Global Dispatches -- World News That Matters (Global Dispatches)

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.

The ebola outbreak and its importation to the United States has unleashed a wave of panic in the United States that reveals the paucity of Americans' knowledge and understanding of Africa. I speak with Laura Seay of Colby College and the Washington Post who is one of America's premier Africanists. She discusses how ignorance breeds discrimination and policy responses that undermine the effort to contain the ebola outbreak in West Africa. Americans don't know much about Africa or African geography--and that is hurting the country's ability to stop ebola at its source.  

The UN Peacekeeping Mission in Cyprus  is one of the world's oldest peacekeeping missions. Yet to this day, it is still serving a valuable role in preventing conflict between Greece and Turkey -- two NATO allies. 

On the line to explain why this peacekeeping force is still needed after all these years is Peter Yeo, President of the Better World Campaign and Senior Vice President of the United Nations Foundation.  We kick off discussing the history of the mission before having a broader conversation of its still relevant work after all these years.  

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. 

Thomas Fuller was the longtime Southeast Asia correspondent for the New York Times. He's now based in San Francisco, but his last posting from the region caught my attention. Fuller describes a scene in which he is interviewing the leader of a protest in Thailand, when that leader is gunned down right in front of him. That experience leads him to his conclusion of the piece: a rampant culture of impunity is threatening the region's otherwise impressive gains.

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. 

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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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Over the past several months, North Korea has engaged in a series of provocative nuclear and missile tests. It conducted nuclear tests in January and then September of last year along with several ballistic missile tests. And in 2017 alone there have been no less than 5 missile launches, most recently on March 6, when North Korea launched four missiles which landed off the coast of Japan. 

In Madagascar thousands of people in the southern part of the country are experiencing famine-like conditions. Over a million more are considered to be on the brink of famine.

The crisis in Southern Madagascar is a direct consequence of climate change. This region has experienced successive droughts -- the rainy season is shorter, the lean season is longer and farmers are unable to plant their crops. This is widely considered to be the world's first climate-change induced famine. 

On the line with me to explain the link between climate change and the famine like conditions in Southern Madagascar is Mandipa Manchacha, human rights researcher at Amnesty international's souther Africa regional office.

We kick off with a discussion about Madagascar more broadly and the impact of climate change on the island before having a broader conversation about the brutal intersection of climate change and famine in Southern Madagascar.

On Wednesday May 17th, Ecuador's President Guillermo Lasso invoked a constitutional provision known as muerte cruzada, or "mutual death." The move dissolves the parliament and enables Lasso to rule by decree for six months when new elections are held.

This political upheaval comes at a time of surging violence in Ecuador, driven largely by gang violence related to cocaine trafficking. Joining me to discuss the political crisis in Ecuador, explain what is driving a surge in violence in the county -- and the connection between the Ecuador's politics and rising crime is Glaeldys Gonzalez a fellow for the Latin America and Carribbean program at the international crisis group. 

It was a year ago this week that the Iraqi city of Mosul--the second largest city in country--fell to ISIS. The loss of Mosul sparked a re-examination of US policy toward Iraq and ISIS. And just this week, the White House announced that it was sending over 400 military advisers to an Iraqi base that is on the front lines of the fight. On the line with me to discuss the evolution of US strategy to counter ISIS in Iraq is Dr. Steven Metz. He does a very good job articulating that the White House is betting on a strategy of containment--and that this is probably their best option even though they wont publicly admit as such. Metz describes what this strategy looks like; and identifies the big drawbacksof this strategy 

Metz is a columnist for World Politics Review, which is sponsoring this episode. The good people at World Politics Review are offering Global Dispatches Podcast listeners a two week free trial and then a 50% discount on an annual subscription. To redeem this offer go to about.worldpoliticsreview.com/dispatches.  

Turkish foreign policy is always a fascinating case study. As the sunni insurgency in Iraq is gaining steam, how are Turkish foreign policy elites responding? What are Turkey's near term strategic goals for Iraq and Syria? And how does this impact Turkey's sometimes hostile relationship to its Kurdish population? Mark speaks with professor Louis Fishman who answers these questions and more. 

Be sure to check out Prof. Fishman's blog, Istanbul-New York-Tel Aviv. 

Despite wide attention to the global refugee and migrant crisis, there has been little research of one key group that facilitates the movement of migrants: the smugglers themselves. 

