Global Dispatches -- World News That Matters

This episode was recorded live in front of a virtual audience and produced in partnership with CGIAR, the world's largest agricultural innovation network, as part of a series of episodes examining the relationship between climate and security. In today's conversation we discuss the key question of how one measures the relationship between climate variability and peacefulness or insecurity.  Sign u...

Yemen has two rival central banks. These banks have their own priorities and fiscal policies -- and were set up, in part, to help defeat the other and control the Yemeni Rial.  The result has been runaway inflation and food prices that are increasingly out of reach for ordinary Yemenis.  Annelle Sheline of The Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft explains how Yemen came to have rival centra...

On July 25th, Tunisian President Kais Saied fired the prime minister, dismissed parliament, and assumed dictatorial powers . This was a self-coup in which the president invoked an emergency clause in the constitution allowing him to rule by decree. Tarek Megirisi, Senior Policy fellow at European Council on Foreign Relations, explains what happened in Tunisia and the broader domestic and internati...

United States Senator Chris Murphy wants to radically reign in the President's ability to use military force abroad. Chris Murphy is a Democrat from Connecticut and along with Independent Senator Bernie Sanders from Vermont and Republican Senator Mike Lee from Utah is a co-sponsor of the new National Security Powers Act.  This legislation would give Congress far more say in matters of war and peac...

In March 2020, when countries around the world started imposing COVID-19 lockdowns Kashmir was just emerging from a lockdown of its own. Several months prior, in August 2019 the government of India revoked the special status that Kashmir had enjoyed since the partition of India in 1947. This sparked mass protests, violence and a heavy handed government response -- including curfews and an internet...

Unique among countries in the world, Mexico considers Femicide as a crime distinct from homicide. Sometimes known as "Feminicide," this is the crime of murdering a woman or girl on account of her gender.  Since the outbreak of COVID-19 in March 2020, the documented numbers of Femicide in parts of Mexico have skyrocketed. This includes a part of the State of Mexico, near Mexico City, known as The P...

Protest, looting, and riots have plunged South Africa into a deep crisis. Scores of people have been killed in this unrest which was sparked by the jailing of former President Jacob Zuma on July 7th.  At time of recording, the government was dispatching 25,000 troops to bring order--and unprecedented military mobilization in the post-apartheid era.  On the line with me from Johannesburg is journal...

Eswatini (formerly known as Swaziland) is a small country in Southern Africa nestled on the border between South Africa and Mozambique. It is notably Africa's only absolute monarchy --  the king rules by decree, with no meaningful checks or balances.  Today, the country in in the midst of its most intense and significant protests against that monarch in recent history. The protests began in May an...

Colombia has been rocked by the most significant protests in recent memory. In late April and May Colombians took to the streets across the country initially to protest a proposed new tax law. But what began as a a protest against this new tax bill swiftly morphed into a broad based protest movement against systemic inequality.  Colombia is one of the most unequal countries in the world and these...

In the early morning hours of July 7th, unknown assailants assassinated the President of Haiti Jovenal Moise.  Haiti was already facing an uncertain political future. And now, the line of succession is not at all clear.  Journalist Jonathan Myerson Katz explains the tumultuous political context in which this audacious assassination occurred and what the assassination of the president means for the...

The Okavango River is a major river system in Southwest Africa. It begins in Angola, passes through Namibia and ends in a vast delta in Botswana. This river system, its ecological and social impact is the subject of a breathtaking new podcast called Guardians of The River.  Guardians of the River won the best narrative non-fiction podcast award at the Tribeca Film Festival -- and after listening t...

The crisis in Syria is at a crossroads. Millions of displaced people trapped in northern Syria may soon face a near complete cutoff of the humanitarian aid upon which they rely. This is because Security Council must vote to keep this aid flowing, but Russia is threatening a veto. On the line to explain how we got to this point and the implications of restricting aid access is Vanessa Jackson, UN R...

