Global Dispatches -- World News That Matters

In this episode, we speak with Jamila Afghani, the 2022 Laureate of the Aurora Prize For Awaking Humanity, which is a prestigious annual award conferred to grassroots human rights defenders. Jamila Afghani is a the founder of the local Afghan NGO Noor Educational and Capacity Development Organization, which among other things supports girls education in Afghanistan. She founded the organization as a refugee in Pakistan but then established it in Afghanistan just months after the Taliban were ousted from power in 2001. For the last twenty years, her NGO has supported girls and women throughout Afghanistan -- and even today, with the country back under Taliban, the work continues. In our conversation, Jamila Afghani explains how and why she began work as a civil society leader, which also includes a leadership position with Women's International League for Peace and Freedom. She also discusses how she fled Afghanistan in August 2021 and continues to lead her NGO, but now as a refugee in Canada.

As the World Cup kicks off in Qatar, the plight of the migrant workers who built the facilities enjoyed by fans and spectators is coming into sharper focus. Qatar required massive amounts of labor, and those workers often toiled in highly exploitative conditions. In this episode, we speak with Michael Page, deputy director in the Middle East and North Africa division at Human Rights Watch We discuss how and why migrant workers were exploited in Qatar and then have a conversation about how the human rights community may better leverage massive sporting events to advance human rights, including protection of freedom of expression, LGBT rights, and women's rights.

Over the last several weeks, North Korea has launched an unprecedented number of missile tests. In one week alone in early November, North Korea launched over 80 missiles, including short and long range ballistic missles. So why is North Korea suddenly flexing like this? And what do these missile tests suggest about North Korea's nuclear strategies and intentions? I put these questions and more to Kelsey Davenport, Director of Nonproliferation Policy at the Arms Control Association. We kick off discussing the kinds of technologies that North Korea is testing and then have a long conversation that puts these tests in context of geopolitics, US policy towards North Korea and more.

During the time of this recording, Wednesday, November 9th, the final results of the US mid term elections are uncertain, but trending towards an outcome in which the Democrats are likely to hold the Senate and Republicans gain control of the House of Representatives. At stake in these elections of course is control of Congress, which has a unique role to play in shaping US foreign policy. Congress approves budgets and spending on foreign affairs and foreign aid, confirms nominees for Ambassadors and senior positions at State Department, Defense Department and elsewhere, and provides oversight over the executive branch, among many other roles. In this episode, originally recorded as a live Twitter Spaces, we are joined by Matt Duss, a visiting scholar in the American Statecraft program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace to discuss the foreign policy implications of the US mid term elections. From 2017 to 2022, Matt Duss served as the foreign policy advisor to Senator Bernie Sanders. In our conversation we discuss the role Congress plays in shaping US foreign policy before having a longer conversation about the concrete foreign policy implications of the the 2022 US Mid terms.

Delegates from around the world are en route to Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt for the 27th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Better known as COP27. The conference lasts from November 6th to the 18th. These COPS are key moments for international climate diplomacy. And since the 2015 Paris Agreement, it is the main mechanism in which countries renew, review, and assess their progress towards the Paris Agreement goals to limit global warming to at least 1.5 degrees celsius. In this episode, we give a preview of the key stories, debates and outcomes expected to drive the agenda in Sharm el Sheikh with a Twitter Spaces roundtable we recorded on Thursday, November 4th with guests Pete Ogden, Vice President for Energy, Climate, and the Environment at the United Nations Foundation, Nisha Krisnan, Director for Climate Resilience in Africa with the World Resources Institute, Mark Hertsgaard, executive director of Covering Climate Now and the environment correspondent for The Nation, and Dr. Omnia El Omrani, the first ever Youth Representative for COP27.

There are a record number of cholera outbreaks around the world today. Consider this data point. In 2022 alone, 29 countries have reported a cholera outbreak. This compares to 20 countries over the previous five years. The outbreaks are distributed across several regions: countries in the Caribbean, middle east, Africa, and Asia are experiencing cholera outbreaks -- some for the first time in decades. Amidst all these concurrent outbreaks, there is a global shortage of cholera vaccines to the point that public health officials are suspending the the standard two-dose vaccination regimen in favor of just a single dose. In this episode, we speak with Louise Ivers, director of the Harvard global health institute, and the Massachusetts general hospital center for global health about why there a sudden surge in outbreaks worldwide, where are the outbreaks the worst, and what can be done about this vaccine shortage.

