Global Dispatches -- World News That Matters

If you follow the Middle East at all, you've probably read the works of my guest today, Marc Lynch. Marc publishes widely and in a wide variety of mediums. He's got a high volume Twitter feed under the handle @AbuAardvark and writes regularly for the Monkey Cage blog at the Washington Post. He is a professor of political science and international affairs at George Washington University, and the founder and director of the Project on Middle East Political Science among other affiliations. He is someone whose work I have learned from and followed for several years We spend about the first 20 minutes or so talking about his new book, The New Arab Wars: Anarchy and Uprising in the Middle East, which explores the Arab Spring and its fallout through the prism of international relations and regional politics. Marc discusses how he became interested in the middle east through an internship early in college, and the evolving nature of one of his key research subjects over his career, the relationship between media and politics in the Middle East. And of course, stick around until the end for his musings on how international relations theory can explain rivalries in hip hop.

The Gambia is a tiny country in western Africa. It's a narrow sliver on the ocean, surrounded by Senegal. It has a population of under 2 million, and according to my guest today, Jeffrey Smith, it is the worst dictatorship you have never heard of. Smith is a human rights researcher, now a consultant to human rights activists in Africa through his firm Vanguard Africa. In this conversation he describes the politics of repression in Gambia and how the deteriorating situation there is having profound regional, and even global consequences. Indeed, I was surprised to learn that The Gambia as small as it is, is actually a major source of refugees crossing the Mediterranean to Europe. We also discuss a foiled coup plot that was planned in the United States by Gambian-Americans. The Gambia is obviously not much in international headlines so I was glad to be able to shine a spotlight on this really under covered story. Even if you have barely heard of the Gambia or if you follow African politics closely, I think you will appreciate this conversation.

In her new book The Fires of Spring my guest today Shelly Culbertson travels to six countries in the Middle East and North Africa to describe for readers how each of these countries are managing the political, economic and social challenges of the post Arab Spring era. Through interviews and drawing on her own expertise as a longtime analyst, Culbertson explains why some countries in the region managed to muddle through the Arab Spring, some collapsed under pressure, and how at least on may have emerged stronger. Culbertson has had a career in government and is now with the Rand Corporation, where she specializes in education and development in the Middle East. We discuss her interesting career path and some of the fascinating stories from her book and travels throughout the middle east. If you are interested in comparative politics and the Middle East, you'll love this conversation. I certainly learned a lot from her and the book is a great resource.

Over the past week, a number of scientists and bio-ethicists expressed deep concern that holding the Olympics this summer in Rio de Janeiro could enable the Zika virus to spread far and wide. I caught up with one of the world's leading experts on Zika, Dr. Peter Hotez and put the question to him. Dr. Hotez has a lot of credentials. Among other affiliations, he is dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of medicine, where he is also a professor of pediatrics and molecular & virology and microbiology, and president of the Sabin Vaccine Institute. He describes why these fears are overblown and unfounded. Instead, he argues that we should really be focusing our attention on the spread of Zika to the Caribbean and Southern United states. In this conversation, Dr. Hotez explains to us laypeople why Rio is actually no longer a hotbed for Zika. (It's science, but it's easily understandable). He also explains why dithering in congress over providing funding for mosquito control could have potentially catastrophic consequences for people living in the Gulf of Mexico.

Venezuela is on a rapid and precipitous decline. You might even say, as my guest today Francisco Toro wrote in a recent piece in the Atlantic that Venezuela is falling apart. Between food, fuel, medicine and commodity shortages, corruption and rampant crime, this one-time middle income country is struggling mightily. There's an incipient humanitarian crisis and instability of Valenzuela could effect the entire region. Fransisco Toro is the proprietor of the blog Caracas Chronicles and co-authored the Atlantic piece, with Moises Naim, who many of you probably know and was a guest on this very show last year. The piece very succinctly describes the causes and consequences of Venezuela's collapse and begins with an very telling anecdote about toilet paper.

Jennifer Harris has devoted much of her career to studying what she calls "geo-economics," -- the ability of countries to shape world politics, diplomacy, and global affairs more broadly through the deployment of economic means. She's a Council on Foreign Relations Fellow and co-author, with Robert Blackwill, of the new book War By Other Means: Geoeconomics and Statecraft. Jennifer grew up near an artillery range in Oklahoma and became fascinated with economics from a young age. She was a Rhodes Scholar and worked in the State Department under both Condoleeza Rice and Hillary Clinton. And it was working in the Clinton State Department that Jennifer lead the development of Secretary Clinton's Economics and Statecraft agenda, which was rolled out in 2011. And towards the end of the interview we discuss what it was like working with Hillary Clinton, who more likely than not will be the next US president. And we also have an illuminating conversation about the bureaucratic politics that goes into crafting a new kind of foreign policy agenda.