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. 

Time Magazine named Ebola Fighters as their 2014 Persons of the Year. Mark spoke with one of these health care workers, Dr. Joia Mukherjee of Partners in Health, literally as she was en route to Sierra Leone. They discuss why ebola cases are on the decline in Liberia, but not seemingly in Sierra Leone; why the fear of ebola is still much deadlier than the disease itself; why we need to invoke human rights language into any discussion about health care disparities in poor countries; and what lessons the international community needs to draw from this outbreak. This was a powerful, informative and exceedingly timely conversation with an experienced frontline healthcare worker. 

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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China’s economy has been exhibiting troubling signs. Property prices are falling, making households less wealthy and curtailing consumer spending. High government debt, a declining population, and America’s policy moves are combining to pose Chinese policymakers a serious challenge. 

How is Beijing navigating the country’s economic slowdown? How will China’s struggles impact the global economy?

For answers, watch FP’s Ravi Agrawal in discussion with three experts: Economist Adam Posen; the Wall Street Journal’s chief China correspondent, Lingling Wei; and James Palmer, author of FP’s weekly China Brief newsletter. 

This episode is a special cross promotion for  FP Live, the flagship podcast from Foreign Policy Magazine, hosted by Foreign Policy Editor in Chief Ravi Agrawal. If you like Global Dispatches, you will certainly want to subscribe to FP Live. 

As listeners to Global Dispatches know, in many parts of the world war is a growing threat – or a harsh reality. But who are the peacemakers working to change this? 

This week, we are featuring an episode of The Mediator’s Studio podcast, which offers a glimpse into the normally hidden world of peace diplomacy. In this episode, one of the world's most distinguished conflict mediators, Lakhdar Brahimi, reflects on the hopes and failures of peacemaking in Afghanistan and his search for a peaceful solution to the war in Syria. 

If you are a regular listener to Global Dispatches you will no doubt benefit from subscribing to The Mediator’s Studio on any major podcast platform.  I've posted a link to the Mediator's Studio  in the show notes of this episode. And this absolutely fascinating conversation with a legendary diplomat will no doubt inspire you to subscribe to that podcast. So here is an episode of the Mediator's Studio featuring Lakhdar Brahimi. 

Link: The Mediator's Studio

Diego Garcia is a small Island in the dead center of the Indian Ocean that is part of the Chagos Archipelago. In the early 1970s, the United Kingdom, which controlled the Islands, leased Diego Garcia to the United States for use as a military base. However, in the process of transferring Diego Garcia to the US, the United Kingdom forcibly expelled the island's native population and that of the surrounding Chagos Archipelego.  Thousands of Chagossians were exiled from their homeland, most of whom were forced to Mauritius, which is over 2,000 kilometers away. 

The forced deportation of Chagossians was a crime against humanity committed 50 years ago. But only recently has it gotten its day in court. My guest today, Philippe Sands is a famed international lawyer who has taken on the cause of righting his historic wrong. His recent book "The Last Colony: A Tale of Exile Justice and Courage" tells the story of the Chagossian exile and the effort to secure justice for Chagos islanders. We kick off our conversation with a brief history of the Island before we discuss the series of legal victories in both British courts and the International Court of Justice in the Hague that has lead to final negotiations underway to support the return of Chagosians to their homeland. 

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

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.

At time of recording, there are two ongoing outbreaks of Marburg Virus Disease, one in Tanzania and the other in Equatorial Guinea. Marburg is in the same family of diseases as Ebola and is extremely deadly, with a case-to-fatality ratio of up to 88%. Humans can become infected through contact with fruit bats, and like ebola, Marburg is transmissible between humans through contact with bodily fluids. 

Joining me to discuss these outbreaks is Dele Ogunseitan, a professor of population, health and disease prevention at the University of California Irvine and a Visiting professor at Stanford University's Center for Innovation in Global Health. He also leads the training and empowerment objective for a USAID project called One Health Workforce Next Generation. 

We kick off discussing the history of Marburg before having a longer discussion about these two outbreaks and what can be done to stop Marburg from spreading further. 

A few months ago, the Canadian Conservative Party, led by Pierre Poilievre, was cruising toward a massive victory in the upcoming Canadian elections, with most polls showing him holding a 20-point lead over his Liberal Party opponent.