On October 18th, the White House released an expansive new strategy on Countering Biological Threats, Enhancing Pandemic Preparedness, and Achieving Global Health Security. The strategy sets out a whole-of-government approach to mitigating biological risks. This includes naturally occurring pathogens as well as dangerous new pathogens created in a lab. In this episode, we speak with Nikki Teran, Director of Biosecurity Policy at Guarding Against Pandemics. We discuss the substance of the new US biodefense strategy -- its strengths, weaknesses, and potential barriers to implementation. Nikki Teran also describes as the Bio-risk threat landscape writ large, including the pathogens and broader trends in biosecurity that a strategy like this seeks to mitigate.

On October 21st, the United Nations Security Council imposed individual sanctions on Jimmy Cherizier, a former police officer turned gang leader in Haiti. For weeks, the coalition of gangs headed by Cherizier, known as the G9 Friends and Allies have imposed a blockade on the main fuel terminal in Haiti. Fuel is now getting more scarce by the day, with prices surging to as much as 20-dollars a gallon. This is exacerbating an already dire humanitarian situation, with parts of Port au Prince experiencing what the United Nations deems catastrophic food insecurity. Meanwhile, amidst the chaos and fighting, a new cholera outbreak is sweeping through neighborhoods of Port au Prince. In this episode, we are joined by Jacqueline Charles Caribbean Correspondent for the Miami Herald and a longtime reporter covering Haiti, to discuss the biography of Jimmy Cherizier before having a longer conversation about Haiti's recent gang wars and the relationship between gang violence and politics in Haiti.

At time of recording an ongoing Ebola outbreak in Uganda has sickened 64 people. 24 people have died. The outbreak was declared on September 20th in a rural community but has since spread to Kampala, the sprawling capital city. In recent years, health officials in Africa have become very adept at responding to ebola outbreaks, and have relied on a highly effective vaccine that was developed in the wake of the 2014 West Africa ebola outbreak. However, there is no vaccine for the particular strain of ebola circulating in Uganda today. In this episode, we speak with John Johnson, vaccine and epidemic response advisor with Doctors Without Boarders France to talk about the origins of this outbreak and how it has spread, how healthcare workers are responding, and why there's not vaccine for this particular strain of Ebola when other ebola vaccines have proven to be so effective.

The Chinese Communist Party Congress is always a key moment on the Chinese political calendar. Every five years, party delegates select party leadership. This includes the selection of the top most ranks of the Chinese Communist Party, including its General Secretary. Being a one party state, the head of the Chinese Communist Party is also the President of China. Over the last several decades, General Secretaries of the Chinese Community Party serve at most two consecutive five year terms, but Xi Jinping is bucking this trend. He is widely expected to be installed for a third term -- demonstrating that he is the most powerful individual leader in China since the time of Chairman Mao. In this episode, we are joined by Jessica Chen Weiss, professor of China and Asia-Pacific studies at Cornell University to talk about the significance of this Party Congress, and to shed some light on what a more ensconced and more powerful Xi Jinping might mean for China and its relationship with the rest of the world, including the United States, as well as discuss the significance of this Party Congress.

Iran is in the midst of the most significant protest movement in years -- and it is being lead by women and girls. The spark that ignited this movement was the murder of 22 year old Mahsa Amini, who had been arrested by Iran's morality police for improperly wearing her headscarf. She was beaten to death in police custody. Protests erupted throughout the country, with women and school aged girls audaciously flaunting laws around dress codes. It is a feminist lead uprising against the ultra-conservative government lead by Ebrahim Raisi and, as some argue, against the Islamic revolutionary system that has governed Iran since 1979. In this episode, we are joined by Negar Mortazavi, an Iranian-American journalist and commentator and host of the Iran Podcast. We discuss how these protests started and then spread to become an intersectional movement. We then have a in-depth conversation about the Iranian government's response and what may come next.

Last March, there seemed to be a glimmer of hope that the brutal civil war between the Ethiopian federal government and the breakaway Tigray People's Liberation Front would come to an end. The government announced a ceasefire and an African Union lead peace process was underway. The conflict began two years earlier, in November 2020 with clashes between Tigrayan regional forces and federal government troops. It quickly escalated. This included the intervention of Eritrean troops to support the Ethiopian government. Over the ensuing months, the conflict caused the worst humanitarian crisis in the world. There's been severe food shortages, a humanitarian blockade, a telecoms blackout and massive displacement. Thus, that moment in March when a ceasefire was declared -- was extremely welcome. But just four months later, the ceasefire was shattered and now the conflict is entering a new and dangerous phase as Eritrea is re-entering the conflict in a very big way. In this episode, we are joined by Zecharias Zelalem, a freelance journalist who covers Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa to discuss how we got to this point. We begin our conversation by discussing the circumstances that lead to this ceasefire and its dissolution before talking about the current trajectory of the Ethiopia-Tigray conflict.

