Global Dispatches -- World News That Matters

In mid-August a UN human rights body called the Committee for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination said that up to 1 million ethnic Uighurs in China were imprisoned in massive internment camps. Subsequent reporting in places like the Wall Street Journal offered a degree of confirmation that Uighurs were being rounded up, seemingly at random, and sent to "re-education" centers where they are forced to chant communist party slogans, study the speeches of Xi Jinping and also subjected to torture. Uighurs are a religious and linguistic minority in China. The majority practice a form of sunni Islam and most live in Xinjiang province in the far northwest of China. They have been the subject of discrimination for decades, but abuses against this community seem to be accelerating. On the line with me to discuss this situation is Sophie Richardson, the China Director for Human Rights Watch. She explains the methods by which the Chinese government is repressing this community, including mass internment at these so-called re-education centers. We also discuss the history of China's repression of ethnic minorities, including against Tibetans and finally, we discuss what the rest of the world can do to help protect vulnerable Uighurs.

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.

The Syrian war may be entering its final phase. Rebel fighters, from various factions, are now concentrated in Idlib, in northern Syria. Idlib is the place to which civilians and members of armed groups were permitted to escape as part of evacuation deals from places like Aleppo and Eastern Ghouta as they fell to government forces. Millions of displaced Syrians and some armed groups are now concentrated there. But now there is every indication that Syrian forces, backed by Russia, are preparing for battle. My guest today is trying to warn the world how disasterous such a battle would be for civilians caught in the crossfire. Jan Egeland is a senior advisor to the UN Special Envoy for Syria and heads the UN's humanitarian task force for Syria. As such, it is his job to negotiate access to besieged populations for relief workers and facilitate humanitarian relief in war zones. A battle over Idlib would be a bloodbath, he says, that could jeopardize the lives of 3 million people. In our conversation, Jan Egeland describes the significance of Idlib to the trajectory of the war , and the geopolitics underpinning a potential decision by the Syrians to lay siege to it. We also discuss what NGOs in Idlib are doing to prepare for a potential attack. Jan Egeland is a longtime humanitarian professional. He is current the head of the Norwegian Refugee Council and served as the top UN humanitarian relief official from 2003 to 2006. This meant he reported directly to Kofi Annan so we kick off with a brief conversation about the late Secretary General's legacy before discussing Syria at length.

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. The 2020 Commission Report on the North Korean Nuclear Attacks Against the United States by Jeffrey Lewis explains how this tragedy transpired. The book, of course, is fiction -- Jeffrey Lewis calls it a "speculative novel." But it is all too believable. nd that's because Jeffrey Lewis is a nuclear security expert who has spent decades studying the North Korean nuclear program. He is the director of the Center for Non Proliferation Studies at the Monterrey Institute and is a pioneer in open source intelligence gathering and geospatial analysis. He and his team famously identified the location of North Korean missile test sites using tools available to ordinary citizens. And 'm sure many you know him as the host of the excellent Arms Control Wonk podcast. But now, he has taken his hand at fiction -- and his book, which takes the perspective of a government report explaining the series of mistakes and miscalculations that lead to this nuclear attack, is one of the most vital international relations books of many years -- despite the fact that it's fiction. I suspect it will be standard on international relations syllabi. That is because the scenario he lays out is entirely plausible and the politics that enable this tragedy are very real. We discuss the plot at length, including the miscommunications, misperceptions and just plain mistakes that lead to the events of March 22 2020.

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. We kick off discussing the newest ebola outbreak in the DRC. This is a very alarming outbreak for the fact that it is occurring a region of the DRC that is very much a hot conflict zone. We then have a broader conversation about the challenge of strengthening health systems in poorer countries and we of course discuss the specific work of Seed Global Health to that end. Dr. Kerry came to national attention in 2004, when she introduced her father, John Kerry at the Democratic National Convention, and she describes how her interest in global health issues was sparked by a trip to Vietnam many years ago, with her father. If you are a global health and development nerd -- and I know many of you are -- I think you will very much appreciate this episode.