But what a difference an American election makes!

Since Trump’s musings about annexing Canada and his sweeping trade war against the country, polls have shifted decisively in favor of the Liberal Party, now led by Prime Minister Mark Carney. It seems Canadians are poised to soundly reject the so-called “Maple MAGA.”

With Canadian elections just a few weeks away on April 28th, I knew I wanted to speak with one of my favo(u)rite explainers of all things Canada: journalist Justin Ling. He’s written for numerous outlets, created some amazing podcasts, and is the author of the Bug-Eyed and Shameless newsletter here on Substack.

We spoke one day after Trump’s latest global tariff announcements, which hit Canada hard. In our conversation, Justin explains the current state of Canadian politics in the Trump era, and more broadly, how Trump’s moves against Canada are rallying Canadians in unexpected ways—sparking a surge of national pride and solidarity in defiance of the threat from their powerful neighbor to the south.

It’s a fascinating conversation that reveals how Trump’s bluster is reshaping Canadian politics in real time—and why this moment might mark a turning point for Canada’s political identity.

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 measles outbreak in the United States is an aberration. Since 2000, measles cases have declined substantially around the world thanks to a worldwide effort known as the Measles and Rubella Initiative. Its goal is to eliminate measles all together by 2020. But is that realistic? And what would that entail? Mark speaks with epidemiologist Dr. Rebecca Martin of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention who puts the US outbreak in a global context. She discusses why epidemiologists are so concerned about the American outbreak; what accounts for the overall decline globally; and what needs to be done to reach that 2020 target. 

Lisa Palmer is author of the new book Hot Hungry Planet: The Fight to Stop a Global Food Crisis in the Face of Climate Change. As the title suggests, the book examines the intersection of climate change, population growth and the politics of food all -- of which we discuss in this episode. 

Lisa is a journalist who writes for both popular and academic outlets. She's been covering climate change and environmental issues for many years and she discusses how her upbringing in an agrarian community informed her career path. 

We discuss how fighting food insecurity requires a very broad based approach that touches on politics, technology, women's empowerment and many, many other issues. 

You can EMAIL Mark by clicking here.

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Bonus episodes for premium subscribers include:

#1: International Relations Theory, explained.

#2: A Brief History of Nuclear Non-proliferation

#3: A Brief History of NATO

#4: The Syrian Civil War, explained. 

#5: Meet the Kim family of North Korea.

#6: Better Know Vladimir Putin

#7: The Six Day War, Explained. (Coming soon!)

#9: "Sustainable Development," explained (Coming soon!) 

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/

The United Nations General Assembly is always one of the most important weeks of the diplomatic calendar. Each day this week we are bringing you live coverage featuring the latest news and analysis from of UNGA, in partnership with the UN Foundation. 

Today's episode was recorded Wednesday afternoon, September 22.

Kate Dodson, vice president for global health at the United Nations Foundation explains the big outcomes from a major COVID Summit convened by the White House. Also, Panama Foreign Minister Erika Mouynes gives us a behind-the-scenes look at the work of a senior diplomat during UNGA. 

On Day One, Donald Trump froze nearly all U.S. foreign aid. On Day Eight, the State Department issued a stop-work order for USAID. This is causing massive ripple effects around the world.

USAID staff and contractors are being laid off in droves. HIV patients in several African countries are being turned away from clinics where they had long received crucial medicines. Humanitarian and development non-profits in the United States and across the globe that depend on contracts from USAID and the U.S. government are now wondering if they’ll be able to continue their work. Joining me to discuss the impact of this sudden curtailing of nearly all U.S. foreign assistance is Jeremy Konyndyk. He is a veteran humanitarian affairs official who led USAID’s response to the Ebola outbreak in West Africa during the Obama administration. Now, he leads Refugees International, an advocacy group. He is in a unique position to speak freely on this topic because the NGO he currently leads does not receive government funding—whereas other NGO leaders fear retribution if they speak out.

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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. 

An earthquake in Katmandu may become one of the terrible natural disasters of our era. 

In 2013, I spoke with Jo Scheuer of the United Nations Development Program. He is an expert in disaster risk reduction so I asked him what disaster scenario keeps him up at night? Without hesitating he said that an earthquake in Katmandu Valley could bring death and destruction even worse than the Haiti earthquake.  He was sure an earthquake would strike — and that the international community was racing the clock to prepare for it. He explained why that region is so vulnerable and what the UN, the local government and international NGOs were doing to mitigate the risk.

