PassBlue UN Podcasts

Yahya Jammeh, Gambia’s former leader, ruled the tiny West African country with an iron fist for 22 years after seizing power in a 1994 military coup. His regime was marked by widespread human rights abuses, including enforced disappearances, torture and extrajudicial killings. Despite being voted out in 2016 and soon exiled to Equatorial Guinea after refusing to accept the election results, his le...

Samuel Zbogar, ambassador of Slovenia to the UN, leads the rotating presidency of the Security Council this month. In an interview, he tells PassBlue that his country will use its signature debate, on Sept. 25, to ask Council members to reflect on how their countries can work more for peace rather than war. A daunting challenge, he admits. The country is back in the Council for the first time sinc...

Dr. Michael Imran Kanu, Sierra Leone's envoy to the UN, says his country's presidency of the Security Council this August will focus on Council reform and making the case for a permanent seat for the African continent. Tweet at us @pass_blue GC tv link: www.globalconnectionstelevision.com/

As UN Security Council rotating president for July, Russian Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia says that the West is using the "Kyiv regime" as "puppets" to fight the war in Ukraine and that there will be "certain political consequences" for doing so. Nebenzia was speaking to the media on July 1 as he detailed his country's agenda in the Council for the next four weeks. Besides the topic of Ukraine, he f...

Joonkook Hwang, the ambassador of South Korea to the UN, says his country will highlight the threats of cyberspace to global peace and security. This is a new topic for the Security Council agenda, so why does it matter to the East Asian nation? Find out in this month's episode of UNSCripted. Tweet at us @pass_blue GC tv link: www.globalconnectionstelevision.com/

Welcome to a special episode of PassBlue podcast series UNSCripted. I’m Jessica Le Masurier, and I’m joined by Hala Rharrit, the Arabic language spokesperson for the Mideast-North Africa region for the United States State Department who recently resigned in protest over US policy on the war in Gaza. (The text part of the interview has been edited for clarity.)

Mozambique's permanent representative to the Security Council, Pedro Comissário, says that vetoes, divergent priorities and other imperfections can severely limit the productive work of the UN's crucial peacemaking body. On this episode of UNScripted, we find out what Comissário plans to do as rotating president in May, despite these challenges, such as reinforcing international law on protecting...

Vanessa Frazier, Malta’s envoy to the UN, explains why the new Ramadan ceasefire isn't holding in Gaza and says that her country is counting on the ICC to hurry up its inquiry into whether war crimes are being carried out in the enclave. GC tv link: www.globalconnectionstelevision.com/

Japan's dual focus for its UN Security Council presidency – preventing conflicts as well as nuclear disarmament – align with its foreign policy and history of nuclear disasters but as it leads the Council for this month, Ambassador Yamazaki says the Security Council is struggling with its main job of building peace and preventing violent disputes. Seton Hull link: www.shu.edu/diplomacy/visiting.ht...

The UN CHARTER: A Question of Faith “The substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” SAN FRANCISCO -- Our third and final episode of the podcast series “Act of Creation” is ready for your ears. It’s a fitting end to a great journey. Episode 1 looks at the years leading up to the famous San Francisco Conference of 1945, when the Charter was signed and the United Nations was bor...

Guyana may not not want a permanent seat in the UN Security Council but it definitely wants a ceasefire in Gaza "as soon as possible." As rotating president for February, the country's ambassador to the UN, Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett, tells PassBlue that another top priority for the month is impressing on the world how climate change affects food security and, ultimately, global peace. She also tou...

France, a permanent member of the Security Council, is president of the body in January. Ambassador Nicolas de de Rivière says his country will headline Gaza this month, where the number of civilian casualties incurred by Israel's "broad and massive military operation" is "way way too high." Tweet at us @pass_blue Seton Hull link: www.shu.edu/diplomacy/visiting.html GC tv link: www.globalconnectio...

As Ecuador’ assumes the leadership of the United Nations Security Council this month, the country wants to focus on the broader peace and security issues in the Mideast rather than the Israel-Hamas war, even as it devastates civilians in the Gaza strip. Listen to our podcast to find out what it hopes to do about transnational organized crimes in Latin America and UN peacekeeping in the Central Afr...

