key decision about American troop levels in Afghanistan. There are currently about 2,500 American troops in Afghanistan, but under a deal negotiated last year between the United States and the Taliban all American troops would be withdrawn from Afghanistan by May 2021. 

This deal was negotiated by the Trump administration and it is unclear whether or not the new Biden administration will honor it.

Guest: Jessica Donati of the Wall Street Journal, author of Eagle Down: The Last Special Forces Fighting the Forever War.    

2021 will be a consequential year for multilateral diplomacy on climate change. A number of key meetings are on the diplomatic calendar and they come just as the new Biden-Harris administration in the United states is seeking to leave its mark on international climate action. The geo-politics of this moment in climate diplomacy are complex and the new administration must skillfully navigate a path forward in order to make good on its promise to treat climate change like the priority it is. 

Guest: Rachel Kyte, Dean of the Fletcher School at Tufts University. 

Today’s episode is produced in partnership with the Better World Campaign as part of a series  examining the opportunities for strengthening multilateral engagement by the new Biden-Harris administration and the incoming 117th Congress. To learn more and access additional episodes in this series, please visit http://getusback.org/

Over the last several weeks farmers in India have staged mass demonstrations to protest new government agricultural policies. The farmers say these new laws would be financially ruinous and allow large corporations to dictate the price of agricultural goods.  Now, the apparently ever growing size of these farmer protests, particularly around New Delhi, have brought worldwide attention to these mass protests. 

Guest: Michael Kugelman, the Senior Associate for South Asia at the Woodrow Wilson Center.

The United States Agency for international development, USAID, is the premier global development agency of the United States government and one of the largest global development organizations in the world.

As USAID goes, so goes global development. As Samantha Power prepares to lead USAID, this episode examines the global development priorities the new administration may pursue. 

Guest: Sarah Rose, policy fellow at Center for Global Development.

With the peace process between Israel and Palestine seemingly intractably stalled, a new peace building plan that is modeled on Northern Ireland seeks to build grassroots support for peace. 

Peace-builder and advocate Joel Brunold explains how the Middle East Partnership for Peace Act, recently passed by US Congress, can build momentum for a lasting resolution to longstanding conflict between Israelis and Palestinians.  

A military coup in Myanmar (also called Burma) has toppled the civilian government lead by Aung San Suu Kyi.

In this 2019 episode, former deputy National Security Advisor to Barack Obama Ben Rhodes explains Aung San Suu Kyi's rise to prominence in Burmese politics and how she ultimately fell from grace as a human rights icon, once revered in the West. The episode covers the political dynamics and recent history of Myanmar that lead to the January 31 military coup (hence the re-release.)   

The security and humanitarian situation in the Central African Republic has rapidly deteriorated over the last several weeks. Rebel group control a key road from which goods, food and humanitarian supplies is imported to CAR from neighboring Cameroon. The capitol city, Bangui is under an effective siege.  

On the line to discuss what is happening in the Central African Republic is Hans de Marie Hengoup, the Central Africa senior analyst with the International Crisis Group. 

On January 23, protests erupted in several cities and town across Russia in support of Alexey Navalny, the anti-corruption activist who was poisoned in an assassination attempt last August.  Navalny returned to Russia and was promptly arrested. 

On the line with me to discuss the significance of these protests and what they signal about politics in Russia today is Michael McFaul, who served as US Ambassador to Russia from 2012 to 2014. 

Link to McFaul's International Security article

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Nigeria has a population of over 200 million people. It is the largest country in Africa.

The country is now in the midst of a second wave of COVID infections which is straining an already fragile health system. But Nigerian officials have not been able to secure any doses of any COVID-19 vaccine for their frontline health workers--let alone general population.

My guest today, Dr. Faisal Shuaib heads Nigeria's National Primary Healthcare Development Agency and a member of the country's COVID-19 task force. He explains the impact of the COVID--19 in Nigeria and the difficult task of securing doses of the vaccine.

On January 14th, Uganda held national elections for president and parliament. The incumbent was the 76 year old Yoweri Museveni, who has ruled Uganda since 1986. His main challenger was a 38 year old music star turned politician who goes by the stage name Bobi Wine. Museveni claimed victory and his security forces have laid siege to Wine's home.  

On the line to help me understand the current state of play of the fraught election and its aftermath in Uganda is Rosebell Kagumire. She is a writer and editor at a the publication African Feminism and I caught up with her from Kampala, Uganda. 

A treaty to ban the use of nuclear weapons becomes international law on January 22, 2021.  The treaty seeks to do to nuclear weapons what previous international treaties have done to chemical and biological weapons -- that is, prohibit their use on humanitarian grounds. 

Nobel Peace Prize winning Beatrice Fihn, executive director of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, discusses exactly this treaty obliges of its member states and also the broader politics surrounding the effort to get countries to sign onto the treaty.

Beatrice Finh -- exec dir of int'l camp to abolish nuclear weapins 

Ambassador Klaus Scharioth, who served as German Ambassador the United States from 2006 to 2011, discusses the implications of the Pro-Trump insurrection on US foreign policy and international relations. 

https://humanityinaction.org

https://patreon.com/GlobalDispatches 

Loujan al-Hathloul is a 31 year old Saudi women's rights activist in prison for challenging laws that inhibit women in Saudi Arabia.  In early January 2021, she was handed down a nearly six year prison sentence, though much of the sentence was suspended and she may be released as early as February or March.

On the line to discuss her case and what the persecution of Loujan al-Hathloul can tell us about the future of Saudi Arabia, is Sari Bashi, a consultant with the advocacy group DAWN -- Democracy for the Arab World Now.

There is a worsening Jihadist insurgency in a  province in Northern Mozambique called Cabo Delgado. The insurgency began in 2017, but in recent weeks the fighting has intensified substantially. Over half a million people have been displaced -- most over the last few months. And in early January 2021, the French energy company Total announced it was suspending operations on a massive $3.9 billion natural gas project in the region amid concerns about the safety of personnel. 

Zenaida Machado is a senior researcher with the Africa Division of Human Rights Watch. I caught up with hear from Maputo, the capitol of Mozambique. She explains the history of this insurgency, including how this group has shifted tactics from targeted assassinations to more recently capturing territory, including strategically important cities and corridors.

One of the most visible tools of international cooperation on peace and security are UN Peacekeepers -- Blue Helmets. Today there are about 95,000  uniformed personnel deployed to to 13 missions around the world.

Though the United States deploys very few boots on the ground to peacekeeping missions, it is the single largest funder of UN Peacekeeping. And, as a veto-wielding member of the Security Council, it also determines where peacekeepers should be sent. This means that the United States hold tremendous potential to determine the effectiveness of UN peacekeeping. 

Victoria Holt has spent a career studying what makes UN Peacekeeping effective and designing policies to strengthen American support for UN Peacekeeping. Victoria Holt is Vice President at the Henry L Stimson Center and served as  Deputy Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for International Security during the two terms of the Obama administration. 

Today’s episode is produced in partnership with the Better World Campaign as part of a series  examining the opportunities for strengthening multilateral engagement by the new Biden-Harris administration and the incoming 117th Congress. To learn more and access additional episodes in this series, please visit http://getusback.org/

The last four years have altered the global human rights landscape in some pretty significant ways. The Trump administration by and large abandoned multilateral forums for advancing a human rights agenda, like the UN Human Rights Council, while at the same time China began to more proactively engage in those platforms. 

Suzanne Nossel, makes the compelling argument that the time has never been more urgent for the United States to re-assert itself at multilateral human rights platforms like the UN Human Rights Council. 

Suzanne Nossel is the CEO of PEN America and author of Dare to Speak: Defending Free Speech for All. She served as Deputy Assistant Secretary State for International Organizations during the Obama administration where she helped design and implement US policy towards the Human Rights Council. 

Today’s episode is produced in partnership with the Better World Campaign as part of a series  examining the opportunities for strengthening multilateral engagement by the new Biden-Harris administration and the incoming 117th Congress. To learn more and access additional episodes in this series, please visit http://getusback.org/

With Trump leaving office, the incoming administration has an opportunity to reset America's approach to refugees, asylum seekers and international migration more broadly. On the line with me to discuss some of the concrete steps the incoming Biden-Harris administration may take on these issues is Nazanin Ash, vice president for global policy and advocacy at the International Rescue Committee 

We kick off discussing the ways in which refugee and asylum policy have historically enjoyed bi-partisan consensus before discussing the ways in which the incoming Biden-Harris administration can re-assert US leadership on these issues, including through some key multi-lateral platforms. 

Today's episode is produced in partnership with the Better World Campaign as part of a series  examining the opportunities for strengthening multilateral engagement by the new Biden-Harris administration and the incoming 117th Congress. To learn more and access additional episodes in this series, please visit http://getusback.org/

On December 10th, Donald Trump upended over 30 years of US diplomacy with a tweet in which he declared American support for Morocco's claims of sovereignty over Western Sahara.

Since the 1970s, Morocco and a local group called the Polisario Front have fought for control of Western Sahara. In the early 1990s the United States brokered a ceasefire agreement which called for the people of Western Sahara to vote in a referendum to determine their status as an independent country. A UN Peacekeeping mission was deployed to region to help maintain the ceasefire and prepare for the vote. 

Now, the United States has abandoned its previous support for self-determination of the Sahrawi people and simply affirmed that Western Sahara is part of Morocco. In exchange, Morocco has begun to establish formal diplomatic ties with Israel. 

On the line to help make sense of the significance of this move is Intissar Fakir, fellow at Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and editor of Sadaa, a publication that focuses on political, economic and social developments in the Middle East. We spend a good deal of time in this episode discussing the recent history of the Western Sahara conflict from the 1970s to today. We then discuss the implications of the United States' sudden reversal of its long held diplomatic position. 

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The COVID-19 pandemic has made global health a top tier issue in Washington. In today's episode we explore what opportunities might exist for the incoming Biden administration and Congress to advance a global health agenda premised on strengthening international cooperation to take on common health challenges 

Loyce Pace is President and CEO of the Global Health Council. We kick off discussing how the Trump administration's approach to global health was something of departure from typical bi-partisan support for health and development around the world before discussing in depth how a Biden administration and new Congress may advance a global health agenda, including what a global response to COVID-19 might look like. 

Today's episode is produced in partnership with the Better World Campaign as part of a series  examining the opportunities for strengthening multilateral engagement by the new Biden-Harris administration and the incoming 117th Congress. To learn more and access additional episodes in this series, please visit http://getusback.org/

December 12 2020 is the five year anniversary of the Paris Climate Agreement. And on that day a number of governments, non state actors and other world leaders will convene virtually for a Climate Ambition Summit hosted by the United Nations, the United Kingdom, and France, in partnership with Chile and Italy. 

Ahead of this summit, the podcast partnered with the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) for a live taping that explored ways countries can take on climate change while also improving human health and spurring economic development. We use Chile as a starting off point for a broader conversation about ways countries can design policies to take on climate change that have knock-on benefits for health and the economy. 

Panelists: 

Marcelo Mena Carrasco, Director, Center for Climate Action, Catholic University of Valparaiso, and the former Environment Minister of Chile 

Dr. Laura Gallardo Klenner, a Professor at the Center for Climate and Resilience Research at the University of Chile

Graham Watkins, Chief of the Climate Change Division, Inter-American Development Bank (IDB)

 Chris Malley, Senior Research Fellow, Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI)

Links: 

http://sei.org/ 

The Benefits and Costs Of Decarbonizing Costa Rica's Economy: Informing the Implementation of Costa Rica's National Decarbonization Plan under Uncertainty

Jobs in a Net-Zero Emissions Future in Latin America and the Caribbean

Ambassador Thomas Pickering is a legendary retired US foreign service officer. He had a four decade career in diplomacy, including serving as ambassador to Russia, India, Israel, Nigeria, El Salvador, among key postings.

In 1989, President George H.W. Bush appointed him US Ambassador to the United Nations where he played a critical role in marshaling broad international support against Iraq's invasion of Kuwait. The diplomacy that accompanied the international effort to expel Iraqi forces from Kuwait in the early 1990s is considered to be a high water mark for US multilateral engagement.

This is why I was curious to learn from Ambassador Pickering about what opportunities may exist for the incoming Biden administration to re-establish US global leadership and multilateral engagement? 

We kick off discussing the Trump administration's approach to multilateralism before having a broader conversation about the changing nature of the UN and ways the Biden administration can productively work with with allies and adversaries to advance American interests and the global good. 

Today's episode is produced in partnership with the Better World Campaign as part of a series  examining the opportunities for strengthening multilateral engagement by the new Biden-Harris administration and the incoming 117th Congress. To learn more and access additional episodes in this series, please visit http://getusback.org/

The first 100 days of any new presidential administration offers a key inflection point, signaling the policies that the new administration will prioritize and champion. It is during those first 100 days that the new administration gets the most leeway from congress, the media, and the general public to set their agenda.  

Setting that agenda often includes a mix of new executive actions, supporting specific pieces of legislation, and releasing a federal budget request to congress which demonstrates the new administration's funding priorities. 

This is the opportunity for the Biden administration when it takes office on January 20. In today's episode, we take a deep dive into what a Biden-Administration's first 100-day agenda may look like when it comes to re-setting America's relationship with the United Nations and other multilateral organizations.

Peter Yeo is the President of the Better World Campaign and Senior Vice President of the United Nations Foundation. He has had a long career in congress, the federal government and advocacy; and he explains the various executive actions and legislative priorities that the Biden administration will likely pursue to signal the United States' renewed commitment to multilateralism. 

Today's episode is produced in partnership with the Better World Campaign as part of a series  examining the opportunities for strengthening multilateral engagement by the new Biden-Harris administration and the incoming 117th Congress. To learn more and access additional episodes in this series, please visit http://getusback.org/

Linda Thomas-Greenfield will be nominated by President-elect Joe Biden to serve as the United States Ambassador to the United Nations. She is a veteran diplomat who most recently served as Assistant-Secretary of State for African Affairs in the Obama administration. Prior to that she served as the US Ambassador to Liberia during a critical time in that country's transition to democracy.

Linda Thomas-Greenfield left the State Department in 2017, amid a wider purge by the Trump administration of senior career diplomats. Not long after, she sat down with me for a long interview about her life and career.  We cover a lot of ground in this interview, which alternates between a discussion about policy and her own fascinating life story. 

https://www.patreon.com/GlobalDispatches 

Yemen is the world's worst humanitarian crisis and is in imminent danger of descending into the worst famine the world has ever seen. Earlier this year, a filmmaker documented heroic efforts by doctors and health workers fight acute malnutrition that is inflicting children in Yemen. The director of the new film "Hunger Ward," Skye Fitzgerald discusses his film. 

https://www.hungerward.org/ 

When President Trump came to office in 2017, he inherited from President Obama the Iran Nuclear Deal. Trump rejected the deal and embarked on a fruitless "maximum pressure" campaign against Iran. 

Such is the state of relations between the United States and Iran that Joe Biden will inherit when he takes office in January. Trita Parsi of the Quincy Institute discusses whether or not it is even possible for a Biden administration to revive the nuclear deal; and what steps a Biden administration can take to get diplomacy with Iran back on track. 

On November 9th the warring parties in Nagorno-Karabakh signed a ceasefire agreement brokered by Russia. The agreement comes after weeks of very heaving fighting between Azerbaijan and Armenia which killed and displaced thousands of people.

On the line with me to discuss these recent events Anna Zamejc, a freelance journalist who has covered this region for years. We spend a few minutes discussing the recent history of Nagorno-Karabakh before having a longer conversation about the regional and international implications of this ceasefire agreement. 

On November 4th, the Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed launched military operations against the Tigray People's Liberation Front, the TPLF, which is the group that controls the Tigray region in Northern Ethiopia. 

Tensions have been simmering for some time between the Federal government, which Abiy controls and the TPLF. Now, one year after winning the Nobel Peace Prize, Abiy has launched a military campaign that could very well spark a widespread civil war. 

On the line with me to discuss recent events in Ethiopia and offer some analysis of why the country is on the brink of civil war is Mastewal Terefe, an Ethiopian policy analyst and lawyer. 

We kick off discussing the events of November 4 before having a broader conversation about the causes of escalating tensions between Abiy and the TPLF. As you will see in this conversation, there is a great risk right now that this conflict between the federal government and TPLF spreads to other armed groups that are organized along ethnic lines. 

Alliance for Peacebuilding PeaceCon 2020

Mastewal on Twitter 

Gerard Araud is the former French Ambassador to the United States and the United Nations. We recorded this conversation on the Friday following the Tuesday of election day, when the result was all but certain. Ambassador Araud offers his take on how the election of Joe Biden will impact transatlantic relations and the ways that a Biden administration can repair some of the damage done to US-European relations these past four years. 

At time of recording, votes in the United States election were still being counted. It appears that the vote totals so far are highly favorable to Joe Biden. Boston Globe columnist Michael Cohen discusses the results, such as we know them, and what they reveal about the American electorate and what, if anything, the results mean for America's role in the world. 

Protests in Thailand took an unexpected turn in October when young Thais began demanding reforms to the Monarchy, a traditionally revered institution. This added to demands that the prime minister, who took over in a coup in 2014 immediately resign.  

Benjamin Zawacki, Senior Program Specialist at the Asia Foundation and author of the book "Thailand: Shifting Ground between the US and a Rising China," explains what is driving protests in Thailand.  We kick off discussing the role of the monarchy in Thai society and politics before having a longer conversation about what this protest movement means for the future of Thailand. 

Rethinking Humanitarianism is a new podcast for anyone with an interest in the future of humanitarianism, from donors to NGO executives,  frontline responders to policy wonks —  basically if you’ve got an eye on the aid sector, this podcast is for you.   

The podcast is co-hosted by Heba Aly, director of the independent newsroom The New Humanitarian, and Jeremy  Konyndyk, senior policy fellow at the non-profit think tank the Center for Global Development.  Today's episode features the debut of "Rethinking Humanitarianism" 

https://tnh.news/podcast 

It's the late summer, and an unexplained influenza virus is killing international travelers. Researchers quickly identify the virus as a genetically engineered flu-strain. Intelligence agencies find irrefutable evidence that the virus was created in a secret bioweapons laboratory in a middle income country.  It was accidentally released.  By the end 50 million people are killed by this pathogen. 

This was the scenario presented to a group of experts at the Munich Security Conference in February who participated in what is known as a "tabletop exercise" to understand how key international players might respond to a situation like this--and identify ways that such a scenario might be prevented from unfolding in the first place. 

My guest today, Jaime Yassif, helped to design and implement this table top exercise. She is a senior fellow at NTI for Global Biological policy and programs. And in our conversation we discuss what this fictional scenario reveals about very real gaps in international policies to prevent a catastrophic biological weapons event. 

Today's episode was taped live in front a virtual audience as part of a series of a series of episodes examining the relationship between climate and security, produced in partnership with CGIAR, the world's largest global agricultural innovation network.

The episode today, which is the eighth and final in our series, examines the relationship between climate security and inequality in Indonesia. The episode kicks off with Grazia Pacillo, senior economist CGIAR Climate Security, explaining the results of a report about the impact of climate variability on inequality in Indonesia. I then moderate a discussion with a diverse array of panelists who dive deeper into the ways in which climate variability impacts economic and social inequality in Indonesia and what can be done about it. 

In early October a video began to circulate on social media in Nigeria depicting a gruesome act of police brutality. The perpetrators of the police violence were from a notorious police unit called the Special Robbery Squad, or SARS.

As this video went viral, Nigerians voiced their own stories of being victimized by this police unit. The hashtag #ENDSARS was born.

But the story does not end there. 

Olorunrinu Oduala, helped to transform this hashtag into a massive youth-led protest movement against police brutality in Nigeria. What started as a hashtag has become a concrete set of demands for police reform and accountability, around which millions of young people in Nigeria have mobilized. 

Today's episode was taped live in front a virtual audience as part of a series of a series of episodes examining the relationship between climate and security, produced in partnership with CGIAR, the world's largest global agricultural innovation network.

The episode today, which is the seventh in our series, examines the relationship between climate security and inequality in Vietnam. The episode kicks off with Grazia Pacillo, senior economist CGIAR Climate Security, explaining the results of a report about the impact of climate variability on inequality in Vietnam. I then moderate a discussion with a diverse array of panelists who dive deeper into the ways in which climate variability impacts economic and social inequality in Vietnam and what can be done about it. 

In the short history of modern humanitarianism, great crises have often inspired reform in how the international community approaches emergency situations.  

Jessica Alexander wrote a sweeping review of how big crises over the last thirty years have compelled the humanitarian aid sector to change how it operates. Her article culminates with a discussion of how the current COVID crisis is forcing a new kind of reckoning in the aid sector.

Jessica Alexander is a longtime humanitarian worker and editor of The New Humanitarian's Rethinking Humanitarian Series, which is where her article appears. She is also the author of Chasing Chaos: My Decade in and Out of Humanitarian Aid

We kick off our conversation discussing how the aftermath of the Rwanda genocide in the mid 1990s gave rise to a more formalized humanitarian aid sector. We then discuss how big crises like the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami and the 2010 Haiti Earthquake forced changes to how international humanitarian relief operates, before having a conversation about how COVID might force some fundamental changes in the aid sector.

Rethinking Humanitarianism 

Chasing Chaos, My Decade in and Out of Humanitarian Aid

World Food Program podcast episodes 

Today's episode was taped live in front a virtual audience as part of a series of a series of episodes examining the relationship between climate and security, produced in partnership with CGIAR, the world's largest global agricultural innovation network.

The episode today, which is the sixth in our series, examines how to achieve climate security through strengthening partnerships across sectors, disciplines and geographies.

Panelists: 

Robert Malley, President & CEO, International Crisis Group Claudia Sadoff, Executive Management Team Convener and Managing Director, Research Delivery and Impact, CGIAR Hans Olav Ibrekk, Policy Director - Section for Energy, Climate and Food Security, Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs Franck Bousquet, Senior Director, Fragility Conflict and Violence Group at the World Bank

 Cote d'Ivoire president Alassane Ouattara is seeking a constitutionally dubious third term in office in elections scheduled for October 31. Opposition supporters have taken to the streets, and several people have been killed in clashes. Cote d'Ivoire has a history of election-related violence and a chaotic situation in the run-up to these elections suggests that the country may erupt in violent conflict. 

Mohammad Diatta, a researcher at the Institute for Security Studies, explains the high-risk political crisis unfolding in the Ivory Coast

Nagorno-Karabakh is a mountainous region in the south caucuses that is claimed by both Armenia and Azerbaijan. Since 1994, the sides have been locked in stalemate, with periodic fighting. Now, the worst fighting in decades has erupted. In a matter of days, this has become a major international crisis with big geopolitical implications. 

Olesya Vartanyan is a senior analyst with the International Crisis Group, working in the South Caucuses. I caught up with her from Tblisi, Georgia.  We kick off discussing the history of conflict in this region, before she gives her analysis of why such intense conflict is erupting right now. We also discuss the broader regional and geopolitical implications of this fighting.

In rural Ethiopia women are more likely than men to collect firewood and cook over stoves that emit harmful smoke. Meanwhile, men are more likely than women to control how household income is spent. Accordingly, men are less likely than women to purchase improved cooking stoves that emit fewer pollutants while cooking.

This is the case in rural Ethiopia and also across rural communities throughout much of the developing world.   

My guest today, Dr. Sied Hassan, sought to dig deeper into this phenomenon.  He designed what I find to be a truly inventive field experiment to uncover the willingness of men versus the willingness of women to pay for an improved cookstove. Dr. Sied Hassan is a research fellow at Ethiopian policy studies institute, a think tank in Ethiopia. And he discusses his experiment and the very big policy implications of his findings. We also discuss a related experiment in which he tested various methods to increase the willingness of rural households to pay for solar lighting. 

Today’s episode is part of series of episodes that showcase the research and work of the Sustainable Energy Transitions Initiative. SETI is an interdisciplinary global collaborative that aims to foster research on energy access and energy transitions in low and middle-income countries. Currently, SETI is housed at Duke University, where it is led by Professors Subhrendu Pattanayak and Marc Jeuland. To learn more about SETI, follow them on Twitter @SETIenergy.

This episode was taped live in front of a virtual audience and featured four panelists discussing the intersection of climate and security in Colombia. 

The experts and policymakers featured in this conversation bring diverse backgrounds and perspectives on the links between climate variability and security in an historically conflict-prone country. 

This episode is part of a series of episodes examining the relationship between climate and security, produced in partnership with CGIAR, the world's largest global agricultural innovation network.  

Panelists include: 

Governor Luis Fernando Suarez, is  acting governor of the Antioquia department, Former Secretary of Government during several periods and a key player in the efforts city and regional governments deployed since the 90’s to counter different waves of political and criminal violence in the Department. 

Angelika Rettberg,  professor of Political Science at the Universidad de los Andes in Bogotá, Colombia. She was part of the government delegation that tried to negotiate with the ELN, which is  one of the older insurgent groups that has not signed a peace agreement with the government. 

Frank Pearl, former Minister of Environment of Colombia, the High Presidential Commissioner for Reintegration,  and Senior Lead Peace negotiator during the peace talks between the Colombian Government and the FARC, which lead to the Peace agreement of 2016.  He was also chief negotiator with the ELN 

 Juan Lucas Restrepo,  Director General of the Alliance between Bioversity International and the International Center for Tropical Agriculture with CGIAR

On Monday, September 21 the United Nations officially commemorated its 75th anniversary. The centerpiece of this commemoration is a declaration from all 193 member states of the United Nations that reaffirming their commitment to international cooperation to advance peace and security, human rights and development. 

The 75th anniversary of the UN provides a good opportunity to reflect on the changing role of the United Nations and of multilateralism more broadly in international relations.  On the line with me to discuss these questions and more is Ambassador Elizabeth Cousens, President and CEO of the United Nations Foundation. We kick off discussing the significance of the UN 75 Declaration before having a broader conversation about the role of the United Nations and multilateralism in international relations today. 

The UN 75 Declaration

It will be a United Nations General Assembly like no other. Typically this is the time of year where world leaders gather in New York to deliver speeches at the UN and participate in all manner of diplomatic events at the United Nations. But this year UNGA goes virtual. 