Senator Chris Murphy wants to change a bedrock relationship in US foreign policy. In April this year he introduced legislation to restrict arms sales to Saudi Arabia over that country's conduct in the war in Yemen. The Saudi-led air campaign is both causing inordinate civilian casualties in Yemen and not doing much to counter the active ISIS or Al Qaeda branches in the country. Senator Murphy discusses how this legislation hopes to reign in Saudi Arabia's military campaign, which in the view of Senator Murphy is becoming increasingly inimical to American interests. Our discussion of Yemen leads to an extended conversation about the US-Saudi alliance, the terms of which Murphy is very transparently trying to change from his perch in the Senate. We recorded this conversation before the US Senate voted, unanimously, on May 17th, to enable the family members of 9-11 victims to possibly sue the kingdom of Saudi Arabia for any potential liability they may hold--a move which was opposed by the White House. But I do think this conversation helps set the context for that vote. Senator Murphy is a Connecticut Democrat on the progressive end of the spectrum, who has launched a website, chanceforpeace.org in which he's attempting to fundamentally shift the terms of the national security conversation in DC. The Saudi arms sales legislation seems to be one manifestation of his foreign policy vision. Foreign policy watchers will be interested in hearing Senator Murphy's critique of US middle east policy. And for international relations students out there, this conversation offers a fascinating insight into how individual legislatures can influence US foreign policy.

Calestous Juma is a prolific author who focuses on the intersection of society, science and international development. He is a professor and director of the Science, Technology and Globalization project at the Belfer Center for Science and International affairs at Harvard. Calestous grew up in flood prone village on the shores of Lake Victoria in Kenya and in this episode he describes how his upbringing inspired his interest in understanding the relationship between nature, economic development, and technological change. We kick off discussing his forthcoming book, out in July, titled Innovation and Its Enemies: Why People Resist New Technologies--which includes, among other things, a fascinating discussion about what this history of margarine can teach us about the future of global development. This conversation was a delight, Calestous tells some great stories and offers some intriguing insights about trends in global development. And if you are not already, you should definitely follow him on twitter @Calestous. And I'm @MarkLGoldberg.

The international humanitarian system is stretched beyond capacity. In fact, it's fair to say it is broken. The inability of the international community to confront multiple manmade and natural disasters, like the crisis in Syria, Iraq, South Sudan, ebola in west Africa and the earthquake in Nepal is a profound contributor to insecurity around the world.There are more people displaced around the world than there has been at any time since World War Two; donors are not committing enough money to provide for the basic needs of people affected by sudden crises, and the international community is not doing a sufficient job of preventing the outbreak of conflict, ending current conflicts, or mitigating the effects of natural disasters. These failures and proposed solutions to these ongoing challenges are the subject of the first ever World Humanitarian Summit, which kicks off in Istanbul in mid May. This is a UN backed affair, which includes participation of member states, civil society and the private sector. And one participant is on the line with me today to discuss some of the problems and solutions that this conference hopes to address. Shannon Scribner is Oxfam America's Humanitarian Policy Manager, and in this conversation she offers an insightful preview of what to expect from this conference, some of the more controversial debates about the role of humanitarian relief and international development that this conference has already sparked, and how a first-ever world humanitarian summit can help mend a broken humanitarian system.

I caught up with my guest today, The US Secretary of Agriculture, Tom Vilsack just after he left the stage at the Climate Action Conference in DC. This was a two day UN backed conference with representatives from local and national governments, the business sector, civil society, NGOs and philanthropies gathered to discuss strategies to implement the Paris Agreement. Some quick background: the cornerstone of the Paris Climate Agreement are a set of commitments by each government to take certain actions or meet specific goals, and taken together these pledges can meaningfully alter the current climate change trajectory. That is, of course, if these commitments and pledges are actually implemented. And the point of this conference was to bring together stakeholders from disparate sectors to make the commitments of the Paris Accord a reality. Enter the US Secretary of Agriculture, Tom Vilsack. He details the specific actions that USDA is taking to implement the US government's commitments at Paris. And those are technically pretty interesting, but what I found enlightening in his comments is that it suggests there is a bureaucratic shift underway at USDA to mainstream climate imperatives throughout the department. This shift at USDA is likely one manifestation of a trend we are seeing throughout the US government in which the imperatives of confronting climate change are being mainstreamed throughout the whole of government. It's not just the EPA or department of energy or interior. Rather, every branch of government is taking this on in their own differentiated way. And that is, I think, a pretty interesting shift that we are living through.

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. The idea they seek to test is called the Universal Basic Income. There are some communities around the world that offer this in some form, but never before has this idea been tested over an extended period of time in the developing world. Give Directly announced this new experiment a few weeks ago and it's caught the attention of the international development community and those of us in the media who follow these things. Paul explains what they hope to accomplish with this experiment, how it will actually work, and what implications it has for the global effort to combat extreme poverty.