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. 

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. 

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International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors are going to play a critical role in any final deal with Iran. But who are these inspectors? What do they do? What can't they do? Mark speaks with former IAEA inspector Thomas Shea who offers a grounds-eye view of what a robust inspection regime looks like. Dr. Shea also puts the potential inspections of Iran's program in the broader context of the IAEA's history of its work on behalf of international peace and security. We don't yet know what the Iran nuclear deal might look like. But if a deal is struck, the IAEA will be the lynchpin that holds it all together. This episode gives you an excellent perspective of how these inspections actually work. 

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 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.

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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Rob Bailis is a senior scientist for the Stockholm Environment Institute. He is a leading researcher on the intersection between energy use, health and the environment in the developing world. This includes the use of household cooking appliances -- cookstoves -- and the impact of the kind of fuel used in cookstoves on human health and the environment.

Rob Balis contributed to new research, supported by the Clean Cooking Alliance that demonstrated how a transition away from burning biomass in cookstoves to using stoves powered by liquified petroleum gas or electricity would have a positive impact on combating climate change and sharply deaths and illnesses associated with dirty burning fuels.

We kick off discussing the health and climate impacts of dirty burning household cooking appliances before having a longer discussion about his research on the counter-intuitively positive impact that fossil fuels could have in supporting an energy transition around household cooking in the developing world.

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. 

There is a new ebola vaccine. And it works spectacularly well. A recent paper in the Lancet demonstrated of the 7,600 people in Guinea who received the vaccine, not one person contracted the virus. This 100% effectiveness rate is unheard of. 

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.

When Jina Moore was in Middle School she became intensely curious about the Holocaust, reading about everything she could on the subject. That curiosity improbably led a girl from a small town in West Virginia to become pen pals with the woman who hid Anne Frank. 

Benin is a geographically small country in West Africa, located between Nigeria and Togo. Since the 1990s Benin has earned a reputation as a strong and stable multiparty democracy.

However, that has all changed in recent years and Benin is in the midst of democratic backsliding ahead of elections in which opposition parties have been sidelined. 

On the line with me from Benin is Jose Biaou, the spokesperson for the Alliance Patriotic de Nouvelle Espoir --  The New Hope Patriotic Alliance.

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.

overran Kabul a few weeks prior.

Despite the apparent danger and uncertainty, Zuhra Bahman told me that she was eager to get back home and return to work as the Afghanistan country director for the peace building NGO Search for Common. Ground.

Today, she is back in Kabul, which is where I caught up with her for the conversation you are about to hear

And she kicks off explaining why and how she returned home.

We then have a long conversation about how she navigates her life and work as a professional woman in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, and how her work on peace building issues continues under the new political order in Afghanistan.

Yemen remains the worst humanitarian crisis in the world. More than 17 million are food insecure with over 150,000 people experiencing famine like conditions. In late March the heads of all the main UN humanitarian agencies said Yemen was “teetering on the edge of outright catastrophe.”

But after nearly eight years of war, the United Nations brokered a truce to coincide with Ramadan and last two months. So far, over two weeks in, this truce is holding. Can it lead to a broader peace agreement? 

On the line with me to explain how we got to this ceasefire agreement and what happens next is Annelle Sheline, a Research Fellow in the Middle East program at the Quincy Institute. 

Delegates from around the world are in Lima, Peru for the latest round of international climate talks, known as "COP20." The climate change conference is not getting a tremendous amount of media attention, but it's tremendously important. Mark speaks with Eliot Diringer of the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions about the big issues on the table, the big points of contention, and how these talks might move the needle towards an internationally binding climate accord. These talks are a big deal. Here's what you need to know about the diplomacy of it all. 

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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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.

Dan Byman was fresh out of school when he took a job as an analyst for the CIA. Byman was a generalist, and they put him on a backwater Persian gulf desk in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Then Saddam invaded Kuwait and the US led a massive military operation to evict the Iraqi army from Kuwait. His memos suddenly had an audience at the highest reaches of government. 

The scion of Ted Turner is forging a new philanthropic path, focusing on reproductive health and environmental issues. She talks to Mark Leon Goldberg about growing up a Turner, her focus on reproductive health issues, and how Captain Planet shaped a generation of environmentalists.  

