Global Dispatches -- World News That Matters

On Saturday, April 15th fighting broke out in Khartoum and elsewhere in Sudan. At time of recording, hundreds of people have been killed, all commercial air travel has been suspended, and international aid operations have come to a halt. In the massive city of Khartoum, millions of people are sheltering in place, with dwindling supplies of food and water-- and that includes my guest today Hala al-...

Over ten years ago, most Arab countries in the Middle East cut ties with the Syrian government during the civil war and supported armed groups dedicated to the overthrow of the Bashar al-Assad regime. Meanwhile, Iran was Assad's key backer.  But now, in the Spring of 2023 a big shift is underway. Saudi Arabia and Iran are taking steps towards rapprochement and Arab governments throughout the regio...

About six years ago, I received a request for an interview from an academic in the United Kingdom named Martin Scott who was doing journalism related research. That interview helped to inform the new book: "Humanitarian Journalists: Covering Crises from a Boundary Zone" by Martin Scott, and coauthors Mel Bunce, and Kate Wright -- all of whom are academics.  The book identifies and defines what the...

At time of recording, there are two ongoing outbreaks of Marburg Virus Disease, one in Tanzania and the other in Equatorial Guinea. Marburg is in the same family of diseases as Ebola and is extremely deadly, with a case-to-fatality ratio of up to 88%. Humans can become infected through contact with fruit bats, and like ebola, Marburg is transmissible between humans through contact with bodily flui...

On November 15, the world population officially surpassed 8 billion people, according to United Nations estimates. The milestone was reached just 12 years after the world marked 7 billion people, and it is projected that global population will hit 9 billion people by 2037 So what are the key demographic trends driving population growth? Where is population growing fastest? Where is it declining? A...

My guest today Rory Stewart is an author, former diplomat and politician who served as the United Kingdom's Secretary of State for International Development. He is currently the CEO of Give Directly, an international NGO that specializes in no-strings attached cash transfers. This includes to people impacted by sudden onset crises and as a tool to provide basic income for people living in extreme...

We present an episode of the Hidden Economics of Remarkable Women podcast, which is now in its third season. Each episode tells the story of how women are creating change through economic empowerment. In this new season, the Hidden Economics of Remarkable Women is partnering with journalists around the world to cover underreported ways women are challenign the status quo. For the season three open...

In early January, news emerged that Canadian foreign minister Melanie Joly was facilitating peace talks between the government of Cameroon and Anglophone separatist groups.  The news came as what is sometimes referred to as the "Anglophone Crisis" enters a seventh year of armed conflict. The conflict stems from the perceived marginalization of english speaking regions in the largely francophone co...

Xi Jinping spent spent three days in Russia in a highly touted visit that included hours of direct talks with Vladimir Putin. The visit comes amid Putin's growing international isolation and heightening tensions between China and the United States. So what did Xi hope to accomplish with this major diplomatic summit? Joining me to answer that question and more is Jordan Schneider, founder of the po...

It was twenty years ago this month that the George W Bush administration began its ill-fated invasion and occupation of Iraq. The ostensible justification for this war of choice was that the Iraqi regime had weapons of mass destruction that it might someday use against the United States. This premise proved to be false and today the Iraq war is widely regarded to have been a massive strategic blun...

Other than Ukraine itself, no country has been more deeply impacted by Russia's invasion than Moldova. Moldova has absorbed more Ukrainian refugees per capita than any other country in the world and Moldova is uniquely dependent on Russian gas and electricity. Inflation is running at 30%. Moldova is governed by a stridently pro-European ruling party, and in recent weeks Russia has ramped up effort...

Rob Bailis is a senior scientist for the Stockholm Environment Institute. He is a leading researcher on the intersection between energy use, health and the environment in the developing world. This includes the use of household cooking appliances -- cookstoves -- and the impact of the kind of fuel used in cookstoves on human health and the environment. Rob Balis contributed to new research, suppor...

The annual Commission on the Status of Women CSW is the second largest diplomatic gathering at the United Nations each year, after the General Assembly in September.  Thousands of delegates from hundreds of countries come to UN headquarters in New York in what is the major moment on the diplomatic calendar centered on the promotion of gender equality and the empowerment of women.  Joining me to pr...