UNGA Week is always a highlight of the diplomatic calendar, though of course it will look much different this year. A great number of heads of state and world leaders are delivering video-messages, with the exception of Donald Trump who has said he would like to deliver his address in person.   

On the line with me to preview some of the storylines for this most unusual UNGA is Richard Gowan, the UN Director of the International Crisis Group. 

Related Links: Crisis Group report on "Snap Back" Sanctions on Iran.  

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On August 27th Paul Rusesabagina flew from his home in Texas to Dubai. Three days later, he mysteriously appeared in Kigali, Rwanda, where authorities proudly proclaimed his arrest.

He would not be the first person whom the Rwandan government has targeted this way --  but he is arguably the highest profile. 

Paul Rusesabagina was the manager of a high-end hotel in Kigali, Rwanda as the genocide unfolded. His heroism was dramatized in the film Hotel Rwanda. 

On the line with me to discuss this situation is Lewis Mudge, the Central Africa Director of Human Rights Watch. We discuss how this government action against Rusesabagina's fits into larger patterns of how the regime of Paul Kagame has targeted dissidents abroad. 

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John Maynard Keynes died 74 years ago, but his ideas are surprisingly relevant to understanding the world today. Though primarily known for his pioneering economic ideas, a new biography shows Keynes profound influence on international relations -- an influence that can be felt to this day. 

 Zachary Carter, Senior Reporter with HuffPost and author of the The Price of Peace: Money, Democracy, and the Life of John Maynard Keynes, discusses Keynes' impact on international relations and why his ideas are still sparking debates about the relationship between economics and peace today.  

When a COVID-19 Vaccine is available, most of the world will have access to it thanks to a unique platform for international cooperation called The COVAX Facility. 

The COVAX Facility is a platform for pooled investments in the development, manufacture and distribution of a COVID-19 vaccine. At time of recording, 172 countries have entered into an initial agreement with COVAX, representing about 70% of the world's population.  The goal of the COVAX Facility is to provide 2 billion doses of a vaccine to cover 20% of the population of all participating countries by the end of 2021.  

 GAVI--The Vaccine Alliance administers COVAX and on the line with me today to explain how COVAX works is the Managing Director for Country Programs at GAVI Thabani Maphosa

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The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, or the GERD, is a major hydroelectric project that is being built on the Blue Nile river near the border with Sudan.  The dam promises to bring a much needed source of electricity to the people of Ethiopia. But the dam sits on what is the main tributary to the Nile River. Egypt, which is downstream from Ethiopia, has been vehemently opposed to its construction. Egypt contends that the dam will restrict water flow and undermine its rights to the Nile waters.

Ethiopia, Egypt and Sudan are now locked in a fight over water and who gets to benefit from the Nile River.

On the line with me to explain the dispute over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam is Mekdelawit Messay, an independent water science researcher based in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

Today’s episode is supported in part from a grant from the Carnegie Corporation of New York to showcase African voices in peace and security issues. 

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When a safe and effective COVID-19 vaccine becomes available, chances are that the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) will have played a big role in bringing it into the world. 

CEPI is a partnership between governments, philanthropies and civil society organizations to support the development of vaccines and medicines for infectious diseases that have the potential to become pandemics. When COVID-19 emerged, CEPI made early investments in vaccine research and development and in building infrastructure around the mass production of a vaccine. 

In this episode, the CEO of CEPI Richard Hatchett explains how this platform for international cooperation is supporting the development of a COVID-19 Vaccine that will be made available worldwide as a public good. 

This episode is Part 1 of of a series examining how international cooperation and "vaccine multilateralism" is accelerating an end to the COVID-19 pandemic. 

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The Central African Republic is near the bottom of every major economic or development indicator. Out of 189 countries ranked in the UN Development Program's Human Development Index, the Central African Republic is second to last. When it comes to life expectancy at birth, the country ranks dead-last. It is also a country that is emerging from civil war. 

Despite these challenges, the COVID-19 pandemic is not raging out of control in CAR. This is in large part due to the work of the World Health Organization, UN Peacekeeping, the Government of CAR -- and specifically Dr. Marie Roseline Belizaire. She is a Haitian epidemiologist with the World Health Organization who was deployed to the Central African Republic early in the pandemic to assist the country with COVID -19 preparedness and response plan. 

We kick off discussing how her work fighting ebola across the border in the Democratic Republic of Congo has informed her response to COVID in the Central African Republic. We then discuss some of the strategies she developed in partnership with the government and the UN peacekeeping mission which has helped to contain the spread of COVID in the Central African Republic. 

Joe Biden formally accepts the Democratic party's nomination for US President this week at the Democratic National Convention. The convention is always a key moment in the presidential election calendar so I thought this would be a good opportunity to have a discussion about what a Joe Biden administration's foreign policy agenda would look like? And whether or not there is something that could be credibly called a "Biden Doctrine?"

Other than Joe Biden himself, Steve Clemons is the perfect person to discuss this question -- not least of which is because in August 2016, he wrote an article for the Atlantic called "The Biden Doctrine." Steve Clemons is the Editor at Large for The Hill, which is a media outlet that focuses on Congressional affairs. He has also had a career in which he has straddled journalism and insider foreign policy circles, which gives him a unique perspective as a foreign policy analyst. 

If you’re interested in hearing more about topical global issues, check out Rising to Respond… a podcast that gives you a behind-the-scenes look at what it takes for humanitarians to fight COVID-19 around the world. Brought to you by World Vision. They’re covering stories you’re not seeing in the news. Hear from global leaders, frontline workers and children about the realities they’re facing during this global pandemic. You can find Rising to Respond on your favorite podcast player

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Belarus is sometimes referred to as Europe's last dictatorship. Since 1994 it has been ruled by just one man -- Alexander Lukeshenko, and he has ruled the country with an iron fist. 

In early August Belarusians went to the polls for presidential elections in which Lukeshenko was declared the winner by a wide margin.  Belarusians, however, did not accept the results and took to the streets in record numbers. Government forces cracked down hard and the main opposition candidate was apparently detained and then removed from the country. 

Belarus is bordered on one side by Russia and the other by the European Union. The fate of Lukeshenko is of profound importance to Russia and Europe -- and increasingly the United States. 

On the line to provide some context for understanding these recent events in Belarus is Stephen Nix. He is the regional director for Eurasia at the International Republican Institute and a longtime policy hand focusing on former Soviet Republics 

China is the world's largest consumer of coal, though in recent years the government has sought to reduce the country's reliance on coal for energy. This includes transitioning away from coal for home heating.

In 2014, the government launched what is known as the household heating energy transition program. This program sought to replace household coal heating units with electricity, natural gas, or cleaner burning coal. Like many Chinese infrastructure projects it was a massive undertaking. It was also directed by the government, top down, and mandatory for homes that used dirty burning coal. 

My guest today, Lunyu Xie is an Assistant Professor, School of Economics, Renmin University of China. She conducted a unique cost-benefit study of this program that analyzed both the effectiveness of the household heating energy transition program.  Dirty burning coal from home heating units is a major pollutant, particularly in northern China that both causes significant harm to individual health and also contributes to climate change. What makes Lunyu Xie's study so significant is that she uses data from household surveys to see how this major government program benefits end users--or not. 

Today’s episode is part of series of episodes that showcase the research and work of the Sustainable Energy Transitions Initiative. SETI is an interdisciplinary global collaborative that aims to foster research on energy access and energy transitions in low and middle-income countries. Currently, SETI is housed at Duke University, where it is led by Professors Subhrendu Pattanayak and Marc Jeuland. To learn more about SETI, follow them on Twitter @SETIenergy.

The story of a leaky oil tanker stranded off the coast of Yemen is, in part, the story of the country's civil war. There are about a million gallons of oil stored in this tanker, which has not been operational since 2015. That is when Yemen's civil war escalated into an international conflict pitting Houthi rebels who overthrew the government against an international coalition lead by Saudi Arabia.

Since then, the condition of this old oil tanker has deteriorated and is threatening to cause what would be the world's worst-ever oil spill, causing immense environmental, economic and humanitarian damage throughout the Red Sea. The Houthi rebels control access to this tanker and so far, they have not permitted UN experts or an international team to inspect the tanker, nor take steps to safely remove the oil from it. 

On the line to discuss is Gerry Simpson, Associate crisis and conflict director at Human Rights Watch. He has been following the situation with the tanker closely and We kick off discussing the history of this tanker before having a broader conversation about the possible damage that a leak may inflict and its broader relationship to the conflict in Yemen. 

The situation with the tanker is something that has been on the radar of the UN Security Council, and even US Congress. The damage from an oil spill would be at a scale that is hard to comprehend. 

It's a crisis waiting to happen and so far there has been very little progress in securing the tanker.

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There is a certain category of disaster, whether manmade or natural, that poses an existential threat to humanity.  These are called global catastrophic risks. Some of these are fairly obvious, like nuclear war, and some may seem more the realm of science fiction like an asteroid impact. 

My guest today, Jens Orback is the CEO of the Global Challenges Foundation, a Sweden based group that is seeking to prevent these catastrophes through enhanced international cooperation. 

What binds each of these risks is not only their potential to destroy humanity, but also that they can be mitigated through stronger international cooperation and global governance.

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Mali is in the midst of its worst political crisis in years. Since June, protesters have gathered in the streets of the capital city of Bamako demanding the resignation of President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita. On top of this, a conflict in the northern part of the country, to which the UN has deployed a large peacekeeping mission, is continuing to drive instability throughout the country. 

My guest, Dr. Amadou Bocoum, is the Mali Director for the NGO Search for Common Ground and I caught up with him from Bamako, the capital city which is in the South. 

In our conversation, Amadou Bocoum describes how these protests were sparked by a court decision to annul the results of parliamentary elections. But as he explains, the discontent that is driving these protests runs much deeper. 

This is a useful conversation about a crisis that is very much unfolding at the present time -- and is one that is of profound regional and international significance. 

Today’s episode is supported in part from a grant from the Carnegie Corporation of New York to showcase African voices in peace and security issues.

Billions of dollars are spent each year on foreign aid and global development. In the past, the exact amount of aid that is being spent, where is it is being spent, by whom it is being spent--and to what end is the aid serving has been very difficult for outsiders to parse. But that has been changing in recent years. Aid agencies in government and multi-lateral institutions like the World Bank and the United Nations are becoming increasingly transparent -- not least because they have been spurred to do so by my guest today, Gary Forster.

He is the executive director of Publish What You Fund -- the global campaign for aid and development transparency. The organization publishes an annual index of 47 aid agencies from the public sector and private philanthropy which assess how open each entity is in regards to its operations.    

In our conversation, Gary Forster explains why transparency in aid is so important and identifies some of entities that rank highest and lowest on the aid transparency index.  The data compiled by Publish What You Fund also offers a very good birds-eye view of aid and development spending, so we also discuss some of the broad trends that he has seen in recent years among donors. This includes the impact of COVID-19 on foreign aid and development assistance.

Rais Bhuiyan has an absolutely incredible and very moving story. In the days after the September 11th attacks in the United States, Bhuiyan -- an immigrant to the US from Bangladesh -- was working behind the counter at a gas station in Texas when he was shot in the face by a white supremacist who was on a killing spree and looking for foreigners to murder. 

After surviving the attack, Bhuiyan embarked on an improbable journey of peace and reconciliation, seeking to prevent his attacker from the death penalty. 

He is the founder of the NGO World Without Hate and this episode was recorded in 2014.

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Since the Kosovo War of 1999, the status of Kosovo as a country independent of Serbia has not been resolved. Many countries, including the United States and most of Europe recognize Kosovo as an independent country. But others do not--including Russia, which has blocked Kosovo's aspirations to join the United Nations.

This has been the status quo for many years. But in recent months there has been some renewed momentum in diplomacy intended to find an agreement that would satisfy both Serbia and Kosovo and lead to Kosovo's formal independence. 

To that end, on June 24th, The president of Kosovo set off for Washington, DC for high level talks at the White House. But mid-air, the flight turned around when a special court unsealed an indictment agianst him for war crimes committed decades ago during the war.  

This indictment is the latest wrinkle in the long effort to secure an international agreement over Kosovo's status. Another key issue is ongoing protests in Serbia and that country's ongoing democratic backsliding. 

On the line with me to explain the significance of these recent events in the Balkans is Jasmin Muyanovich. He is a limited term professor of poliitcal science and policy studies at elon university and host of the Sarejvo calling podcast.

We kick off with discussing the Kosovo-Serbia talks and then have a conversation about the implications of rising authorarianism in Serbia

I would have not picked this topic if not for the suggestion of a listener. 

In recent years, as China has become more powerful on the world stage, the Chinese Communist Party has sought to erode Hong Kong's political independence. In fact, on June 30th, the Chinese government passed a so-called National Security Law that criminalized free speech and political activity in Hong Kong.

Additionally, last year at this time there were massive peaceful protests against a law that Beijing sought to impose on Hong Kong that would permit the extradition of people from Hong Kong to China. In the year since, police and pro-Beijing authorities have cracked down on protests. And now, with this fully criminalized powerful new law dissent, people are being arrested for the signs they are waving. "This law," says my guest Victoria Tin-Bor Hui, "means the One China, Two Systems model is dead." 

Victoria Tin-Bor Hui is an associate professor of political science at the University of Notre Dame. We discuss the content of the new National Security Law before having a broader conversation about its political and social implications of this new era for Hong Kong.

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Burundi's longtime ruler Pierre Nkurunziza died suddenly on June 8th, quite possibly from COVID-19. Nkurunziza has been president of Burundi since 2005, and in recent years his rule became firmly authoritarian.  His death sent shockwaves across Africa and the world

On the line with me today is Yolande Bouka, a professor of political studies at Queens University in Kingston, Ontario. We discuss the legacy of Pierre Nkurunziza and what this chaotic moment means for Burundi and the surrounding region. 

We kick off discussing the circumstances surrounding Nkurunziza's death. We then discuss his fraught time in power, including a key moment in 2015, when he engineered for himself a constitutionally dubious third term in office and survived a coup attempt. The conflict surrounding that episode lead to the displacement of 400,000 people -- the impact of which is being felt across the region today. We also discuss the background of the new president of Burundi, Évariste Ndayishimiye and what his rule may bring for the country. 

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Today's episode is part three of a three-part series that gives you an inside look at how the United Nations is commemorating its 75th anniversary this year. This episode includes a 15-minute interview with Kate Dodson, Vice President for Global Health at the United Nations Foundation. We of course discuss the COVID-19 pandemic  -- specifically how the World Health Organization and other United Nations entities are responding. We also discuss what reforms might make the WHO more effective at responding to future global health emergencies.  

After that interview concludes, the consultation begins. And for the podcast, I edited this down to include some of the questions and answers discussed. 

A big thank you to the UNA-USA for partnering with the podcast around these consultations. (Part one and part two of the series.)

On June 26, 1945, after months of negotiations in the city of San Francisco, representatives from 50 countries signed the Charter of the United Nations. In October that year, after the requisite number of countries ratified the charter, the United Nations was born. 

To mark the 75th anniversary of the signing of treaty that created the United Nations, I am re-leasing a conversation I had with author Stephen Schlesinger who wrote the definitive book about the 1945 San Francisco Conference, Act of Creation.

Stephen Schlesinger and I recorded this conversation exactly five years ago, when the UN turned 70. We discuss the history of the UN Charter and the post war diplomatic intrigue that lead to its signing. 

Mary Fitzgerald a researcher specializing in Libya. When we last spoke, the Libyan conflict was intensifying very rapidly. For months, a renegade general named Khalifa Haftar had been attacking Tripoli, the seat of the UN-backed government. That assault was locked in a stalemate until Russia increased its support of Haftar’s forces, seemingly turning the tide. But then, Turkey announced that it was going to ramp up its support for the Tripoli government, setting the stage for a proxy war between Russia and Turkey -- among others. 

That was the state of play as we entered 2020. Then, in June, forces backed by Turkey finally ended Haftar’s offensive on Tripoli. Haftar’s forces are now on the retreat.

This dramatic turn of events in a civil war has profound international implications. In addition to Russia, the UAE, Egypt, and France have given political or military backing to Haftar, at least until now.  Meanwhile, the position of the United States has not been consistent, at times seemingly encouraging Haftar and backing a UN-peace process. 

I am glad to have Mary Fitzgerald back on the show to discuss these latest events in Libya and their broader international impact. 

The Black Lives Matter movement has spread quickly around the world. Over the last several weeks, there have been BLM demonstrations in nearly every major city in Europe. Tens of thousands of people showed up for protests in Berlin, Amsterdam, Paris, and London, just to name a few. There were also many protests across Latin America, Australia--even Asian cities like Seoul and Tokyo saw Black Lives Matter protests. 

So how did the murder of George Floyd in Minnesota spark an anti-racism and civil rights movement that extends far beyond the United States? 

My guest today, Dominique Day, is in a unique position to analyze that question.  She is an American who serves as vice-chair of the "Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent,"  a UN human rights entity that monitors anti-black racism around the world. 

We kick off with a discussion of how the Working Group operates and how anti-black racism manifests itself differently around the world.  We then have a broader conversation about what is motivating the Black Lives Matter movement outside the United States.

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Today's episode is part two of a three part series that gives you an inside look at how the United Nations is commemorating its 75th anniversary this year.

Rather than holding a big party or jubilee, the UN is instead embarking on a listening tour. The UN is seeking feedback from as many people in as many communities as possible, all around three big questions: What Kind of World do We Want to Create? Are We on Track? And What is Needed to Bridge the Gap?

Here in the United States, the United Nations Association is hosting what are called global consultations around these questions. They are gathering groups to solicit input that will be relayed to leadership at the United Nations ahead of a major meeting in September to mark the UN's anniversary. 

In part one of this series, I moderated a global consultation that discussed those big questions, but using the lens of gender equality. In today's episode, I moderate a consultation about climate change and the environment.

This episode kicks off with my 15 minutes interview of Julie Cerqueira who is the Executive Director of the U.S. Climate Alliance, which is a coalition of US states committed to climate action. That conversation focuses on the Paris agreement and specifically what sub-national groups, like individual states, can do to advance the climate change agenda in the face of inaction at the federal level. After that interview concludes, the consultation begins. And for the podcast, I edited this down to include some of the questions and answers discussed. 

A big thank you to the UNA-USA for partnering with the podcast around these consultations. 

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In late May a confrontation between Indian and Chinese soldiers in a remote border region of the Himalayas descended into what appears to be a massive fistfight. Most accounts describe a giant brawl between as many as 100 soldiers with no shots fired and no deaths. But soon after the fight, India and China mobilized heavy guns and artillery to the region threatening a major escalation of hostilities between two regional heavyweights.

Since then, tensions seemed to have eased between the two countries. Still, this incident underscores the very tense relationship between India and China and the very tenuous situation concerning India and China's border.

On the line to explain this mini-crisis between India and China is Michael Kugelman. He is the senior associate for South Asia and Asia program deputy director at the Woodrow Wilson Center. We kick off discussing what exactly happened in Ladakh, the border region where the fight occurred. We then have a conversation about what this incident says about India, China, and the relationship between the two.

UPDATE: At least twenty Indian soldiers were killed in the confrontation.

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The podcast has partnered with CGIAR, the world's largest global agricultural innovation network, around a series of live tapings on the topic of climate security.

For today's episode, we are examining the link between food security, climate and conflict. My guests include a leading food systems scientist, Dr. Sonja Vermeulen, Director of Programs, CGIAR System Organization and Dan Smith, the director of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, SIPRI.

The episode was taped on June 4th.

We unpack some of the linkages between climate, climate change, food systems science, conflict and peace building. This is clearly a very big topic, but not one you see often discussed in key policy making circles. The idea behind this conversation was to identify some aspects of that relationship that demand further study by researchers and attention from policymakers. 

I'll be hosting a total of six of these live tapings in partnership with CGIAR over the next several months. The next will be on June 18th. 

Register for future events in the climate security series

In his new book The Arab Winter: A Tragedy, my guest Noah Feldman maps some of the enduring political consequences of the Arab Spring.

Noah Feldman is an author and constitutional scholar who is the Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. He also hosts the Deep Background Podcast. 

In his new book, he argues that the Arab Spring abruptly ended some long term trends that had shaped the history of the region in the decades prior. This includes ending experiments in Arab nationalisms in the region -- for example, "Libyan" is no longer a particularly relevant political identity. Noah Feldman also argues that the Arab Spring ended what is known as "political Islam" or "Islamism" as a driving force in the region, which we discuss at length.

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In the Caribbean, where many country's depend on tourism to sustain their economy, COVID-19 is exacting a particularly heavy toll. Millions of people are out of work, and governments that were already deeply in debt are now in even deeper economic and budgetary distress. 

My guest today, Geneive Brown Metzger, is the former Consul General of Jamaica in New York. She is also President of the American Caribbean Maritime Foundation. And she is the host of the new Caribbean affairs podcast, Diplomatically Speaking.

In our conversation, she explains how COVID-19 is impacting the Caribbean. This includes not only the domestic affairs of the various countries in the region, but also foreign policy. In particular, Geneive Brown Metzger explains how China is using this moment to advance its interests in the Caribbean -- at a time when the United States under the Trump administration has been generally neglectful of the region.

www.diplomaticallyspeaking.com. 

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My guest today, Graham Allison, is a legendary scholar of international relations. The last time we spoke was just after the release of his 2017 book Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides's Trap? The book examined over a dozen historic cases in which global power shifts resulted in wars, and a few cases in which it did not.  The book makes a compelling case, that war between the US as established power and China as the rising power --while not inevitable-- is far more likely than we might think. 

I wanted to re-connect with Graham Allison to see if he thinks world events are confirming or refuting his thesis. This includes the role of this pandemic in shaping trends that might lead to war.

Three years ago we had a long conversation about his life and career, this included the story behind his writing of "The Essence of Decision" in 1971. The book used the Cuban Missile Crisis as a case study to understand how organizations and governments make decisions -- sometimes very bad ones.

That conversation is now available for premium subscribers. 

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Barbara Saitta is a nurse with Doctors without Borders who specializes in vaccination campaigns, primarily in poorer countries. She tells me that because of supply chain interruptions, a number of countries are running out of routine childhood vaccines. This includes vaccines for measles, polio, and the all-important pentavalent vaccine that protects against five common diseases. What is so alarming about the interruption of routine childhood vaccines is that there is a direct correlation between mass immunization and avoiding mass death.

We kick off with a discussion of how vaccine campaigns generally operate in a developing country with poor infrastructure, before having a broader conversation about the impact of COVID-19 on routine childhood immunizations.

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Just over 52% of households in Rwanda have access to some form of electricity. This access is not evenly distributed across Rwanda. In rural communities, where most Rwandans live, energy access rates are far lower. Furthermore, the country's geography severely limits the reach of Rwanda's electric grids.

This means Rwandans are increasingly turning to off-grid energy solutions, namely solar power. 

My guest today, Rebecca Klege, is a Ghanian economist whose research focuses on the intersection of clean energy access and female entrepreneurship. She is a researcher at Environmental Research Policy Unit who is completing her PHD studies at the School of Economics, University of Cape Town in South Africa.

What makes Rebecca Klege's work so unique is that she flips a common study question on its head. Rather than asking how energy access empowers women, she examines how empowered women can promote energy access, and whether or not they do a better job of it than men.  

At the center of her research is a for-profit social enterprise called Nuru Energy. This company provides re-chargeable solar lighting to village level entrepreneurs, who then sell the lighting to others in their community. Using sales data from Nuru Energy, Rebecca Klege was able to compare the effectiveness of female salespeople versus their male counterparts. She finds that female entrepreneurs of this solar energy product are significantly more successful than male entrepreneurs. 

There are broad implications of this finding, which touches on questions around sustainable development, clean energy access, and women's empowerment. These questions and more are being put to the test in an on-going randomized control which Rebecca Klege also discusses in this episode. 

And on a very similar note, I want to draw listeners attention to a recently concluded Virtual Workshop on Gender & Energy Access, hosted by Duke University and featuring 200 practitioner-scholars from over 30 countries. You can find a link to that workshop and white paper on globaldispatchespodcast.com.

Today’s episode is the third installment in a series of episodes that will be published over the next few months that showcase the research and work of the Sustainable Energy Transitions Initiative. SETI is an interdisciplinary global collaborative that aims to foster research on energy access and energy transitions in low and middle-income countries. Currently, SETI is housed at Duke University, where it is led by Professors Subhrendu Pattanayak and Marc Jeuland. To learn more about SETI, follow them on Twitter @SETIenergy.

My guest today, Dr. Mosoka P Fallah is helping to lead Liberia's fight against COVID-19. He is an infectious disease and public health expert and is the Director General National Public Health Institute of Liberia. 

Dr. Fallah was a key player in Liberia's successful suppression of Ebola in 2014, for which he was named as one of Time Magazine's Persons of the Year. I mention this because, as Dr. Fallah explains, Liberia's experience with Ebola is very much informative of how both government and society approach COVID-19. I kick off by asking him about the role of regional cooperation in the fight against COVID-19 before we dive into the situation in Liberia.

Today's episode is supported in part from a grant from the Carnegie Corporation of New York to showcase African voices in peace and security issues. To view other episodes in this series, please visit GlobalDispatchesPodcast.com

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My guest, David Kaye, is the UN Special Rapporteur on freedom of opinion and expression. He has held this position for the last three years, which has given him a unique vantage point--and unique platform--to monitor trends in the suppression of free speech.

Today we discuss a new report to the UN Human Rights Council. In this report, David Kaye identifies and explains the ways in which governments and other entities have used the coronavirus pandemic to crack down on freedom of expression, independent media, and access to information. Among other things, this includes invoking laws to punish "fake news," and broad internet shutdowns.

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The United Nations turns 75 this year. But rather than have a diamond jubilee, the UN is instead embarking on a listening tour. The UN is seeking feedback from as many people in as many communities as possible, all around three big questions: What Kind of World do We Want to Create? Are We on Track? And What is Needed to Bridge the Gap?

In today's interview, I talk to Michelle Milford Morse, who is the UN Foundation’s Vice President for Girls and Women Strategy. She explains the significance of a 1995 UN meeting on women and gender equality which resulted in a key document called the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action. We discuss progress and the lack there of on gender equality since that meeting, including how the COVID-19 pandemic is impacting gender equality. 