Tom Nagorski is a longtime TV editor reporter and producer for ABC news and is currently an executive vice president at the Asia Society. Tom's career as a journalist spans some of the major world events of the last three decades, including the dissolution of the Soviet Union and its aftermath, the first Gulf War, the war in the Balkans, Somalia, the second Gulf War, and many many other events. We discuss what it was like reporting on these events and witnessing some world historic moments from behind the camera. This is a wide ranging conversation with Tom telling some fascinating stories from his career, but we kick off discussing the diplomatic relevance of Yao Ming, who was recently nominated for the NBA hall of fame. .

On the island of Hispaniola, which is shared by the Dominican Republic and Haiti, there is an ongoing and overlooked human rights and humanitarian catastrophe. In recent years, the government of the Dominican Republic has taken measures to essentially strip ethnic Haitians of Dominican citizenship. New legal statutes have the potential to render about 500,000 people stateless. (For context and comparison's sake that is roughly the equivalent of the number of asylum applicants in Germany stemming from the Syrian refugee crisis) The roots of discrimination against Haitians in the Dominican Republic run deep, but these citizenship laws are relatively new. On the line with me to discuss this largely overlooked humanitarian crisis in the western hemisphere is human rights researcher Ryan Bacci. He explains the contours of these laws, their human rights and humanitarian implications on the ground, and offers some important historical context to understand how this kind of discrimination could be enshrined into a country's constitution.

Kevin Rudd is the former prime minister of Australia who knows China far better than most western leaders. He served from 2007 to 2010, and then again in 2013. These days, among other things, he's president of the Asia Society Policy Institute. I got to know the prime minister a little bit earlier this year when he moderated a panel on which I was a speaker. The panel was for the Independent Commission on Multilateralism which is putting together a set of policy recommendations for the next Secretary General. Rudd leads that commission and we kick off with a brief discussion about it hopes to accomplish before pivoting to longer conversation about Rudd's upbringing and career as a diplomat in the Australian foreign service. Kevin Rudd is a fluent mandarin speaker and he discusses how and why he became enthralled with China at a very young age. We discuss his first postings as young diplomat and how he decided to make the leap from diplomat to politician.

My guest today Srgjan Kerim is a diplomat with the soul of an artist, who wants to become the next UN Secretary General. Karim is the former foreign minister of Macedonia, was an official in the Federal government of the former Yugoslavia and also served as president of the UN General Assembly back in 2007-8. He's a self described citizen of the world. He was born in Macedonia, but spent much of his formative years in Germany and has lived at various times all over the world. We discuss his unique upbringing, some of his academic work in development economics, and his experience during the dissolution of the former Yugoslavia. And, not least, he discusses how to create gorgeous photographs using a blackberry device.

Vesna Pusic is the former foreign minister of Croatia and a candidate to become the next UN Secretary General. She's a sociologist by training. Politician and diplomat by practice and I caught up with her one day after she participated in hours of questioning by UN member states in what was essentially a very public job interview for the position of Secretary General Pusic grew up in Zagreb in a household of intellectuals in the aftermath of World War Two, which was particularly brutal in Croatia where Nazi collaborators carried out acts of genocide and persecution. She became ensconced in academia and later turned to politics. In her twenties, she started the first feminist NGO in Yugoslavia, and she discusses that experience. This conversation is part of our UN Secretary General candidate conversations. Stay tuned for more in depth conversations with the individuals who wish to be the next leader of the United Nations

Something extraordinary took place at the United Nations this week. For twenty hours, over three days, each candidate in the race to become the next UN secretary general submitted themselves to hours of questioning by member states and civil society. This was a radical departure from how things were done previously. For the past 70 years, the Secretary General was picked pretty much behind closed doors by the five veto wielding members of the Security Council. It was a totally un-transparent process, sometimes you did not even know who was in the running. This time around, that is not quite how things are going down. For one, there are actually declared candidates--9 so far. And each of these candidates faced two hours of questioning by member states, forcing them to go on the record on some hot button global issues. And it was all webcast! I watched nearly all of it. I would be lying to you if I said that it was all riveting political theater. But for UN nerds like me and my guest Richard Gowen the novelty of it all offered some insights into the inner-workings of the United Nations, what individual countries prioritize in deciding who to back for Secretary General, and a glimpse into the diplomatic acumen of the candidates' in the hot seat. So, because these hearings were new, and different and genuinely exciting for UN watchers like Richard and I, this episode is in two parts. We first spoke before the hearings even began about our expectations for this event and discussed what we would be looking out for. Then, on Thursday afternoon, just as the hearings were wrapping up, we spoke again about some of the highlights from the week and any tea leaves that could be read into both the questions that the member states asked and the answers given. For anyone who wants to learn what these public job interviews for the position of UN Secretary General can tell you about the UN and international relations more broadly, have a listen.