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 subsequent years, August 19th has been commemorated at the United Nations as World Humanitarian Day, in which the sacrifices of humanitarian workers are honored. This year marks the 15th anniversary of the attacks on the UN headquarters in Iraq, which ushered an era in which the United Nations, and humanitarian workers more broadly, are more and more often the targets of terrorist violence. On the line with me to discuss the 2003 bombing and its legacy today is Ambassador Elizabeth Cousens. She knew many of the victims of this attack, having worked with the UN in the middle east. She is a former top ranking official at the US mission to the United Nations and is now the deputy CEO of the United Nations Foundation. We kick off discussing her experiences the day of the bombing and have a broader conversation about how this terrible event forever changed how the UN operates around the world.

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. Al Qaeda was responsible for the attacks that killed over 200 people. To commemorate the 20th anniversary of these attacks, I invited Ambassador Lange on the show to share his experiences from that day and also reflect on how those attacks changed US diplomacy. Today, Ambassador Lange is a senior fellow for global health diplomacy at the United Nations Foundation. and he is a contributor, along with 40 other survivors of these attacks to a special commemorative issue of The Foreign Service Journal. The US embassy bombings were a pivotal moment for US diplomacy and world history. It was very much a pre-cursor to the September 11th attacks that drew the United States into conflict in Afghanistan that is ongoing to this day. And I want to thank Ambassador Lange for being so candid about his experiences and his reflections on the meaning of these attacks 20 years later.

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." The book is beautifully written-- it's a page turner and he really puts you in his shoes as he struggles to survive. In our conversation we discuss his capture and time in captivity, as well as broader issues surrounding piracy off the coast of Somalia. And one thing that does come through is that the gang that held Michael was part of an organized crime network whose business was kidnapping for ransom. The foot soldiers of this gang are far from what we might typically consider as "pirates." Become a premium subscriber!

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. David Kaye is the UN's special rapporteur for the freedom of expression and a law professor at UC Irvine, and in our conversation he explains how human rights principles can inform debates about how to approach "fake news," disinformation and online extremism all while maintaining a fidelity to the ideals of free speech. I'll a post a link to the report on global dispatches podcast.com and I really recommend people take a look at it because it is so unique. It examines policies in both more authoritarian countries and more liberal countries, as well as the disparate policies of social media platforms and is really the first global examiniation of this issue.

Ivan Duque won a run-off election on June 17th to become the next president of Colombia. Duque is a right of center politician who has been a sharp critic of the peace deal negotiated by president Juan Manuel Santos that ended a half century long conflict with the FARC rebels. Duque will be sworn in on August 7th, and that of course raises the question: what happens to this peace deal now that the president of Colombia is on the record opposing it. Can the deal survive? And what comes next for the country? On the line with me to answer these questions and more is Provash Budden, the America's regional director for the NGO Mercy Corps. We kick off discussing the unique political history of Ivan Duque and then have a longer conversation about what his election means for the peace accords.

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.

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. She's been beaten. She's been jailed. But nevertheless she persists. And as she tells me in our conversation what motivates her in this dangerous work is anger. And that anger stems from her own experience with sexual assault at the age of 15, when she was the victim of a gang rape. I met Sunitha Krishnan in June in Yerevan, Armenia where she was being recognized for her heroic work by the Aurora Humanitarian Initiative. She was one of three finalists for the 2018 Aurora Prize for Awakening Humanity. And though she did not end up winning that award, it went to a Rohingya human rights lawyer named Kyaw Hla Aung, her work in the slums of of India gained wider attention. Sunitha Krishnan is a true hero and it was an honor to get to know her.

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. On the line with me to discuss recent events in Nicaragua and explain why the country is facing its most profound crisis in decades is Jason Marczak, Director, Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center at the Atlantic Council. He explains the roots of the current crisis and offers some suggestions for how some key players in the region, including the United States, might use diplomacy to prevent this crisis from escalating further, All in all, this is a useful conversation about a crisis that is not getting the attention it deserves, but is one that could most certainly have big implications across the region--including the United States. Nicaragua is not currently a large source country of migrants and asylum seekers at the southern US border, but if things continue as is, Nicaraguans could start to flee in large numbers.

Parfait Onanga-Anyanga is the Special Representative of the Secretary General in the Central African Republic. This makes him the top UN official in CAR, which includes overseeing a UN Peacekeeping mission of over 14,000 personnel. That mission is known as MINUSCA and in recent weeks it has suffered a series of casualties as armed groups vie for control of the country's natural resources. The peacekeeping mission was first deployed in 2014 as part of an international effort to prevent CAR from sliding into deeper conflict that, at the time, experts warned could descent into genocide. Thanks in part to this international intervention, a genocide was averted, but much of the country remains unstable. The central government I caught up with the SRSG, as the position is known in UN lingo, just as he was leaving New York to return to the Central African Republic.

