Global Dispatches -- World News That Matters

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency, better known as UNRWA, was established in 1949 to support Palestinians displaced during the first Arab-Israeli war. Today, it provides services and humanitarian relief to nearly 6 million Palestinians in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, the West Bank and of course Gaza.  There has always been some tension between Israel and UNRWA, but since the October 7th attack...

On March 31st, Turkey held local elections across 81 provinces. These elections took place less than a year after national elections cemented President Erdogan and his AK Party's hold on power, which he had been consolidating for nearly 20 years through democratic backsliding. But these elections were different -- very different. Erdogan's AKP suffered huge defeats across the country, perhaps none...

The Gaitenistas, otherwise known as the Gulf Clan, are Colombia's largest and richest criminal armed group. They formed nearly 20 years ago but have gained considerable strength since Colombia's landmark 2016 peace agreement with the Leftist FARC guerrilla group. Today, The Gulf Clan controls much of Colombia's Atlantic coast and is a key player in drug trafficking and migrant smuggling. All the w...

Xi Jinping has dramatically reshaped China since coming to power in 2012. He is now effectively a leader for life, and throughout his time in power, he has molded Chinese politics and society to his own ideological predilections. Understanding this ideology, known as "Xi Thought," is crucial for comprehending how China perceives its role in the world today. Steve Tsang, the director of the China I...

Podcast guest Rosemary Salomone is the Kenneth Wang Professor of Law at St John's University School of Law and author of the book "The Rise of English: Global Politics and the Power of Language." The book takes readers around the world to show the political, social and cultural implications of English having been firmly established as the Lingua Franca. We kick off discussing how English became th...

In Mid-March the U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed a bill that would effectively ban Tik Tok in the United States. Tik Tok's parent company, Byte Dance, is Chinese. This bill would force Byte Dance to sell Tik Tok to an American buyer or else the app would no longer be available in the United States. President Biden has said he'd sign this bill into law, but at the moment the leg...

The Commission on the Status of Women concludes this week at the United Nations. CSW, as it is known, is one of the major annual events at UN headquarters, second only to the opening of the UN General Assembly in September. But unlike UNGA, it rarely gets much media attention, at least not the kind of attention commensurate for a diplomatic gathering of its size. Joining me to explain the key deba...

The security and humanitarian situation in Haiti has gone from bad to worse over the last several days. The country, ensnared in an enduring crisis following the 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moïse, now faces a critical juncture as violence led by gang coalitions escalates and state authority wanes. Amid this chaos, Prime Minister Ariel Henry signaled his intent to step down, agreeing to...

Artificial Intelligence is changing warfare. Fully autonomous weapons that can make their own decisions about what to target or whom to kill are already in limited use today. But the pace of development of AI suggests that these so-called "Killer Robots" may become more and more common in future armed conflicts. Meanwhile, the speed at which new AI technology is coming online far exceeds the abili...

Western countries have seized hundreds of billions of dollars of Russian assets following Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine two years ago. Since then, the question of what to do with those assets has loomed large over debates about Ukraine. Vladimir Milov is a Former Deputy Minister of Energy of the Russian Federation and now a Russian opposition politician. Milov makes a compelling case for...

Stuart Reid is the executive editor of Foreign Affairs and author of the new book " The Lumumba Plot: The Secret History of the CIA and a Cold War Assassination. " The book tells the story of Congo's liberation from Belgium in the 1950s and 60s and the rise to prominence of Patrice Lumumba, Congo's charismatic independence leader. Believing Lumumba to be under the sway of the Soviet Union, the CIA...

Alexander Ward ia national security reporter for POLITICO and author of the book "The Internationalists: The Fight to Restore American Foreign Policy After Trump." We discuss the implications of Mitch McConnell stepping down as the leader of the Senate Republicans and delve into the key themes and insights from Ward's important new book. We explore the concept of the "foreign policy for the middle...