These are perilous moments in the conflict in Ukraine. In response to the Ukrainian military's stunning gains in recent weeks, Putin is escalating. He has enacted a military mobilization within Russia and is once again threatening the use of nuclear weapons. How seriously should we take these nuclear threats? In what scenarios and circumstances might Putin actually use a nuclear weapon. And how should the Biden administration and NATO respond if, indeed, Putin goes nuclear? We put these questions and more to Jon Wolfsthal a longtime nuclear policy professional and aid to then Vice President Joe Biden who currently serves as senior advisor to Global Zero and as a board member for Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.

On October 2nd, Brazilians headed to the polls for the first round of national elections. At the top of the ticket were two very familiar names in Brazilian politics: incumbent president Jair Bolsonaro and former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, known best simply as Lula. These two men are starkly different kinds of politicians. Bolsonaro is very much a right wing populist, often compared in style to Donald Trump. Lula is former union leader who served as Brazil's president from 2003 to 2010 and later served 580 days in prison before his conviction was annulled. After the first round of presidential ballots were cast, Lula won 48.4% of the vote and Bolsonaro, 42.2%. Since no candidate won over 50%, the election will go to a run-off on October 30. This election is deeply consequential for the future of democracy in Brazil and also carries important international implications, which we discuss with today's guest, Matthew Taylor, professor of international studies at the School of International Service at American University. We start off by discussing the first round results and electoral dynamics heading into the second round, before having a deeper conversation about what this election means for Brazil and the world.

Before Russia invaded Ukraine the United States and its European allies signaled strongly that they would impose crushing sanctions if Russia, indeed, invaded. Russia invaded anyway. The threat of sanctions were not a deterrent. After surprisingly heavy sanctions were imposed, Russia did not moderate its behavior and cease its attack. Just the opposite. The imposition of sanctions were not, therefore what is known in International Relations speak, a means of compellence. So what have the sanctions accomplished? And why might these sanctions and countermeasures by Russia be leading to a war of economic attrition between Russia and the West? To answer these questions, we are joined by Bruce Jentleson, a professor of political science at Duke University former senior state department official, and author of the new book Sanctions: What Everyone Needs to Know.

There are over 100 health emergencies in Africa each year -- including outbreaks of infectious and deadly diseases like Yellow Fever, meningitis, and ebola. And it is sometimes the case that diseases endemic only in parts of Africa, like MonkeyPox, can spread globally precisely because of limited local capacity to contain an outbreak. A new African Regional Strategy for Health Security and Emergencies commits African countries to concrete steps to strengthen disease surveillance, response and preparedness. In this episode, we speak with Dr. Abdou Salam Gaye, WHO Regional Emergency Director for Africa to discuss this new African health security plan and Africa's role in global pandemic preparedness and response.

China first tested a nuclear weapon in 1964. And since then, Chinese authorites have been content with a relatively small nuclear arsenal. That was, until very recently. There is now mounting evidence that China is substantially expanding its nuclear capabilities. In this episode, we speak with Tong Zhao, Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a Visiting Researcher at Princeton University's Program on Science and Global Security, to explain what is driving Chinese nuclear strategy. We kick off with a brief history of China's nuclear weapons program before having an in depth discussion about the intentions and motivations behind China's expanding nuclear arsenal. We also discuss what steps China's main rival, the United States, could take to assuage at least some of the concerns driving Chinese nuclear strategy.

One of the key events during UN High Level Week in the New York is a major fundraiser for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, hosted by President Biden. This is the topic of our first segment with Francoise Vanni, the Global Fund's Director of External Relations and Communications. Our second segment features an interview with Susan Ruffo, Senior Advisor for Oceans and Climate at the United Nations Foundation who discusses a meeting of foreign ministers and civil society leaders focused on the clean energy transition. This episode also leads off with a discussion about a unique meeting of the Security Council about war crimes and crimes against humanity in Ukraine.