The World Health Organization estimates that around 7 million people die every year from the air they breathe. Air pollution is a major killer around the globe and one that disproportionately affects low and middle income countries. There are two kinds of air pollution. The first is called ambient air pollution, and that is basically the air we breathe when we are outside. The second is called household air pollution, and this is air pollution driven by the use of dirty burning stoves inside the home. The WHO recently released a report about the global burden of air pollution, and what communities around the world are doing to combat it. Here to discuss that report and the challenge of air pollution more broadly is Dr. Maria Neira, director of the department of public health, environment and social determinants of health at the WHO. We talk through some of the big data and root causes of air pollution and have a longer conversation about global and local strategies to improve air quality around the world.

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. In the late 1990s the two countries fought each other in a brutal war, and despite a peace agreement they have remained actively hostile to each other. But that seems to be changing. And quickly. 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 We discuss the roots of the conflict between Eritrea and Ethiopia, and why this easing of tensions appears to be happening now.

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. Mary Robinson and I have an extended conversation about what climate justice means and what it entails--and this was a concept, I admit, that I was unaware of until Mary Robinson began to champion it. We spoke a couple of weeks ago in Yerevan, Armenia, where Mary Robinson was serving as part of the jury pool to select the winner of this year's Aurora Prize for Awakening Humanity. This is an honor that was bestowed on a Rohingya human rights lawyer named Kyaw Hla Ang. And if you want to learn more about the Aurora Prize and the Aurora humanitarian initiative, i'd encourage you to visit AuroraPrize.org. And I should say, I'll have an interview with one of the finalists coming up in the next few weeks. Mary Robinson and I had a tight 15 minutes between panel sessions at the conference--and I was glad she made time for this interview. I think you'll like it.

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. This is inhumane, barbaric and as Kari Hong explains, not in compliance with both the laws and tradition around seeking asylum in the United States. She does a good job of putting this new family separation policy in the context and history of how the US has typically handled claims of asylum. And a little more than halfway through this conversation we get to what I think is the heart of the matter: that separating children from their parents at the border is designed to force parents to enter a guilty plea to a misdemeanor offense which cuts off their ability to claim asylum.

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. Throughout this fighting, which lasted for years, Tom Catena ran the Mother of Mercy Hospital. He saw thousands upon thousands of patients every year under the most difficult of circumstances. His hospital was bombed, his house was targeted, but Tom Catena never left. And he is still working there to this day. I caught up with Tom in Yerevan, Armenia where he was on hand to participate in events around the Aurora Prize for Awakening Humanity. Last year, Tom won this prize, which is conferred by the Aurora Humanitarian Initiative. This is a group established by Armenian and Armenian-American philanthropists in honor of the survivors of the Armenian genocide. The idea behind the prize is to honor individuals who are standing up for human rights, often without much recognition and in extremely difficult circumstances. The winner this year was a Rohignya human rights lawyer named Kyaw Hla Aung. I had the honor of participating in events around Yerevan last week and collecting some great interviews with fascinating people that I look forward to sharing with you in the coming weeks.

When I last spoke with my guest today, Kelsey Davenport, the saber rattling between Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un had reached a fever pitch. North Korea was launching nuclear and missile tests; the United States was undertaking aggressive military drills, with Donald Trump routinely threatening war via Twitter. Then this meeting in Singapore happened. Now things look much different, so I invited Kelsey Davenport back on the show to help explain the significance of this meeting and what we may expect next from this diplomatic opening between the United States and North Korea. Kelsey Davenport is the Director for Non Proliferation Policy at the Arms Control Association and a longtime analyst of the situation on the Korean Peninsula. She does a very good job explaining both what happened in Singapore -- beyond the optics. She also offers some helpful analysis to help us understand how this diplomatic process may shake out in the coming months. If you have 20 minutes and want to learn what comes next in high stakes diplomacy with North Korea then have a listen. Before we begin, I wanted to let you know that I have just released a new bonus episode of the show that is exclusively for premium subscribers to the podcast--these are the amazing people who make a monthly recurring contribution to the show via the Patreon platform. The bonus episode features Samantha Power and the activist John Prendergast, who was the co-founder of the Enough Project. I participated in a short but sweet press roundtable with them last week and decided to share with premium subscribers part of that conversation. You'll hear Samantha Power talk about examples of democratic renewal around the world in the context of democratic backsliding; and you'll hear John Prendergast address questions about being perceived as a "white savior." It was quite and interesting conversation and I am glad to be able to serve it to my premium subscribers, who really do help keep the lights on around there. If you want to become a premium subscriber to unlock this episode and other bonus episodes, and also receive a complimentary subscription to my daily email news clips service then please sign up. I'll post a link in the description field of the podcast and you can also find a link at GlobalDispatchesPodcast.com https://www.patreon.com/GlobalDispatches