Then, after speaking with her for about 15 minutes, the consultation begins. This involved the audience answering a series of about 10 questions on the future of gender equality.

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Lebanon is in the midst of an economic free fall, the degree to which is jaw dropping. 

Inflation is out of control, commodities are hard to come by, and its currency is devaluing at a rapid clip. This all was happening months before the coronavirus pandemic. Now, in the midst of the pandemic, a deteriorating economic situation is poised to turn into a major political and social crisis.

This is arguably the worst crisis since Lebanon emerged from a 15 year civil war in 1990.

The government of Lebanon signaled that it would seek a bailout from the International Monetary Fund. But IMF loans come with conditions and as my guest today Maha Yahya explains, it is entirely unclear right now whether or not the government would be able to accept the kinds of conditions required for an IMF bailout. 

Maha Yahya is the director of the Carnegie Middle East Center and I caught up with her from Beirut. We kick off discussing the roots of this economic crisis, which she explains can be traced to the political arrangements that ended the civil war 30 years ago. We then have a broad conversation about the impact this economic crisis is having in a country that is already fragile.  

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My guest, Prachi Singh, is an associate fellow at the Brookings Institution, India Center and is a PhD candidate at Indian Statistical Institute, Delhi. Her research analyzed height and weight ratios of children who were exposed, in utero, to air pollution events like crop burning and forest fires. She finds a significant correlation between low weight and low height ratios and exposure to this pollution. 

But her research goes further than that. She demonstrates how low height and weight ratios stemming from this exposure  impacts India's entire economy, including taking a significant toll on India's Gross Domestic Product. The peer reviewed research is cutting edge and has broad global implications. We kick off discussing the impact of what is known as stunting on children's health before having a conversation about her research methods and the significance of her findings. 

Today’s episode is the second installment in a series of episodes that will be published over the next few months that showcase the research and work of the Sustainable Energy Transitions Initiative. SETI is an interdisciplinary global collaborative that aims to foster research on energy access and energy transitions in low and middle-income countries. Currently, SETI is housed at Duke University, where it is led by Professors Subhrendu Pattanayak and Marc Jeuland. To learn more about SETI, follow them on Twitter @SETIenergy.

If you have been following news recently out of the Korean Peninsula, you may have seen a report that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un was gravely ill. He had, according to this report, undergone heart surgery and was fighting for his life. The thing is, we have no way of knowing whether or not this is true.

Patricia Kim joins me to discuss the significance of the rumor about Kim Jong Un's ill-health. She is the senior policy analyst with the China program at US Institute of Peace. We also analyze what we know about North Korea's experience with COVID-19, and what lies ahead for nuclear diplomacy between the United States, North Korea, South Korea, and China. 

The bonus episode for premium subscribers this week is a conversation with Richard Haas, the longtime head of the Council on Foreign relations.

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Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, the global order was poised for disruption. Global institutions were seemingly getting weaker, the United States under the Trump administration was abdicating its traditional role as a global leader, and China was most definitely flaunting its rising power on the global stage. Now, in the midst of a pandemic all these trends are still very much present -- but they're also accelerating according to my guest, Ian Bremmer. 

Ian Bremmer is President of the Eurasia Group and President of GZERO Media. And in our conversation we discuss the big geopolitical shifts that are being exposed and hastened by the COVID-19 pandemic. This includes what Ian Bremmer calls "the Great Decoupling" of China and the United States. We discuss the idea that economic and technological interdependence between the United States and China is giving way to the creation of two separate systems. We also talk about how political disruptions and the coming election in the United States will impact geopolitics. 

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Congressman Ami Bera is a Democrat from California who serves on the House Foreign Affairs Committee and is chair of the subcommittee on Asia and Pacific.

He is also a medical doctor who has long championed global health issues. Last November he served on a commission on pandemic preparedness convened by the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, DC that issued a series of recommendations that looks rather prescient today.  

We spoke just a day after President Trump announced that the United States was freezing funding for the World Health Organization and, needless to say, Congressman Bera strongly disagrees with that move. He explains the WHO's critical role in preventing clusters of COVID-19 from taking hold in poorer countries to secure the US homeland.

We cover other ground too, including what the trajectory of the outbreak looks like here in the United States, and how that trajectory might shape US politics and foreign policy.

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For years, the global development community has struggled over the problem of dirty burning cookstoves. These are typically rudimentary stoves that burn wood or other biomass -- and in the process emit harmful smoke indoors. Nearly three billion people around the world cook their meals this way, leading to environmental damage and illness. Indoor air pollution attributed to dirty burning cookstoves kills millions of people each year.

The solution to the problem of dirty cookstoves should be straightforward -- just replace cookstoves that emit harmful pollutants with cleaner burning, improved cookstoves. Indeed, there are a great variety of efficient and clean cookstoves available today. But so far, these improved cookstoves are not being used at anywhere near a scale commensurate with the problem. The solution might exist, but consumers are often not using these better cookstoves. 

My guest today, Subhrendu Pattanayak, sought to learn why people who would benefit the most from improved cookstoves are not using them. He is the Oak Professor of Environmental and Energy Policy at Duke University’s Sanford School of Public Policy. In 2019, he published the results of a five year study with co-author Marc Jeuland of communities in rural India that offers some key insights into the barriers of increasing demand for cleaner burning cookstoves.   We discuss these findings at length in our conversation.

Today’s episode is the first installment in a series of episodes that will be published over the next few months that showcase the research and work of the Sustainable Energy Transitions Initiative. SETI is an interdisciplinary global collaborative that aims to foster research on energy access and energy transitions in low- and middle-income countries. Since 2015, the network has expanded to include over 150 researchers, policymakers, and practitioners working in the field of energy from over 35 countries. Currently, SETI is housed at Duke University, where it is led by Professors Subhrendu Pattanayak and Marc Jeuland. SETI’s research addresses the most pressing energy challenges faced by low- and middle-income countries, from clean cooking in Senegal to micro-hydro power in Nepal to coal divestment in Chile. To learn more about SETI, follow them on Twitter @SETIenergy.

On March 26th, the United States Department of Justice did something very unusual. In a press conference, Attorney General William Barr unsealed indictments against Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and top regime officials, alleging drug trafficking and narcoterrorism.

Previously, when the Trump administration declared Maduro to be an illegitimate leader it was done on the assumption that such a move would inspire defections among Maduro loyalists--particularly in the military and security services. That assumption was proven incorrect. Now, Venezuela has two rival governments with Maduro still in control of most state institutions and Juan Guaidó backed by the United States and most western powers. 

On the line with me to discuss this is Keith Mines, senior advisor for Venezuela and Colombia at the United States Institute of Peace. We kick off discussing the indictments, how they fit into US policy toward Venezuela and whether or not this move may succeed in helping to dislodge Maduro from power. We also discuss how COVID-19 is impacting domestic politics in Venezuela and what role the United Nations might play in helping mediate a resolution to this crisis.

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During this state of emergency, some governments -- many in fact -- are using this time as a pretext to further consolidate power, crack down on a free press, and restrict civil liberties. This is happening in authoritarian countries, but also some democracies. 

Philippe Bolopion is the deputy director for global advocacy at Human Rights Watch. He is on the line with me to discuss how, exactly, regimes around the world are using the coronavirus pandemic to justify crackdowns and human rights abuse. We kick off discussing the example of Hungary: a parliament controlled by the illiberal Prime Minister, Viktor Orban recently passed a sweeping measure giving Orban near-dictatorial powers. We also discuss other examples of leaders invoking COVID-19 to entrench themselves in power.

This pandemic seems to be serving as an accelerant to certain negative trends in global human rights, trends we were seeing previous to the virus. Additionally, governments are using means of population control that were initially developed to target minorities to control the entire population. We discuss both of these issues in detail.

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As I record this, we are nearing the one million mark of reported cases of COVID-19. Although the spread is distributed unevenly, nearly every country on earth has now reported cases of COVID-19. It seems that certain countries, even countries with high case loads, are handling it better than others. Why is that?

Political science, specifically comparative politics, can give us a new perspective in understanding why some countries are dealing with the outbreak better than others. This is a field of study that examines how the internal political characteristics of a country explain the way a state behaves, whether it's a democracy or a dictatorship.

My guest today, Sofia Fenner is an assistant professor of political science at Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania and she specializes in comparative politics. Recently, Sofia Fenner wrote a really fascinating article on an academic blog, Duck of Minerva, that explains whether or not certain characteristics of a state determine how well it will respond to the coronavirus crisis. Among certain corners of the media, there is a debate as to whether or not authoritarian dictatorships are dealing with this crisis better than liberal democracies-- a question she addresses very directly in this conversation.  

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Before the coronavirus became a global pandemic, the world was confronting a series of humanitarian crises; ranging from wars to natural disasters. Much of the responsibility for providing emergency relief to people caught up in these kinds of crises falls on international non-governmental organizations, INGOs. Now, many of these organizations are taking on the additional responsibility of responding to the impact of the coronavirus in places already beset by crises.

So, how does a large INGO prepare its response to the COVID-19 pandemic, and what will that response look like? I was glad to be able to present these questions to Susannah Friedman. Susannah is the Humanitarian Policy Director for CARE, which is one of the larger global humanitarian organizations. It has a staff of over 6,000 and works in over 100 countries. 

We start by discussing the importance of a $2 billion funding appeal launched by the UN to coordinate a global response to COVID-19. We then discuss how this pandemic is impacting the day-to-day work of CARE and what CARE is doing to prepare for COVID-19 in the places where it works. This includes an extended conversation about the particular impact of COVID-19 on the health and safety of women and girls already in vulnerable situations. 

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Desert locusts are eating their way through East Africa on a scale not seen in decades. These migratory pests travel from field to field destroying either crops meant for human consumption or grasslands on which herders graze their livestock. It is estimated that a swarm the size of one square kilometer can eat as much food in a day as 35,000 people. 

Right now, Ethiopia and Somalia are experiencing its worst locust situation in 25 years. For parts of Kenya, the swarms are larger than they have been in the last 70 years. These massive swarms are threatening to plunge this vulnerable region deeper into crisis.

On the line with me to help explain the desert locust situation is Keith Cressman of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization. He has been studying desert locusts for decades -- in fact, he is the senior desert locust forecasting officer at the UN FAO.  In our conversation, he explains why we are seeing this historic upsurge in desert locusts in East Africa, their impact on the lives and livelihoods of people in this region, and what can be done to control the swarms and mitigate their impact. 

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I encountered a study in the journal, International Security by Dr. Jacqueline McAllister that examines whether or not international war crimes tribunals actually deter and prevent war crimes and crimes against humanity. 

Jacqueline McAllister is an assistant professor of political science at Kenyon College. Her article, titled "Deterring Wartime Atrocities: Hard Lessons from the Yugoslav Tribunal" examines whether or not the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, known as the ICTY, was able to deter war crimes during the wars in the Balkans in the 1990s.  

She finds that, indeed, there were some circumstances in which the ICTY deterred war crimes--but for that to happen, the conditions have to be just right.  We discuss what those conditions are, how she arrived at her findings, and what implications her study has for other war crimes tribunals, like the International Criminal Court.

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The coronavirus pandemic could have major implications for international development. 

As of now, most of the countries that have been hit hardest by COVID-19 are higher income countries; places like Italy, South Korea, and the United States. Low income countries, particularly those in sub-Saharan Africa, have not yet recorded significant clusters of the coronavirus --  but the economic consequences of the virus are being felt around the world.

How can low income countries -- including those that have been the focus of major economic and social development efforts, often backed by international institutions like the World Bank --  protect themselves from both COVID-19 and its global economic fallout?

Amanda Glassman is on the line with me to answer that question and to discuss the potential effects of the coronavirus on global development. She is the executive vice president and senior fellow with the Center for Global Development, and someone I have long turned to help me understand how international development works.

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We are sort of in uncharted times here. My kids are home from school, for who knows how long. I assume most of you listening to this are practicing social distancing to the fullest extent possible. I think in times like this, community becomes important. Over the many years of doing this podcast, I really have felt that a profound sense of community has been built around the show. If there's anything I can do to help you through this time--make the social distancing a little less distant; or even just help you fill your time if you are under some sort of quarantine, please let me know. I'll just give you my personal email address (markleongoldberg  at gmail com). Feel free to reach out with whatever is on your mind. Remember: You are not alone. 

One thing I did do is put together a list of podcast episodes categorized by topics that are often encountered in university courses on international relations. I put this together mostly for professors of international relations and related fields to help them as they move to online instruction. Email me if you'd like it. 

The coronavirus pandemic is impacting institutions around the world, including the United Nations. In fact, about an hour after I recorded this episode, the Philippines Mission said to the United Nations that one of its diplomats, who had been at meetings in UN Headquarters in New York, tested positive for COVID-19.

In this episode, I speak with Margaret Besheer, the UN correspondent for Voice of America. She helps me understand how the coronavirus is impacting the work and life of the United Nations.  

We start by discussing the work of the World Health Organization before having a longer conversation about the day-to-day implications of COVID-19 on all manner of work at the United Nations. This includes UN peacekeeping, day-to-day diplomacy, and the work of the Security Council.

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On February 29th, the United States and the Taliban entered into an agreement that would see the complete pullout of US troops from Afghanistan. In return, the Taliban would renounce international terrorist groups, like al Qaeda and the Islamic State, and prevent them from plotting foreign attacks from Afghan soil. 

Despite how this has been characterized in some quarters of the media, "This is very much not a peace deal," says my guest, Michael Kugelman. He is the senior associate for South Asia at the Woodrow Wilson Center. Kugelman communicated to me that this was a point he wanted to emphasize. In the days after the deal, the Taliban launched several attacks in Afganistan. In fact, a few hours before we spoke, there was a major attack at a political rally in Kabul. 

In this conversation, we discuss what is included in this deal, what is not included, and what this agreement means for the future of Afghanistan. 

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On February 22nd, two long time foes, President Salva Kiir and Riek Machar signed a power-sharing agreement to formally end South Sudan's brutal six-year civil war. The accord determined that Machar and other opposition leaders would be vice-presidents in a new government of national unity. 

The civil war in South Sudan broke out in December 2013, when President Salva Kiir accused his-then vice president Riek Machar of fomenting a coup. The fighting escalated very quickly and took on ethnic dimensions as well. Over the years there have been different attempts at peace, but each attempt has failed which is why there is so much riding on this February 22nd agreement. 

On the line with me to discuss this peace agreement is Jok Madut Jok. He is a professor at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University and a senior analyst with the Sudd Institute, a public policy center based in Juba, South Sudan. 

This episode is supported, in part, by a grant from the Carnegie Corporation of New York to feature African perspectives on peace and security issues in Africa.  

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In recent years, as the trade war between the United States and China threatened to disrupt Chinese soy supplies, Beijing began making big investments in Brazil. This included a potential new railway -- the so-called grain train -- that would link Brazilian soy fields to its ports. The problem is, from an environmental point of view, these fields are mostly in the heart of the lush Amazon Rainforest. As Chinese demands for Brazilian soy have increased, so too has the pace of deforestation.

My guest today, Melissa Chan, co-authored a piece in The Atlantic that examines the impact of China's demand for soy on the region of Brazil where it is mostly grown. The piece, China Wants Food. Brazil Pays the Price, was supported by the Pulitzer Center. Melissa Chan's co-author is Heriberto Araujo.   

We kick off discussing the significance of a single road in the Amazon called BR 163, before having a broader conversation about the relationship between China, Brazil, soybeans and climate change.  

 https:///www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2020/02/china-brazil-amazon-environment-pork/606601/

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So far, COVID-19 has mostly impacted countries with decently functioning health care systems. However, experts and the WHO have expressed a great worry. What happens should we see clusters of cases where there is no good health system? This includes poorer countries, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa and populations in the midst of some humanitarian crisis. 

To help us understand the potential impact of coronavirus on vulnerable populations around the world is Dr. Paul B. Spiegel. He is the director of the Center for Humanitarian Health at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health, where he also works as a professor. 

As it happens, Paul B. Spiegel was in the midst of a project to model scenarios around COVID-19 and the Rohingya refugee population in a region of Bangladesh called Cox's Bazar. We spend a good bit of time discussing that particular humanitarian crisis, while also discussing the broader implications of COVID-19 spreading to places that are already in the midst of a crisis. 

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The Boni Forest is a lush coastal ecosystem on the border between Kenya and Somalia. Its location and geography have made it an ideal hideout for al Shebaab -- the Somali terrorist group that has launched some devastating attacks in Kenya over the last decade. 

In 2015, Kenyan security forces mounted an operation to rid the region of al Shabaab. But their heavy-handed tactics alienated the local population, disrupting lives and livelihoods of the people who ostensibly the security forces were meant to protect. The military intervention was failing and people were less secure in their livelihoods.  

That was until my guest today, Judy Kimamo, helped launch a grassroots peace conference for the region, known as the Boni Enclave Stakeholders Conference.  Over 130 groups attended the conference, including local leaders, government and security officials and various members of civil society.

That was in 2017.  Now, nearly three years later, the positive impact of that peacebuilding effort is still being felt. 

Judy Kimamo is the Kenya director for Search for Common Ground, an international non-profit specializing in peacebuilding and conflict resolution. We kick off with an extended conversation about the security problems in the Boni Forest region and the government's initial response, before having a wider conversation about what made her peacebuilding efforts so successful -- and what lessons others may draw in how to design a locally lead peace initiative. When it comes to peacebuilding, what she helped to pull off with the Boni Enclave Stakeholders Conference is quite cutting edge and I'm very glad to bring this story to you. 

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My conversation with Judy Kimamo is one episode in a series of supported in part from a grant from Carnegie Corporation of New York to feature African perspectives on peace and security issues in Africa. Please visit GlobalDispatchesPodcast.com to view and download other episodes of this series.

Also, when I spoke with Judy Kimamo she was near the Boni Forest region and our audio connection was not strong and the audio quality is not what is typical of this podcast. Still she has an incredible story to tell so I have also posted a transcript to our conversation on GlobalDispatchesPodcast.

A 2011 agreement known as the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or New START, is the last remaining nuclear arms control treaty between the United States and Russia. The treaty imposes limits on the size and composition of the nuclear arsenals of the world's two largest nuclear powers. And it allows Russia and the United States to inspect each others nuclear arsenals to ensure compliance. 

New START is now the only nuclear arms reduction treaty between the United States and Russia because last year, the Trump administration withdrew from a Ronald Reagan era agreement called the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, or INF, that eliminated a certain class of nuclear weapons. 

But New START may not last much longer. The treaty officially expires in February 2021. And so far, it is unclear whether or not the Trump administration will seek its extension. Russia has already signaled that it would extend the agreement another five years, but the Trump administration has so far demurred.

On the line with me to discuss the significance of New START is Thomas Countryman. He was a longtime career diplomat who served as the US Assistant Secretary of State for International Security and Nonproliferation from 2011 to 2017. He is now the chair of the board of the Arms Control Association. 

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The President of Cameroon is named Paul Biya. He's been the president of Cameroon since 1982. Before that, from 1975, he was prime minister. Depending on how you count it, Paul Biya of Cameroon is one of -- if not the --  longest-serving world leader.

My guest today, Maurice Kamto, challenged Paul Biya for the presidency in national elections in 2018. Kamto lost in what he plausibly claimed were rigged elections. He subsequently led a peaceful protest movement against the government of Paul Biya --  until January last year when he was arrested and thrown in prison for ten months. Maurice Kamto is a lawyer and professor of law with the University of Yaounde, in Cameroon. He is the leader of the Cameroon Renaissance Movement, which is known by its French acronym the MRC.  

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At the start of the year, the World Food Program issued a forecast of where it expects to find the worst hunger crises this year. The report, called the Global Hotspots 2020, identifies 15 major food emergencies that are deteriorating at an alarming rate and demand greater worldwide attention.  

My guest today, Arif Husain, is the Chief Economist and Director of the Food Security Analysis and Trends Service at the United Nations World Food Programme. We kick things off by discussing what is meant by food insecurity, and also how he collects data around hunger before having a longer conversation about the relationship between climate change, conflict, migration, and food security. 

4:30 The Effect Conflict Has on Hunger

6:44 Climate Change

9:02 Economic Marginalization

12:00 Migration and Displacement

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Dr. Roseanne Njiru is a sociologist at the University of Nairobi who has conducted cutting edge field research that finds a link between healthcare and peacebuilding. Specifically, she examines the role that community health workers play in preventing conflict in marginalized communities, like urban slums, around Nairobi, Kenya.  

Community health workers (or what in other contexts are sometimes called health extension workers) link poor, rural or otherwise marginalized communities to a country's broader health care system. The health workers themselves are from these communities and they are given some basic level of training. Essentially, they are the eyes and ears and first point of contact between the health system and the community. 

Deploying cadres of these community health workers has become increasingly popular as a public health strategy in the developing world. In my years of reporting, I've seen the key role that community health workers play in places like rural Bangladesh and Ethiopia. This strategy has been demonstrated to improve health outcomes in some of the most vulnerable communities in a society. But what I did not appreciate until I encountered Dr. Njiru's research was some of the ancillary benefits, beyond health, that community health workers can confer to their community. Namely, Dr. Njiru found through her research that community health workers are also agents of peace and conflict prevention--including helping to prevent political violence. 

Her research is absolutely fascinating and I am glad to bring it to you as part of a series of episodes supported in part from a grant from Carnegie Corporation of New York to feature African perspectives on peace and security issues in Africa.

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For a brief period this fall, it appeared that the crisis in Yemen was de-escalating. Fighting had reached some of its lowest levels since 2015, when Saudi Arabia led an international coalition to intervene in Yemen's civil war.

But any hopes that a lull in fighting could be sustained were dashed in early 2020 with a series of high profile attacks.  Today, as I record, in February 2020 fighting in Yemen is intense -- indeed as bad as it has ever been since the civil war began -- if not worse. According to the United Nations, Yemen is the single worst humanitarian crisis in the world today.  

On the line with me to explain this newest iteration of the conflict in Yemen is Scott Paul. He is a humanitarian policy lead with Oxfam and we spend a lot of time discussing why the crisis in Yemen is getting worse right now. For those who are not familiar with the crisis in Yemen, Scott Paul does a very good job at the start of the conversation explaining how we got to this point. 

There is a category of diseases that sickens, injures and kills the poorest people on the planet. These are called Neglected Tropical Diseases or NTDs You may be familiar with some of them, like leprosy, guinea worm disease or River Blindness; but you have probably never heard of most of them--I know I have not. 

But these diseases, combined, affect nearly 1.7 billion people around the world and further add to the costs of developing economies. So, in an effort to make these diseases a little less neglected, about eight years ago governments, philanthropies, UN agencies and NGOs came together to design and implement strategies to reduce and ultimately eliminate many of these diseases.

On the line with me today is someone who has been at the very forefront of that effort. Dr. Thoko Elphick-Pooley is the director of a collective called Uniting to Combat NTDS. We discuss the progress that has been made towards the elimination of NTDs and also what strategies have been most effective in combating these diseases. 

As it happens, we spoke on the first-ever World NTD Day, so I kick off asking Dr. Elphick-Pooley about the significance of having a new world day around Neglected Tropical Diseases. 

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Aid work can be a dangerous business. According to the latest verified data, 131 aid workers were killed in the line of duty in 2018. Many more were injured in serious attacks.  

According to my guest today, Abby Stoddard, attacks on aid workers and humanitarian relief operations are both a symptom and a weapon of modern warfare. Indeed, it is the changing nature of conflict around the world that is driving increasing levels of violence against aid workers. 

Abby Stoddard is a former aid worker and a longtime researcher. Along with her research partner Adele Harmer, Stoddard has compiled a dataset of verified attacks on aid workers around the world. Their research is compiled in the Aid Worker Security Database, which has tracked attacks on aid workers since 1997.

The data they compiled tell many stories and offer important insights into trends of conflict, which we discuss on the show today.

Abby Stoddard's new book in which much of this data is discussed and analyzed is called Necessary Risks: Professional Humanitarianism and Violence against Aid Workers.  Abby Stoddard is a partner with Humanitarian Outcomes, an international consultancy that does research and policy advising for governments and organizations on humanitarian action. 

If you have twenty minutes and want to learn how the changing nature of conflict is making humanitarian relief work more dangerous, have a listen.

7:35 Aid workers most impacted by violence

14:05 Successful humanitarian efforts

22:17 Attack in Juba as an example of recent trends

27:51 The impact on civilians trapped in the conflict 

aidworkerssecurity.org 

https://www.amazon.com/Necessary-Risks-Professional-Humanitarianism-Violence/dp/3030264106

At the time of recording, the coronavirus outbreak that originated in China has infected over 4,500 people -- though that number is sure to dramatically increase in the coming days. The vast majority of the people affected by this outbreak are in China, though infections have been confirmed in at least 14 other countries. And, again, the number of countries impacted will certainly increase. 

There is a lot we still don't know about the coronavirus and this outbreak -- but we do know that this coronavirus outbreak is poised to become a major global health crisis.  So, for this episode, I wanted to give you a sense of the kind of global health infrastructure that exists for exactly moments like this.

On the line with me to discuss the international response to this outbreak so far, including actions taken by the World Health Organization is Ambassador John E Lange. He is a retired ambassador from the United States who currently serves as a senior fellow for Global Health Diplomacy with the United Nations Foundation. Ambassador Lange also served, from 2006 to 2009 as the US Special Representative for Avian Flu and Pandemic Flu preparedness. This gives him some unique insight into how both the US government and entities like the WHO respond to these kinds of fast-moving outbreaks. 

We kick off discussing the World Health Organization's role in managing the global response to an outbreak like this, including the relevance of something called the 2005 International Health Regulations. These were adopted by the international community following the SARS outbreak in 2003. We also discuss potential scenarios for the coronavirus to turn into a pandemic that could deeply impact poorer countries with weak health systems.

By the time you are listening to this, the WHO will likely have declared this situation.  But when Amb. Lange and I spoke on January 28, they had not yet made that declaration. Still, anticipating it, we do discuss what is meant by the term.

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In the midst of the impeachment drama unfolding in Washington, DC a rare thing happened: Republicans and Democrats came together and in an overwhelmingly bi-partisan move, supported a bill known as the Global Fragility Act.  