Today's episode was recorded on Wednesday, September 21 and under normal circumstances the President of the United States, as host of the UN, would have addressed the General Assembly yesterday. But because of the Queen's funeral in London at the start of the week, the United States traded speaking slots with Senegal. Meaning today was the day of President Biden's much anticipated address to the General Assembly. Shortly after President Biden's speech concluded, we spoke with Richard Gowan, the UN Director of the International Crisis Group and Anjali Dayal professor of International Relations at Fordham University and Senior Scholar in residence at the US Institute of Peace. We kick off discussing highlights from Biden's address before turning to other key speeches and events driving the diplomatic agenda at UNGA this week. Next, we speak with Kate Dodson, Vice President for Global Health at the United Nations Foundation. She had just come from a key meeting on Pandemic preparedness and response, which we discuss.

A key focus of events at the United Nations and around New York this week is on food security and food access. On Tuesday, world leaders held a major Food Security Summit to combat soaring food prices and food insecurity around the world. This is the topic of our first segment today, featuring Rob Vos, director for Markets, Trade and Institutions at the International Food Policy Research Institute. In the second segment, I speak with the Assistant High Commissioner for Operations at the UN Refugee Agency, Raouf Mazou about how refugee issues are being addressed at UNGA this year.

The annual opening of the United Nations General Assembly is always a key moment on the diplomatic calendar. Hundreds of world leaders head to New York to address the General Assembly and participate in various meetings and events around the city. Each day this week, we will bring you the key highlights from the 77th United Nations General Assembly. Today's epsode kicks off with an UNGA77 curtain raiser featuring Elizabeth Cousens, President and CEO of the United Nations Foundation. She discusses the key storylines, events, moments and speeches that will drive the diplomatic agendaduring UN Week. Next we hear from Thaís Queiroz, Youth Representative for the World Organization of the Scout Movement and United Nations Foundation Next Generation Fellow. She participated in the Transforming Eduction Summit convened by UN Secretary-General António Guterres-- a major meeting of heads of state and civil society leaders focused on improving education access and outcomes.

Energy prices are soaring in Europe, driven largely by the uncertainty surrounding Russian gas exports. Making matters worse was an announcement in early September that Russia would not re-open its Nord Stream 1 pipeline, which is a major supplier of gas to Europe. As winter looms, European governments are scrambling to devise policies to minimize the impact of rising energy costs to both their economies and individual consumers. Putin is very deliberately using gas and energy exports as a way to hit back at Europe and break Europeans' steadfast support for Ukraine. Needless to say, Europe's ability to manage this crisis could have a significant impact on European countries approach to the conflict in Ukraine. In this episode, we are joined by Ben Cahill, Senior Fellow in the Energy Security and Climate Change Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. We discuss Europe's energy crisis, the EU's response thus far, and the political impact of rising energy costs in Europe, as well as the potential remedies and consequences of energy shortages and price spikes.

United Nations officials issued fresh warnings that parts of Somalia are on the verge of famine. Half the country is in need of food assistance and if present trends continue famine could hit Somalia by October. In this episode, we are joined by Tjada McKenna, CEO of Mercy Corps, a large international humanitarian organization with operations in Somalia. She recently visited the country to witness this unfolding crisis first hand. We kick off discussing what she saw on her trip, before having a broader conversation about the causes and consequences of this food crisis. We also discuss what can be done to avert a full blown famine from taking hold in Somalia in the near future.

In lay July, the military Junta in Myanmar carried out its first executions in decades. Four activists were killed, including very prominant pro-democracy leaders. The military carried out these executions despite widespread international and regional pressure. These executions come a year and a half after the February 1 2021 coup that ended Myanmar's experiment in democracy. The military has imprisoned much of the civilian political leadership of the country, including the country's de-facto civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi. The February Coup was met by widespread civil disobedience and, eventually armed resistance. Today, Myanmar is in the midst of a multi-pronged civil war in which the military is fighting various armed groups organized along ethnic lines of Myanmars many minority ethnic groups; as well as militias backed by the toppled civilian leadership. In this episode, we are joined by Gregory Poling, who directs the Southeast Asia Program and Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, where he is also a senior fellow. We discuss the recent executions in Myanmar and have a broader discussion about the changing countours of the conflict and what, if anything, the United States and broader international community can do to influence events in Myanmar.