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. The Global Challenges Foundation, which convened this, solicited new ideas for global governance and received several thousand ideas from all over the world. Of these submissions, 14 finalists were selected to present their ideas at the New Shape Forum. And then those of us invited to the conference all got down to work. We identified the ideas we thought we could help refine and spent two days building upon them. At the end of the conference, three of those 14 ideas were selected as winners, and the winning ideas got $600,000 each. My guest today, Natalie Samarsinghe is one of those winners. She is the executive director of the United Nations Association of the United Kingdom--though she wants to stress that this episode was recorded in her personal capacity, as was the idea she submitted. She came up with a proposal for a novel kind of UN Reform -- not a reform of the Security Council, or the General Assembly. Rather, it is a proposal for how UN agencies can better design and implement programs and projects around the world. You can find the other two winning ideas and other finalists at Global Challenges.org This episode is presented by the Global Challenges Foundation, which recently convened the New Shape Forum in Stockholm. This was a platform where over 200 leading thinkers and experts discussed fresh ideas for improving global governance to tackle the world's most pressing problems. Next, the Global Challenges Foundation is partnering with the Paris Peace Forum in November to present further developed and more holistic ideas for confronting global catastrophic risks. Visit GlobalChallenges.org to learn more.

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. We kick off discussing the situation in the Sahel, where food security conditions are rapidly deteriorating because of a combination of lower than normal rainfall and insurgent activities. Beasley describes the situation there, and also the link between food security and extremism. We then discuss a trip he took to North Korea a few weeks ago, including his overall impressions of food availability in North Korea and how nuclear diplomacy with North Korea may impact the humanitarian situation there. David Beasley took over as executive director of the WFP one year ago. He's a former politician who previously served as Governor of the state of South Carolina.

Amy Israel is the global health thought leadership and policy director for the health and pharmaceutical company, Lilly. In that role, she's recently launched a new pilot project to combat high rates of diabetes in three neigbourhoods of the city of Indianapolis, Indiana. But this is a global health story, because the pilot project is using a model for health intervention that was pioneered in the developing world. This is often called the community health worker model, and global health nerds will be familiar with its basic outlines. But in short, it is the idea of training people of the community to be first points of contact between their neighbors and the health care system. In our conversation, Amy discusses how the pilot project will work with three poorer neighborhoods of Indianapolis, where rates of diabetes are exponentially higher than in wealthier parts of the city and state. We discuss the link between diabetes and poverty and also, more broadly, how health ideas created in the developing world are being applied here in the United States.

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. By the last week of May, there a have been over 20 deaths linked to this outbreak and over 50 suspected cases. But by the time you are listening to this that will inevitably change. So what I wanted to do with this episode is to offer you some broader context for understanding this particular outbreak and also explore how the international response to this outbreak is so profoundly different from the response back in 2014. I could have no better person discuss outbreak than my guest today Laurie Garret. She is a global health expert, pulitzer prize winning journalist and former fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. We kick off discussing the origins of this new outbreak. We then have a longer conversation examining how the response to this outbreak is so profoundly different than the devastating outbreak in West Africa four years ago. This conversation, I think provides you important context for understanding this ongoing emergency in the DRC and how it may evolve.

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.