In this episode, we meet a family who fled Xinjiang Province, or what they prefer to call East Turkestan, to the US and are now teaching a new generation in the diaspora about Uyghur language and culture. We also meet a New York City restaurateur who is keeping Uyghur cuisine alive. Tweet at us @pass_blue Seton Hull link: https://www.shu.edu/diplomacy/visiting.html GC tv link: https://www.globalco...

Brazil recently won a sixth term in the Human Rights Council. Before the election, we spoke to the country’s deputy permanent representative to the UN, Norberto Moretti, on the country’s candidacy. We also talked about the reversal of deforestation in the Amazon and the lack of debate on migration in the UN Security Council. With context provided by Prof. Gustavo Macedo at Ibmec in Sao Paulo. Seto...

If you want to join the European Union, make sure you are at peace with Athens. But Ferit Hoxha, Albania’s envoy to the UN and rotating president of the UN Security Council for September, is unperturbed about possible obstacles Greece may put in Albania's way, regardless of certain disputes. PassBlue interviewed Hoxha and Engjellushe Morina, a senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreig...

As the US takes over the Security Council, famine and human rights are the banner themes for August. We chat with foreign affairs analyst Jeffrey Laurenti about the Black Sea Grain deal, perennial Israel and Palestine fracas and Afghanistan’s foreign reserves. Laurenti, who is American, says Israel’s extreme right-wing government is alienating its Jewish support in the US. Would that be enough to...

Our latest episode of “Act of Creation” takes listeners deep into conversation with Stephen Schlesinger, author of the book of the same name, which celebrates its 20th anniversary this September and chronicles the birth of the United Nations through the signing of the UN Charter. That is arguably the moment when the UN was born, at the end of a two-month conclave that began on April 25, 1945, most...

With UK’s presidency of the Security Council underway, PassBlue used its interview with Ambassador James Kariuki, the country’s deputy permanent representative, to ask about one of the most controversial pieces of UK foreign policy – a bill that could allow British government ministers to ignore injunctions from the European Court of Human Rights to suspend deportation of illegal migrants. We also...

In March, the Taliban opened a consul in the UAE. There are two possible results proffered by Dr. Mira Al Hussein, a Mideast expert, on the move: the militants gain international legitimacy or the US could be tempted to bolster the Taliban to attack Iran. Both parties have clashed over water rights this year. On this episode of UN-Scripted, we also reflect on how well the UAE has been at building...

On April 26, the Security Council held a historic meeting on the use of Veto power. At that meeting, an initiative by France and Mexico to stop Council members from using veto in cases of atrocities was re-echoed. Ambassador Pascale Baeriswyl, Switzerland’s first Security Council president, told PassBlue her country is actively pushing for the motion to become a resolution. Will it happen? So far,...

This is the first part of our three part podcast series about the founding of the United Nations, featuring Stephen Schlesinger, author of the book "Act of Creation." The series was created by Dan Becker, a composer, educator and board member of UNA-USA in San Francisco. It is focused through the prism of the San Francisco Conference, where for two months beginning on April 25, 1945, the UN Charte...

Stephen Schlesinger, Fellow at the Century Foundation New York, author, International Affairs analyst, and a few other caps, told PassBlue why the multilateral system is best served with Russian in it. At the end, dealing with erring Permanent council members, a position all five have occupied in history, comes down to moral suasion.

Sitting president of the Security Council, Pedro Comissario chatted with PassBlue on Feb. 24, 24 hours after abstaining again on a UN resolution demanding Russia's withdrawal from Ukraine. He said that certain Western countries, including the US and UK, did the same on Resolution 1514, outlawing colonialism, but he denied that historic ties with the Soviet Union have any bearing on Mozambique's fo...

Remember Atlantis? The mythical city gobbled up by the ocean? This is happening to islands and villages in the Pacific. Ambassador Vanessa Frazier, Malta's emissary to the UN and president of the UN Security Council for February, tells PassBlue that international law has no cover for the rights of islanders who could lose their home to the water in our lifetime. Malta will raise the matter of risi...