Danilo Turk is the former president of Slovenia and one of eight currently declared candidates to be the next United Nations Secretary General. He was president from 2007 to 2012 and also served as his country's ambassador to the UN for many years. Turk was born in 1952, just seven years following the Nazi occupation of Slovenia. He shares how his mother's experience of being sent to a forced labor camp at the age of 14 affected his own childhood. That included an intense focus on eduction. By the time he was 14, Turk was devouring the greek classics, like Thucydides. By 18 he was in law school, discovering concepts of human rights. We have an extended conversation about the intellectual curiosity that lead Turk to human rights law and what it was like being a human rights legal scholar in the former Yugoslavia, which was then a communist country. We discuss his role during Slovenia's 1991 secession from the former Yugoslavia and the brief war that ensued, and the tactics he used as Slovenia's first ambassador to the UN to introduce this new country to the world. I caught up with Dr. Turk at his hotel room in Dakar, Senegal, where he was chairing a conference about the intersection of water and peace. We kick off with a brief discussion about that issue. In the next several months, the world will select the next Secretary General of the United Nations. There are so far eight candidates to succeed Ban Ki Moon, and this conversation is part of a special podcast series in which the candidates discuss the big moments in their lives and careers that helped to shape their own worldview. The idea here is to introduce the candidates' personal and professional histories into the public discourse and hopefully illuminate how past experiences may guide their decision making as Sec Gen.

Ban Ki moon visited a refugee camp in Algeria that is home to people displaced by conflict in Western Sahara and he uttered remarks that created a diplomatic maelstrom. Ban referred to the quote "occupation" of Western Sahara, by the government of Morocco. Morocco responded with a massive government sponsored protest in the streets of Rabat, and also ceased cooperation with a UN peacekeeping mission in Western Sahara, including evicting civilian members of that mission. It has also threatened to pull its own troops from UN peacekeeping missions worldwide. All because of a word. With me to put this current diplomatic crisis into the larger context of the decades old dispute over the proper status of western sahara is Fiyola Hoosen-Steele. She is not a disinterested observer of this crisis. As the UN representative of the diplomatic advisory firm Independent Diplomat, she works with political representatives of the Western Saharan indepdeence movement, known as the Frente Polisario. She explains the roots of the conflict in Western Sahara and the current diplomatic obstacles to its resolution.

Mary Fitzgerald is an Irish journalist who for the better part of five years has covered Libya, including the fall of Gaddafi, Libya's fractured politics, and the the rise of ISIS. Mary got her start in journalism covering the conflict in Northern Ireland and she discusses how she applies what she learned studying that conflict to help her better understand Libya. We kick off with an extended discussion about the current political situation in Libya, which is complicated, but fascinating, and Mary does an excellent job of breaking it all down. I've made this point before, but I do think that Libya is going to be one of the most important foreign policy crises facing the United States and Europe next year, particularly as the next president takes office. And this conversation offers a great way to understand the drivers of conflict in Libya.

Work started at the United Nations this week on the next big global enviromental treaty. The treaty would create rules of the road for management of the high seas. This would include provisions to create marine sanctuaries and other mechanisms to preserve sea life and biodiversity. On the line to discuss this new treaty (which does not yet have a name) is Elizabeth Wilson of the Pew Charitable Trusts. She explains the problems that this new treaty aspires to solve, how it would fit into already existing treaties, like the Convention on the Law of the Sea, and the process and politics surrounding the crafting of this treaty and its eventual ratification.

The last time I saw Anna Day we were both attending a conference in Dubai. That was just last month, in February. I hopped a plane back to the United States. She went to Bahrain, and was promptly arrested with her crew. They were filming a documentary about the legacy of the Arab Spring uprisings when they were detained by Bahrani authorities and charged with crimes that carried hefty sentences. Anna recounts that experience in pretty vivid detail. But getting arrested in Bahrain is just the latest challenge that Anna has faced while trying to tell stories from the middle east. She was one of the first western journalists to detail the rise of ISIS in Syria, and before that she was one of the first American journalists in Tahrir square as the Egypt Arab Spring began. If you are interested in learning more about the situation in Bahrain, I actually served as the publisher of an e- book by the journalist Elizabeth Dickinson about Bahrain, called Who Shot Ahmed, A Mystery Unravels in Bahrain's Arab Spring, that tells the story of the murder of a young activist and his family's quest for justice.

The attacks in Brussels this week are accelerating an already heated conversation in Europe about the unrelenting movement of refugee from the Middle East to the continent. The attacks on Tuesday came just days after the EU sealed a highly controversial agreement with Turkey in which refugees arriving to the greek islands would be expelled back to Turkey. This agreement is highly maligned by the United Nations and refugee advocates for reasons I discuss with a UN official and a refugee advocate. This episode is in two parts. First, I speak with Melissa Flemming, a spokesperson for the UN Refugee Agency, also known as UNHCR. She offers a grounds eye view of how this new deal is affecting the work of the UN Refugee Agency on the Greek Islands and explains why UNHCR is refusing to collaborate in the implementation of this agreement. Next, I speak with Michel Gabaudan, president of Refugees International, who discusses the details of the deal and does a good job of putting it in a larger context of global refugee policy.