In brief, The Global Fragility Act is intended to address a key gap in how the US government approaches conflict prevention and post-conflict peace-building in what are known as fragile countries. The bill was broadly supported and in part conceived by advocates in the global humanitarian and relief community.  And on the line with me to discuss the new Global Fragility Act is Dr. Dafna Rand, vice president of policy and research at Mercy Corps. She is also a former deputy assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights, and labor.

The Global Fragility Act is one of those under-the-radar policy stories that has big potential to change key aspects of US policy towards parts of the world beset by instability. 

0:56 The Global Fragility Act

3:52 The first exciting aspect of the Global Fragility Act

9:17 Definition of a 'fragile' state 

13:41 The second exciting aspect of the Global Fragility Act 

15:18 The intended results of the new law 

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Burkina Faso, the landlocked country in West Africa, is in the midst of an escalating humanitarian emergency. Over half a million people have been displaced in the last year -- a 500% increase from one year ago, according to the latest data from the United Nations. 

The vast majority of the newly displaced are fleeing an unrelenting series of terrorist attacks. Most of these attacks are occurring in regions near the border with Mali. But terrorist violence has also reached the capitol city Ouagadougou including high profile strikes against foreign targets, like an attack on a western hotel in 2016 and an attack on the French embassy in 2018.   

As we enter 2020, the scale and pace of terrorist attacks has picked up in intensity. This includes a late December attack in the town of Arbinda, in a province that borders Mali, which saw at least 37 civilians killed.  Also, earlier this year, there was a bombing of a bus carrying school children that killed 14 people. 

This surge in violence in Burkina Faso comes six years after peaceful protests lead to the ouster of longtime ruler Blaise Compaoré.  And according to my guest today, the increase pace of terrorist attacks in Burkina Faso might be tied to upcoming elections in 2020, which are being contested by Blaise Compaoré's political party.   

Arsene Brice Bado is professor of political science at the center for research and action for peace, known as CERAP, at the Jesuit University in Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire. He is from Burkina Faso, and in this conversation he offers a few explanations for why his country is experiencing such violence after a rather euphoric period following the ouster of Blaise Compaoré.

We kick off discussing some recent attacks in Burkina Faso before having a longer conversation about the causes and consequences of increasing violence in Burkina Faso. We also discuss what kinds of policies and what kinds of international engagement might help reduce the prospect of further violence.

If you have twenty minutes and want to understand why Burkina Faso is experiencing a man-made humanitarian emergency, and what that means for the broader Sahel region -- and the world,  have a listen. 

I am very excited to announce that this episode is the first in a series of episodes supported in part from a grant from Carnegie Corporation of New York. The grant will help the show feature African perspectives on peace and security issues in Africa. Needles to say, I am very excited for the content that will be produced from this partnership. I'll discuss it in more detail after the episode. 

On January 12 2010, a 7.0 magnitude earthquake struck Haiti.  Hundreds of thousands of people lost their lives. Millions more were made homeless. Around the world, there was a huge outpouring of support and solidarity for the people of Haiti. This included billions of dollars pledged for Haiti relief and reconstruction. 

Ten years later, much of the rubble is gone. But the massive reconstruction plans have  materialized to a degree commensurate with the promises that were made at time.  

So what happened to the billions of dollars pledged and to the grand promises to "build back better?" 

On the line with me to discuss what happened with Haiti earthquake reconstruction is Jacqueline Charles. She is a veteran reporter with the Miami Herald who has reported this story for many years. I caught up with her in Port Au Prince where she was covering events around the 10th anniversary of the earthquake. Her series in the Miami Herald, called Haiti Earthquake: A Decade of Aftershocks is an absolute must read and I'll post a link to it on the homepage. The series includes an interview with Bill Clinton, who was the major international figure raising money for Haiti reconstruction and helping to coordinate the international response. He served, for a time as the co-chair of a commission directing international relief efforts and Jaqueline Charles and I discuss the legacy of Bill Clinton's efforts to that end.

The conflict in Syria is entering a new phase. Over the last several years Syrian government forces, backed by outside powers like Russia and Iran, have steadily regained control of territory held by rebel factions.  As they lay siege to opposition fighters, they forced groups, including massive numbers of civilians to retreat to a part of Syria called Idlib. This is in the Northwest of the country near the border of Turkey. Today, this is the largest rebel-held bastion. The number of fighters is relatively small compared to the some 4 million civilians trapped there. 

Russian fighter jets and Syrian artillery have continued to target this area, though there has not been an all out ground invasion. Meanwhile, millions of civilians trapped here and also other rebel held parts of the country in the Northeast are dependent on humanitarian relief to stay alive. 

For the last six years, the main lifeline for civilians in rebel held territory in these parts of Syria has been aid delivered across the border. What is significant about the cross border aid delivery is that it is done without the consent of the Syrian government; this is unusual because for both legal and practical reasons the United Nations and aid agencies it works with requires the host country's permission to operate. But in 2014, with humanitarian disaster mounting across the border from Turkey, and with the Syrian regime not permitting aid deliveries to rebel held parts of the country, the UN Security Council used its authority to authorize the cross border delivery of aid --  even if the Syrian government would not consent. 

This was a big deal at the time, and allowed a massive aid operation to reach vulnerable populations in Northern Syria. 

The Security Council resolution enabling the cross border delivery of aid requires re-authorization every year. And every year, even with Russian acceptance, it was re-authorized. 

That was until this year. On January 10th Russia forced the Security Council to severely limit these aid operations. Now, says Vanessa Jackson of the humanitarian organization CARE International, cross border aid operations will be extremely limited and perhaps even cease all together in the near future. 

Vanessa Jackson is the United Nations representative for CARE International. She has been following both the debate on Syria at the Security Council closely we discuss the impact of this restriction on the delivery of humanitarian aid as well as how this move fits into the broader trajectory of the conflict in Syria.  

We may be in for a very turbulent year of nuclear diplomacy with North Korea

Since 2018, North Korea has had a self-imposed moratorium on the testing of nuclear weapons and long range missiles, like the kind that could reach the United States. The moratorium stems from the diplomatic opening between the United States and North Korea that culminated in three meetings between Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un.  However, even as North Korea has paused its long range missile and nuclear testing, it has continued other tests to advance its nuclear weapons program. 

At the very end of 2019, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un delivered remarks in a New Year's speech that suggest what this self-imposed moratorium on nuclear and missile testing was over -- and on top of that, that North Korea has a powerful new weapon in its arsenal. 

So what does this all mean for nuclear diplomacy with North Korea and the prospect of more provocations, or even outright conflict? On the line with me to discuss where we are headed with North Korea is Dr. Jeffrey Lewis.  He is a professor at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterrey. He is a longtime nuclear security expert and and North Korea watcher.  We kick off discussing the impact, if any, of the US killing of Iranian general Qassam Soulemani on North Korea's strategic thinking before having a longer conversation about North Korea's nuclear program and the prospects for diplomacy in 2020.  

Also, last time Jeffrey Lewis was on the show we discussed his book, published in 2018, which is actually a novel that presents a very plausible scenario for a nuclear exchange between North Korea and the United States that takes place in 2020. So, naturally, we ended this conversation discussing the likelihood of whether or not the events he describes in his book may transpire.

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I spoke to my guest today, Ilan Goldenberg, just a couple hours after Donald Trump addressed the nation following an Iranian missile attack on bases in Iraq. The Iranian attack, of course, was in retaliation to a US drone strike that killed a top Iranian official Qassem Souleimani on January third. 

In his remarks, Donald Trump signaled that he was ready for the offramp and would not launch new military strikes in the near term. The Iranian government also said that the missile attacks on bases in Iraq had concluded their retaliation. 

For the moment, the crisis is not poised to escalate. But, says Ilan Goldenberg, we can very much expect Iran to launch further reprisals in the future--and this could include terrorist attacks and assassination attempts against US targets.

Ilan Goldenberg is a former Defense Department official in the Obama administration whose work focused on Iran. He is now director of the Middle East Security Program at the Center for a New American Security in Washington, DC.

In our conversation we discuss the events of the first week of January and what comes next. Ilan Goldenberg describes the strategic thinking underway in Iran right now that lead to this missile strike on a base holding US troops in Iraq, and also why and how he expects further retaliation.  We also discuss how the US killing of Souleimani might affect Iran's compliance with the Nuclear Deal and what opportunities exist, it at all, for de-escalation. 

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In 2017, hundreds of thousands of Rohingya muslims were driven from their homes in Myanmar. At the time, a UN official called this a "textbook example of ethnic cleansing." And today, the government of Myanmar is being sued at the International Court of Justice for perpetrating a genocide.

These attacks against the rohingya are the most recent and extreme example of sectarian violence and discrimination in Myanmar -- which is an incredibly diverse country with a long history of ethnic conflict. 

So how does one stop this trend? How do you promote tolerance and pluralism in a place in which diversity has been used to fuel conflict?  On the line with me today is someone who is doing just that. Aung Kyaw Moe is the founder and executive director of the Center for Social Integrity in Myanmar. This is an organization that provides both humanitarian relief but also engages in peacebuilding and advocacy work. He is himself a Rohingya and has used humanitarian aid in parts of the country where Rohingya live to encourage cross ethnic partnerships.

 Aung Kyaw Moe and his organization recently received a high honor, the Global Pluralism Award, which is conferred by the Global Centre for Pluralism, a joint partnership between The Aga Khan and the Government of Canada.

We kick of discussing diversity in Myanmar before having a longer conversation about how that how diversity has been used as a wedge to ignite conflict, and how  Aung Kyaw Moe is working to reverse that trend.

Pablo Yanguas is a research fellow at the Global Development Institute at the University of Manchester. He is the author of the new book "Why We Lie About Aid: Development and the Messy Politics of Change."

Dr. Joanne Liu lead Medecins Sans Frontiers/Doctors Without Borders from 2013 to this past September. Listen back to her 2017 conversation in which she discusses why she joined MSF, and how MSF has evolved to respond to recent trends like the global refugee crisis and the increasing frequency with which hospitals are targeted in warfare.

This is a powerful conversation that alternates between the wonky and the personal. 

The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria was created in 2002 as a partnership between governments, philanthropies and civil society.  At the time, these three diseases were completely out of control, killing millions of people each year and with no end in sight. 

17 years later, thanks in large part to the Global Fund, we can imagine the end of AIDS, TB and Malaria.  Deaths from these three diseases have declined precipitously. Instances of infection have also declined--though not as sharply as mortality rates.

In all, some $32 million lives have been saved through the Global Fund, which is essentially a pool of money that is strategically disbursed in select countries to reduce instances and deaths from these diseases. The way this money is raised is from contributions from donors, the most significant of which are countries. And in late October in Lyon, France the Global Fund held a pledging conference in which it sought to raise a minimum of $14 billion to cover its operations over the next three years. 

And as my guest today Peter Sands explains it was something of a nail-biter in Lyon as to whether or not they would hit that goal. 

Peter Sands is the executive director of the Global Fund. And in this conversation he takes us behind the scenes at that donor conference.  We discuss progress against those three diseases, how the global fund works and why of those diseases Tuberculosis has been the most difficult to confront.  

India's prime minister Narendra Modi was re-elected to office in May in what was a landslide victory for his BJP party.  Modi is a Hindu nationalist in a diverse country that includes one of the world's largest Muslim populations. He rose to political prominence in the early 2000s as the chief minister of Gujarat during inter-communal riots that lead to the murder of over a thousand people, mostly Muslims. He was widely accused of failing to stop the riots and has used the mass murder of Muslims in Gujarat in 2002 to his political advantage.  

Modi was first elected Prime Minister in 2014 and since his re-election in May 2019, Modi has very much doubled down on implementing a stridently pro-Hindu agenda that is undermining secular democracy in India. This includes, most recently, the passage of a law that excludes Muslim immigrants to India of certain citizenship eligibilities. 

That transparently anti-Muslim law has sparked massive protests across India, which at time of recording show little signs of abating.   

On the line with me to explain how a newly re-elected Narendra Modi is using his political power to advance a Hindu nationalist agenda, what what that means in a country with nearly 200 million Muslims is Michael Kugelman. He is  Deputy director of the Asia Program and South Asia senior associate at the Wilson Center.  We kick off discussing this new citizenship law before having a broader conversation about how Narenda Modi is changing India, what that means for Indian democracy and international relations.

The crisis in Libya is about to get much worse. Nine months ago a renegade general named Khalifa Hiftar launched an attack on the internationally recognized and UN-backed government in Tripoli. That assault suddenly ended UN-brokered peace process that seemed to be on the brink of success. 

In the ensuing months, the sides have been locked into a stalemate, with fighting mostly confined to neighborhoods on the outskirts of Tripoli. But, recently Hiftar's foreign backers have stepped up their support. This includes Russia, which has deployed troops and equipment to Hiftar this fall. Meanwhile, Turkey is raising the possibility that it will send troops to defend Tripoli from Hiftar's attack.

The situation is now extremely perilous. Outside forces, including Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates are fueling this conflict. Meanwhile, key diplomatic players in Europe and the United States are sending mixed signals about their preferred outcome. So, at the end of 2019 it could very well transpire that Libya descends into a crushing proxy war and civil war, of enormous humanitarian consequence. 

On the line to discuss the crisis in Libya is Mary Fitzgerald. She is a longtime researcher who recently returned from Libya. In this episode of the Global Dispatches podcast she explains how we got to this point--that is, how Libya descended into chaos after the fall of Gadaffi and how a civil war in Libya became the venue for an international proxy war. If you have 25 minutes and want to learn why Libya could become the major international crisis of 2020, have a listen. 

Over the summer, millions of people in Hong Kong took to the streets in an unprecedented protest against a proposed law that could allow for the extradition of people in Hong Kong to mainland china. Protesters saw this as an affront to what is known as the one country, two systems policy. This is the idea that though Hong Kong is formally part of China, it also has a special political status as a former British Colony -- and that status includes a degree of autonomy and freedoms from the political system of mainland china. 

But since those protests against the extradition bill over the summer, the situation in Hong Kong has changed dramatically. Protests have continued and have widened to include other demands. This includes a demand for universal suffrage for the people of Hong Kong. The protests and the police reaction to it have also become increasingly violent. 

On the Global Dispatches podcast today is Victoria Tin-bor Hui, a professor of political science at Notre Dame University.   She discusses the situation in Hong Kong, including how the protest movement and Beijing's reaction to it have evolved since the summer. She also discusses the concrete demands of the protesters. 

The Moria Refugee Camp on the island of Lesvos, Greece is the largest refugee camp in Europe. The camp has an official capacity of just over 2,000 people. But the population is now more than 17,000, with most people living in makeshift shelters in fields and olive groves on the island. 

In recent months the number of refugees arriving at Lesvos by boat from Turkey has sharply increased. This is following the breakdown of a 2016 agreement between Turkey and the European Union in which Turkey largely stopped boat departures from its shores. Now, thousands of refugees are once again arriving on the Greek Islands. Over 3,000 people have arrived in November alone.

Needless to say, the conditions on the island of Lesvos are horrendous. People are stuck there, seemingly in perpetual limbo as they asylum claims are processed and they await transfer to the mainland. 

On the line with me to discuss the situation on Lesvos is Dr. Siyana Shaffi. She is the founder of the NGO Kitrinos which provides healthcare to refugees in Greece. She recently returned from Camp Moria when we spoke in November and in this conversation she gives you a real sense of the harsh conditions faced by refugees stranded on an island in Europe. 

Since we spoke, the government of Greece announced somewhat nebulous plans to close the camp and transfer its residents to effective prisons on the mainland. It is unclear, though, if that will actually happen. This episode gives you a grounds-eye view of how Europe's harsh treatment of refugees. 

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Delegates, civil society and government officials from around the world are gathering in Madrid, Spain this week for the next big international climate change conference, known as COP 25. On the agenda are strategies to accelerate progress towards the Paris Agreement Goals of limiting global warming to 1.5 or 2 degrees Celsius.

But to reach the Paris Agreement goals, new research shows that countries need to dramatically reduce what is called the fossil fuel production gap.

This gap is the difference between the fossil fuels that countries are planning to produce in the coming years and the necessary reduction in fossil fuel production required to halt global warming to 1.5 or 2 degrees Celsius.

The study was co-produced by a number of international non profit and research organizations and the United Nations Environment Program. The lead partner on this report was the Stockholm Environment Institute, and on the line with me is a scientist from the Stockholm Environment Institute, Peter Erickson.

We kick off discussing the concept of a "production gap" before having a longer conversation about the report's findings and why this report is such an important contribution to our collective understanding of actions that need to be taken in order to limit greenhouse gas emissions.

The politics and recent history of Ukraine are suddenly quite central to the politics and history of the United States. 

In this episode of the Global Dispatches podcast we examine what the US impeachment inquiry looks like from Ukraine. Veteran journalist Steven Erlanger, who is the chief diplomatic correspondent in Europe for the New York Times explains the recent history of Ukraine, including the 2004 Orange Revolution which brought Viktor Yushenko to power; and later, how Yushenko was replaced by a more pro-Russian president named Victor Yonukovich, who subsequently fled to Russia during what was known as the Euromaidan revolution in 2014.

We then discuss the improbable rise of a comedian turned politician, Volodymyr Zelensky who became president in April 2019 -- and how Zelensky has reacted to being thrust into the middle of a domestic political scandal in the United States.

My intention with this episode is to give you a brief and accessible introduction to Ukrainian politics -- which are suddenly very central to the politics of the United States.

If you have 20 minutes and want to learn both the recent history of Ukraine and also better understand how events in DC are being interpreted in Kyiv, have a listen

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There are just five people in the world who decide each year who wins the Nobel Peace Prize -- and Asle Toje is one of them.

Asle Toje is a foreign policy scholar and author. As of last year, he is also the newest member of the Norwegian Nobel Peace Prize Committee. 

In our conversation, we discuss how one wins the Nobel Peace Prize. Asle Toje discusses some of the behind-the-scenes work of the Nobel Peace Prize Committee, including the kinds of considerations that he and the other jurors make when deciding who should win the Nobel Peace Prize. To the extent possible, this conversation brings you inside the room where every Nobel Peace Prize winner has been decided for most of the last 105 years. 

We kick off with what with a discussion about the history of the Nobel Peace Prize and Alfred Nobel, before having an extended conversation about the process behind selecting the winner, certain controversies surrounding their decision over the years, and whether or not awarding the Nobel Peace Prize can influence broader political or policy outcomes in the service of peace. 

This Global Dispatches Podcast episode is an incredibly unique opportunity to hear directly  from a Nobel Peace Prize juror and I think you will love it.  Asle Toje's newest book is called The Causes of Peace: What We Know Now 

Support the show by becoming a premium subscriber 

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The small west African country of the Gambia has lodged a suit at the International Court of Justice against Myanmar for committing a genocide against the Rohingya people. 

The Rohingya are an ethnic and religious minority in Myanmar,  who have long faced discrimination and persecution. But it was not until the summer and fall of 2017 that this persecution became a mass atrocity event, and arguably a genocide. Some 700,000 Rohingya fled violence in this time, and now more than a million live as refugees in neighboring Bangladesh. 

Justice for the Rohingya victims of genocide has so far been elusive. But this action at the International Court of Justice, which is a UN body based in the Hague, could be a significant turning point. 

On the line with me to discuss the significance of this lawsuit is Param-Preet Singh. She is an associate director of Human Rights Watch in the International Justice Program. And in our conversation she explains what exactly this law suit alleges, why Gambia is the country bringing the suit, and how this action advance the cause of justice for victims of crimes against humanity and change how. 

We kick off with a brief discussion of the International Court of Justice and how the judicial process at the ICJ works.

For the past several weeks, Washington Post reporter Mustafa Salim has had a front row view to massive protests that have erupted in Baghdad and other cities in Iraq. As he explains in this Global Dispatches podcast episode, these protests are neither centrally organized, nor do they have an explicit set of demands. Yet, they may prove to be powerful enough to bring down the Iraqi government of Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi.

The protests began in early October, mostly by young men from poorer Shi'ite cities and towns angered by corruption and their own economic distress. But now, the protests have since expanded to include women and men from all walks of life. 

In our conversation, Mustafa Salim describes the scene on the ground in Baghdad where I reached him a few days ago. We discuss how these protests originated, where they may be heading, why Iran is a target of the protesters, and how humble drivers of three wheel taxis that cater to the urban poor, known as Tuk Tuks, became symbolic heroes of this protest movement. 

If you have 20 minutes and want both a deeper understanding of what is driving the Iraq protests and what the mood is on the ground in Baghdad, have a listen.

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Twenty five years ago, the city of Cairo, Egypt hosted a UN-backed gathering of international development professionals from nearly every country on the earth. That 1994 meeting was called the International Conference on Population and Development, or the ICPD, and it became one of the most significant global development gatherings of the last quarter century. At the conference over 170 countries signed was was known as an "action plan" that for the first time recognized fulfilling the rights of women and girls is central to development.

That Cairo conference 25 conference firmly established what is now taken as a given around the UN and in the development community more broadly: that development is not possible without promoting the health and eduction of women and girls.

That was 25 years ago. And this month, in Nairobi, Kenya global development experts, government officials and other key stakeholders are meeting for what is known as the Nairobi Summit ICPD25, to mark a quarter century since that landmark Cairo conference.

On the line with me to discuss why the International Conference on Population and Development was such a watershed moment for the international community, what progress has been made since then, and what to expect at the Nairobi summit is Dr. Natalia Kanem.

She is the executive director of the United Nations Population Fund and very much at the helm of planning the Nairobi conference. More importantly though, her agency, UNFPA, is very much the focal point for global efforts to promote the health, rights, and eduction of women and girls around the world. So, our conversation today serves as both a curtain raiser to the Nairobi summit and also a stocktaking of what kinds of progress has been made on the rights and health of women and girls since the ICPD 25 year ago.

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In 1976 Peter Piot was a 27-year-old microbiologist working in Belgium when he travelled to the Democratic Republic of Congo, then called Zaire, to investigate a particularly deadly disease outbreak. He took samples back to his lab and was among the team that first discovered the ebola virus.  

Today, he is one of the world's leading experts on epidemics and infectious diseases. This includes HIV/AIDS. In 1995, he was the founding director of the United Nations Program on AIDS, called UNAIDS, and served in that role until 2008. He is now the director of one of the world's most prestigious health research institutes, the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. 

And on the podcast today, we talk about epidemics and what can be done to avert and contain them. This includes the ongoing ebola epidemic in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo,which is now the second worst ebola outbreak in history. And we also discuss what the world has gotten right -- and wrong about both fighting HIV and AIDS and how we define ending the HIV/AIDS epidemic. 

We kick off though discussing the kind of nightmare scenarios that most concern Peter Piot. This includes what he calls "the big one." 

One of the driving forces of international relations over the last several years has been a rivalry between Arab states. This is sometimes called the "Gulf Crisis" and put simply, it refers to tensions and hostilities between Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates on the one hand; and Qatar on the other.

The roots of this rivalry run deep, but around the time of the Arab Spring these tensions came very much to the surface. The United States has historically had a profound interest in mitigating hostilities between Gulf Arab states, principally because each of these countries are key US allies. The US, for example, has a major Navy base in Bahrain and a major Air Force base in Qatar. But the Trump administration has been less adept at keeping a lid on the hostilities between these countries. Now these tensions are not only affecting relations between Arab gulf states, but are also leaving a mark in other regions.

As my guest today, Elizabeth Dickinson explains, the Gulf Crisis has been exported. The true fallout from this feud has not been felt on the Arabian Peninsula, she argues, but on battlefields across the greater Middle East and in the fragile politics of countries in the Horn of Africa, specifically Sudan and Somalia. Elizabeth Dickinson is a senior analyst with the International Crisis Group and in our conversation she explains both the roots of this rivalry in the gulf and how this crisis in the gulf is stoking instability across several regions of the world.

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Victor Madrigal-Borloz is a Costa Rican jurist who serves as the United Nations Independent Expert on Protection against violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. In other words, he is the UN's top watchdog for LGBTI rights worldwide 

The fact that this position even exists in the UN system was, at the time, controversial. In UN lingo, his position is known as the IE SOGI, or Independent Expert on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity. It was created in 2016 by votes in the Human Rights Council and General Assembly, the latter of which includes every UN member state. Some of these states are actively hostile to LGBTI rights, and accordingly sought to block establishing this role. They were unsuccessful, and Victor Madrigal-Borloz has now been on his job for two years. 

When I spoke with Victor Madrigal-Borloz he had just briefed the General Assembly on his latest report on LGBTI rights globally so we kick off discussing that report and have a broader conversation about how he goes about his work, fulfilling his UN mandate to protect LGBTI individuals around the world. 

Before we start, some quick background on one aspect of the UN human rights protection system of which Victor Madrigal-Borloz is a member. The IE SOGI  is one of dozens independent experts and special rapporteurs that report to the Human Rights Council about both thematic and country specific human rights issues. So, for example there is are special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Iran and North Korea; and there are special rapporteur covering issues like the  rights of people with disabilities; or focusing on protection of the freedom of expression worldwide. There are over 50 of these positions, and taken together they are called "special procedures." 

On October 4th, the General Manager of the Houston Rockets basketball team shared a message on Twitter. It was which was an image with the words: "Fight for Freedom. Stand with Hong Kong."

The post was almost immediately deleted, but not before it caught the attention of Chinese authorities who began threatening huge sanctions on the Houston Rockets and on the NBA. The NBA quickly went into damage control mode with various officials profusely apologizing for this one tweet; and even the world's biggest NBA star, LeBron James suggested Morey was uniformed and uneducated about the situation in Hong Kong.

What has unfolded between China and the NBA is to my mind one of the biggest stories of the last several years because it is such a blatant demonstration of the power that both the Chinese communist party and middle class consumers in China have over large western companies -- and that they are willing to use that power to punish and deter free speech outside of China.

On the line with me to talk discuss what this incident with the NBA says about China's global reach, the future of freedom of expression, and the future of capitalism is Derek Thompson. He is a staff Writer at the Atlantic and host of the CRAZY/GENIUS podcast.