On August 16, President Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act into law. This legislation is a $750 billion dollar health, tax and climate bill. Indeed, the inflation Reduction act is the single most significant climate legislation ever passed in the United States. So what impact will this legislation have internationally, Including in ongoing international climate diplomacy? In this episode, we are joined by Casey Katims, executive director of the US Climate Alliance, a coalition of US Governors representing states that account for over half the US Population. We kick off by discussing several of the key climate related provisioning included in the Inflation Reduction Act. We then discuss how this new legislation may impact diplomacy, including at a key international climate summit, known as COP27, which is being held in Egypt in November. We also discuss the unique roll that US states can play on climate related issues--something that was underscored recently when California announced that it would be phasing out the sale of gasoline powered cars.

In this episode, we are joined by Zuhra Bahman, the Afghanistan country director for the peacebuilding NGO Search for Common Ground. She is based in Kabul. A year ago, when the Taliban captured Kabul and became the de-facto authorities, Zuhra Bahman happened to be out of the country on a previously scheduled business trip. Yet when she and I spoke for the podcast last September she told me that she was determined to return home and get back to work. And when she and I last spoke for the podcast, back in March, she had finally made it back to Kabul. In our conversation, Zuhra Bahman reflects on her life and work in Afghanistan as a female civil society leader one year on from the Taliban's takeover of the country. Contrary to what people might think, she is still able to do her work and lead her team. And in our conversation she argues that the most effective way to preserve the space still open for civil society, including those that support women and marginalized communities is regular engagement with the de-facto authorities.

The Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine is Europe's largest. In March, Russian forces captured the plant and a crew of Ukrainians are maintaining operations at the plant -- effectively at gun point. In recent weeks, fighting around the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power plant has intensified, causing some damage to the plant and raising the prospect that in the context of armed conflict a catastrophic nuclear accident becomes a very real possibility. In this episode, we are joined by Jon Wolfstol, senior advisor at Global Zero and a member of board of Science and Security at Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. We kick off by discussing how Zaporizhzhia operates in normal circumstances and how the fighting may have impacted current plant operations. We then discuss what a catastrophic event at the power plant may look like. This includes the global impact of a nuclear meltdown at Zaporizhzhia.

In this episode, we are joined by Ali Wyne, senior analyst with Eurasia Group's Global Macro-Geopolitics practice, focusing on US-China relations and great-power competition, and author of the new book "America's Great-Power Opportunity: Revitalizing U.S. Foreign Policy to Meet the Challenges of Strategic Competition," which is generating a great deal of buzz in foreign policy circles. Ali Wyne offers a critique of using competition with China and Russia as an organizing principle for US foreign policy. Great power competition, Ali Wyne argues, is inherently reactive and should not be the blueprint that drives US strategy. Rather, in an era of a resurgent China and revanchist Russia, the US can leverage certain comparative advantages it has to pursue a pro-active and forward looking agenda on the world stage.

When national security professionals discuss "missile defense" they are are typically referring to technologies that can intercept an in-coming nuclear missile and blow it out of the sky. In 2002, the George W. Bush administration unilaterally withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty the US signed with the Soviet Union in 1972. Since then, there has been a sharp increase in the development of missile defense technologies around the world. This has seriously complicated nuclear deterrence Sanne Verschuren is a Stanton Nuclear Security post doctoral fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University. She is working on a book about why missile defense developed and takes the forms that it does today. The book is built from her dissertation on the topic, which was awarded the prestigious the Kenneth Waltz Award for Outstanding Dissertation in the field of International Security Studies.

Why have some countries experience durable economic progress while other countries remain left behind? This basic question has vexed development economists for decades -- and for decades economists have tried to reverse engineer one country's economic successes story to discover a blue print that could be applied elsewhere. Stefan Dercon, was one of those economists when he had an insight that forever changed his approach to the field of development economics. He explains this insight in his new book: Gambling on Development: Why Some Countries Win and Others Lose. Stefan Dercon is professor of economic policy at the University of Oxford and a former senior official in the UK government, including as the senior economist of the United Kingdom's premier overseas development agency.

Longtermism is a moral philosophy that is increasingly gaining traction around the United Nations and in foreign policy circles. Put simply, Longtermism holds the key premise that positively influencing the long-term future is a key moral priority of our time. The foreign policy community in general and the the United Nations in particular are beginning to embrace longtermism. Next year at the opening of the UN General Assembly in September 2023, the Secretary General is hosting what he is calling a Summit of the Future to bring these ideas to the center of debate at the United Nations. Will MackAskill is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Oxford. He is the author of the new book "What We Owe the Future" which explains the premise and implications of Longtermism including for the foreign policy community, particularly as it relates to mitigating catastrophic risks to humanity.