Yemen has two rival central banks. These banks have their own priorities and fiscal policies -- and were set up, in part, to help defeat the other and control the Yemeni Rial. 

The result has been runaway inflation and food prices that are increasingly out of reach for ordinary Yemenis. 

Annelle Sheline of The Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft explains how Yemen came to have rival central banks and how this situation fits into the broader conflict in Yemen. 

The purchase caused a great deal of speculation that it was motivated by a desire to burnish the image of the Saudi ruler.  What is not speculation is that overnight Newcastle United  became the richest soccer team in the world.

On the line with me to explain the significance of Saudi Arabia's purchase of Newscastle United is Alex Ward, national security reporter at Politico and anchor of the National Security Daily newsletter.

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

This episode was recorded as a live taping of the podcast, produced in partnership with CGIAR, a global research partnership for a food-secure future dedicated to transforming food, land, and water systems in a climate crisis.

It is part of a series of episodes about the nexus between climate and security, and in our conversation today expert panelists discuss the multiple benefits of climate Adaptation for Peace Building and Human Security. The episode kicks off with some opening remarks from,

Cesare Scartozzi, Climate Finance and Peace Specialist, Senior research fellow, CGIAR/Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT

 I then moderate a panel discussion featuring :

Grazia Pacillo,   Senior Scientist and co-lead CGIAR FOCUS - Climate Security

Catherine Wong, Team Leader for Climate and Security Risk at the United Nations Development Programme

Helana de Jong is Senior Specialist for Fragility with the COP28 UAE Presidency

In March 2020, when countries around the world started imposing COVID-19 lockdowns Kashmir was just emerging from a lockdown of its own. Several months prior, in August 2019 the government of India revoked the special status that Kashmir had enjoyed since the partition of India in 1947. This sparked mass protests, violence and a heavy handed government response -- including curfews and an internet shutdown. 

But just as restrictions were slowly being lifted in the early part of 2020, COVID emerged and the Indian government opted to invoke COVID to impose new restrictions on the people of Kashmir. This includes new citizenship laws and restrictions on press freedom. 

My guest today, Adnan Bhat is a journalist in Kashmir who has documented how COVID-19 has served as a pretext to advance policies that abrogate the rights of people in Kashmir.  His article on this was published as part of the Stanley Center's "Red Flags or Resilience Series?" that uses journalism to explore the connections between the coronavirus pandemic and the factors for risk and resilience to mass violence and atrocities around the world.

This episode is produced in partnership with the Stanley Center. To view Adnan Bhat's article and other stories in this series please visit https://resilience.stanleycenter.org/

The Trump administration’s fight against DEI has come for the United Nations. In this episode of To Save Us From Hell, Anjali Dayal and Mark Leon Goldberg discuss what we are seeing unfold at the UN in terms of Trump’s push against inclusion and gender equity. These moves are already disrupting the regular order of business at the UN, and we explore what this portends for the organization moving forward, including potential impacts on a wide range of UN agencies, programs, and policies—from peacekeeping to the Sustainable Development Goals. Make no mistake: Trump’s crusade against DEI is coming for the UN. We explain what that means and how this anti-DEI agenda may manifest itself at the UN. Meanwhile, Trump’s pick for UN Ambassador, Elise Stefanik, is languishing in the Senate. For now, her confirmation appears to be on ice — and she may not get confirmed at all, despite having some support from Democrats!

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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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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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Marcy Hersh recently returned from a research trip to the Balkans, where she followed refugee women and girls as they made their way through Europe. Marcy is a senior advocacy officer with the women's refugee commission, and we kick off our conversation discussing what she witnessed on that trip and the broader struggles that are unique to female refugees around the world. 

Paul Niehaus is undertaking a radical experiment. His organization, Give Directly, wants to find out would happen if people living in extreme poverty were offered the guarantee of a basic income for ten to 15 years. They plan on launching an experiment in East Africa in which 6,000 people would be given, with no strings attached, enough money to pay for their basic needs over a long period of time. 

Claudia Sheinbaum will be the next President of Mexico. In national elections on June 2, the protégé of President López Obrador and former Mayor of Mexico City won a landslide victory, earning nearly 59% of the vote. She is a former climate scientist and will be the first woman and the first person of Jewish origin to lead the overwhelmingly Catholic country.