For this episode, I wanted to explore a different way to understand the crisis in Yemen. Yemen has two main ports, Hodeidah to the north, on the Red Sea and Aden to the south, on the Gulf of Aden. Of these two ports, Hodeidah is by far the bigger one. But Hodeidah is under the control of forces aligned with the Houthi rebels. Aden is controlled by forces aligned with the internationally recognized government of Yemen -- a government that is militarily backed by a Saudi-led coalition. Both the politics and the basic logistics of getting goods into these two ports offers key insights into the dynamics of the conflict in Yemen and why Yemen is experiencing such a profound humanitarian crisis--indeed it is one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world. My guest today, Scott Paul is the humanitarian policy lead at Oxfam America. He recently returned from a fact finding trip to the Port of Aden and some of its surrounding towns. He wrote about that experience in a piece on the website Just Security, which I will post a link to on the website.

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. That incident along the border fence was part of a broader Palestinian protest movement that has gained steam in recent months. The movement is known as the Great Return March. In it, Gazan protesters approach and seek to breach the border fence that separates Gaza from Israel -- ostensibly to return to lands that were expropriated by Israel during the country's founding as a jewish state. Clashes have ensued, including the shooting deaths of Palestinians by Israeli soldiers. On the line with me to help put this latest protest movement in context is Yousef Munuyyer. Yousef brings a unique perspective to this issue. He is the executive director of the US Campaign Palestinian rights. He is also and Israeli citizen, and American citizen and a Palestinian. Yousef explains why this protest movement is unique and resonates deeply beyond Gaza. We also discuss the complex issue of the the "Right to Return" before turning to a conversation about how the Israel-Palestine issue is interpreted through domestic American politics. This conversation is a helpful explanation of what these Gaza protests are all about--and how they may evolve.

No journalist covered the ins and outs of the negotiations over the Iran nuclear deal as closely as Laura Rozen. She is a reporter with the middle east news website Al Monitor and in the negotiations that lead up to the July 2015 deal, her reporting and high volume Twitter feed were an essential resource to anyone wanted to know the pulse of these negotiations. Now that the pulse may be turning to a flatline after Donald Trump's announcement that the United States is withdrawing from the nuclear deal, I wanted to reach out to Laura to get a sense of what happened and what comes next? In this conversation we discuss the demise of the JCPOA, how Iran and Europe are reacting to this development and how diplomacy on this issue may evolve. This was not terribly unsurprising that the Trump administration would pull out of the agreement. But it is still a shock to the international system for reasons that Laura and I discuss.

Dr. Tom Frieden lead the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from 2009 to 2017. He now has a new role: President and CEO of Resolve to Save Lives, an initiative of Vital Strategies. And in this role he has an audacious goal: to save 100 million lives. In our conversation, Dr. Frieden explains why he believes that he can achieve that goal by focusing on two health issues: cardiovascular disease in the developing work and shoring up our global defenses against pandemics. To those ends, he has some major backers including the Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and Bloomberg Philanthropies. In this episode, Dr. Frieden discusses these two issues in depth and some strategies his organization is using to confront them. He also explains why, of all the issues in global health, he chose to focus on these two.

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. Xi Jingping has consolidated power in a fairly unprecedented way, and as Elizabeth Economy explains he is fundamentally shifting China's domestic and foreign policies. We spend the bulk of our conversation focusing on Chinese foreign policy, including China's massive foreign development program called the Belt and Road initiative, it's attempt to create an ostensible rival to the World Bank and its assertive policies in the South China Sea. This is a great conversation about a newly emerging force in international affairs.

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.

Latin America is experiencing its worst-ever refugee crisis. By most estimates, several thousands of Venezuelans are fleeing the country every single day. In recent weeks the pace and scale of this refugee crisis has sharply increased. There is no end in sight. My guest today, Andrei Serbin Pont, explains why Venezuelans are leaving their country in such profound numbers. He is the research director of the regional think tank Cries and recently undertook a study of the Venezuelan refugee crisis with the Stanley Foundation As Andrei explains, most of these refugees are fleeing to Colombia and Brazil and those countries are having a difficult time handling the influx. Still, many are fleeing elsewhere, including to nearby Caribbean Islands which have virtually no capacity to handle a sharp increase in population. The bottom line is that this is becoming a very intense regional crisis and it is accelerating. Support the show by becoming a premium subscriber