My guest today Somini Sengupta is the United Nations correspondent for the New York Times. She's the author of the new book The End of Karma: Hope and Fury Among India's Young which tells the story of a huge demographic challenge facing India today, where 365 million people are between the ages of 10 and 24. It is the youngest country on the planet, and through storytelling and reporting, Somini puts the experiences of India's young into the broader context of the country's political, social and economic challenges. Somini was born in Calcutta, but came to the Canada and then the USA at a young age. She joined the New York Times in the mid 1990s and she tells some powerful stories from her reporting in Africa in the early 2000s, including Liberia, Congo and Darfur. We kick off discussing her new book, and a term she coined to describe India's youth generation, the "noonday children."

The Islamic state is seemingly on the ascent in Libya. It controls territory, including the coastal city of Sirte, and over the past several weeks it has launched a series of spectacular attacks in Libya and Tunisia. This episode goes pretty deep into the weeds of the origins of the Islamic State in Libya and its current strategic goals. On the line is Aaron Zelin, a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Phd candidate and proprietor of Jihadology.net. Aaron explains how The Islamic State in Libya can trace its start to the US invasion and occupation of Iraq in the mid 2000s, and how through a series of contests it muscled out other jihadist groups in Libya to become a potent and destabilizing force for the entire region.

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. We discuss some of Fuller's other reporting from the region, including an incredible story last year in which he helped track down a boat full of Rohingya migrants stranded in the Andaman Sea. This is a great episode. Fuller describes how he got started in journalism, some adventures from his early career working at the International Herald Tribune in France and how and why he feels such a deep bond with South East Asia.

Ashish Thakkar is an African entrepreneur who started his business at the age of 15 having just escaped from the Rwanda genocide. That business, the Mara Group, is now a multi-billion dollar enterprise headquartered in Dubai and with operations in 22 African countries. I met Ashish a few weeks ago at a conference in Dubai and learned just enough about his personal story to know that I needed to speak with him for a podcast episode. It's an intense story not only of his own escape from the Rwandan genocide, but his parents in the 1970s were forced to flee Idi Amin's Uganda. Ashish tells much of his family history and the story of the founding of the Mara Group in his new book The Lion Awakes: Adventures in Africa's Economic Miracle. Ashish is also the founder of the Mara Foundation, the work of which we discuss, and he was recently named the chair of the UN Foundation's Global Entrepreneurs Council.

On March 1 a man named Ahmad al-Faqi al-Mahdi made an appearance at the international criminal court in the hague, and in so doing earned the dubious distinction of being the first person to ever appear at the ICC for the crime of destroying cultural heritage. He is accused of ordering and participating in the destruction of centuries old mausoleums in Timbuktu, Mali. Timbuktu was taken over by Islamist extremists in 2012 in the midst of a civil war in Mali, and their puritanical vision of Islam clashed with local customs which imbued these mausoleums with religious significance. Now, one of the people who allegedly orchestrated this destruction is sitting in a jail in the Hague, possibly awaiting trial. This is not only first time that an individual is being charged with the crime against humanity of destroying cultural heritage, but it is the first time that a jihadist is facing ICC prosecution. On the line with me to discuss the facts of this case and its broader significance to the International Criminal Court and global human rights more generally is Mark Kersten. He's a post doctoral fellow at the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto.

Dr. Raj Shah served as the administrator of the United States Agency for International Development, USAID, from 2010 to 2015. He was just 36 years old when he was appointed to this cabinet-level position, and less than a week into his tenure a massive earthquake struck Haiti. President Obama turned to raj to coordinate the US Government's response. We discuss how he came to terms with that responsibility. We also have a very interesting discussion about his childhood growing up the son of immigrants from India, and how that compelled him to a career in global health and development. That career really started at the Gates Foundation. He was one of very early employees of the Gates Foundation where he helped designed a financing mechanism that to this day is helping to fund vaccines around the world. Raj is the co-author, with Michael Gerson, of a chapter about USAID and foreign aid in the new book "MoneyBall for Government," and we kick off discussing his contribution to that chapter.

By now you have probably heard of the legal and public relations battle between the FBI and Apple. In short, the FBI is trying to force Apple to unlock the phone of one of the San Bernardino shooters. Apple is unwilling to comply, saying that doing so could endanger the privacy of every iPhone user, everywhere. This dispute will play itself out in the US legal system. But the result will have profound international implications. On the line to discuss the global consequences of this dispute is David Kaye, the UN Special Rapporteur for the Freedom of Expression and a clinical professor of law at the University of California, Irvine. David Kaye recently wrote a report in his role as UN Special Rapporteur that assesses the relationship between encryption technologies, the varying policies of governments around the world towards encryption, and the protection of human rights. Encryption, he argues, is a key protector of the freedom of expression around the world, for reasons we discuss in this episode.