But beyond the presidency, there were over 20,000 positions at all levels of government up for election, and it was in these state and local elections that things turned violent. Very violent. This was by far the bloodiest election in Mexico's history, with over 30 candidates assassinated during the campaigning.

My guest today, Falko Ernst, is the senior analyst for Mexico at the International Crisis Group. As he explains, this election-related violence is a product of criminal gangs competing for control, influence, power, and wealth. We kick off by discussing Claudia Sheinbaum's background and her unique approach to violent crime as mayor of Mexico City. We then discuss the dynamics that led to violence in the lead-up to these elections and what can be done to disrupt criminal gangs' sway over local politics in Mexico.

Lauren Wolfe is an award winning journalist who covers sexual violence in conflict. She's the director of the Women Under Siege project, which is a journalistic endeavor founded by Gloria Steinem as part of the Women's Media Center to investigate how rape and gender based violence are used as tools of conflict. 

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 Associate Professor at the School of Applied 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.

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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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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Sarah Chayes was a reporter for NPR working in Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban. Then, in early 2002 she decided to give up her career in journalism to help rebuild the country. She joined the NGO world, eventually founding an Afghan based NGO. And during this time, while living in the former Taliban stronghold of Kandahar, she became an advisor to the top US generals in Afghanistan. 

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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Today’s episode is produced in partnership with the CGIAR Research Initiative on Fragility, Conflict, and Migration for a new series that examines what works to improve the well-being of people in Fragile and Conflict Affected Settings. CGIAR is a global partnership that unites international organizations engaged in research about food security. 

We are calling this series “From Fragility to Stability” 

In today's episode,  I host a roundtable discussion with three experts on the topic of Anticipatory Action— that is, how acting before a crisis hits can reduce impacts on the most vulnerable. You will hear from:

• Ms. Catalina Jaime, Head of Climate and Conflict | Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre, Colombia
• Dr Emmanuel Attoh, Researcher in Climate Adaptation | International Water Management Institute (IWMI), Sri Lanka
• Esraa Elgadi, Project Officer, Resurgence (TBC)

To learn more visit: https://www.globaldispatches.org/ 

UNGA week is here! Hundreds of world leaders are gathering in New York for the opening of the 79th United Nations General Assembly. This is always one of the most important moments in international diplomacy, and this week will be no different.

We have a special episode today. I kick off with some commentary about the stories I think will drive the agenda during UNGA78, including the Summit of the Future and the prospect of the UNGA unfolding in the context of a widening regional conflict in the Middle East. I also want to shine a spotlight on two important stories from New York this week that will probably not get the attention they deserve, but are nonetheless central to what UNGA is all about: achieving results for the betterment of humanity. To that end, I interview Dr. Ahmed Ogwell, Vice President of Global Health Strategy at the UN Foundation, who tells us what to expect from a high-level meeting on antimicrobial resistance. I then speak with Kerrlene Wills, Director for Ocean and Climate at the UN Foundation, who discusses a second key high-level meeting on sea-level rise.

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There is yet another crisis in the middle east. This week, Saudi Arabia and its close allies in the region moved against Qatar, cutting off sea and air travel and moving to isolate their fellow sunni Gulf country. 

We are nearly six months into the year and already 9 journalists have been killed in 2017, including 4 in Mexico alone. That figure comes from reporters without borders and is part of a larger data set that my guest Sabine Carey is collecting on the murders of journalists around the world.  Sabine is a political scientist at Mannheim University in Germany, and co-author with Anita Gohdes of a new study about the killing of journalists around the world. 

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Bonus episodes for premium subscribers include:

#1: International Relations Theory, explained.

#2: A Brief History of Nuclear Non-proliferation

#3: A Brief History of NATO

#4: The Syrian Civil War, explained. 

#5: Meet the Kim family of North Korea.

#6: Better Know Vladimir Putin

#7: The Six Day War, Explained. (Coming soon!)

#9: "Sustainable Development," explained (Coming soon!) 

There are a record number of cholera outbreaks around the world today.   Consider this data point. In 2022 alone, 29 countries have reported a cholera outbreak. This compares to 20 countries over the previous five years. The outbreaks are distributed across several regions: countries in the Caribbean, middle east, Africa, and Asia are experiencing cholera outbreaks -- some for the first time in decades.