On June 18th, Antonio Guterres was re-appointed United Nations Secretary General for a second and final five year term.  Richard Gowan, the UN Director of the International Crisis Group, looks back at the highlights and lowlights of Guterres' first term and discusses some of the key challenges and opportunities that will present themselves over the next five years.  Global Dispatches debut book: F...

Climate variability can cause the mass movement of people -- but does the mass movement of people fleeing climate shocks undermine political and human security?  A diverse panel of experts who explores the relationship between security challenges and climate induced migration -- both across and within borders. This episode was recorded live in front of a virtual audience and produced in partnershi...

The government of Sri Lanka is using COVID-19 as a pre-text to assert control over ethnic minority populations. This is particularly troubling because the government has a history of atrocity crime. The leaders of the country today are they very same people responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed against ethnic tamils 11 years ago.   Journalist JS Tissainaygam explains how...

By all accounts, the situation in the Tigray region of Ethiopia is extremely grim and about to get much worse. The United Nations now says that famine has struct parts of the region. The civil war in Ethiopia continues without and end in sight. Meanwhile, fraught national elections are scheduled for June 21.  Ethiopian journalist Zecharias Zelalem explains how we got to this point and where the co...

Ban Ki-moon served as the eighth Secretary General of the United Nations from 2007 to 2016.  He is out with a new memoir titled Resolved: Uniting Nations in a Divided World. We cover quite a bit of ground in this interview, including his perspective on what the covid crisis revealed about the strengths and weaknesses of the United Nations, what can be done to bolster multilateralism today, his fru...

President Biden has nominated Sarah Margon as Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor.  This is the top American global human rights watchdog and the most important human rights position in the US foreign policy bureaucracy.   In 2015, Sarah Margon came on the podcast for a long conversation about her life and career in human rights. Listen back to this conversation to l...

Hana Meihan Davis comes from a long line of democracy activists in Hong Kong. Today, they are all either in exile, facing arrest, or somewhere in between. Hana Meihan Davis is the author of the new book For The Love of Hong Kong: A Memoir From My City Under Siege , which tells the story of Hana's family and friends who have been on the frontlines of an epic struggle to defend democracy, freedom of...

On Sunday May 23rd a Belarusian fighter jet intercepted a civilian Ryan Air flight and forced it land in Minsk, Belarus. Authorities promptly arrested a dissident journalist onboard and his girlfriend.  Often described as "Europe's Last Dictator," this incident was an audacious example of the lengths that the regime of Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko would go to silence opposition voices an...

As the world turns towards greener economies there will be a surge in demand for natural resources that enable a less carbon intensive future. This includes the mineral cobalt, which is key component of batteries.  Most of the world's supply of Cobalt is in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. This raises the prospect that increasing demand for Cobalt might contribute to insecurity in the DRC.  O...

Elected in 2019 as a 37 year old third party candidate, the president of El Salvador Nayib Bukele is a political phenom. He has a hipster's disposition, but an authoritarian's proclivities.  a On the line to explain the rise of Nayib Bukele and the demise of democratic checks and balances in El Salvador is Frida Ghitis,  She is a world affairs analyst and columnist for World Politics Review.  We k...

Conflict in Israel and Palestine is escalating in ways we have seen before: an Israeli military assault on Gaza as rockets fly from Gaza to Israel. But what distinguishes this latest iteration of the Arab-Israeli conflict is that violence is spreading within Israel. Over the last several days there have been multiple incidents of mob attacks between Jews and Arabs in towns in Israel with mixed pop...

The last time World Food Program Chief Economist Arif Husain came on the show to discuss global trends in food security was 15 months ago. Needless to say, since January 2020 and the onset of the pandemic food insecurity and hunger around the world have gotten much worse.  We kick off this conversation discussing a new report on global hunger and food security before have a longer discussion about...

It was a combination of imperial ambition and white supremacy that inspired the advent of the field of global health in the 19th century and that colonialist legacy can still be seen in the practice of global health today.  Guest: Dr. Ashti Doobay-Persaud is an Assistant Professor of Medicine and Medical Education at Northwestern University where she co-directs the Center for Global Health Educati...