There is a global development pileup on the horizon. In 2024 and 2025, about a dozen funding pools that support global development and global health are due for replenishment. These replenishments are essentially fundraisers for entities like the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria, the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunizations (GAVI), and the World Bank's International Devel...

On January 28th, Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger jointly announced they were leaving the Economic Community of West African States, ECOWAS. This is a regional economic and political union of most countries in West africa. Citizens enjoy free movement across borders of ECOWAS member states and many of its members share the same currency.  ECOWAS also seeks to uphold democratic norms, and each of these...

Last week, the United States Senate passed a foreign aid bill that included about $60 billion for Ukraine's defense. The vote was overwhelmingly bi-partisan, but the ultimate fate of continued American aid for Ukraine now depends on action in the House of Representatives, where the outcome is unknown. Mounting uncertainty around America's commitment to Ukraine's defense comes at the two year anniv...

Indonesia is the third largest democracy in the world, and on February 14th national elections were held including to replace the extremely popular outgoing president Joko Widodo. The current defense minister Prabowo Subianto won those elections and will be Indonesia's next president. He's a controversial figure who has been credibly accused of human rights abuses during Indonesia's long Suharto d...

2024 is an important year for African democracy. At least 19 national elections scheduled to take place this year. Not all of these elections will be free or fair-- let alone competetive. Some of these elections will serve to ensconce leaders for life like Rwanda's Paul Kagame. Others may serve to consolidate power following a coup. But genuine multi-party democracies like Ghana and South Africa a...

To understand any country's foreign policy you need to understand domestic political dynamics. So what is driving Iranian decision making right now? Negar Mortazavi is a journalist, host of the Iran Podcast and senior fellow at the Center for International Policy. I reached out to her for this interview because it seems that lost in much commentary about the widening crisis in the middle east is a...

On January 25th, a milestone was reached in humanity's long fight against Malaria. For the first time ever, a Malaria vaccine was included in a country's routine childhood vaccinations program. Cameroon rolled out a new Malaria vaccine for children and other countries will soon follow. This comes after years of successful trials in Kenya, Ghana and Malawi which demonstrated the vaccine to be safe...

On January 15, Kim Jong Un formally declared South Korea to be an enemy state. This is significant for the fact that since the end of the Korean War, the line from Pyongyang was more or less that South Korea was like a wayward relative and would ultimately be reunified with the North. But now, according to Kim and changes he's enacting to the North Korean constitution, the state of South Korea is...

The United Nations is hosting the Summit of the Future in September during the annual opening the UN General Assembly. If all goes according to plan, world leaders will endorse a so-called "Pact for the Future" that will serve as a vehicle for enacting meaningful reforms to the United Nations. In late January, negotiations began in earnest over what will be included in that pact.  My guest today D...

The UN has not declared a famine in gaza--not yet at least. But the World Food Program has said there are "pockets of famine" in Gaza. In December, the UN released its most comprehensive assessment of food security in Gaza and estimated that over half a million people are facing catastrophic levels of food insecurity inside Gaza. For comparison's sake, in the entire rest of the world there are an...

Climate change is impacting the migratory patterns of fish around the world. And in some cases, the changing location of fish stocks is heightening the risk of armed conflict. My guest today, Johan Bergenas, is Senior Vice President for Oceans at the World Wildlife Fund. Late last year, the World Wildlife Fund launched a platform called Oceans Futures to collect data on climate change and fisherie...

On Tuesday January 16th, Iran launched airstrikes in Pakistan targeting a terrorist group it claimed carried out attacks in Iran. Two days later, Pakistan responded with its own strikes in Iranian territory, targeting a separatist group that has carried out attacks against Pakistan.  These attacks were notable for both their scale--these were major missile and drone strikes --  and for the fact th...

Taiwan held elections for President and the Legislature on January 13. These elections were highly anticipated for the fact that the leading candidates have differing views on how to manage Taiwan's relationship with China. The current vice President, Lai Ching-te of the Democratic Progressive Party won the elections and is considered to be more pro-west, pro-independence, and skeptical of China. ...