On March 1st Bola Tinubu was declared the winner of Nigeria's sharply contested presidential election. In a three way race, Tinubu received 37% of the votes, enough to win him the presidency.  Bola Tinubu is from the same party as outgoing president Mohammadu Buhari. The election results are being challenged in court by his rivals. But if the results stand, he will be inaugurated in May. Joining m...

Before joining the United States House of Representatives in 2021, Congresswoman Sara Jacobs worked at the United Nations and US State Department. As she explains, this experience gave her unique insights into the valuable role the United States can play at the UN and the value the UN brings to US foreign policy.  Congresswoman Sara Jacobs is a Democrat from southern California who serves on House...

On February 23rd, President Biden nominated former MasterCard CEO Ajay Banga to serve as the next World Bank president. His nomination came as a surprise to many in the international development community, including my guest today Amanda Glassman. Amanda Glassman is executive vice president and senior fellow at the Center for Global Development. We kick off discussing the circumstances around the...

To mark the one year anniversary of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Global Dispatches has teamed up with the podcast Inside Geneva to bring you a live recording in which host Imogen Foulkes is joined by conflict resolution experts to discuss the prospects for peace – and how it can be won.   "The fact that we're talking about the possibility of using nuclear weapons, the fact that we're talking abou...

In April 2019, Sudanese dictator Omar al-Bashir was ousted in a coup after nearly 30 years in power. The coup followed months of mass civilian protests against his regime.  The transition from dictatorship to democracy has been extremely rocky, but in December 2022 civilian and military leaders entered into an agreement under heavy international pressure.  Guest Hala al-Karib, is a Sudanese activi...

Humanity is tantalizingly close to killing off the last Guinea Worm. This is a water born parasite that when ingested grows and grows until it painfully exits the body through a lesion in the skin. There is no treatment for it. There is no cure for it. But it can be prevented.  And if prevented everywhere, Guinea Worm Disease will be eradicated.  We are now on the cusp of that moment. In 2022, the...

Nagorno-Karabakh  is an ethnic Armenian enclave within the internationally recognized borders of Azerbaijan. In the early 1990s Armenia and Azerbaijan fought a bloody war resulting in Armenia's de-facto control of Nagorno-Karabakh.  For most of the last 30 years this was a frozen conflict with occasional flareups only fitful progress towards a diplomatic and political resolution. Then, in Septembe...

The Dadaab Refugee Complex in Kenya hosts about 310,000 refugees, most of whom are Somalis who have fled conflict and drought.  Dadaab has been around for about 30 years. And  over the decades, it has periodically experienced sharp influxes of people.  We are in the midst of one of those moments. In 2022, 51,000 people arrived and it is projected that in 2023 90,000 people will make their way from...

We are in the midst of an escalating cycle of violence in Israel and Palestine. On Thursday, January 26 Israeli forces killed at least 9 people in a raid in the Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank. The following evening, a Palestinian gunman killed seven people outside a Synagogue in East Jerusalem. More violence followed over the weekend.  I caught up with journalist Dalia Hatuqa who has reported...

My guest Reed Brody is a veteran war crimes prosecutor and author of the new book "To Catch a Dictator: The Pursuit and Trial of Hissene Habre."  Hissene Habre was the brutal dictator of Chad from 1982 to 1990, when he was ousted in a coup and fled to Senegal.  The book tells the story of Reed Brody's years long obsession to bring Habre to justice, and his partnerships with African lawyers and vic...

Since Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24th, 2022 there have been numerous examples of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by Russian soldiers. Many of these crimes are being investigated and prosecuted by local Ukrainian courts and the International Criminal Court.  But the crime of launching this illegal war in the first place is not, as of yet, under any court's jurisdiction. Oon...

Peru is in the midst of the worst political violence experienced in the country in decades. Protests began in December following the ouster of former President Pedro Castillo. He was impeached and arrested following his effort dissolve congress in a brazen attempt to stay in power through a self-coup. Castillo's supporters have staged large protests which were violently suppressed by security forc...