Amidst all these concurrent outbreaks, there is a global shortage of cholera vaccines to the point that public health officials are suspending the the standard two-dose vaccination regimen in favor of just a single dose. 

In this episode, we speak with Louise Ivers, director of the Harvard global health institute, and the Massachusetts general hospital center for global health about why there a sudden surge in outbreaks worldwide, where are the outbreaks the worst, and what can be done about this vaccine shortage.

On his third day on office President Trump signed a memorandum re-instating what is known as the "Global Gag Rule" or sometimes alternatively as the "Mexico City Policy." This is a policy that Republican Presidents enact and Democratic presidents lift when they come to office. Simply put the rule places restrictions on NGOs that receive US government assistance about what they can say about abortion. 

The Central African Republic is far from the headlines these days, which is unfortunate. Things are bad, but there's a potential that the situation may improve in the coming weeks as the current African Union-led peacekeeping force is formally "re-hatted" as a United Nations peacekeeping force. Mark speaks with Evan Cinq-Mars of the Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect about the situation in CAR and what the transition to a UN Peacekeeping mission may mean for the people of this conflict-plagued country. 

Susan Benesch is the founding director of the Dangerous Speech Project. And in this role she has helped to create a set of guidelines that helps policy makers and observers deduce the conditions under which inflammatory public rhetoric crosses the line to become a catalyst for major violence. We kick off discussion what those criteria are have a broader conversation about the role of language in inspiring violence. 

Interpol is the International Criminal Police Organzation. It was established 100 years ago to facilitate the cross border cooperation of national police agencies.  Interpol is an international organization with very high name recognition, but few people have a decent understanding of how it works. 

As it happens, before I became a foreign policy journalist I did an internship at Interpol's headquarters in Lyon, France. And it is there that I caught up with my guest today, Interpol Secretary General Jurgen Stock. He is a former German police officer who is entering his tenth and final year as the Secretary General. In our conversation we discuss some broad trends in the transnational organized crime that he has witnessed in his tenure, and how Interpol is evolving to meet those challenges. We discuss how Interpol manages geopolitical friction and rivalries among its 195 member states, to stay true to its original mission of facilitating international police cooperation. 

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On Sunday May 23rd a Belarusian fighter jet intercepted a civilian Ryan Air flight and forced it land in Minsk, Belarus. Authorities promptly arrested a dissident journalist onboard and his girlfriend. 

Often described as "Europe's Last Dictator," this incident was an audacious example of the lengths that the regime of Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko would go to silence opposition voices and dissidents.

Guest: Sofya Orlosky, senior program manager for Europe and Eurasia at Freedom House.  

Alexander Ward ia national security reporter for POLITICO and author of the book "The Internationalists: The Fight to Restore American Foreign Policy After Trump." We discuss the implications of Mitch McConnell stepping down as the leader of the Senate Republicans and delve into the key themes and insights from Ward's important new book. We explore the concept of the "foreign policy for the middle class" and how it shaped the Biden administration's approach to foreign policy. Ward also examines the decision-making process behind the Afghanistan withdrawal and the administration's response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Our conversation sheds light on the acrimonious relationship between Biden and Zelensky, the President of Ukraine, and the challenges of navigating international crises. The episode concludes with a discussion on the ongoing Gaza crisis and the potential impact of Trumpism on future foreign policy decisions.

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

Sweden and Finland have both formally requested to become members of the NATO alliance. To admit new members to NATO requires the approval of all existing NATO members and so far, Turkey is objecting.

My guest today, Sibel Oktay, is associate professor at University of Illinois at Springfield and non-resident senior fellow at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. 

We kick off with a discussion about Turkey's specific grievances with Sweden and Finland and then have a broader conversation about how this dustup between Turkey and the rest of NATO fits into broader patterns in Turkish foreign policy. This includes a long discussion of Turkey's approach to Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

The United Kingdom plays host to a major conference this week intended to raise money and political support for the Syrian humanitarian disaster. There are now over 4.6 million Syrian refugees who have fled abroad, mostly to surrounding countries and 7.6 million people displaced inside the country. In all the UN estimates that there by the end of 2016, there will be 18 million people in need of some sort of humanitarian relief, thins like food aid, shelter, medicines.

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.