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The "Girl Effect" is a concept that has been around international development for the better part of a decade. It refers to the community and societal benefits that can accrue when investments are made in the education and health of girls. The concept has been backed up by research over the years and is now a driving force guiding many health and development projects.  

"The Girl Effect" is also the name of a non profit dedicated to catalyzing its namesake, and on the podcast today is the organization's CEO Jessica Posner.

In our conversation, Jessica Posner kicks off by explaining the concept of the girl effect, and then we have a longer conversation about the work of the organization she leads. This includes projects aimed at increasing the demand for reproductive health services and education among young women and girls in the developing world.

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Dionne Searcey travelled to the Central African Republic to report on a story that has previously lead to the murder of other foreign journalists.

In July 2018 three Russian journalists were killed in the Central African Republic while investigating Russia's growing presence in the country. Their murder last year, however, has only increased international attention on Russia's shadowy aims in the Central African Republic.

Dionne Searcey is a reporter for the New York Times and her story, published in late September, exposed evidence of Russian involvement in illicit diamond mining. More broadly, though, her story explains and identifies the contours of Russia's growing political interests in the Central African Republic. 

And at the center of this story is a man named Yevgeny Prighozin. He is a Russian oligarch and close ally of Vladimir Putin, and has been indicted in the United States for his role in interfering in the 2016 Presidential election. He is also the owner of a mining company that has extracted millions of dollars worth of diamonds from the Central African Republic. This was done through legal mining operations  -- but also likely through illegal mines operated by armed rebel groups. 

We kick off discussing Yevgeny Prighozin before having a broader discussion of Russian involvement in the Central African Republic and what this signals about Russian-African relations more broadly.

I've posted the article on Global Dispatches Podcast.com and encourage you to read it. It also includes some stunning images from photographer Ashley Gilbertson

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Kurdish forces have a long history of siding with the United States. And the United States has a long history of eventually selling them out. 

The latest iteration of this dynamic unfolded when Donald Trump ordered a small US military contingent to withdraw from Kurdish controlled parts of Northeastern Syria in advance of a likely Turkish military operation. The move came after phone call between Trump and Turkish President Recep Teyyep Erdogan in which Trump apparently acquiesced to a Turkish military operation against Kurdish fighters from the region. 

Gulalai Ismail won't tell me how she came to New York. Doing so, she says, will put too many lives at risk.  

My guest today, Kumi Naidoo, is Secretary General of Amnesty International. He's a longtime activist and civil society leader who joined the anti-apartheid movement as a teenager and for many years lead Greenpeace. 

In September, ahead of the UN Climate Summit, Amnesty International conferred its highest honor, the Ambassador of Conscience Award, to Greta Thunberg and the Friday's for the Future Movement. In this conversation I sought to draw out Kumi Naidoo's perspective as a longtime activist on this burgeoning transnational youth climate movement. That is the focus of much of our conversation in this episode. 

We met in Amnesty's offices across the street from the United Nations, where days earlier hundreds of young people gathered for a Youth Climate Action summit.  From a UN perspective, this was a pretty interesting and unique event. And Secretary General Antonio Guterres was very transparent that he sought this kind of youth engagement as a means to pressure government to take more meaningful action on climate change.

We kick off discussing what impact he's seen from this youth movement around the UN and beyond. 

At times this conversation gets heavy. And I just want to thank Kumi Naidoo for both taking the time to speak during a very busy UNGA week and more importantly.

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Around the United Nations you will often see CEOs of major companies participating in meetings and events around sustainability. Meaningful corporate participation is fairly commonplace at the United Nation these days. But this was certainly not the case ten years ago and more, when I'd regularly see Hans Vestberg around the United Nations as one of the very few corporate leaders engaging on development and sustainability issues.

Hans Vestberg is the CEO of Verizon and he is on the Global Dispatches podcast to discuss the role of 5G technologies in advancing the Sustainable Development Goals.

We kick off with a discussion about what exactly 5G is, and how it can be used to advance sustainable development. We then have a discussion about his own commitment to sustainability issues and how Verizon has integrated the Sustainable Development Goals into its corporate strategies.

The United Nations General Assembly, better known as UNGA, kicks in New York this week.  Hundreds of heads of state, business and civil society leaders and dignitaries of all stripes will descend on the UN for a week of events, meetings, and of course speeches.

UNGA is the single most important and action-packed week on the diplomatic calendar -- a behemoth of diplomatic events.

On the line with me to preview the big stories that will drive the agenda at UNGA this year is Margaret Besheer, the UN correspondent for Voice of America, and Richard Gowan, the UN director of the International Crisis Group.  We discuss a key youth summit on climate, the UN Climate Action Summit, how tensions between the United States and Iran may shape events at UNGA, and many other key moments, events, and ideas to watch during UNGA.  

If you have 25 minutes and want to learn the storylines that will drive the agenda at UNGA this year, have a listen.  

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In late August it appeared that the United States was very close to an agreement with the Taliban that would see US troops withdraw from the Afghanistan.

Leading the negotiations on the US-side was Zalmay Khalilzad, a widely respected former US Ambassador to the UN who is an immigrant to the US from Afghanistan.  He also served as US Ambassador to Afghanistan shortly after the fall of the Taliban. 

Significantly, these negotiations did not include the Afghan government, rather they were direct negotiations between the US and the Taliban. 

By early September it appeared that the two sides had reached a deal. Then, on September 7th Donald Trump appeared to upend the deal in a tweet suggesting that a planned meeting between the US and Taliban at Camp David had been cancelled, apparently ending these talks. But then, days later, he fired National Security Advisor John Bolton who had largely opposed negotiating with the Taliban in the first place. 

So where does this leave the peace process and negotiations for a US withdrawal from Afghanistan? And what happens next? On the line to discuss these questions and more is Daniel Serwer. He is a professor of conflict management and American foreign policy at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Study and a scholar at the Middle East Institute 

Daniel Serwer has had a long career in and out of government participating in peace talks and peace building efforts around the world, including Afghanistan.

We kick off discussing just what Zalmay Khalilzad was negotiating with the Taliban before having a longer conversation about how those talks broke down and what comes next.

If you have 20 minutes and want to get up to speed on US diplomacy towards Afghanistan, then have a listen. 

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Tanzania has long been recognized as stable country, generally more advanced in its democracy than many other countries in East Africa. To be sure, democracy in Tanzania was certainly imperfect and flawed. But there did exist a degree of press freedom, a robust civil society, and multiple political parties.

Over the last few years, elements of Tanzanian democracy have been curtailed. The country is now in the midst of what scholars would call a democratic backslide. This occurs when the state uses its power to weaken institutions that sustain democracy, like civil society and a free press. 

A key inflection point in this process was the 2015 election of President John Magufuli. Magufuli is very much a populist -- his nickname is "The Bulldozer." He came to power on a pledge to stamp out corruption but has also shown himself to be increasingly intolerant of dissent. 

Since taking office he has enacted laws to severely restrict press freedoms; many journalists have been arrested, and political opponents silenced. 

But according to my guest today, Constantine Manda, the process of democratic backsliding really began under the previous administration. Still, for reasons he explains in this episode, the erosions of have accelerated in recent months. 

Constantine Manda is a Tanzanian national and a PHD candidate in the department of political science at Yale University.

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Greg Stanton has spent a career researching and fighting genocide. He speaks candidly about the psychological toll of this line of work and managing the PTSD which he confronts to this day. 

Fires raging in the Amazon have captured the world's attention and put focus on the policies of the Brazilian government. 

The true extent of the fires is not yet known--but most sources suggest that the scale of the fires and deforestation underway is much greater than that of previous years. The reason for that is the permissive policies of the Jair Bolsonaro government.

Bolsonaro is a rightwing firebrand who was elected to office in 2018 following major scandals implicating more left wing parties. As my guest today Rebecca Abers explains, once in office Bolsonaro quickly enacted policies that reversed years of progress against forestation of the Amazon.

Rebecca Abers is professor of political science at the University of Brasilia in Brazil. And in this conversation, she describes the bureaucratic maneuvers engineered by Bolsonaro to undermine protections against de-forestation. We also discuss how and why international pressure, including an upcoming major UN Summit on Climate Change is impacting domestic politics in Brazil and forcing Bolsonaro to more productively combat de-forestation. 

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The fish you eat may have been caught by slaves.

Most Thai fishing boats operating in the South China Sea are dependent on migrant labor. But many of those vessels are essentially floating slave ships in which migrant workers are forced into a kind of debt bondage from which they cannot escape. 

Journalist Ian Urbina covered this issue for years as a reporter for the New York Times. He reported from land and sea to offer a first hand account of both the conditions on these ships and the broader economic, political and environmental forces that propel slavery on fishing boats in the South China Sea.  

Ian Urbina is on the podcast today to discuss his reporting on this issue, which is included in his new book the Outlaw Ocean: Journeys Across the Last Untamed Frontier. We kick off discussing the plight of these debt-bonded laborers before having a broader conversation about the issue of slavery at sea. 

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The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the IPCC, released a report in August demonstrating the harmful relationship between climate change and how we humans are using land for food and agriculture. 

The warnings are dire. Agriculture and deforestation account for nearly a quarter of all human made greenhouse gas emissions -- and big changes in how we produce and consume food need to take place if we are to curb the worst effects of climate change. At the same time, the world population is increasing and poverty is declining, meaning food consumption patterns, particularly around meat, are changing.   

Big changes in how we produce and consume food need to take place if we are to curb the worst effects of climate change.

On the line with me to discuss how we can feed the world without destroying the planet is Timothy Searchinger. He' s a research scholar at Princeton University and fellow with the World Resources Institute. He was recently the lead author on a report by WRI Creating a Sustainable Food Future: A Menu of Solutions to Feed Nearly 10 Billion People by 2050. 

In August 2017, hundreds of thousands of ethnic Rohingya muslims from Myanmar fled across the border to Bangladesh. The Rohingya are a minority population that have long faced discrimination by the Buddhist Burmese majority. In the summer of 2017, things got very bad, very quickly. 

A Rohingya militant group attacked some police outposts in Myanmar. The government and military responded by attacking Rohingya towns and villages, unleashing massive violence against a civilian population. This drove over 600,000 Rohingya to refugee camps in a region of Bangladesh known as Cox's Bazar.

Some 700,000 Rohingya refugees remain there, to this day. 

The violence that drove these people from their home was certainly a crime against humanity -- a UN official called it "a text book example of an ethnic cleansing."  And maybe even a genocide. 

That of course demands the question: who will pay for these crimes. What does accountability look like in a situation like this. And can perpetrators of these crimes even be brought to justice in the first place? On the line with me to discuss these questions in the context of the current plight of the Rohingya refugees is Param-Preet Singh, Associate Director, International Justice Program of Human Rights Watch. 

We kick off discussing the events of August 2017 before having a longer conversation about possible avenues for justice for these crimes. 

This episode pairs well with my conversation last week with former Obama administration official Ben Rhodes, who discusses the fall from grace of Aung San Suu Kyi, the nobel peace prize winner who was the de-facto head of state of Myanmar while these crimes against humanity occurred--and who remained a notably silent bystander to ethnic cleansing. 

In the summer of 2014, ISIS forces swept through parts of Iraq that were home to the Yazidi people. This is an ethnic minority that has lived in Northwestern Iraq for centuries -- and suddenly they were under attack.  What transpired was a genocide. Men and boys were murdered for being Yazidi; women and girls were kidnapped and taken as sex slaves for ISIS fighters.    

At the time, my guest today Emma Beals was reporting from Erbil, a city in the Kurdish region of Iraq near to where these atrocities were taking place. She was reeling from the news that a fellow journalist, James Foley, had been brutally murdered when she received a call from a human rights organization asking her to investigate rumors of a massacre in the Yazidi town of Kocho. 

Emma Beals describes whats next in a series of powerful essays, titled Kocho's Living Ghosts.There were 19 surviving men from the town's original population of 1,888. In our conversation Emma Beals recounts the massacre through the testimony of the survivors she interviewed. 

When Ben Rhodes first met Aung San Suu Kyi she exuded the all traits that made her such an international icon for human rights and democracy. It was 2012, and Ben Rhodes, who was the deputy national security advisor, was accompanying Barack Obama in an historic visit to Myanmar. As he puts it, this meeting was the high water mark for her moral authority. There was a hopefulness, surrounding her, he says.

Now seven years later, she has stripped of many international accolades, honors and prizes.  At issue is the fact that as the most powerful civilian leader in Myanmar she refused to intervene against, or even publicly condemn, a genocide committed by the government against a religious and ethnic minority.  Some 700,000 ethnic Rohingya have fled Myanmar amid what a UN official has called a textbook example of ethnic cleansing. All the the while, Aung San Suu Kyi was silent. 

So what happened to Aung San Suu Kyi? How did a Nobel Peace Prize winner who spent decades under house arrest in an elegant pursuit of democracy and justice in Myanmar fall so from grace? And was the international community, including the Obama administration, wrong about her all along? 

Ben Rhodes grapples with these questions and more in a new piece in the Atlantic that combines some of his own self-reflection with fresh reporting. He's on the podcast today to discuss the piece. We kick off setting the historic context for Aung San Suu Kyi's rise to prominence and the circumstances of her persecution and house arrest before having a longer conversation about the causes and implications of her becoming a bystander to genocide. 

I do want to note that next week on the podcast, I'll be doing whole episode more directly focusing on the Rohingya genocide, including ongoing human rights abuses and the current humanitarian challenges facing hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh. So, stay tuned to that--it will compliment this conversation with Ben Rhodes.

Before I begin: A big thank you to premium subscribers who support the show through recurring monthly contributions on Patreon.com/GlobalDispatches. You help me do what I do and get rewards in return, including bonus episodes. The bonus episode I'm posting this week is my conversation with George Mitchell, a former US Senator from Maine and international peacemaker who is largely responsible for the Northern Ireland peace agreement. You can unlock access to that episode and many more by becoming a premium subscriber. Check out the tiers of support and the rewards you earn, including access to a daily global humanitarian news clips service I run, by going to patreon.com/GlobalDispatches. 

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The Horn of Africa region, which includes parts of Somalia, Kenya,  Ethiopia, is experiencing a severe drought. This region has been particularly vulnerable to droughts in recent years--but the situation this summer has become increasingly dire and is raising the prospect of a widespread humanitarian emergency. 

A little background: In the summer of 2011, there was a similar drought in the region. But warnings about the humanitarian consequences of this drought went largely unheeded until the drought lead to a famine -- the first of the 21st century. Over the subsequent weeks and months over 260,000 people died, making this famine one of the worst mass atrocities of this decade.

That was 2011. In 2017, there was another drought. But this time, the international community and governments in the region responded with urgency. They were able to provide humanitarian assistance and other aid and interventions that prevented the tragedy of 2011 from being repeated.

This brings us So that is all some recent historic background to an email that landed in my inbox from Oxfam, which compared data around the humanitarian response in 2011 to the response to the current ongoing drought, which shows that compared to 2011, the humanitarian needs are greater and the international response is far less robust. This of course suggests that unless something changes, the current drought could lead to another famine.

On the line with me to discuss the current humanitarian situation in the Horn of Africa is Dustin Barter, the regional drought policy and advocacy lead, Oxfam. He authored a report comparing the impact of the 2011, 2017 and current drought and the international humanitarian response.

If you have 20 minutes and want to learn why the international community ought to be paying attention to an incipient humanitarian emergency in the Horn of Africa, have a listen

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Ethiopia is in the midst of a fairly remarkable democratic renewal. Since taking office in April 2018, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has accelerated a process of political opening, including a greater freedom of press, the release of political prisoners, a detente with Eritrea, and other meaningful reforms. 

But Ethiopia's transition to a liberal, open and multi-party democracy has faced some significant challenges in recent weeks. On June 22, an a general tried to orchestrate a coup attempt, which resulted in two high profile assassinations. That coup attempt, which failed, came on the heels of inter-communal clashes that forced nearly 3 million people from their homes. 

Now, the transition underway in Ethiopia is very much being challenged. 

On the line to help explain why Ethiopian politics is at such a pivotal moment right now William Davidson, senior Ethiopia analyst with the International Crisis Group. He offers listeners some helpful context and background for understanding the current situation, including what is driving change and the counter-reactions to the process of democratic renewal. To that end, argues William Davidson, it is crucial to understand how rivalries within the ruling coalition, known as the  the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front, or EPRDF, are driving politics.  

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One of the largest cities in India is running out of water. Is this our climate future?

Monsoons typically provide the bulk of water for Chennai, which is one of the largest cities in India. It is on the south eastern coast of the country, in the Tamil Nadu province which is an area that relies on seasonal monsoons to supply the bulk of water. 

But last year's monsoons were exceptionally weak, causing aquifers and other water sources to run dry. 

Now, in some neighborhoods if taps run at all, only a trickle comes out. Many neighborhoods are reliant on water trucks-- if they can afford it. Meanwhile many people are fleeing the city while this crisis persists.

The proximate cause of this crisis is poor rains. But according to my guest today, Meera Subramanian, deeper political and social factors have exacerbated this crisis. This includes poor city planning and a focus on massive infrastructure projects of limited utility. 

Meera Subramanian is a freelance journalist and independent author. She is the author of a book about water issues in India titled: A River Runs Again: India’s Natural World in Crisis, from the Barren Cliffs of Rajasthan to the Farmlands of Karnataka. 

In July she authored an op-ed piece in the New York Times which makes the case that disaggregated water resource management could be far more effective in combating crisis like the one we are seeing in Chennai today. 

If you have 20 minutes and want to learn the implications of the fact that one of the largest cities in one of the most populous countries is running out of water, have a listen.

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Since taking office the Trump administration has taken unprecedented steps to sharply reduce both the number of refugees who are resettled in the United States and also the number of people who can claim asylum.

This has included significantly lowering what is known as the "ceiling" on refugee admissions to the smallest number ever and placing onerous restrictions on exactly who can be admitted as a refugee. Meanwhile, the administration is implementing several policies of dubious legality that would effectively make it impossible for people entering the southern US border to claim asylum.

The Trump administration's restrictive policies toward refugees and asylum seekers are reaching a new phase.

In this episode one of the world's leading experts on refugee and asylum policies is on the line to both discuss the mechanics of what the Trump administration is doing.

Eric Schwartz is the president of Refugees International and also served as Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees, and Migration in the Obama administration. He has deep experience working on humanitarian and refugee issues, which he summons in our conversation to help put this administration's assault on refugees and asylum seekers in context.

We also discuss the very real global implications of the fact that the United States can not be meaningfully relied on to advocate for the rights of refugees and asylum seekers around the world.

If you have 20 minutes and want to learn the implications of the Trump administration's increasingly hostile approach to refugees and asylum, have a listen.

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North Korea is under the world's most stringent set of international sanctions. This includes, since 2006, a ban on exporting of luxury goods to North Korea.

This has not stopped Kim Jong Un from amassing a fleet of high end cars. He is regularly seen in Mercedes and Rolls Royces both in North Korea and on his trips abroad.

And now a fascinating report in the New York Times offers some key insights into how Kim Jong Un smuggles his luxury cars into North Korea.

Reporters from the New York Times teamed up with researchers at the non profit Center for Advanced Defense Studies to track two Mercedes Maybachs from their manufacture in Germany to the streets of Pyongyang. The route was a circuitous one, involving multiple shipping vessels docking in at least five countries over the course of several months. But using open source data and satellite imagery, the reporters and researchers were able to paint a pretty clear picture of how those cars ended up in North Korea. And in so doing, they reveal how the North Korean regime is able to evade some sanctions.

On the line with me to discuss his reporting is one of the journalists on the story, Christoph Koettl. He is a visual investigations journalist with the New York Times video team, specializing in geospatial and open-source research.

We spend most of this conversation discussing the step-by-step journey of these cars. And I think going through each leg of this trip is important because this story reveals a weakness in international sanctions in general and on North Korea in particular. And that's this: which is that that are only robust to the extent that countries are willing and able to enforce them.

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In 2015, the world adopted the Sustainable Development Goals. These are 17 goals around improving health, welfare and the environment that members of the United Nations agreed to achieve by 2030. The "SDGs," as they are known, built upon a previous set of global goals, called the Millennium Development Goals, which expired in 2015.

The idea behind the SDGs was to create an ambitious but achievable set of quantifiable targets around which governments, civil society organizations and the UN can organize their development and environmental policies. These targets include things like eliminating extreme poverty, as defined by people who live on less than $1.25/day; reducing maternal mortality to less than 70 per 100,000 live births; ending the aids epidemic; significantly reduce ocean acidification; among many others. In all there are 162 targets built around those 17 goals.

This week at the United Nations there is an major meeting called the High Level Political Forum on the SDGs in which top government officials and civil society participate in a stock taking of where we stand in terms of progress on these goals. A number of foreign ministers and other officials are in New York to discuss progress--or lack there of -- on the SDGs, so I thought this might be a good moment to have a conversation that examines where the world stands four years into the sustainable development goals.

On the line with me to discuss progress on the SDGs and how, four years in the SDGs are affecting global affairs and international relations is John McArthur, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and Senior Advisor to the UN Foundation.

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Ash Carter served as President Obama's Secretary of Defense from 2015 to 2017. What made Ash Carter so unique among his predecessors was that by the time he became the Secretary of Defense, he'd already spent nearly 30 years working at the Pentagon. This included stints as both the deputy Secretary of Defense and as the number three in the department, a position often referred to as the acquisitions Tsar.

Ash Carter is out with a new book "Inside the Five-Sided Box: Lessons from a Lifetime of Leadership in the Pentagon." This is not your conventional Washington, DC memoir. Rather, what I found so valuable about the book is that offers a grounds-eye view of how the world's largest national security bureaucracy operates. Decisions made at the Pentagon -- from the kinds of weapons bought, to the bases that are opened, to personnel decisions --  really do have world-shaping implication. This book takes you inside that decision making process.

In our conversation, we kick off discussing the sheer vastness of the pentagon. The annual budget of the pentagon is about half of all discretionary spending in the US--that is, money spent on government programs excluding things like social security and medicare. This comes to over $700 billion. For comparison's sake the budget of the State Department is about $50 billion; and UN peacekeeping budget is under $7 billion.

We then discuss what he thinks the US--and world--get for that huge investment. We also discuss his views of the role of the United Nations and UN Peacekeeping; and also the significance of the fact that the US has not had a secretary of defense since Jim Mattis left on December 31.

If you have 25 minutes and want to learn insights from the former Secretary of Defense, have a listen.

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Uighur Muslims in the Xinjiang province of Northwestern China are living in a police state like no other on earth. Using counter-terrorism as a pre-text, Chinese authorities have rounded up over a million Uighur men and women, forcing them into what they call "re-education centers."  Men and women are arrested, seemingly for minor offenses like growing a beard, or having foreign contacts, or sometimes for no reason at all. They languish in these detention centers indefinitely.  

Outside the prison walls there is also a mass experiment in population control: authorities use facial recognition technologies, spyware and other high tech means to instill fear in Uighurs. 

What we know about conditions in those camps and life in Xinjiang has come largely from reports of human rights organizations. In fact, the last episode of this podcast I did on the oppression of the Uighurs was with an expert from Human Rights Watch, based in New Zealand.

It is extremely rare for a journalist --let alone a western journalist -- to access Xinjiang to report on human rights abuses on the ground. But that is exactly what my guest today, Isobel Yeung, did. Posing as a travel blogger, Isobel Yeung, surreptitiously filmed a documentary for Vice News that aired in June on HBO. The documentary provides a visceral sense of the dystopian police state that Xinjiang has become for its Uighur population. It also exposes one consequence of the mass roundups of Ughur men and women, which is the orphaning of children who Isobel Yeoung discovers are placed into their own kind of re-education centers, posing as kindergartens. 

Isobel Yeoung is on the line to discuss her reporting from Xinjiang, which is a feat of journalism. In our conversation she discuss how she gained access to the Xinjiang, the police state she encountered and how a pervasive sense of fear is being used to oppress a population of millions. 

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When Reccep Tayyep Erdogan party, the AKP, won a landslide victory in Turkey's 2002 general elections he became a very different kind of Turkish leader from his predecessors. The AKP is a religious party in what was an avowedly secular political tradition. 

For a time, Erdogan presided over a booming economy and was hailed for being a modernizing muslim leader in a troubled region. His relations with Europe and the United States were strong, and he sought to play a stabilizing role in the middle east. 

But all the while, Erdogan was consolidating his power. It started slowly at first and in recent years the degradation of Turkey;s independent institutions has accelerated. This includes clampdown on media and the corruption of the courts and a massive political purge following what Erdogan alleged was an attempted coup in 2016. 

Erdogan was become the quintessential example of a new kind of leader around the world--the illiberal authoritarian democrat. That is, someone who is democratically elected, but then systematically uses the power of the state to entrench himself in power. 

This brings us to recent events in Turkey. On March 31, an opposition leader Ekrem Immoglu won election as Mayor of Istanbul, a position incidentally that Ergoan held before he became Prime minister. Election authorities, clearly at Erdogan's request, invalidated those results and called for a re-run of the election and weeks later, Immoglu won again--this time by a wider margin. 

So what does this election tell us about Ergodan's hold on power and the trajectory of Turkish politics? On the line with me to explain the global significance of municipal elections in Turkey is Howard Eisentstat, he is an associate professor of middle eastern history atSt Lawrence University and senior non-resident fellow a the Project on Middle East Democracy.   

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I've been following with glee the US Women's National Soccer Team's run in this year's World Cup. At time of recording, the United States was set to face either Netherlands or Sweden in the finals. 

It turns out that political science has something to say about whether or not international sporting events like this contributes to peace and security--or not. 

Last year, I interviewed the author of a peer reviewed study that found a rather significant correlation between success in the mens world cup and an outbreak in conflict. The political scientist Andrew Bertoli created a data set of every world cup from 1958 to 2010 and found that countries that qualified for the World Cup were significantly more likely to start an international conflict than countries that did not quality. 

Andrew Bertoli is a professor at IE University in Spain. When we recorded this interview, right before the 2018 Winter Olympics, he was a post-doc fellow at Dartmouth. 

The study we discuss was titled Nationalism and Conflict: Lessons from International Sports appears in the December 2017 issue of the journal International Studies Quarterly. 