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. Susan had a career as a journalist, covering conflict in Latin America in the 1980s and 1990s and then, after experiencing some profound physical and emotional turbulence, she switched careers and became a human rights lawyer, working among other places at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia.

Burundi is in a tailspin. It has been for the last year since President Pierre Nkurinziza decided to run for a constitutionally dubious third term in office. That set off protests, a violent suppression of those protests, and a short lived coup. Now, Nkurinziza is consolidating his hold on power, there is great fear that the situation may devolve into a full blown civil war, and given the history of the region, perhaps even genocide. The world is pretty aware of this. But the international community seems unable to stop Burundi from sliding into deeper conflict. Why? I put that question to Dr. Cara Jones, an associate professor at Mary Baldwin College. Dr. Jones offers some concise background on the history of this conflict and explains why observers are so concerned that this may spiral out of control and have profound implications not just for Burundi, but for the entire region. If you have twenty minutes and want a deeper and nuanced understanding of the crisis in Burundi, what the international community is trying to do to stop it, have a listen.

I'm coming to you from World Government Summit this week, which is a conference dedicated to ideas and technologies to make government work more effectively. It's sort of a cross between TED talks and Davos. You have people like Neil deGrasse Tyson discussing government's role science research, fancy displays of drone technologies, and virtual reality stations. But you also have UN Deputy Secretary General Jan Elliason discussing the SDGs and international superstars like Mary Robinson and Mohammad Yunus keeping in real by maintaining a focus on harnessing these technologies and ideas in service of humanity at large. It's been an interesting few days, and I two interviews from the summit for you, which reflect the dual tracks of this conference. First up is Princess Sarah Zeid, who is a long time UN employee and humanitarian worker (whose spouse is the Jordanian diplomat and royal and current UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.) She is spearheading efforts in the UN system and beyond to sharpen the international community's focus on providing maternal and reproductive health in humanitarian emergencies. Up to now, this is not something that the international community has done very well, for reasons she explains. And she discusses candidly the very personal reason that she decided to take on this cause. Next up, i speak with Justin Hall Tipping, a venture capitalist who is investing in nano-technology in the clean energy space. We have a discussion about the potential of nano technology to revolutionize things like access to clean water and clean energy, and what it will take to realize some very promising scientific discovery So, like I said, two somewhat different issues, but all under the rubric of this confernece and both interesting. Have a listen!

Michelle Mays is a nurse with Doctors without Borders, better known of course as MSF. She has worked in conflict zones, post conflict zones and generally very intense situations around the world to deliver health care and other services to vulnerable people. MSF has a reputation in the humanitarian community for being the first to arrive and last to leave often times dangerous situations, and its been in the news recently for the fact that its hospitals have been bombed in Yemen, by Saudi forces and Afghanistan by Americans. Michelle started her career as a nurse in Baltimore with an itch to work globally. We discuss some of her deployments in recent years, including to Haiti after the earthquake and to a remote part of India. We kick off discussing her most recent deployment to South Sudan.

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. And that is going to cost a great deal of money. About $9 billion to be exact. And the way that money is raised is through appeals to donors--basically like a charity whose major contributors are governments around the world. On the line today to discuss this London conference and the major global challenge of mounting an appropriate humanitarian response to this overwhelming crisis is the UK's deputy ambassador to the United Nations, Peter Wilson. We discuss some specific aspects of the humanitarian response to this now 5 year old crisis, like, for example providing access to education for displaced children and opportunities for employment for refugees abroad. We also discuss the larger challenge of mounting a humanitarian response when so many of the belligerents are ignoring basic tenants of the laws of war, and we also discuss the current political peace process underway in Geneva.

Raymond Baker was a newly minted Harvard Business School graduate working in Nigeria in the 1960s when he discovered that foreign businesses were nefariously sneaking money out of the country. After years of working in Nigeria and then internationally as businessman and consultant, Baker founded the NGO Global Financial Integrity to fight what he's termed illicit financial flows out of economies in the developing world. This is a fascinating conversation about an interesting, though little appreciated aspect of the global fight against corruption. We kick off discussing the problem of illicit financial flows more broadly and one big cause of this problem more specifically, which is what he terms "mis-invoicing." You'll learn a lot about the history of the fight against global corruption from listening to this episode.

Earlier this week the World Health Organization warned that a mosquito borne viral disease known as Zika was fast spreading throughout the Americas. That includes the United States, which it will likely reach sooner rather than later. On the line to discuss Zika and its larger public health implications is one of the world's leading experts in tropical diseases, Dr. Peter Hotez. He is the Dean for the National School of Tropical Medicine Baylor College of Medicine in Houston; The's the Endowed Chair in Tropical Pediatrics Texas Children's Hospital and President of the Sabin Vaccine institute, the work of which we discuss in this conversation. This is an absolutely fascinating conversation about a topic that is clearly on many people's radars right now. We discuss how and why this disease is spreading, the lessons drawn from the ebola outbreak that can be applied to this situation, and how poverty and inequality in the USA might exacerbate the Zika outbreak?