We are in a period of profound domestic turmoil here in the United States. I clearly don't need to run down the list of everything out of the ordinary that is happening in DC -- you know full well this is not normal. But I am curious to learn how some of America's longstanding allies in Europe are interpreting this unique moment of US history and I was also curious to learn how diplomacy with the United States has changed over the last year and half since Trump took office. So, I could not think of anyone better to whom I should put some of these questions than Klaus Scharioth. He is a veteran German diplomat, having served in the ministry of foreign affairs since the 1970s. He was the German ambassador to the United States from 2006 to 2011, so spanning both the Bush and Obama administrations. He is now a professor of practice at the fletcher school at Tufts University. The Ambassador is also a member of the board of directors of Humanity in Action-Germany. We kick off with a conversation about the ways in which the day-to-day practice of diplomacy with the United States has changed since Trump took office. We then have a wider discussion about the evolving nature of transatlantic relations and how the fundamental worldview of Europe is clashing with that of the Trump administration. I recorded the conversation a couple of days ago and one thing that has stuck with me about our conversation was the Ambassador's emphasizing that America's capacity for self-correction is among its most widely admired attributes in Europe. Support the show!

Suzanne DiMaggio specializes in what is called Track Two diplomacy with countries that have limited or no diplomatic relations with the United Stats. In practice, this has meant that she's spent countless hours over the last nearly twenty years in meetings with North Koreans and Iranians and those encounters have lead to some major diplomatic breakthroughs. We kick off defining our terms. She explains what Track Two diplomacy means, as opposed to, say "back channel" diplomacy. We then preview an upcoming major summit between the Kim Jong UN and South Korean president Moon Jae-in. And that meeting, of course, will lay the groundwork for the Trump-Kim meeting, which we discuss in detail. As diplomacy with North Korea intensifies in the coming months, Suzanne DiMaggio is someone you will see quoted often on TV and radio and so I also wanted to use our conversation to learn how she first got involved with this kind of unique diplomatic endeavor. She has some great stories to tell.

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. Erin Banco is an investigative reporter at the Star Ledger in New Jersey, where she covers the intersection of money and government. She has reported from the middle east for years and puts her investigative skills to use by examining documents and cultivating sources who explain the sordid tale of corruption surrounding Iraq's oil wealth, particularly in the Kurdish region. Iraq sits on the world's fifth largest oil reserves, but oil wealth has not trickled down to the Iraqi people. Erin Banco explains why.

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. In 2005 he wont he Pulitzer for his book Ghost Wars, which examines the secret history of the CIA in Afghanistan from the Soviet invasion to right before the September 11 attacks. It is the foundational text that provides the history and context for understanding America's involvement in Afghanistan in the era leading up to the September 11 attacks. It took DC by storm when it was published and its basically a canonical text. Needless to say, official Washington and beyond was eagerly anticipating his sequel to Ghost Wars, which was published just a few weeks ago. The book, Directorate S: The CIA and America's Secret Wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan picks up where Ghost Wars leaves off, spanning from the September 11th attacks to the first few months of the Trump administration. We kick off with an extended discussion of these two books and what went so wrong for the United States in Afghanistan. We then discuss his own life and career as a journalist, including how an accident of assignment lead him to South Asia at a very critical time. Links: Ghost Wars Directorate S Support the show!

A few weeks ago I was having lunch with a former high ranking US diplomat whose work focused on Russia and Europe. I asked him where he thought Vladimir Putin might target next to sow instability and without missing a beat he said: Bosnia. A scattering of recent think tank and press reports offer some insights into Russian meddling in Bosnia. It is an extremely under-covered global story, but one that has the potential to cause unrest not only in the Balkans, but across Europe. On the line with me to discuss this situation is Michael Carpenter. He is a former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Russia, Eastern Europe and the Balkans and is now Senior Director for Diplomacy and Global Engagement at the Penn Biden Center Carpenter explains some of the motivations driving Vladimir Putin -- above all, he describes how fomenting unrest in Bosnia is Putin's best insurance policy against perceived threats by the West. Bosnia, as Carpenter puts it, is the soft underbelly of Europe that is ripe for exploitation. If you have 20 minutes and want to learn the implications of Russian meddling in Bosnia for all of Europe, have a listen. Links: Support the Show Leave a review!

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. Links: http://worldwithouthate.org/ Support the Show Leave a review! "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. Links: Become a premium subscriber Leave a review!