Rapidly identifying an emerging infectious pathogen is critical to prevent a disease outbreak from becoming an epidemic -- or even a deadly pandemic. But right now, there is no agreed international mechanism to do so. Veteran UN diplomat Angela Kane is trying to change that. She is working to create a new UN body to strengthen UN capabilities to investigate high-consequence biological events of unknown origin. Angela Kane, is the Sam Nunn Distinguished Fellow at the Nuclear Threat Initiative. She is a veteran diplomat who has held several senior positions at the United Nations, including Assistant Secretary-General for Political Affairs, Under-Secretary-General for Management, and High Representative for Disarmament.

Kenya's Ambassador to the United Nations Martin Kimani gave a viral speech at the UN Security Council on the eve of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Months later, Ambassador Kimani reflects on the impact of that speech and why Russian aggression against Ukraine is so resonant to Africa's own experience with colonialism. Our conversation was recorded live at the Aspen Security Forum in Mid July and Ambassador Kimani also discusses the impact of the war in Ukraine on Kenya and what opportunities still exist for multilateralism in a divided world.

Prior to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the Middle East was heavily dependent on importing food from Ukraine and Russia. The disruption of grain exports from the Black Sea region has had a profoundly negative impact on food security in the Middle East. I'm joined today my Arnaud Quemin, Middle East regional director for Mercy Corps. We kick off discussing what the food security situation in the region looked like before the war and then have an extended conversation about how the global food crisis is impacting people and politics in the Middle East.

On May 9th, Ferdinand Marcos Jr. was elected President of the Philippines. If that name sounds familiar to you, it is because he is the son of Ferdinand Marcos Senior, the brutal kleptocrat who ruled the Philippines for nearly 20 years. Marcos Jr., who is commonly known as "Bongbong," took office on June 30th succeeding Rodrigo Duterte, whose six year term was marked by a sharp deterioration of human rights in the Philippines, including a so-called "war on drugs" in which several thousands of people were extrajudicially killed by state security forces. Bongbong Marcos' vice president is Rodrigo Duterte's daughter, Sara Duterte. To help explain this new chapter in Philippines politics is Dr. Tom Smith, Principle Lecturer in International Relations for the University of Portsmouth, and the Academic Director to the Royal Air Force College.

Kenyans will go to the polls on August 9th to elect a new president. The current president, Uhuru Kenyatta, is term limited from seeking re-election and the two main candidates are both very familiar figures in Kenyan politics. William Ruto is currently the Deputy to President Kenyatta. But the two men had a falling out and now President Kenyatta is backing Ruto's main rival, Raila Odinga. For his part, this is Odinga's fifth time running for president. Kenya has a recent history of highly competitive elections that are sometimes accompanied by violence. Disputed elections in 2007 lead to over 1,000 people killed and hundreds of thousands displaced from their homes. On the line with me to help make sense of all this political intrigue and explain the significance of these elections is Caroline Kimeu. East Africa Correspondent for The Guardian.

I caught up with Poland's Deputy Foreign Minister Marcin Pryzdaz at the Aspen Security Conference in mid July. Poland is a front line state to the crisis in Ukraine and has been directly impacted by Russia's invasion, including hosting millions of Ukrainian refugees. Poland was also and early target of Vladimir Putin's efforts to use gas exports as a kind of blackmail; and when Poland refused to pay for Russian gas in Rubles, Russian gas was abruptly cut off. I kick off my conversation with the Deputy Foreign Minister with a discussion about the refugee situation in Poland. We have an extended conversation about how Poland responded to Russia's abrupt suspension of gas exports and what lessons from that episode Poland might impart on other countries in Europe. We then have a broad conversation about how Poland's proximity to the fighting in Ukraine is shaping its approach to that conflict.

Official and unofficial pronouncements from many sectors of the American foreign policy and political establishment routinely portray China as a major military threat to the United States --even claiming that this threat is existential. This is part of a pattern that my guest today calls "threat inflation" which he argues leads to policy decisions that paradoxically leaves the US less secure. Michael D Swaine, is director of the east asia program at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. He is the author of a new report titled "Threat Inflation and the Chinese Military" which shows how US officials may be exaggerating the military threat from China and what he argues are problematic policies that stem from inflated threat perceptions.