Elizabeth Economy has for decades studied something that used to be considered somewhat obscure, but today is very much in vogue: the relationship between Chinese politics and economy to climate change and the natural world. She is now a Senior Fellow and director for Asia studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, and she's written a number of books and influential papers examining China and climate change. She's had a fascinating career. She started out specializing in Soviet studies and took a turn working as an analyst in the CIA before getting her PhD and launching her career studying china and the environment. We kick off this conversation discussing China's decision to join the consensus at the Paris Climate Talks, and we have an extended conversation about some pressing, yet under the radar ecological and environmental challenges that China is struggling to deal with.

Drone strikes are an increasingly common feature of modern warfare; and there have been numerous discussions in the academic literature and beyond about the effectiveness of drones strikes, the morality of the policy, and the larger implications of the United States' growing reliance on drone strikes as part of a broader counter-terrorism strategy. But for all this debate, there has been very little research into the psychology that surrounds drone strikes. Now, two academics out of George Washington University are compiling some exceedingly interesting and politically relevant research into the psychological forces that are shaping America's drone policy. Julia McDonald and Jacqueline Schneider recently published a fascinating paper in the Journal of Conflict Resolution that examines the relationship between a president's tolerance for risk and his (or possibly her) preference for using drones. They are also in the midst of research into why soldiers in combat prefer, or not, manned vs unmanned air support; and the conditions under which the general American public is more or less likely to support drone strikes. It's cutting edge and cross disciplinary research and just fascinating stuff. On the line with me to discuss this research and its broader implications is the co-author of these studies, Jacqueline Schneider, a pHD candidate in residence at the institute for conflict and security studies at George Washington University. Enjoy!

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. That experience led Byman to a career studying the Middle East and global terrorism. He's the author of numerous books on international terrorism and is Director of Research at the Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution. But most importantly for me, he was the director of the Security Studies program at Georgetown University eight years ago when I was a student there. We have a great conversation about his fascinating career in and out of government, which includes serving on the 9-11 Commission. We also discuss terrorism more broadly and the international relations of the Middle East. We kick off with a brief discussion about what seems to be the weakening alliance between Saudi Arabia and the USA.

The journalist Anjan Sundaram is the author of the new book Bad News: Last Journalists in a Dictatorship. The book details how the creeping authoritarianism of the Rwandan government has silenced the free press, even as that government is treated as a darling of the international community for its impressive economic gains following the genocide. In 2009, Anjan took a job teaching journalism in Rwanda. He soon saw that something was amiss. His students were harassed, beaten and one colleague murdered. Other journalists were simply co-opted into the state propaganda machine. After speaking with Anjan for this interview, it's hard not to conclude that suppression of dissent in Rwanda is putting that country on a very dangerous path. This is a fascinating conversation and I suspect that this book will get a great deal of attention in foreign policy and human rights circles. We kick off discussing the history of President Paul Kagame, and his recent controversial decision to amend the constitution to permit him to stay in office, theoretically until 2034. I have a link to the book on GlobalDispatchesPodcast.com, so do check that out.

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. Marcy has had a long career in humanitarianism. Including a stint in Haiti just after the earthquake. But she started off as an english teacher abroad. We discuss what compelled her to teaching, to international affairs, to feminism And how reading Simone de Beauvoir on a desolate outer atoll of the Marshal Islands gave her a new perspective on her life and career.

Happy New Year everyone! And what an interesting an exciting year this will be for the United Nations because the new year marks the semi-official kickoff of the race to select the next UN secretary general.Ban Ki Moon's second and final term expires at the end of the year and now it is up to the world--or, i should say more specifically the Security Council with input from the General Assembly--to find his replacement. On the line with me to discuss the likely candidates for the next secretary general and the diplomatic intrigue that will surround this whole process and provide a great deal of subtext for diplomacy at the UN this year is Richard Gowan. If you are a regular listener to this podcast you'll be well aquatinted with richard, I believe this is this his third time of the show. He is a fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations and the Center for International Cooperation and teaches at Colombia. He's also out with a new piece in The American Interest taking a look at US priorities at the UN during Obama's last year in office. and at the end of this conversation we discuss that piece. But we kick off and devote most of this episode to the big question of who will replace Ban Ki Moon and how that selection will be made. And start by discussing what's known in UN circles as the so-called "Bulgarian Primary"

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The Paris agreement that was adopted on December 12 was a triumph of diplomacy. It is also a affirmation of idealism in international relations -- that the anarchy of the international system can be transcended to find global solutions to global problems. And the fact international community found a way to push the needle in the right direction on as complex an issue as climate change makes other global challenges suddenly seem a little less daunting. The Paris Agreement itself is profoundly inventive document. On the line to discuss some of the finer points of contention in the agreement, how they were resolved and why certain countries like India played a key role in crafting final outcome, is Neil Bhatiya, a policy associate with the Century Foundation. We discuss some of key questions that the agreement addresses, like how can the international community verify compliance with the accord and how the question of so-called "climate finance" will work. We also discuss the role of the United States in helping shape the final outcome. If you are fascinated by diplomacy, want a closer look at the big issues that were up for negotiation and understand what comes next, have a listen!