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. Links: Become a premium subscriber Leave a review! 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. Links Global Challenges Foundation Become a Premium Subscriber

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. The conflict came to Maggy's town on October 24th 1993. At the time, Maggy was working as a secretary in the local catholic diocese in her hometown of Ruyigi, Burundi. What happened was an act of unspeakable cruelty and I am going to read directly the description of events from the website of Maison Shalom. "In the autumn of 1993, an atmosphere of uneasiness had settled over the country. In Ruyigi, disaster struck on 24 October. To exact vengeance for the killing of members of their ethnic group, the Tutsi hunted the town's Hutus, who were hiding in the diocese buildings. Maggy was also there. She tried to reason with the group of Tutsi driven mad by hatred. She tried to convince them not to use violence. Her efforts were in vain. To punish her for what they considered a betrayal on the part of a Tutsi "sister", they decided to strip her and tie her to a chair. They forced her to remain in that position and watch as they first set fire to the diocese building to force those hiding there to come out, then as they mercilessly hacked her friends to death with machetes." As Maggy tells me, it was this experience that lead her to create an oasis of peace and hope in the midst of such conflict and tumult. Maison Shalom has served tens of thousands of children since its founding. Unfortunately, Maggy today lives as a refugee in Rwanda. She was forced to flee the country after she spoke out against an illegal power-grab by the country's president. But even from Rwanda, Maggy is continuing her mission and has established a Maison Shalom to serve refugees and others in Rwanda. For her work, Maggy was awarded the Aurora Prize for Awakening Humanity, which is a $1 million prize awarded to individuals who commit extraordinary acts of humanity. The prize is awarded by the Aurora Humanitarian Initiative, which was founded by the decedents of the survivors of the Armenian Genocide and a few weeks ago I published my conversation with Noubar Afeyan who is one of the co-founders of this initiative.

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. I was just getting my head around that news and its broader implications when, of course, the firing-by-tweet occurred. Fortunately for all of us, I had on my schedule an interview with Uri Friedman, a staff writer at the Atlantic who covers global affairs and US foreign policy. He has written extensively about US diplomacy and North Korea and in this episode he and I just talk through this news. I think you will find this conversation useful. I know I did. I learned some interesting things about Pompeo's background and also the implications of having a Secretary of State who, unlike Rex Tillerson, is personally close and more on the same page as the President. Uri recently published an article on Pompeo and North Korea, which we reference in this conversation and I'll post a link to that on the website. Remember to leave a review of the podcast, my people! I'll mail you a sticker in return!

Joseph Kaifala was just a child when civil war broke out in Liberia and Sierra Leone. The war came to his town in 1989 and as a seven-year-old was imprisoned with his father. They were eventually released and Joseph and his family spent much of the next decade on the run from a brutal civil war that seemed to follow them everywhere. Kaifala recently published a memoir of these experiences titled Adamalui: A Survivor's Journey from Civil Wars in Africa to Life in America. He is also the subject of a documentary film titled Retracing Jeneba: The Story of a Witness, which is poised to debut at film festivals. Joseph Kaifala is a Humanity in Action Senior Fellow and the story of how he went from that prison in Liberia to this prestigious fellowship, and then onto law school in the United States is truly extraordinary. We kick off discussing an NGO he started long with another Humanity in Action Senior Fellow Liat Krawczyk called The Jeneba Project. This is an organization dedicated to providing high quality education for children in Sierra Leone. Liat Krawczyk is also the co-director and co-executive producer of the documentary film, along with Anthony Mancilla. This is a very powerful episode. We discuss Joseph's unique personal journey and have digressions about the causes and effects of the civil wars in Sierra Leone and Liberia.

As the United States enters its next election cycle, our democracy is still extremely vulnerable to disinformation campaigns from Russia. Other democracies, particularly in Europe, are also vulnerable to this kind of threat and, indeed, have also been the target of Russian meddling. A new report from The Atlantic Council identifies some concrete ways that the United States and Europe can better protect themselves against propaganda, disinformation, and election related hacking. On the line with me to discuss this report and its findings is one of the report's co-authors, Ambassador Daniel Fried. He was a longtime US diplomatic who's career largely focused Russia and central and eastern Europe. The report was co-authored by Alina Polyakova of the Brookings Institute The report provides a useful heuristic for understanding the problem: it breaks down and categorizes the various kinds of election meddling we've seen thus far. Also what makes this report unique is that the authors' propose that countering this kind of election meddling can be a platform for transatlantic cooperation; that is, in response to this Russian meddling Europe and the United States have an opportunity to form a new kind of strategic alliance. It can be a catalyst for cooperation.