In November 2021, a rebel group known as M23 carried out a series of surprising attacks in the Eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. By the spring and summer of 2022, M23 had captured even more territory in this region. These attacks caught many by surprise because the M23 was believed to be largely defunct But nearly 10 years later, the group is now engaged in battles with the armed forces of the Democratic Republic of Congo for control of strategic locations in eastern DRC. My guest today Kwezi Mngqibisa is a Research Associate at the Center for African Diplomacy and Leadership at the University of Johannesburg, South Africa. We kick off discussing the background of the M23 rebel group, before having a broader discussion about its apparent re-formation and why a persistent failure to address the legitimate grievances of people in the eastern DRC are fueling conflict in the region.

Joe Biden is traveling to the Middle East for the first time as President, with stops in Israel, Palestine -- and most notably Saudi Arabia. As a candidate for president, Biden called the Saudi government a "pariah." Just weeks after taking office, he released an assessment from the US intelligence community revealing that US intelligence believes that Mohammad bin Salman approved of the operation that lead to the murder of Jamal Khashoggi. Yet in the face of high oil prices and the perceived need to re-calibrate US alliances in the region, Biden apparently feels compelled to make this trip. Kristin Diwan is senior resident scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington, DC . We kick off discussing the recent history of US-Saudi relations -- going back through key moments of the Obama and Trump administrations before having a broader conversation about what this trip says about both Biden's approach to the Middle East and the Saudi government's key foreign and domestic policy priorities.

Food prices are soaring around the world, and along with it so are rates of food insecurity and the risk of famine. As my guest today, Sir Mark Lowcock explains, this is only partly due to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, which exacerbated an already worsening situation. Mark Lowcock is a Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Center for Global Development and author of the new book Relief Chief: A Manifesto for Saving Lives in Dire Times. He served as the top United Nations humanitarian official from 2017 to 2021 and prior to that had a long career in the British government, including as the top civil servant in the Department for International Development. We kick off discussing what we know about the worst global food crisis in several decades before having a broader conversation about its causes, consequences -- and specific actions that can be taken to prevent this crisis from getting worse.

As the Syrian civil war escalated, the Syrian government began obstructing access to humanitarian relief in rebel held parts of the country. So, in 2014 the UN Security Council took the extraordinary step of allowing the United Nations to deliver humanitarian relief to parts of Syria without the consent of the Syrian government and in violation of Syrian sovereignty. Since then, humanitarian aid has been able to reach besieged parts of Syria through border crossings, mainly from Turkey into Northern Syria. But in recent years divisions at the Security Council, namely Russian objections to this arrangement, have significantly limited this aid operation. There is now just one border crossing in which aid is delivered from Turkey to rebel held parts of Idlib province in northern Syria. And on July 10th, that last border crossing may close. Today's episode is in two parts. First, you will hear from Vanessa Jackson the UN representative for Care International. She explains the broader diplomatic context in which this last border crossing may be forced shut by Russia. Then, you will hear my conversation with Ismail Alabdullah who is a volunteer in Idlib with the White Helmets, a local humanitarian relief and rescue organization. He discusses at length the humanitarian situation in Idlib and the implications of severing the last cross border lifeline of humanitarian aid.

Brittney Griner is an American basketball superstar. On February 17th, she was arrested in an airport outside of Moscow allegedly for possession of cannabis oil. She has been held in a Russian jail ever since and her trial is scheduled to begin on July 1. Brittney Griner's case is a text book example of what my guest today calls "Hostage Diplomacy." Dani Gilbert is an Assistant Professor of Military and Strategic studies at the US Air Force Academy. She is a leading researcher and expert on the causes and consequences of hostage taking in international security. We kick off discussing the circumstances of Brittney Griner's arrest and detention in Russia and then have a conversation about how the US government approaches situations in which an American abroad is wrongfully detained. This leads us to a broader discussion about trends in hostage diplomacy around the world.

Sweden and Finland have both formally requested to become members of the NATO alliance. To admit new members to NATO requires the approval of all existing NATO members and so far, Turkey is objecting. My guest today, Sibel Oktay, is associate professor at University of Illinois at Springfield and non-resident senior fellow at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. We kick off with a discussion about Turkey's specific grievances with Sweden and Finland and then have a broader conversation about how this dustup between Turkey and the rest of NATO fits into broader patterns in Turkish foreign policy. This includes a long discussion of Turkey's approach to Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

On June 19th, reports began to emerge of a mass atrocity in the Ethiopian region of Oromia committed against members of the Amhara ethnic group. This latest attack fits into a broader pattern of ethnic violence in Ethiopia since the outbreak of civil war in November 2020. Laetitia Bader is the Horn of Africa Director at Human Rights Watch. She contributed to a joint Human Rights Watch-Amnesty International report titled "We Will Erase You from This Land: Crimes Against Humanity and Ethnic Cleansing in Ethiopia's Western Tigray Zone." The report finds evidence of an organized campaign of ethnic cleansing against Tigrayan people, which is occurring in the context of Ethiopia's ongoing civil war.