After Syrians and Afghans, the largest nationality of people who are fleeing as refugees to Europe are Eritreans. And the vast majority of Eritreans who are fleeing to Europe are young people between the ages of 18 and 24 who are escaping an oppressive system of compulsory national service. National service itself is not a problem. Lots of liberal democracies have some of draft or conscription. But the System of national service in Eritrea takes this to the extreme and has become a system of forced labor and population control. Amnesty International recently published a report called Just Deserters: Why Indefinite National Service in Eritrea has Created Generation of Refugees that explores in depth the human rights abuses of this system and its implications for global security. On the line with me today is the report's lead author Claire Beston. We discuss how this system works, why so many young Eritreans are fleeing the country, and why countries in Europe are turning a blind eye to this major driver of refugees to their shore. This is a very interesting conversation about how policy decisions by one small and brutally repressive government can have profound repercussions around the world.

Emma Sky was an Arabist, working at the British Council in 2003 when the United Kingdom joined the US led invasion and occupation of Iraq. Though she strongly opposed the war, she opted to join the coalition provisional authority, which administered Iraq after the fall of Saddam. Here's why She served as the top coalition official in the-oil rich and ethnically diverse province of Kirkuk, and later returned to Iraq as the top civilian advisor to advisor to general Ray Odierno as they managed what's now known as the Sunni Awakening. She tells stories from those experiences in the episode you are about to hear. She also has them down in her new memoir called The Unraveling. Sky had an unusual upringin. She was raised by a single mom who worked at an all boys school. So young emma sky's formative years very much included being the only girl in the room, and she discusses how that experience affected her later on in life. We kick off with a discussion about the current state of affairs in Iraq and Syria, before pivoting to a longer discussion about her life and career, which includes a long stint in Israel at the height of the peace process in the 1990s and its unraveling.

Unlike any other global climate or environment conference I've covered over the years, civil society and the activist community this time around is genuinely enthused about the Paris Climate Talks. Cautious optimism, or at the very least, not gloom and doom, seems to be prevailing mood. I asked the leader of one of the most important and largest global climate activist organizations, May Boeve of 350.org, why that is. And her reply is interesting and telling. May says that we are in the midst of a political tipping point in the international debate about climate change and Paris is one manifestation of this historic moment. I caught up with May while she was in Paris during the first week of the talks, and we discusses some of the issues she was following closely as the talks enter a more technical phase. But we have a longer conversation about the role of activism in bringing delegates to this point and what the activist community has planned for after paris. For those of you interested in the particulars on the Paris talks, you will be sure to get a lot out of this conversation. But even if you are less interested in the minutia of climate politics, this episode offers a fascinating insight into the role of civil society and activisms in shaping the outcome of a major international negotiation. The role of civil society in the Paris climate talks is sure to be the subject of PhD thesis for decades to come. This conversation shows you why.

My guest today Katie Meyler is the founder of the NGO More than Me, which provides schooling and counseling to adolescent girls in Monrovia, Liberia. Katie founded the NGO in 2009, but during the Ebola outbreak last year it transformed into a community hub in the West Point neighborhood of Monrovia, which was the hardest hit neighborhood in the hardest hit city in the hardest hit country by the outbreak. And we have a powerful discussion of why she opted to stay put in Liberia during the Ebola crisis, even though she became symptomatic. And how she dealt with all the death and despair that was surrounding her. Katie grew up poor in a very wealthy town in New Jersey and she discusses how service trips with her church first exposed her to extreme poverty around the world. She tells an ultimately inspiring story about the founding of More than Me and how with the partnership of the government of Liberia, she is trying to replicate the success of More than Me in other parts of the country. We kick off though, discussing a new resurgence of Ebola in Liberia several months after the country was declared Ebola free.

Could the horrible attack in Paris might provide the kind of exogenous shock to the international system that could unstick international diplomacy on Syria and move the needle in right direction? After a key meeting in Vienna of the USA, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Iran and all the relevant regional players it would appear that there is finally some movement on the diplomatic front. Here with me to discuss the diplomatic implications of the paris attacks is Ambassador Christopher Hill. He is the former US Ambassador to Iraq (among many other places) and was a lead US negotiator during the Balkan conflict. He's now the Dean of the Korbel school at the University of Denver and was on Episode 29 of this very podcast to discuss his life, career, and his memoir Outpost. I caught up with Ambassador Hill just as he was leaving for Dayton, Ohio to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the Dayton peace accords which ended the Balkan civil wars. We have a very interesting conversation about the kinds of lessons that can be drawn from the Dayton experience and applied to international diplomacy on Syria.