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Events are unfolding rapidly between the United States and Iran. At time of recording, it was reported that Trump ordered and then called off a military strike against Iran in retaliation for the downing of a US surveillance drone over the gulf of Oman. Meanwhile, Iran is threatening to take actions that would put it in direct violation of the nuclear deal, otherwise known as the JCPOA and Europe is trying is darndest to hold the deal together. 

There are a lot of moving pieces right now, so I wanted to bring you an episode that gives you some context and background for understanding and interpreting events as they unfold in the coming weeks and months. To that end, I could think of no better interlocutor than Laicie Heeley. She is the host of a fantastic podcast called Things That Go Boom. She just wrapped up her second season, which was all about the Iran Nuclear Deal. The podcast tells the story behind the Iran nuclear deal in a really interesting and entertaining way, and I'd urge people to check it out.

In our conversation today, we kick off discussing Europe's efforts to salvage the deal and the tough position Europe finds itself in. And then we have a forward looking conversation about some of the key decisions that Iran, the United States and Europe will be forced to make that could determine whether this crisis leads to war.

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Congressman Mike Gallagher is a Republican representing the eighth district of Wisconsin, which includes the city of Green Bay.

Congressman Gallagher has an interesting profile, which includes a PHD in International Relations. He's very thoughtful and I think this conversation offers listeners some key insights into how an emerging leader in Republican foreign policy circles considers the US role in the world, the value of multilateralism and international institutions, and more. 

We kick off discussing Iran, before having a broader conversation about US foreign policy writ large.

If you are a regular listener to the show my own foreign policy and political views are fairly apparent. You also know that I don't do adversarial interviews--I don't debate people. Rather, I find more value in drawing out the perspective of the person I'm interviewing. And I think that is why you will find this conversation with Congressman Gallagher useful in terms of understanding how a key Republican foreign policy maker sees the world.

The bonus episodes I've posted this week for premium subscribers includes my conversations with Joseph Nye and Carolyn Miles. Joseph Nye is the international relations theorist who coined the term "soft power" and Carolyn Miles is the longtime CEO of the global humanitarian organization Save the Children. In both conversations they trace their career path with me and tell stories from their life and career. To access those episodes, and other rewards like complimentary subscription to my news clips service, please visit Patreon.com/GlobalDispatches or follow the links on GlobalDispatchesPodcast.com 

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Donald Trump's pick to serve as the United States Ambassador to the United Nations is unlike any other previous nominee for the US-UN role. Kelly Knight Craft currently serves as the US Ambassador to Canada, a position she was conferred for the fact that her family are billionaire Republican donors. Her family owns a major coal company with deep roots in Kentucky. 

It is not at all unusual at all for Democratic or Republican administrations to reward major donors with plum ambassador roles. For better or worse that is part of US diplomatic tradition. But this is the first time that the UN ambassadorship is going to a major donor.

This sets up some interesting political dynamics that were on display during Ambassador Kelly Craft's confirmation hearing at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee last week.  On the line with me to discuss how Kelly Craft may fit in the role of UN Ambassador is Richard Gowan. He is the UN director for the International Crisis Group and recently wrote a piece in Politico examining some of the key debates and diplomatic dynamics that the next US Ambassador may face

Coming into this job, Kelly Craft did not have much a foreign policy profile, particularly on issues relevant to the UN. This conversation provides a useful introduction to her and the issues into which she'll be thrust.

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According to the latest estimates from the World Health Organization, an outbreak of Ebola in the Democratic Republic of Congo has killed over 1400 people. This makes it the second worst ebola outbreak in history, following the 2014 outbreak in West Africa that killed over 11,000 people.

The current outbreak in the DRC is so far confined to the eastern part of the country, which has long been beset by insecurity and violence. There were, however, two cases reported over the border of Uganda from a family that contracted the disease while attending a funeral in the DRC. This marked the first time that this outbreak crossed an international border which brought this long festering outbreak back into the news.

On the line to discuss some of the international efforts to halt the spread of ebola is Ambassador John Lange. He is a retired US Ambassador and currently serves as the senior fellow for global health diplomacy at the United Nations Foundation. We kick off discussing why this outbreak has been so hard to contain and then have a broader conversation about strategies the international community, including the World Health Organization, are using to halt this outbreak. 

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The protests in Hong Kong represent a key turning point for China, Hong Kong, and the world.

Hong Kong is in the midst of the most significant protest movement since China assumed sovereignty in 1997.  These protests were sparked by a proposed law that could permit people in Hong Kong to be extradited to mainland China to face trial. Protesters fear that this law could be used by authorities in Beijing to erode the rights and liberties currently enjoyed by people in Hong Kong.

Sudan is at a crossroads. In April, popular protests lead to the ouster of the country's longtime ruler, Omar al Bashir. He was toppled in a coup -- but the peaceful protests did not stop. Rather, the protesters held their ground and rallied outside the headquarters of the military junta demanding that civilians -- not military leaders -- lead the transition to democracy.

On the line with me to discuss the situation in Sudan is Zachariah Cherian Mampilly, a professor of political science at Vassar College. We last spoke in early January, just as the protest movement was beginning to pick up steam. And that is where we pick up the story today. We kick off discussing the circumstances that lead to the ouster of Sudan's longtime ruler Omar al Bashir and then have a longer conversation about the political and geo-political dynamics that are shaping events in one of Africa's largest and most strategically significant countries. 

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Emma Green is a staff writer at The Atlantic covering policy, politics and religion. We kick off discussing the history of Christianity before having a broader conversation about the causes and consequences of the fact that a religious minority is fleeing Iraq in droves. 

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In 2020 the West African Country of Ghana will conduct a census. This is a massive undertaking. Some 60,000 people will be deployed across the country in an effort to count every single person in Ghana.    

Air pollution results in the premature death of 7 million people around the world each year. It is a major global killer harming people in nearly every corner of the globe. 

Several countries have laws on the books that enables governments to freeze the assets of corrupt foreign officials. Canada is one of those countries, and now one Canadian Senator is trying to take that law one step further by redistributing the frozen assets to those harmed by the actions of the corrupt official.  

Ratna Omidvar is an independent Senator from Ontario to the Senate of Canada. She is the author of legislation that is starting to make its way through the Canadian Parliament called the Frozen Assets Repurposing Act. The bill would seize the assets of corrupt and abusive foreign officials and redeploy those assets to the very people harmed by those foreign officials. This includes people displaced by the actions of corrupt and violent regimes. 

Over the last several weeks an estimated 140,000 people have been displaced by escalating fighting in Idlib, Syria. 

There is an escalating humanitarian crisis in Cameroon where more than half a million people have been displaced by conflict. 

My guest today Supriya Vani interviewed every living female Nobel Peace Prize winner for her 2018 book Battling Injustice: 16 Nobel Peace Prize Laureates. 

Today's episode is a cross over promotion with the new podcast: How to Fix Democracy.

How to Fix Democracy is an interview series in which prominent thinkers, writers, politicians, technologists, and business leaders discuss some fundamental questions about the fate and trajectory of democracy today. 

According to the World Health Organization 800,000 people die due to suicide every year. My guest today, Bob Filbin is helping to pioneer a way to sharply reduce that number. 

In mid march, Cyclone Idai struck southern Africa, ravaging parts of Mozambique, Malawi and Zimbabwe. Of these countries, Mozambique was hardest hit. The storm struck the port city Beira and surrounding areas, creating a massive inland flood plane. At the time, the World Meteorological Organization called it one of the worst weather related disasters to ever strike the southern hemisphere.  

Some truly remarkable events are unfolding in Sudan, where protesters have secured the ouster of longtime ruler Omar al Bashir. After nearly thirty years as an authoritarian president and dictator, he was deposed in coup on April 11.

But the protesters have not dispersed and are rallying against the cadre of military officials who have assumed control.  

Among the many barriers to quality healthcare in the developing world is the high cost of medicine. This is due, in part, to frequent disruptions in the supply chain. Customers who visit a pharmacy to purchase medicine can't be guaranteed that the medicine will be something they can afford-- or even if the medicine will be there at all.

My podcast guest today, Gregory Rockson, is a social entrepreneur who is pioneering a way to make medicine in several African countries more affordable and access to that medicine more reliable. He is the c0-founder of  a social enterprise called mPharma, which uses data analytics and supply chain management to help small and independent pharmacies control their costs.  This is crucial because unlike here in the United States where big pharmacy chains are ubiquitous, in the places mPharma operates small and independent pharmacies are serve the vast majority of people.

mPharma essentially manages the drug supply of participating pharmacies, and assumes the financial risk if drugs are over or under stocked -- sharply driving down the costs.

This is an absolutely fascinating business model and it's already revolutionizing access to medicine in five African countries and is poised for further expansion.

If you have twenty minutes and want to learn why drug prices in many countries are so high and what can be done to drive down those costs, have a listen.

South Africa is experiencing what demographers call a "youth bulge." This occurs when young people make up a very large percentage of the entire population. There are youth bulges similar in many countries in the developing world, including in Africa and Asia.

One key challenge facing societies experiencing a youth bulge large is what happens when these young people become of working age, and there are too few jobs. 

In South Africa and in many countries with similar demographics, unemployment rates among young people is orders of magnitudes greater than the over all unemployment rate. As my guest today Nicola Galombik explains, when large numbers of young people are unemployed, the knock-on effects for society in general can be extremely negative.

So, Nicola Galombik has embarked on a strategy to reduce youth unemployment in her native South Africa. She is the co-founder of the Harambee Youth Employment Accelerator, a social enterprise that is not only helping to find young people jobs at scale, but is changing mindsets around employing young people.

Youth unemployment is a key driver of instability in many countries around the world, and as you will see from this conversation the Harambee Youth Employment Accelerator has found a formula to take on what is essentially a demographic challenge.

This episode is part of a content partnership with the Skoll Foundation to showcase the work of the 2019 recipients of the Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship. The Skoll Awards distinguish transformative leaders whose organizations disrupt the status quo, drive sustainable large-scale change, and are poised to create even greater impact on the world. Recipients receive $1.5 million in core support investments to scale up their work.

The world has never been safer, wealthier or healthier. So why is it that our foreign policy is dominated by fear and inflated perceptions of threats that can harm us? 

Not long ago, the social entrepreneur Bright Simons had a lofty goal of restoring social bonds between farmers and consumers. He tried to create a platform to pair organic farmers in Ghana with consumers of organic products. That project failed --  but in failure he made an important discovery that is now revolutionizing the fight against fake and counterfeit goods in the developing world, including potentially deadly counterfeit medicines

Bright Simons is the co-founder and lead of mPedigree, a social enterprise that combats the problem of counterfeit and fake goods -- everything from medicines, to seeds, to auto-parts and more.

As Bright Simons explains, mPedigree takes a systems-wide approach to fighting counterfeits. It's core innovation is a unique product identification marker, called the GoldKeys Platform. Think of it as a scratch off label that reveals a code which people can use a phone to instantly validate the authenticity of a product.  

Through this validation system, mPedigree has not only helped stop counterfeiting across many industries, but as Bright Simons explains it's changing the behavior of individuals consumers, industries and even government. 

This conversation with Bright Simons will change how you think about counterfeit goods and the systems required to stop this problem and restore consumer confidence and trust.

This episode is presented in partnership with the Skoll Foundation to showcase the work of the 2019 recipients of the Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship. The Skoll Awards distinguish transformative leaders whose organizations disrupt the status quo, drive sustainable large-scale change, and are poised to create even greater impact on the world. Recipients receive $1.5 million in core support investments to scale up their work.

The White House confirmed that Egyptian President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi is to meet President Trump at the White House on April 9. The invitation to the White House was offered amid a deepening crackdown on human rights and a further erosion of the rule of law in Egypt, nearly six years after al-Sisi ousted President Mohammad Morsi.

The White House visit comes as Egypt is facing yet another inflection point that could further ensconce al Sisi in power. At issue are a series of constitutional amendments that would effectively make al Sisi president for life and create what analyst Amy Hawthorne calls a "personalist dictatorship."

Amy Hawthorne is the deputy director for research at the Project on Middle East Democracy and co-author of a recent Foreign Policy piece on the current tumult in Egyptian politics.. After years of crackdowns on political opposition, she explains why Egyptian politics is poised to enter a potentially more dangerous phase.

We kick off with an extended conversation about the circumstances that brought al Sisi to power, including the events of Egypt's Arab spring and its aftermath.  We then discuss the implications of recent moves by al Sisi to further consolidate power.

We recorded this conversation a few days before it was announced that al Sisi was to visit Washington, DC on April 9th. If you are listening to this episode contemporaneously, Amy Hawthorne does a good job of setting the scene for that visit.  If you have 20 minutes and want to learn how al-Sisi has subverted democracy and undermined human rights in Egypt over the last six years, have a listen.

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Getting bitten by a poisonous snake is not just an individual injury -- rather it is now recognized as a global health hazard. In fact, the World Health Organization estimates that between 80,000 and 136,000 people die from snakebite in each year. To put that in perspective, that is more than the number of people who died from meningitis and within the range of the number of people who died from Measles. 

Today's episode is the second installment of my new series "UN Correspondent Chat." As the name suggests, this series includes wide ranging conversations with in-house reporters at the United Nations who discuss what is driving the agenda at Turtle Bay. 

I caught up with CNN's Chief International Correspondent Clarissa Ward not long after she returned from reporting inside Taliban controlled territory in Afghanistan. She is one of the only western journalists to access Taliban territory to see what life is like under their control. She interviewed both civilians and Taliban officials and is on the Global Dispatches podcast to discuss her reporting.

We kick off discussing the story behind her story: that is, how an unprecedented reporting project like this can be carried out in a volatile security environment?  We also discuss how she and her team navigated gender dynamics inherent in a female journalist interviewing Taliban officials. We then talk through some of her key findings about how the Taliban have evolved over the last 17 years.

Her report comes at a vital time as the US and Taliban officials are negotiating face to face, and as Clarissa Ward explains, the fact of those ongoing negotiations helps provide some context for her reporting.

In late January, the Trump administration began a pilot program on the border between Tijuana and San Diego in which migrants who claim asylum are sent back to wait in Mexico as their asylum claims are processed. This is known formally as the Migrant Protection Protocols and informally as the "Remain in Mexico" policy.  

For the past several weeks Algeria has been rocked by mass protests that harken to the Arab Spring. The protests were triggered by the decision of longtime ruler Abdelaziz Bouteflika  to run for another term in office in elections scheduled for April. 

Tensions are rapidly escalating between India and Pakistan, following a suicide bombing in India controlled Kashmir that killed scores of Indian security forces. In retaliation, India bombed what it called a terrorist camp inside Pakistani territory. 

The situation is still unfolding--as I'm recording this there is word that an Indian Air Force pilot has been captured after his plane was shot down over Pakistan. 

On the line to discuss this ongoing crisis, and explain why Kashmir has become such a flash point between India and Pakistan is Michael Kugelman, senior associate for South Asia at the Woodrow Wilson Center.  We kick off discussing the events leading up to this escalation of hostilities before having a longer conversation about the history of Kashmir and India-Pakistani relations.

One thing I particularly found helpful in this conversation was Michael's description of the domestic political logic in India and Pakistan that propels conflict over Kashmir.  Needless to say, India and Pakistan have gone to war with each other--the last time was in 1971. But now, they both have nuclear weapons so any hot crisis like the one unfolding now has the potential to descend into the worst-case scenario.

Energy Poverty conventionally refers to the lack of household electricity. Over 1 billion people live without reliable sources of electricity -- but a new group seeks to change how we think about energy poverty.  

My guest today, Todd Moss is the founder and executive director of the Energy for Growth Hub, a new think tank. The Energy for Growth Hub seeks large scale solutions to end the kind of energy poverty that can stifle industrial and commercial development in the developing world.

We kick off talking about energy poverty--specifically why the traditional definition of that term may be an inadequate understanding of the problem. We then have a lengthy discussion about the link between big scale energy solutions, global development and climate change. 

As I am recording this, the United States is deep into negotiations with the Taliban over some sort of political arrangement that would enable the Taliban's entrance into Afghan politics while the US drew down its troop levels. The specifics of these negotiations are opaque--not much is known about what is on the table.  

We have known for years that vaccinations, including routine childhood vaccinations for diseases like measles, mumps and rubella prevent children from dying on a fairly massive scale. We also know that as a health intervention, most vaccines and vaccination programs are relatively inexpensive. 

Thousands of Haitians have taken to the streets in anti-government protests that quickly turned violent. Several people have been killed and a great amount of property has been damaged in these protests. 

Haiti, of course, is no stranger to political crisis. But this crisis feels different, according to veteran reporter Jacqueline Charles.

Jacqueline Charles is the Haiti Caribbean reporter for the Miami Herald and in this conversation she explains the origins of this new protest movement and how it may play out over the coming weeks. 

As she explains, these protests began, in part, over allegations of corruption surrounding a Hugo Chavez-era Venezuelan oil subsidy program, known as Petro Carbibe. But what began as an anti-corruption protest movement has morphed into something much broader that now threatens to bring down the government of President Jovenel Moise.  

This crisis in Haiti has potential to unleash great instability in a very fragile country, which could have big international implications. This conversation does a very good job of giving you the background and context you need to understand events as they unfold.

This episode is part of a content partnership between the podcast and the Global Development Institute at the University of Manchester. Experts from the Global Development Institute discuss their research and also the pressing news of the day as it relates to global inequalities and development. If you’d like to learn more about the Global Development Institute you can go to GDI.Manchester.ac.uk or click on the add on globaldispatchespodcast.com

About a decade ago, Simon Moss co-founded Global Citizen with a few friends in Australia. It has since grown into a behemoth of global advocacy on issues related to ending extreme poverty around the world.

I've known Simon for years and have watched Global Citizen evolve over the years. So, I thought it might be useful and interesting to learn from him how an advocacy group like Global Citizen is adapting to broader geopolitical shifts. How does a group focused on ended extreme poverty respond to China's increasing influence in the global development space? How does it adapt to the withdrawal of the United States from its traditional role as a champion of global health and anti-poverty programs? I put these questions and more to Simon Moss in this enlightening and lively conversation about the future of global advocacy on issues related to sustainable development and fighting extreme poverty.

We kick off discussing the origin story of Global Citizen before having a longer conversation about new trends in global advocacy work.

Global Citizen is probably best known for its annual music festival in Central Park in New York that takes place during UN week, bringing together music stars, NGO leaders and government officials on stage in an effort to catalyze action on key global issues like polio eradication or girls education. Simon Moss explains the pros and cons of using a major event like a rock concert to leverage concrete policy outcomes.

If you have 25 minutes and want to learn where international advocacy is headed in the Trump era, have a listen.

Today's episode is the launch of a new series: UN Correspondent Chatter. From time to time I'll check in with an in-house reporter at the United Nations headquarters in New York to discuss the latest news, buzz, and intrigues around Turtle Bay.  

On January 23rd, the 35-year-old head of the Venezuela's National Assembly Juan Guiado declared himself president of Venezuela, promising to would serve in that role on an interim basis before free elections could be held. He was quickly recognized as the legitimate head of state by the United States, Canada, the Organization of American States and many countries in Latin America. 

Of course, de-facto president Nicolas Maduro is rejecting this claim. At time of recording he still controls the government -- and most importantly the security services. Maduro is backed by other countries in the region and also other key international players like Russia. 

There is an extremely dangerous standoff underway in Venezuela, the outcome of which is very far from certain.

On the line to provide some context to help you understand this crisis is Ivan Briscoe. He is the regional director for Latin America with the International Crisis Group. We kick off discussing the political context of this situation, including how a relatively unknown politician came to declare himself President. We then discuss the crucial role of the military and security services in determining the political future of Venezuela and whether or not it was a mistake for the US and other countries to quickly rally behind Guiado.

This is obviously a very rapidly unfolding situation and I am confident that this conversation will give you the context and background you need to interpret events in the coming days and weeks.

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The Democratic Republic of Congo held elections on December 30th that would mark the country's first peaceful transfer of power since its independence in 1960. The long serving ruler, Joseph Kabilla had effectively delayed these elections for years, but finally promised to step down and cede power to the winner of these elections. 

A protest movement in Sudan is posing the biggest challenge to the genocidal regime of Omar al Bashir in decades. The protests began just before Christmas, ostensibly over an increase in the price of bread and they quickly spread. Predictably, the regime has responded with violence but nevertheless, these protests persist.

World Bank president Jim Yong Kim is stepping down at the end January. He made that announcement on January 7th, surprising most observers for the fact that he is resigning from his post with three years left in his second term. 

One of the worst mass atrocities in recent times took place in Sri Lanka during the final days of that country’s long civil war. In May 2009, tens of thousands of people were killed by Sri Lankan armed forces over the course of just a few days as the military sought to deal a final blow to an insurgent group known as the Tamil Tigers. In the process, they killed as many as 40,000 civilians.

No one was brought to justice for this crime against humanity. And the lack of accountability for those crimes is a key factor in that my guest, Kate Cronin- Furman, argues is contributing to political instability in Sri Lanka today.

Kate Cronin-Furman is an assistant professor of Human Rights in the Department of Political Science, University College London. In this conversation, she explains what happened during the final days of that civil war when this massacre occurred. We then discuss how the forces that carried out that crime against humanity are posing a big challenge to the political life of Sri Lanka, which entered an extremely tumultuous period this fall in which two people claimed to be prime minister at the same time.

We kick off discussing the Sri Lankan civil war and its brutal end days before having a longer discussion about the ways in which the lack of accountability for those events are undermining the political stability of Sri Lanka today.

This massacre of 40,000 people was second only to the genocide in Darfur as the worst mass atrocity event of the first decade of the 21st century. As you will learn in this episode, Sri Lankan politics is still defined by this atrocity in ways harmful to a healthy democracy.

State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert is Donald Trump's nominee to serve as the next US Ambassador to the United Nations. If confirmed, she will replace of course Nikki Haley, who served in the role for nearly two years.

Massive infrastructure projects like the building of ports, roads and railways are becoming more and more commonplace in the developing world. According to my guest today, the reason we are seeing more of these projects is a burgeoning global rivalry between China and the United States.

Seth Schindler is a senior lecturer in urban development and transformation at the Global Development Institute at the University of Manchester. He studies large scale infrastructure projects and as he explains were are on the cusp of an infrastructure "arms race" between the US and China for connecting the developing world. He predicts that geopolitical rivalry between China and the United States will be the key factor driving the development of these massive projects.

In our conversation we talk through the implications of this trend, which has accelerated since China launched a massive global infrastructure-building strategy known as the Belt and Road Initiative. It was in response to this Chinese strategy that the US Congress passed a law known as the US BUILD ACT, which established a new International Development Finance Corporation (IDFC) 

We kick off this conversation talking about both the Belt and Road Initiative and the new US International Development Finance Corporation, before having a broader discussion about the ways this rivalry will manifest itself around the world and its impact on global development. 

This episode is part of a content partnership between the podcast and the Global Development Institute at the University of Manchester. Experts from the Global Development Institute discuss their research and also the pressing news of the day as it relates to global inequalities and development.

A protest movement in France known as the Gilets Jaunes, or Yellow Vests, has become a political crisis for French President Emmanuel Macron. The protest movement began over a hike in a fuel tax, but has grown into something much more and is now threatening to further weaken Macron, who was already deeply unpopular in France.

Over 180 countries are endorsing what is known as the Global Compact for Migration. The text of this non-binding agreement was finalized over the summer, and countries are meeting in Marrakech Morocco on December 10th and 11th to formally launch the Compact. 

There is a great deal of misinformation being spread, mostly by right wing governments in Europe and here in the US, about what this agreement entails. This agreement is not a treaty. Rather, it is an agreed set of principles and creates a kind of platform for multilateral and bilateral cooperation around issues of international migration.

Brian Dooley is a senior advisor at Human Rights First and as he explains, the politics and international relations of Bahrain can teach us a lot about broader trends in the Middle East. In our conversation, we discuss why these recent elections in Bahrain matter and what the international community can do to restore a semblance of representative democracy to Bahrain.

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Michelle Gelfand is a Professor of Psychology at the University of Maryland and author of the new book Rule Makers, Rule Breakers: How Tight and Loose Cultures Wire our World. The book, which is written for a popular audience, is based on a scientific study conducted by Gelfand in 33 countries in which she examines cultural norms around rule following. 

As she explains, certain countries have a higher tolerance for norm and rules breaking behavior than others--and these discrepancies can have important consequences for international relations. 

Dr. Gelfand's study is a groundbreaking way to look at key cultural differences between countries. 

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My guest today, Diana Mitlin, is a professor of global urbanism at the Global Development Institute at the University of Manchester.

Much of her work focuses on issues surrounding informal urban settlements, commonly known as slums. In this episode we discuss why slums present such a profound challenge for global development--and how getting policies around slums right can lead to big progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals.

We kick off this discuss talking more broadly about the scope of the challenges surrounding the nearly 1 billion people around the world who live in what might be considered a slum. We then discuss what policies work to uplift people who live in these informal urban settlements and how successful policy is being implemented by some cities and local governments around the world. 

This episode is part of a content partnership between the podcast and the Global Development Institute at the University of Manchester. For the next several months we will be featuring from, time to time, experts from the Global Development Institute who will discuss their research and also the pressing news of the day as it relates to global inequalities and development. If you'd like to learn more about the Global Development Institute you can go to GDI.Manchester.ac.uk or click on the add on globaldispatchespodcast.com"

On October 31, South Sudanese rebel leader Riek Machar entered the capitol city of Juba for the first time in two years to attend a peace ceremony. The ceremony in Juba was intended a confidence building measure toward the implementation of the peace deal.  Earlier this summer, Machar and South Sudan's president Salva Kiir signed a peace deal, formally ending a civil war that killed hundreds of thousands of people and displaced over a million more. 

In mid September, I was sitting next to the journalist Sally Hayden while attending a press briefing near the United Nations when phone started buzzing with WhatsApp messages.  Refugees and migrants stranded in a prison in Libya had gotten her number and were sending her messages describing awful details of their confinement.