In early June, Iran took the dramatic step of turning off some monitoring cameras in key nuclear facilities that had been installed by the International Atomic Energy Agency. The move came in reaction to a vote by the IAEA board of governors to censor Iran over its lack of cooperation with IAEA inspectors. This latest turn in the ongoing saga of nuclear diplomacy with Iran is further indication of just how precarious the 2015 Nuclear deal seems to be. Laura Rozen is a veteran reporter who has closely followed the contours of Iran nuclear diplomacy over many years. She is a member of the Just Security editorial board and writes the "Diplomatic" newsletter on Substack We kick off discussing the state of the JCPOA as Biden inherited it in 2021 before discussing how nuclear diplomacy with Iran in the past two years has unfolded, leading to this latest crisis over the removal of IAEA monitoring cameras.

On June 5th, armed men attacked worshipers at a Catholic Church in the city of Owo, Nigeria. Scores of people were reportedly killed and many more injured. My guest today, Idayat Hassan, is director of the Center for Democracy and Development in Nigeria. We kick off discussing this church attack as well as another high profile recent attack on a train in northern Nigeria. Idayat Hassan then describes how these attacks fit into broader patterns of insecurity in Nigeria. The increasing insecurity in parts of Nigeria today comes less than a year ahead of major national presidential elections scheduled in February 2023. But as Idayat Hassan explains the candidates are not emphasizing getting to the root cause of insecurity -- which she forcefully argues stems from a broken judicial system.

At time of recording there have been over 1,000 confirmed cases of Monkey Pox across 29 countries -- mostly in Europe and North America. The actual number of cases circulating in the population is likely much higher. We are in the midst of an outbreak of Monkey Pox, which is rarely found outside of West Africa. My guest today, Dr. Eric Toner is a Senior Scholar at The Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. We kick off discussing what exactly Monkey Pox is and how spreads before having a broader conversation about ongoing efforts to contain this outbreak. As Dr. Toner explains, many of the unique qualities of Monkey Pox -- including that we already have an effective vaccine against it, suggests that this outbreak is very much containable.

Today's episode was recorded live in front of a virtual audience at a side event of the International Migration Review Forum. The episode is produced in partnership with CGIAR and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. The event was titled "Climate-related mobility and conflict: Pathways to peace and human security" and includes some extended expert commentary on this topic. You will first hear from Sheggen Fan, system board member CGIAR followed by remarks from Shukri Ahmed, Deputy Director Office of Emergencies and Resilience at the FAO. I then moderate a panel discussion featuring: Prof. Dr. Vally Koubi, a Professor at and the Director of the Center for Comparative and International Studies at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology – Zurich. Dr Bina Desai, Head of Programs with the Internal Displacement Monitoring Center Pablo Escribano, Regional Thematic Specialist for the Americas: Migration, Environment and Climate Change with the International Organization for Migration. and Prof Dr. Marisa O. Ensor, Adjunct Professor with the Institute for the Study of International Migration at Georgetown University. After they take some questions from the audience, some concluding remarks are offered by Katrina Kosec, Fellow at the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and Lecturer at Johns Hopkins University.

Colombia held the first round of its presidential elections on May 29th and it is hard to overstate just how surprised most analysts were by the results. For generations, Colombia has been dominated by a small political establishment that ranges from the center right to the hard right. Unlike other countries in the Latin America, Colombia has never elected a President from the left wing; nor has Colombia ever experienced a right wing populist. Yet this be the choice as Colombians head to the polls in a run-off presidential election on June 19th. The left wing politician Gustavo Petro earned about 40% of the vote in the first round; and defying all expectations a 77 year old right wing populist Rudolfo Hernandez bested the establishment candidate to come in second place, with about 28% of the vote. His personal wealth, bluster, and clever use of social media have earned comparisons to Donald Trump. My guest today Elizabeth Dickinson is Senior Analyst for Colombia at the International Crisis Group. She breaks down the first round election results and explains why these results are so surprising. We take a deep dive into the interesting biographies of these candidates then have an extended conversation about what these elections mean for the worsening security situation in Colombia and a landmark 2016 peace deal that ended Colombia's long running civil war with the FARC insurgency.