These refugees were stranded in prison because of a deal worked out between the Libyan Coast Guard and Italian government. Thousands of refugees and migrants, mostly from Eastern and Sub-saharan Africa, are languishing indefinitely in confinement in Libya after having been captured by Libyan coast guard units as they tried to make their way to Italy. This has resulted in an ongoing human rights catastrophe as prisoners are left alone in jail cells, often without food or water.

As Sally Hayden explains, this has resulted in an unbelievably awful human rights calamity that is not getting the attention it deserves.  In this episode, Sally Hayden explains this unfolding crisis.

As was expected, Republicans have held onto control of the Senate while Democrats have won a solid majority in the House of Representatives. 

So what does this mean for foreign policy and global affairs? On the line with me to talk through some of the international implications of the US Mid term elections is Heather Hurlburt. She is the director of the New Models of Policy Change project at the New America Foundation and is a longtime player and analyst of US foreign policy. And in this conversation, which was recorded a day after the midterms, we talk though some of the fallout from the elections as it pertains to foreign policy. 

Mark Lowcock is the top humanitarian official at the United Nations, serving as the Under Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs and the UN's Emergency Relief Coordinator.  

For 27 years, the question of what to formally call the country informally known as "Macedonia" has been a diplomatic thorn in the side of Europe and the Balkans. 

The challenge was immense

About twenty years ago, India accounted for over 60% of all polio cases worldwide -- in fact it was considered a "hyper" endemic country. Then, the Indian government teamed up with the United Nations and other partners, including through the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, to tackle polio head on.

India's vast population, its geographic diversity, and pockets of extreme poverty seriously complicated this effort. But the Indian government and its partners adapted, innovated and above all persisted until they could reach the very last child with the polio vaccine.

In 2014, India was officially declared polio-free. There has not been a single case of wild polio in India in over eight years. Today, only three countries remain polio endemic. And as of October, there were fewer than 20 wild polio cases worldwide in 2018.

The world is now tantalizingly close to the total global eradication of polio, and India's success in defeating polio within its borders is a big reason why total eradication is within reach

Through interviews and archival material, this special episode of Global Dispatches tells you the story of how, against all odds, India eliminated polio.

This episode is produced in partnership with the the United Nations Foundation as part of a series that examines successes in multilateral cooperation to tackle great global problems.  Previous episodes in this series include how the world closed the hole in the ozone layer, and how the UN Peacekeeping Mission in Liberia successfully completed its work  in 2015. 

On October 17 Canada became the second country in the world to legalize the recreational use of Cannabis. The first was Uruguay, which decriminalized Cannabis a few years ago. But Canada's move is arguably more significant to international relations for the fact that it is a member of the G7; and is a country that has a longstanding commitment to international law and the rules based international order 

My guest today Ivo Daalder served as the United States ambassador to NATO under President Obama from 2009 to 2013. He is now the president of the Chicago council on foreign relations and he is the co-author, with James Lindsey, of the new book, The Empty Throne: America's Abdication of Global Leadership. 

My guest today, Nicola Banks, is a lecturer in global urbanism and urban development at the University of Manchester. She has conducted some pioneering research on the role of the NGO sector in global development.

Some of her findings, including that development NGOs be more politically engaged, are being adopted and tested by some major aid agencies. Dr. Banks is also undertaking an ambitious project, along with Professor Dan Brockington of the University of Sheffield, of mapping the UK's NGO sector and we discuss some of her findings from that study.   

I met the Foreign Minister of Kosovo Behgjet Pacolli in a hotel lobby not far from the United Nations where the foreign minister had spent several days during the UN General Assembly last week. 

Every year during UN Week there are a number of substantive and important issues discussed, new initiatives launched and new partnerships formed, typically around some big important global issues. It is a week in the diplomatic calendar in which a lot of problem solving gets done. The problem is, this aspect of UN Week rarely gets covered by the mainstream media, which so often chases the big headlines in general--and Donald Trump in particular.

But there is so much happening beyond Trump, so today I wanted shine a spotlight one particular initiative launched this week to help the international community and countries of the developing world collect better data around agricultural productivity.  The initiative is called 50x2030, the 50 refers to 50 countries from the developing world which will participate in this data collection initiative and 2030 refers to the end date in which the Sustainable Development Goals are due.

Key partners on the initiative include the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, United States Agency or International Development (USAID), Government of Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT), Government of Germany’s Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), World Bank, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), and International Fund for Agricultural Development.  It was launched at the United Nations this week.

I attended the launch and it included something very different. In advance of a panel discussion, two individuals told powerful personal stories that helped make this discussion very real. These individual were trained by the Moth Global Community Program. So to kick off this episode, we are going to hear a seven minute personal story from Edward Mabaya, a development economist from Zimbabwe who told his story from the floor of the Trusteeship Council of the United Nations.

That story provides important grounding for my longer conversation about strengthening the quality if data around agricultural productivity with Claire Melamed, who is the CEO of the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data.

In this special episode of Global Dispatches Podcast we are bringing you the story of how UN Peacekeepers partnered with the people and government of Liberia to help transform the country from one of the bleakest places on the planet, to one of the more hopeful today.

When peacekeepers were first deployed to Liberia in 2003, the west African country had just experienced a devastating civil war. Fifteen years later, the last Blue Helmets left the country.  

Through interviews and archival audio, you will hear from Liberians, UN officials and experts who explain how the UN Mission in Liberia, known as UNMIL, was able to work itself out of a job.

This episode is produced in partnership with the United Nations Foundation as part of the special series that examines success stories of multilateral engagement. When the world works together, powerful and lasting change can take place.   

UNMIL is a success of UN Peacekeeping. This episode tells its story. 

My guest today, Anand Giridharadas, is the author of the new book Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World. The book is a piercing examination of how the global elite have co-opted our mechanisms of social change. This trend manifests itself in many ways, including the belief that market forces are more important than government in affecting change.

The world is experiencing a dam building boom. According to research by my guest today David Hulme there are plans underway around for the construction of over 3,700 new dams around the world. And this explosion in dam building comes after a period in which there was a lull in the construction of new dam projects.

Ambassador Princeton Lyman passed away on August 24th at the age of 83.  In January 2017, he came on the podcast to discuss his remarkable life and career, which included serving as the US ambassador to South Africa during the end of apartheid and transition to democracy. We listen back to that interview. 

On March 21, 2020 North Korea shoots down a South Korean civilian airliner, mistaking it for a US bomber. This sets off a series of events that leads to the launching 13 nuclear armed ballistic missiles towards the United States. Several of these missiles miss their target. But not all. One bomb levels Manhattan, another hits Northern Virginia and a third lands near Mar a Lago, in Florida. 1.4 million Americans are killed.

Dr. Vanessa Kerry is the Co-founder and CEO of Seed Global Health. This is an international NGO that works in five sub-Saharan countries to bolster the education of medical professionals.   

On August 19th 2003 the United Nations headquarters in Iraq at the Canal Hotel in Baghdad, was hit with a truck bomb. At least 22 people lost their lives in this attack, including the UN's top official in Iraq, Sergio Vieira de Mello. 

In 2014, I spoke with New Yorker writer Robin Wright about her life and career as a foreign affairs journalist.  

On August 7th, 1998 my guest today John Lange was the acting United States Ambassador to Tanzania when a truck bomb exploded outside the embassy in Dar es Salaam. He did not know it at the time, but this bombing was part of a coordinated attack on US embassies in the region. Minutes early in Nairobi, Kenya the US embassy was bombed as well. 

Michael Scott Moore spent 977 days as a hostage of Somali pirates. He is a journalist and in 2012 he set out for the Somali coast on a reporting trip when he was kidnapped. What followed was a two and a half year ordeal that he masterfully recounts in his new book: "The Desert and the Sea."

David Kaye, is the author of the UN's first ever report on the regulation of user generated online content. That is, how governments and companies like Facebook and Twitter police their users. 

The year is 1985. Ronald Regan is president. Margaret Thatcher is prime minister of the United Kingdom. Michael Jackson, White Snake and George Michael are dominating the billboard charts. Back to the Future is a smash hit at the box office.

And scientists have just discovered a giant hole in the ozone layer above Antarctica.

Scientists were warning that if left unchecked, this hole in the ozone would grow ever larger, letting through harmful ultraviolet radiation from the sun that would wreak havoc on human health. Skin cancer rates would skyrocket, as would cataracts. In cities like Los Angeles and Washington, DC going outside for just a short period of time in the summer would be dangerous. Meanwhile, the basic ecology of the world’s oceans could change as plankton that make up the bottom of the food chain would die off.

But in two years time, before even Universal Pictures released the sequel to Back to the Future, the international community had come together to create a binding international treaty that would lead to the healing of the ozone layer.

That agreement is known as the Montreal Protocol. It is widely considered the world’s most successful global environmental treaty.

In this special episode of Global Dispatches podcast, produced in partnership with the United Nations Foundation, we bring you the inside story of how the world came together to create an internationally binding treaty to protect the ozone layer-- and ultimately human health.

You will hear from scientists who discovered the link between cloroflorocarbons and ozone depletion; key diplomats and government leaders who pressed for the international regulation of CFCs in 1987; and academics and civil society leaders who explain why this 31 year old agreement is as relevant today as it was the day it was signed.

The Montreal Protocol is a success of multilateral cooperation. This podcast episode tells its remarkable story.

At the United Nations in mid-July officials gathered for an annual checkup on progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals. The SDGs, as they are known, are a set of 17 anti-poverty, health and environmental goals that in 2015 the world agreed to achieve by 2030. 

We are now two and a half years into these goals, and this gathering at the United Nations, which is known as the High Level Political Forum, is a moment in which top officials take stock of both global and domestic progress towards these goals. 

On the podcast today, we ask the question: how are we doing?  We examine how far we have come and how much more the world needs to do to achieve the goals it set for itself three years ago. 

On the line with me to discuss this all is John McArthur, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and senior adviser to the United Nations Foundation.” We kick off discussing areas where progress has been most pronounced and most lacking. We then discuss the High Level Political Forum itself, and also what comes next for the SDGs.

Like me, my guest today Joshua Keating, loves maps. His new book "Invisible Countries: Journeys to the Edge of Nationhood" is about borders we see on maps and the borders we don't see. 

Sunitha Krishnan literally rescues girls from sex slavery. She is the founder of the Indian NGO Prajwala which both physically removes girls from sexual bondage and provides social, medical and psychological support for their rehabilitation. 

Nicaragua is in the midst of a deepening political and security crisis. Over the last three months the government has been increasingly violent in its response to a growing protest movement. 

Over 240 people have been killed since April, when protests against a social security reform measure began. Those protests have morphed to a broader political challenge against the longtime Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega.

Something truly remarkable in African history and global affairs occurred on June 26 when Eritrean leaders flew to the capitol of Ethiopia for peace talks. 

On the line with me to discuss this detente between two previously irreconcilable foes is Michael Woldermairam, an Assistant Professor of International Relations and Political Science at the Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University

Mary Robinson was the first female President of Ireland, serving from 1990 to 1997. She then served as the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and has since undertaken a variety of roles at the UN system, focusing on human rights, gender equality and, as is the focus of our conversation today, climate justice. 

My guest today, Kari Hong is an assistant professor at the Boston College law school and an expert on US asylum policy and law. As you can imagine, we have an extended conversation about the tragedy unfolding at the Southern US border, where the Trump administration has mandated the separation of migrant children from their parents in order to deter them from claiming asylum and expedite their removal from the country. 

For many years Tom Catena was the only doctor in the Nuba Mountain region of Sudan. This is an area on the border between Sudan and South Sudan. In 2011 it was the site of intense fighting between government forces and local groups aligned with the South.  

I spent the last weekend of May at a conference in Stockholm called the New Shape Forum. This was an ideas festival and prize competition and workshop all around new ideas for better organizing the world to confront catastrophic global risks.  

My guest today, David Beasley is the executive director of the World Food Program. We caught up not long after he visited both the Sahel region of western Africa and from North Korea, where the World Food Program is actively engaged.

Amy Israel is the global health thought leadership and policy director for the health and pharmaceutical company, Lilly. 

Kristine McDivitt Tompkins made history earlier this year when she completed what is said to be the largest ever transfer of land from a private entity to a government.

In a ceremony in Chile with President Michelle Bachelet at her side, Kristine McDivitt Tompkins formally handed over 1 million acres of land of while President Bachelet designated 9 million more acres to create vast new national parks.

This created areas of protected wilderness about the size of Switzerland.

That ceremony was the culmination of decades of work by Kristine and her late husband Doug Tompkins. Kristine was the longtime CEO of the outdoor apparel company Patagonia. Doug, who died in a kayaking accident in 2015, was the co-founder of the clothing companies North Face and Espirit. Together, the created the non-profit Tompkins Conservation.

In this conversation, Kristine Tompkins discusses the origins of her work as a conversationist and as a pioneer of corporate social responsibility. She also describes the process of creating wilderness areas in partnerships with governments.

We caught up while she was in New York to receive an award from the United Nations Environment Program. 

The ebola outbreak ongoing the Democratic Republic of the Congo is the most severe ebola outbreak since the 2014 calamity in west Africa that killed over 11,000 people. Citing figures about this outbreak is a bit tricky because the situation remains extremely fluid.  

I was a bit skeptical when my guest today told me that every person on the planet, in any 24 hour period, is somehow impacted by the work of the UN and other international entities in Geneva.

Still, Michael Møller would be in a position to know. He is the Director General of the UN Office in Geneva, which makes him a very senior UN official. And I must say, he was convincing. As the director general explains, the mundane routines of life -- everything from brushing my teeth in morning to calling my grandmother in Montreal -- is touched by work done in Geneva.

We also discuss the work of the UN Conference on Disarmament, of which Moller is the titular hear.

I will be seeing Michael Møller in Stockholm next week where he will be delivering a keynote address to the New Shape Forum. This is a conference and ideas festival convened by the Global Challenges Foundation.

We kick off this conversation discussing what Michael Møller is looking forward to from the New Shape Forum and also he previews some of the remarks he'll be delivering at his keynote address.

This episode is presented in partnership with the Global Challenges Foundation, whose aim is to contribute to reducing the main global problems and risks that threaten humanity. Last year, the Global Challenges Foundation held an open call to find new models of global cooperation better capable of handling the most pressing global risks. In May this year at the New Shape Forum in Stockholm, the top proposals will be presented publicly and further refined through discussions with key thought leaders and experts.  

It's been a tumultuous week in Israel and Palestine. On the same day that the United States formally opened its embassy in Jerusalem, dozens of Palestinians were shot to death by Israeli soldiers along the border between Gaza and Israel. 

Around the world the HIV rates for men and women are more or less equal. Except, that is, in sub-saharan Africa which is the only region in the world where the HIV rates for women are substantially higher than that of men. Scholars call this the "feminization" of HIV and AIDS in Africa and have devoted a great deal of effort into studying why

My guest today, Elizabeth Economy, is the author of the new book The Third Revolution: Xi Jinping and the New Chinese State. The book examines the transformative changes ongoing in China today under the leadership of Xi Jinping. 

In the hierarchy of the State Department the Secretary of State, of course, sits on top. Below the Secretary of State is the Deputy Secretary of State and below the Deputy Secretary is the number three post at the state department, the Under-secretary of State for Political Affairs. 

According to a recent report in Bloomberg by the journalist Nick Wadhams, Paula Dobriansky has be tapped to serve in that number 3 spot. Wadhams cites three sources "familiar with the decision," though neither Dobriansky nor the white house have commented at time I'm recording this. 

If, indeed, Paula Dobriansky becomes the Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs she will be the highest ranking official in the Trump administration who has appeared on this very podcast, so I thought it would be worthwhile to revisit my conversation with her.

We spoke in June 2015. At the time, Dobriansky was at Harvard having having served in the George W. Bush administration as Undersecretary of State for Democracy and Global Affairs. 

In our conversation, we spend a good deal of time discussing her background, her academic interests, and her career serving in four administrations. She is of Ukrainian descent and entered college interested in studying the Soviet Union. She earned her PHD writing about Soviet foreign policy and was a well regarded Sovietologist and later Russia expert.  We kicked off discussing what at the time was an escalating situation in Ukraine before having a longer conversation about her career. 

What I find interesting looking back at this interview in the context of her possibly joining the Trump administration is that she comes from a fairly traditional Republican foreign policy background. She's consistently opposed Russian aggression and has embraced the value of spreading democracy and human rights as in the national interests of the United States. She could probably be fairly considered to a neo-conservative. She certainly is very thoughtful and was very gracious with this interview. 

My guest today, Paul Stares, is the author of the new book Preventative Engagement. How America Can Avoid War, Stay Strong, and Keep the Peace.

The book identifies what Stares calls "the American predicament" in which United States remains the principal guarantor of global peace and security, but that in the process of maintaining global peace and security the United States becomes overly extended and prone to costly military entanglements.

Stares offers a way out of this predicament that does not involve retreating from the world, but rather embraces what he calls "preventative engagement." We discuss what that concept entails and why even the trump administration might be willing to implement it.

This is a good, high minded conversation about US foreign policy and about the value of the United Nations and multilateral engagement to US national security interests. 

What happened to Iraq's oil wealth? That is the central question of the book: Pipe Dreams: The Plundering of Iraq's oil Wealth by my guest today Erin Banco.  

My guest today is the renowned journalist Steve Coll. He is a staff writer at the New Yorker, dean of the Colombia School of Journalism and former president of the New America Foundation think tank. 

On September 21, 2001, Rais Bhuiyan was working behind the counter at a gas station outside Dallas, Texas when a man named Mark Stroman walked in brandishing a sawed-off shotgun.

Stroman was a self-proclaimed white supremacist in the midst of a deadly hate crime spree. Seeking revenge for the recent September 11th attacks just days earlier, he roamed the area looking for what he believed to be Arabs to kill. In that killing spree Stroman took the lives of an Indian immigrant named Vasudev Patel and Waqar Hassan, a Pakistani immigrant. 

Stroman shot Rais in the face. But Rais, who was a former Bangladeshi air force pilot, survived the attack. Stroman was eventually arrested, convicted of murder and sent to death row.

As Stroman awaited execution, Rais embarked on an improbable campaign to spare the life of his attacker. 

This story was masterfully told in the 2014 book "The True American: Murder and Mercy in Texas" by Anand Ghirdiharas. A major hollywood movie based on the book is currently in production.

Today, Rais is the founder and president of the NGO, World Without Hate. When we caught up, Rais had recently returned from a trip to Canada, sponsored by the US State Department, where he told his story. That trip also included a visit to the Islamic Center of Quebec City which was the scene of a mass shooting hate crime just one year ago. We kick off discussing this trip and Rais' work with the State Department before entering into a long and powerful conversation about Rais' experience. 

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http://worldwithouthate.org/ 

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"The True American: Murder and Mercy in Texas"

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency, known as UNRWA, is facing a crisis. This is the humanitarian agency that provides relief for Palestinian refugees in the West Bank, Gaza, Lebanon, Jordan and Syria. This includes running hospitals and schools that serve about half a million children.

Typically, the United States has provided about one third of UNRWA's overall budget, judging the organization to be a source of stability in an otherwise volatile region.  The Trump administration, however, has frozen US payments to the humanitarian agency. It did so in retaliation to a vote at the UN General Assembly in which member states overwhelmingly condemned the Trump administration's decision to formally recognize Jerusalem as the capitol of Israel and move its embassy there. Withholding promised funding for humanitarian relief for Palestinian refugees was the Trump administration's payback for this vote.

On the line with me to discuss what this budget crisis means on the ground for Palestinian refugees is Peter Mulrean, Director of UNRWA's Representative Office in New York. We also discuss the history of UNRWA, the role is serves in Palestinian society and in the politics of the region, and how it might overcome this funding crisis imposed by the Trump administration.

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I got my start in journalism covering John Bolton when he was the US Ambassador to the United Nations.  At the time, I was a reporter for the political monthly The American Prospect. I sometimes quip that I owe my career to Bolton because covering his time at the UN was my entry point into covering the United Nations more broadly.

My reporting at the time culminated in a cover story that was published in January 2006 that detailed Bolton's tenure thus far at the UN and broke a few scoops about his conduct.

In this special episode of the podcast I am going to share a few anecdotes from my reporting at the time that might shed some light on how he will conduct himself as the National Security Advisor to Donald Trump. I’ll also survey some key issues around the world, including North Korea, Iran, Trans-Atlantic Relations and the United Nations to see what Bolton’s past interactions with these issues might suggest for the future of US policy.  I’ll also explain the position of National Security Advisor to help you understand where, exactly, Bolton will fit in in the bureaucratic politics of US foreign policy making.

That this is a different kind of Global Dispatches episode. This podcast is typically an interview-based show in which I have conversations with experts about topical issues, or I have longer discussions with people who have had interesting careers in foreign policy. In these conversations, I’ll occasionally interject my own views. But for the most the other person is talking. 

But this time around, I am something of the expert. And I think other people see me as such, based on my past reporting.  I was on BBC’s Nightly News program last Friday after the news about Bolton broke. And I also had a piece up on The Daily Beast. 

So this episode is just me talking. 

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My Iran Deal episode with Spencer Ackerman

My Daily Beast piece on Bolton

Wanjira Mathai is a Kenyan environmental and civic leader. She is the chair of the Wangari Mathai Foundation, which is named after her mother who won the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize.  

Much of Wanjira's work focuses on the intersection of women's empowerment and environmental sustainability. We kick off with a discussion about her work with a group called the Partnership on Women's Entrepreneurship in Renewables (wPOWER). Much of our conversation discusses the challenges and opportunities around renewable energy in the developing world.  

We also discuss the work of her mother, the environmental justice pioneer who founded the Green Belt Movement. 

This episode is presented in partnership with the Global Challenges Foundation, whose aim is to contribute to reducing the main global problems and risks that threaten humanity. Last year, the Global Challenges Foundation held an open call to find new models of global cooperation better capable of handling the most pressing global risks. In May this year at the New Shape Forum in Stockholm, the top proposals will be presented publicly and further refined through discussions with key thought leaders and experts. US$5 million will be awarded to the best ideas that re-envision global governance for the 21st century. 

Wanjira Mathai is a Global Challenges Foundation ambassador and in the conversation we discuss this prize and why new ideas for global governance are important for the future of environmental sustainability. 

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By the end of this month the United Nations Peacekeeping Mission in Liberia will no longer exist. The mission, known as UNMIL, is closing shop after nearly 15 years in operation, and its closing this is a major milestone and success for both Liberia and the United Nations.

In 2003, it was hard to imagine this day would ever come. Around 250,000 people had been killed in a singularly brutal civil war, the infrastructure that existed in the country was decimated and most Liberians who had the opportunity to leave country had fled.

Fifteen years later, thanks in large part to this UN Peacekeeping Force, Liberia is a stable democracy with a rapidly developing economy.

In 2006 it was the first country in Africa to elect a female head of State, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, and after serving two terms she stepped down peacefully and ceded power to her political rival, George Weah. To be sure, Liberia is still a very poor country. But these last 15 years have seen tremendous progress.

On the line with me to discuss how UNMIL was able to work itself out of a job is retired Col. Christopher Holshek. Col. Holshek was one of the few Americans to serve in UNMIL and he explains just how the UN's role in Liberia transitioned from peace keeping to peace building.  And because there are so few American military officers who serve in UN peacekeeping missions, his perspective on this question is very unique.

The folding of the UN Mission in Liberia is a good news story coming out of the UN and I am glad to share it with you.

Maggy Barankitse is the founder of Maison Shalom, an orphanage and school that was created in Burundi in the wake of the Civil War there in the 1990s. Like in neighboring Rwanda, the conflict in Burundi involved acts of genocide pitting ethnic groups against each other.  

I am still catching my breath over the news that Rex Tillerson was fired and CIA Director Mike Pompeo has been nominated as his replacement as Secretary of State. That happened, of course, just days after a South Korean diplomat announced a summit between Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un, scheduled for May.  

Noubar Afeyan is a business leader, entrepreneur and philanthropist. In 2015, along with other decedents of survivors of the 1915 Armenian genocide, he co-founded the Aurora Humanitarian Initiative.  This initiative, as Noubar explains, seeks to empower modern day survivors of genocide and mass atrocities through a variety of projects the most high profile of which is a $1 million prize for individuals who are saving lives and promoting humanitarian values in the face of extreme adversity. 

My podcast guest today Pablo Yanguas is a research fellow at the Global Development Institute at the University of Manchester. He is the author of the new book "Why We Lie About Aid: Development and the Messy Politics of Change."

Sulome Anderson was in utero when her father, the journalist Terry Anderson, was kidnapped in Beirut. She met him for the first time as a six year old, when he was finally released by his Hezbollah linked captors.

Her book The Hostage's Daughter investigates the circumstances of her father's kidnapping and also serves as a memoir of her own experience dealing with her trauma and the trauma of her family. The book was published about 18 months ago to critical acclaim and it's since been optioned for a movie.

In our conversation Sulome, now a journalist herself, discusses what it was like to write and report this book. She also opens up about the impact her father's kidnapping had on her childhood and adolescence, and she describes the catharsis she experienced after having interviewed one of her dad's kidnappers for this book.

We kick off discussing something a little different: Sulome has been working as a freelance journalist in the Middle East for many years and she was recently the subject of a article in the Colombia Journalism Review that describes the challenges of working as a freelance foreign affairs journalist in a world obsessed with Trump. 

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The conflict in Syria has entered a new phase. ISIS has been defeated, yet in many ways the war is metastasizing.

In places like Eastern Ghouta, on the outskirts of Damascus, the war is as brutal as ever. After days of extremely heavy bombing, the UN secretary general called Ghouta "hell on earth."  Meanwhile, in another part of Syria, in the northern town of Afrin, you have a situation where the US-backed Kurdish forces that were instrumental in defeating ISIS are now under attack by America's NATO ally, Turkey. Meanwhile, in recent weeks, an Israeli fighter jet was downed over the country and the United States reportedly killed dozens of Russian mercenaries in a bombing. 

On the line with me to help put what is happening in Syria in the broader context of the trajectory of this nearly seven year old conflict is Raed  Jarrar who is the Advocacy Director for the Middle East and North Africa for Amnesty International, USA.

We kick off discussing the situation in Ghouta which is setting off international alarm bells as an ongoing mass atrocity event. We then discuss some of the broader trends of the conflict and what advocacy organizations like Amnesty are doing to keep pressure on the international community to reduce the toll this conflict is taking on civilian populations. 

Overall, this conversation serves as a helpful explanation of how the Syria conflict has evolved over the last several months and where it may be heading. 

Djibouti is the only country in the world that hosts military bases for both the United States and China. The US base, Camp Lemmonier, hosts US special forces and its only a few kilometers from China's only military base outside of Asia. France, the former colonial ruler, also has a base in the country.

That so many countries would want their military stationed in tiny Djibouti is partly due of the country's geography. It is strategically located in the horn of Africa, bordering Somalia, Ethiopia and Eritrea at the exact point where the Gulf of Aden meets the red Sea, across the straight from Yemen.

But in part as a consequence of its strategic location its longtime leader President Ismael Omar Guelleh has had a stranglehold on power since 1999, cracking down on civil society, thwarting any potential political rivals and subverting democratic institutions.

One person trying to restore democracy to Djibouti is Daher Ahmed Farah, who is on the line with me today. He is the leader of the country's main opposition political party, the Movement for Democratic Renewal and Development (MRD). He is currently in exile, living mostly in Brussels after the government issued a warrant for his arrest.  We caught up as Farah was visiting Washington, DC for meetings at the state department and elsewhere.

Djibouti is obviously not much on the news radar and I found this conversation an interesting explanation of how a government that is a strategic ally of many world powers can use that position to consolidate power at home at the expense of democracy. 

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It's budget season in Washington, DC. And this year (like last year) the White House has requested massive cuts to foreign affairs spending in general, and to the United Nations in particular. The Fiscal Year 2019 budget request from the White House asks for about a 30% overall cut in non-military international affairs spending over current spending levels. Congress, which ultimately controls the purse strings, has largely pushed back against these more draconian spending measures. 

On the line with me to discuss how the United Nations fits into the US budget and spending debates ongoing in Washington, DC is Peter Yeo. He is the President of the Better World Campaign and Vice President for Public Policy and Advocacy at the United Nations Foundation. He was a longtime congressional staffer and knows the ins and outs of the foreign affairs budget and the UN budget process as well as anyone in DC. 

Peter explains the UN budget process and demonstrates how American funding for the United Nations ends up being a pretty good deal for the United States. 

This is a good, explanatory episode about one of the most important financial relationships in world affairs. 

To the people of Kiribati, climate change is an existential threat. 

This is an Island nation in the pacific -- it is a string of atolls about halfway between Australia and Hawaii. It has a population of about 100,000 and is known for its vast Tuna stocks.

But climate change and rising sea levels are making much of Kiribas uninhabitable--it is a country that is facing extinction. And not in some distant future. This is happening now. 

My guest today, Anote Tong served as President of Kiribas from 2003 to 2016. President Tong is well known in international circles for being a powerful advocate on behalf of people living in small island states that are on the front line of climate change. 

What I found so interesting about this conversation was learning how President Tong's advocacy in international forums has evolved over time--and how this existential threat contributed to President Tong's decision to create what is the world's largest marine sanctuary--the Phoenix Islands Protection Area.

This episode is presented in partnership with the Global Challenges Foundation, whose aim is to contribute to reducing the main global problems and risks that threaten humanity. Last year, the Global Challenges Foundation held an open call to find new models of global cooperation better capable of handling the most pressing global risks. In May this year at the New Shape Forum in Stockholm, the top proposals will be presented publicly and further refined through discussions with key thought leaders and experts. US$5 million will be awarded to the best ideas that re-envision global governance for the 21st century.

President Tong is a Global Challenges Foundation ambassador and in the conversation we discuss this prize and why new ideas for global governance are important for the future of small island states like Kiribati.

All eyes turn to South Korea for the start of the Winter Olympics this week.

There is always a political political component to this Olympics and indeed all major international sporting events. This year, much of the commentary will focus on how the olympics is providing a platform for cooperation between the Koreas--they are marching under a single flag and joining forces for Women's hockey. 

But emerging political science suggests that contrary to popular perception, international sporting events are not catalysts for peace -- in fact, just the opposite is true. A new peer reviewed academic paper by my guest today Andrew Douglas Bertoli shows that major international sporting events actually contribute to international conflict. Andrew designed a rather ingenious experiment to prove this case. He looked at every world cup from 1958 to 2010 last found that the countries that barely qualified for the world cup were significantly more likely to start an international conflict than countries that did not qualify. The reason he posits? Nationalism. 

Last week, the Polish Senate passed a law that would make it a criminal offense to claim that Poland was complicit in Nazi crimes. The Israeli government strongly opposed this measure, as do most people who care about honest academic discourse. Nevertheless, the measure was passed and now awaits the signature of the president to become law. 

When I caught up with my guest today, Monika Mazur-Rafał, Poland's lower house had recently passed the law and as Monika explains the public debate and discourse about it was heavily colored by invocations of ethnic nationalism and hate speech. Monika is the director of Humanity in Action-Poland, which is an organization that seeks to promote pluralism and cosmopolitan values. As she explains the use of hate speech around this particular public debate is just one manifestation of a trend that has increased sharply in recent years. 

Max Boot is a foreign policy commentator and historian. Just this week he was named a contributing writer to the Op-ed page of the Washington Post.

He is the author of several books;  his most recent is The Road Not Taken: Edward Lansdale and the American Tragedy in Vietnam 

Lansdale was a CIA officer who was the inspiration behind the title character of the famous Graham Green novel, The Quiet American. As Max explains Lansdale pioneered a "hearts and minds" approach to the Vietnam quandary and sought to avoid a massive American military buildup in Vietnam, but was ultimately overruled. 

We discuss this history in detail and also the relevance of Lansdale to American foreign policy today. We then have an extended conversation about Max's background, including his own intellectual evolution. And here, Max explains how the Trump administration is causing him to re-think certain assumptions he once held as a movement conservative and Republican. 

Over 10,000 people have fled from English speaking regions of Cameroon to neighboring Nigeria in recent weeks. They are escaping an ongoing crackdown by Cameroonian security forces against a movement that is demanding greater autonomy for English speaking regions from the French dominated central government. 

Shanti Bhavan is a school in the Tamil Nadu state of southern India that serves children from the Dalit community. These are the some of the poorest children in the country. Systemic inequality has kept many members of this community in extreme poverty. (The Dalits were sometimes referred to as the "untouchables" in India's now-illegal caste system.)

Shanti Bhavan seeks to break that cycle by offering high quality education and other life skills to its students. And for its successes to that end it has begun to earn a great deal of attention. Last year a documentary on Netflix, called Daughters of Destiny, profiled young girls at the school and offered some insights into Shanti Bhavan's unique strategy for breaking cycles of poverty.

The school was founded in 1997 by the Indian-American businessman Abraham George. His son,  Ajit George, is the director of operations and joins me on the podcast to discuss how his father decided to start the school and how this school fits into a broader theory of change to upend the caste system and extreme poverty it engenders.

If you have 20 minutes and want to learn about one unique strategy to end extreme poverty, have a listen.

Lidia Bastianich is a chef, restauranteur, cookbook author, TV personality, entrepreneur and for the purposes of this conversation, most importantly a refugee.

She was born on the Istrian Penninsula to an ethnic Italian family. This is a region on the Adriatic Sea, in modern day Croatia. Following World War Two it was ceded from Italy to the control of Yugoslavia, which was under the communist rule of Marshal Tito.  As Lidia explains, policies that Tito enacted lead to the displacement of hundreds of thousands of ethnic Italians, including her family.  Historians now refer to this as the Istrian exodus. 

Robert Malley is the new president and CEO of the International Crisis Group. He took over on January 1st. The International Crisis Group, of course, provides the public and policymakers with analysis of conflicts and potential ways out of conflict around the world. As regular listeners probably know it is one of my go-to resources for understanding crises and conflicts around the world and analysts from the Crisis Group are regular guests on the this show. 

At the very end of last year I had the opportunity to moderate a panel at the United States Institute of Peace that served as the launch of a new report called the Global Terrorism Index. 

This is a one-of-its kind quantitative examination of the impact of terrorism around the world. It includes a look at the number of terrorism deaths, the geographic distribution of terrorist attacks (including the countries and regions where terrorism is on the increase or decrease) and importantly, it puts all this data into a broader historic context in which you are able to compare the data year-by-year.

The Global Terrorism Index is researched, compiled and published by the global think tank the Institute for Economics and Peace.

On the line with me to discuss the 2017 Global Terrorism Index, and explain what big data can tell us about terrorism around the world is Daniel Hyslop, research director at the Institute for Economics and Peace.

In the conversation we also reference another flagship report from the Institute called the Positive Peace Report, which takes a quantitative approach to measuring  attitudes, institutions and structures that “create and sustain peaceful societies.”

Both the Global Terrorism Index and the Positive Peace Report are some cutting edge research in global affairs.

If you have 20 minutes and want to learn what long-term data can teach us about terrorism, have a listen.

Since 2013, the government of Australia has enforced a policy of sending any refugee or migrant who arrives who arrives by boat to detention centers in Papua New Guinea or the remote island nation of Nauru. They do so without exception. 

Munira Khalif is the US Youth Observer to the United Nations. This is a position created in partnership between the State Department and the United Nations Association of the United States to help give youth a voice in official and semi-official diplomatic settings. Munira is a student at Harvard, though she is taking some time off to focus on this new role, in which she will serve for a year. 

The International Committee for the Red Cross/Red Crescent, otherwise known as the ICRC, is a singularly unique international organization. It was founded over 150 years ago to care for soldiers wounded in battle and has evolved substantially since then. Over the years, it has helped shape what is known today as International Humanitarian Law, which are the laws of war. This includes the Geneva Conventions in which the ICRC is specifically named. 

Today, the ICRC works in conflict zones around the world providing on-the-ground medical relief and other services to protect the rights and welfare of civilians and combatants in conflict. It also conducts what my guest today, Hugo Slim, calls Humanitarian Diplomacy at the United Nations and in capitals around the world.  

Slim is the policy director for ICRC and we discuss what Humanitarian Diplomacy entails, and have a broader conversation about the work of the ICRC around the world, including the distinct role it plays in interesting  international affairs. 

Dr. Mozhdeh Ghasemiyani is a psychologist with Doctors without Borders. She is a Kurdish refugee to Denmark and recently delivered a TED Talk describing her refugee experience. In the talk she draws on her knowledge as a psychologist specializing in trauma and PTSD to explain how the traumatic experiences of refugee children can have life long effects. 

The United States will formally recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capitol and intends to move its embassy there from Tel Aviv — thus, decreed President Trump from the White House yesterday.

The move bucks decades of US policy, which sought to include the status of Jerusalem as part of a broader peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians. Meanwhile, virtually the entire world warned President Trump against this declaration, fearing that it will sow instability throughout the region and erect yet another obstacle in the way of an already failing peace process.

On the line with me to discuss the implications of this announcement to both the Arab-Israeli peace process and to regional politics more broadly is Marc Lynch. Lynch is Professor of Political Science and International Affairs at George Washington University’s Elliot School; Director, Project on Middle East Political Science (POMEPS) and one of my favorite middle east analysts.

He explains why previous US administration’s have held off on making this move. And, he puts this decision by Trump administration in the context of its broader policies towards the region. Lynch argues that Trump is making a high-stakes gamble with this Jerusalem gambit–the outcome of which is highly uncertain.

If you have 20 minutes and want to understand the broader implications of the US decision to declare Jerusalem the capitol of Israel, have a listen.

Agnès Marcaillou is the director of the United Nations Mine Action Service. This is the UN agency that helps clear mine fields, defuse IEDs and clean up unexploded ordinance around the world. It is the UN Bomb Squad. 

In this conversation, we discuss the problem of landmines and unexploded ordinance around the word, the work of UNMAS, and how funding shortages is preventing her agency from being maximally effective in places like Iraq, where UNMAS has received high praise for defusing a bomb-laden bridge in Fallujah to allow aid to enter the city following ISIS' defeat.  

Agnès has had a long career in the UN and I think younger professionals and students who listen to this show will find some inspiration in how Agnes was able to make a very big policy impact as a relatively junior UN staffer working on the Convention on the prohibition of chemical weapons in the late 1980s and early 1990s. 

Last month, I saw Agnès give an acceptance speech at the Global Leadership Awards, which is an event hosted by United Nations Foundation. The way in which she both described the work of UNMAS and her own long experience in the UN system compelled me to reach out to her for an interview. 

This is a great conversation with a true bureaucratic entrepreneur. 

Zimbabwe has had exactly one leader in its entire 37 year history as an independent country. That was, until November 14th Robert Mugabe was deposed in an apparent coup.

Over the last several weeks, ISIS has been systematically losing territory. Its last stronghold in Iraq, the city of Hawija, was liberated in early October. A few weeks later, ISIS' de-facto capitol in Raqaa, Syria fell to US-backed forces.

ISIS no longer controls any major city in the region.  

Peter Galbraith helped uncover and confront two genocides. As a staffer in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in the 1980s, Peter compiled evidence of Saddam Hussein’s genocide against the Kurdish people. Later, as the United States Ambassador to Croatia during the 1990s, he used his position to call for more forceful intervention on behalf of besieged populations in the Balkans. We discuss both these events, plus what it was like to be born the son of the 20th century’s most celebrated public intellectuals and liberal icons, John Kenneth Galbraith.

Peter recently wrote a piece in the New York Review of Books about how the Trump administration is approaching the Kurdish situation. In it, he discusses some recent events in Kurdish region, including the Iraqi governments decision to forcefully—and violently — respond to an independence referendum in the Kurdish region. This leads to an extended conversation that includes stories from Peter’s nearly 35 year engagement with Kurdish politics — I think you will agree its riveting and interesting stuff. we also discuss Peter’s time in the Balkans and the unique way he sought to draw attention to ongoing mass atrocities there.

Saudi Crown Price Mohammad bin Salman consolidated power in a pretty dramatic fashion by detaining would-be rivals and diminishing other power centers in the country. These moves coincided with an apparent rocket attack, launched from Yemen, toward the vicinity of an airport in Riyadh. That sparked a very dramatic decision by the Crown Prince to impose a total blockade of Yemen.

Donald Trump's approach to sovereignty is not unique in American history. There is a longstanding political tradition that seeks no compromise with the world and see's all interactions with allies and adversaries as zero sum. What is different is that no American President has held these views until now.

Stewart Patrick is author of the new book The Sovereignty Wars Reconciling America with the World. The book examines how debates about sovereignty in the United States shape American foreign policy, and also the liberal international order --that is the patchwork of treaties and agreements and institutions like the United Nations that help set the rules of international relations.  

If California were a country, it would be the sixth largest economy in the world. Its population is greater than countries like Poland and Canada. 

Farida Nabourema spoke from an undisclosed location in West Africa, out of fear for her personal safety. Farida is a prominent Togolese activist and these are very tense times in Togo. Several people were killed in protests in recent months amid a growing opposition movement that is calling for the re-instatement of presidential term limits. These term limits are guaranteed under the Togolese constitution, but nonetheless are being ignored by the regime.  

Safwan Masri set out with a simple question: of all the countries caught in the turmoil of the Arab Spring, how is it that Tunisia was the only country to successfully replace a long ruling despot with a more or less functioning democracy? His new book Tunisia: An Arab Anomaly takes a deep dive into that question, examining Tunisia's history, politics and, crucially some decades old educational reforms. 

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Alexis Okeowo is a staff writer for the New Yorker whose debut book was published earlier this month. The book,  A Moonless, Starless Sky: Ordinary Women and Men Fighting Extremism in Africa has been getting rave reviews --  rightfully so.

The book tells the story of subtle forms of resistance; how individuals, in their own way, are pushing back against injustice. In doing so, she shines a light on some important though often overlooked global stories, like slavery in the country of Mauritania or the plight former child soldiers in Uganda. 

Alexis traces her interest in these issues to her upbringing as an American born child of Nigerian immigrants to Montgomery, Alabama where Rosa Park's act of resistance ignited a civil rights movement. Alexis discusses her career in journalism, including some key stories she reported on like the Chibok School girls kidnapping in 2014.

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President Trump is widely expected to decertify the Iran Nuclear Deal.

People in Kurdish region of Iraq have voted overwhelmingly for independence in a popular referendum that took place in late September. No country in the region wanted this referendum to happen--and neither did the United States, with whom the Kurds have been a longtime ally. Soon after the results were announced, the Iraqi government and other countries in the region like Turkey and Iran threatened retaliatory measures.  

When Keith Harper was confirmed as President Obama's Ambassador to the Human Rights Council he became the first American-Indian to achieve the rank of Ambassador. The longtime attorney for native American rights soon put his knowledge of tribal culture to use in Geneva where he represented the United States on the top UN human rights body. 

Keith is a Cherokee Indian. He was born in San Francisco and from an early age was animated by a civil rights movement known as "Red Power." After law school he represented a number of Native Americans and Native American causes and this culminated in a billion dollar class action lawsuit against the federal government that he successfully litigated. 

We spend this first few minutes of this conversation discussing the work of the Human Rights Council, so let me give you a little bit of a background on it. This is a 47 member body in which each member state is elected by the entire UN membership to three year terms. Now, one of its flaws that critics sometimes point to is that some of the members of the council have pretty lousy human rights records themselves--and this is undoubtedly true. But the reason they get elected to is because the membership of the council is apportioned based on a UN principle known as equitable geographic representation. This means that a certain number of seats are reserved for a certain number of countries in each region. Now, there are more African countries than there are western European countries so it would stand to reason that Africa gets more seats. Now the problem arises when regions negotiate amongst themselves to nominate an equal number of candidates as there are seats so you get uncompetitive elections that result in countries like Burundi getting a seat.   

Now, that is one of they key flaws of the council. But despite it, Keith makes a compelling argument for why the United States should nonetheless stay engaged. And whether or not the US will remain a member of the council is very much in question by the Trump administration. Keith also discusses at length some tangible outcomes in the service of human rights that the council achieved while he was the US ambassador there. 

Apply for the Humanity in Action fellowship!

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The Trump administration this week announced sweeping new restrictions on travelers from eight countries:  Chad, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Somalia, Syria, Venezuela and Yemen

Days later, the administration formally established that the United States will take in no more than 45,000 refugees fleeing conflict around the world. This is a record-low cap on the number of refugees that the United States has ever resettled since 1980. To put this in context, the previous cap authorized by President Obama was 110,000.  

The travel ban and refugee cap are two separate policies, but they are related, at least politically, in the eyes of this administration.  

With the exception of Venezuela, in which only government officials are targeted, the travel ban prevents nearly any national from these countries from obtaining a visa to visit, live, study or work in the United States. According to my podcast guest Mark Hetfield, there is only one historic precedent for this: the 1882, the Chinese Exclusion Act, which was an explicitely racists law barring all Chinese migration to the United States

Hetfield is President of HIAS--a jewish non-profit organization that is one of nine American agencies that resettles refugees in the United States.

In this episode, Mark discusses the travel ban, its implications for people both in the United States and abroad and also his organization's new legal strategy to confront this travel ban. We also discuss at length this new refugee cap, which is an unprecedented abrogation of the traditional American approach to refugee admissions.  

Apply for the Humanity in Action fellowship!

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My guest today Meghan O'Sullivan is the author of the new book Windfall: How the new energy abundance upends global politics and strengthens American power. And we kick off our conversation with a discussion of the ways in which the natural gas boom in the united states is changing international diplomacy and geopolitics. It's fascinating stuff.

Meghan is the Kirkpatrick Professor of the Practice of International Affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School and has had a career in government and the think tank world. She served, for a time, as the deputy national security advisor for Iraq and Afghanistan during the Bush administration and she was one of the first American civilian officials on the ground in Baghdad after the city fell to US forces in 2003. We discuss these events and more--including being mentored by the late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan.

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Amid all the pageantry, hoopla and media circus that is UN week in New York there is always some interesting and substantive work being done on important global issues. Sometimes these issues are not on top of the agenda of world leaders (though they probably should be) and conversations around them do not get the kind of attention they deserve for one reason or another.

World leaders gather at the United Nations this week for the annual summit at the United Nations General Assembly. This is always one of the big highlights of the international diplomatic calendar and it will be all the more interesting this year for the fact that President Trump is making his UN debut.

So what should expect from Trump at UNGA? What are some of the big issues on the diplomatic agenda in New York this week? How much oxygen will the US President suck from the room? On the line to discuss these questions and more is Richard Gowen, fellow at the European Council.

We also discuss key issues — beyond Trump — that will drive the conversations this week, including the crises in North Korea and Myanmar, how Antonio Guterres his first UNGA as Secretary General and what to expect from Emmanuel Macron’s debut.

This is a useful preview of some of the key issues of substance and style that will drive the global conversation in New York this week. It will be useful to both UN-nerds and general international relations enthusiasts alike.

If you have 30 minutes and want get learn what this UNGA is all about, have a listen.

Can Trump and the United Nations Just Get Along? -- Richard Gowan  

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Nearly 400,000 ethnic Rohingya have fled Myanmar across the border to Bangladesh. By the time you listen to this, that number will almost surely be much higher. 

With Houston still reeling from Hurricane Harvey, Irma causing massive havoc in the Caribbean, and more storms on the way, I thought it would be timely and interesting to speak with my guest today, Maria Ivanova

Maria Ivanova is an academic who straddles the university and policy worlds to help think through the connections between human security, environmental stresses and global governance--that is, the mechanisms that the international community and beyond have designed to deal with environmental challenges.

In this conversation she helps put the onslaught of these hurricanes into a kind of broader global context that addresses how the international community might more productively organize itself to confront the realities of climate change.  

Maria is a Professor of Global Governance and Director of the Center for Governance and Sustainability at the John W. McCormack Graduate School of Policy and Global Studies at UMass Boston and a Visiting Scholar at the Climate CoLab at MIT.

She is also Ambassador for the New Shape Prize of the Global Challenges Foundation. This is a $5 million prize that will be awarded next year to "the best ideas that re-envision global governance for the 21st century." Toward the end of this conversation we discuss what exactly that means.  

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Helene Cooper is the Pentagon correspondent for the New York Times. She is also the author of the new book "Madame President: The extraordinary journey of Ellen Johnson Sirleaf" which is a biography of the Liberian president and nobel peace prize winner was was Africa's first female head of state. 

Poland is in the midst of a democratic backslide. The country's politics is dominated by the far right Law and Justice Party, which has embarked on a series of moves to curb the independence of the judiciary and free press. This has put Poland on a collision course with the European Union, of which it is a member. It has also earned the government the praise and support of Donald Trump--indeed Trump visited Poland this summer and delivered a rabble rousing speech appealing directly to right wing elements in Polish politics.

After receiving dozens of emails from podcast listeners asking for career advice, I decided to put together this special episode in which your questions are answered. On the line are Paul Stronski and Alanna Shaikh, two individuals who have had varied careers in world affairs. Paul is a senior fellow with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and Alanna is a consultant who has worked with several international development and global health organizations. They were on hand to answer questions from listeners who joined a virtual conference call, or emailed me ahead of time.

Topics covered include: how to pull off an early-to-mid career shift. How to pick the right grad school program; how to network; how to land that first job; and many other topics. 

Enjoy!

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Somalia is ground zero for an emerging trend in global affairs-- the nexus between climate change and conflict. My guest today, journalist Laura Heaton  spent years reporting on how climate change and conflict feed off each other in profoundly destabilizing ways in horn of Africa. 

Chris Blattman is a development economist who routinely conducts experiments to test ideas related to reducing poverty and improving the well being of people living in poorer countries. His latest experiment takes on the question of sweatshops--whether they are good for the poor, exploitative, or something else. 

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On July 17 a very rare thing happened in the world of humanitarian relief. Eight organizations that typically compete for donor dollars joined forces to launch a joint appeal to raise funds and awareness around a global food crisis.

Some 20 million people in four countries— South Sudan, Yemen, Nigeria and Somalia — face acute food scarcity. South Sudan even experienced a famine for a period of time this year. Facing funding shortages and relatively little popular awareness of this crisis, these NGOs formed that they are calling the Global Emergency Response Coalition.

On the line with me to discuss the reasons that this coalition formed is Deepmala Mahla, the country director for Mercy Corps in South Sudan. (Mercy Corps is one of the eight members of the coalition.) She explains the food crisis across these four countries and discusses at length the situation in South Sudan. Deepmala also describes in detail her work delivering humanitarian relief to vulnerable populations in South Sudan.

This is a valuable and timely conversation about an issue that is far too overlooked in the mainstream media.

On June 27th, FARC rebels turned over the last of their weapons to the United Nations in a ceremony attended by both the leader of FARC and President Juan Manuel Santos. This officially marked the end of a over 50 year civil war that killed hundreds of thousands and displaced millions more. 

Wendy Pearlman is an academic who studies the Middle East, but also writes popularly focused narratives that examines everyday life of people caught in the chaos of the region.Her latest book, We Crossed a Bridge and it Trembled: Voices from Syria, is a collection of interviews of Syrians displaced by the war. That book was published by Harper Collins in June, but she used some of the research in that book for peer reviewed academic papers, that among other things examine the role of fear in revolutionary protests. And in this conversation we alternate--much like Wendy-- between her social science work and her narrative storytelling. 

Eric Schwartz served as the top refugee policy official in the Obama administration as the Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees and Migration between 2009 and 2011. He was recently appointed the president of Refugees International, an advocacy organization in Washington, DC. We kick off this conversation discussing US refugee policy in the wake of President Trump's attempts to sharply curb the number or refugees allowed into the United States.  

My guest today Jeffrey Smith helps topple dictators for a living. His organization, Vanguard Africa, is very new but they already have one success under their belt--the peaceful transition of power from The Gambia's longtime ruler. He now has his sites set on Africa's second longest ruling leader, Paul Biya of Cameroon.

Marietje Schaake was under 30 years old when she first joined the European Parliament as a representative from the Netherlands in 2009. She candidly discusses the kinds of challenges she faced as a young woman navigating what was then--and still is--mostly and old mens club. 

Hans Binnendijk is a senior fellow at the Center for Transatlantic relations and a longtime DC foreign policy insider. He served in top posts in the Clinton administration, including in the National Security Council and he was the founding director of the Center for Technology and National Security Policy at National Defense University.