Global Dispatches -- World News That Matters

The world has never been safer, wealthier or healthier. So why is it that our foreign policy is dominated by fear and inflated perceptions of threats that can harm us?  My guest today, Michael Cohen, and co-author Micah Zenko seek to answer that question in their new book Clear and Present Safety: The World Has Never Been Better and Why That Matters to Americans.   The book makes the convincing ar...

Not long ago, the social entrepreneur Bright Simons had a lofty goal of restoring social bonds between farmers and consumers. He tried to create a platform to pair organic farmers in Ghana with consumers of organic products. That project failed --  but in failure he made an important discovery that is now revolutionizing the fight against fake and counterfeit goods in the developing world, includi...

The White House confirmed that Egyptian President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi is to meet President Trump at the White House on April 9. The invitation to the White House was offered amid a deepening crackdown on human rights and a further erosion of the rule of law in Egypt, nearly six years after al-Sisi ousted President Mohammad Morsi. The White House visit comes as Egypt is facing yet another inflectio...

  Global trade is changing how women work. Supermarkets and major brands source much of their materials and manufacturing in the developing world as part of a "Global Value Chain." This is a way of obtaining raw materials and bringing goods to market that has become more and more common among major global brands in recent years. One consequence of this trend in global trade and global sourcing has...

  The second worst Ebola outbreak in history is currently unfolding in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Since August last year there have been nearly 1,000 confirmed cases and over 600 deaths. The DRC is a very large country and these cases are so far confined to the eastern part of the country. This is also the region of the Democratic Republic of Congo that has long been mired in conflict and i...

Getting bitten by a poisonous snake is not just an individual injury -- rather it is now recognized as a global health hazard. In fact, the World Health Organization estimates that between 80,000 and 136,000 people die from snakebite in each year. To put that in perspective, that is more than the number of people who died from meningitis and within the range of the number of people who died from M...

Today's episode is the second installment of my new series "UN Correspondent Chat." As the name suggests, this series includes wide ranging conversations with in-house reporters at the United Nations who discuss what is driving the agenda at Turtle Bay.  On the line today is Carole Landry, who is a veteran UN Correspondent with Agence France Presse, AFP.    We float between topics that have been b...

I caught up with CNN's Chief International Correspondent Clarissa Ward not long after she returned from reporting inside Taliban controlled territory in Afghanistan. She is one of the only western journalists to access Taliban territory to see what life is like under their control. She interviewed both civilians and Taliban officials and is on the Global Dispatches podcast to discuss her reporting...

In late January, the Trump administration began a pilot program on the border between Tijuana and San Diego in which migrants who claim asylum are sent back to wait in Mexico as their asylum claims are processed. This is known formally as the Migrant Protection Protocols and informally as the "Remain in Mexico" policy.   The result has been to turn back individuals, mostly migrants from central Am...

For the past several weeks Algeria has been rocked by mass protests that harken to the Arab Spring. The protests were triggered by the decision of longtime ruler Abdelaziz Bouteflika  to run for another term in office in elections scheduled for April.  Bouteflika came to power in 1999 as the architect of a peace accord that ended Algeria's brutal civil war that killed as many as 200,000. But Boute...

"Sometimes you gotta walkaway,"   That is how Donald Trump described the failure of he and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to come to an agreement during their summit in Hanoi, Vietnam.   So now that this meeting has ended in failure what comes next for nuclear diplomacy with North Korea?   On the line with me to discuss the events in Hanoi and talk through possible scenarios for future engagement...

Tensions are rapidly escalating between India and Pakistan, following a suicide bombing in India controlled Kashmir that killed scores of Indian security forces. In retaliation, India bombed what it called a terrorist camp inside Pakistani territory.  The situation is still unfolding--as I'm recording this there is word that an Indian Air Force pilot has been captured after his plane was shot down...

Energy Poverty conventionally refers to the lack of household electricity. Over 1 billion people live without reliable sources of electricity -- but a new group seeks to change how we think about energy poverty.   My guest today, Todd Moss is the founder and executive director of the Energy for Growth Hub, a new think tank. The Energy for Growth Hub seeks large scale solutions to end the kind of e...

As I am recording this, the United States is deep into negotiations with the Taliban over some sort of political arrangement that would enable the Taliban's entrance into Afghan politics while the US drew down its troop levels. The specifics of these negotiations are opaque--not much is known about what is on the table.   What we do know is that there are precisely zero Afghan women at the table. ...

We have known for years that vaccinations, including routine childhood vaccinations for diseases like measles, mumps and rubella prevent children from dying on a fairly massive scale. We also know that as a health intervention, most vaccines and vaccination programs are relatively inexpensive.  What was not well known, at least until recently, was the relationship between vaccine preventable illne...

Thousands of Haitians have taken to the streets in anti-government protests that quickly turned violent. Several people have been killed and a great amount of property has been damaged in these protests.  Haiti, of course, is no stranger to political crisis. But this crisis feels different, according to veteran reporter Jacqueline Charles. Jacqueline Charles is the Haiti Caribbean reporter for the...

The riddle of how to avoid the so-called "resource curse" has bedeviled a generation of policy makers, economists and academics.   Resource curse refers to the negative consequences that befall a country when it discovers a valuable natural resource, like oil. Often times the discovery of oil does not propel a country's economic development, and can even set a country back.   My guest today is eng...

About a decade ago, Simon Moss co-founded Global Citizen with a few friends in Australia. It has since grown into a behemoth of global advocacy on issues related to ending extreme poverty around the world. I've known Simon for years and have watched Global Citizen evolve over the years. So, I thought it might be useful and interesting to learn from him how an advocacy group like Global Citizen is...

Zimbabwe was rocked by protests in mid-January in the most significant public display of dissatisfaction with the government of Emerson Mnangagwa. Mnangagwa you will remember deposed longtime Zimbawe ruler Robert Mugabe in a coup in November 2017  -- an this past summer he further ensconced himself in power through an election in which he was declared the winner.    The proximate cause of these pr...

My guest today, Dr. Sharifullah Dorani is the author of the new book America in Afghanistan: Foreign Policy and Decision Making from Bush to Obama to Trump' as the title suggests, the book examines the history of US involvement in Afghanistan from 2001 through the first two years of the Trump presidency. And in this conversation we discuss what both what has stayed the same and what has distinguis...

Today's episode is the launch of a new series: UN Correspondent Chatter. From time to time I'll check in with an in-house reporter at the United Nations headquarters in New York to discuss the latest news, buzz, and intrigues around Turtle Bay.   I'm pleased to launch this new series with Margaret Besheer of the Voice of America. She has covered the UN since 2008 and has a been a great source of n...

On January 23rd, the 35-year-old head of the Venezuela's National Assembly Juan Guiado declared himself president of Venezuela, promising to would serve in that role on an interim basis before free elections could be held. He was quickly recognized as the legitimate head of state by the United States, Canada, the Organization of American States and many countries in Latin America.  Of course, de-f...

Dr. Aaron Davis, has one of the greatest titles of anyone I have ever interviewed in the last four years of doing this podcast. He is head of coffee research at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.     And in that role, he co-authored of two new scientific papers which demonstrate that many species of what is known as "wild coffee" are threatened with extinction, and that is in large part due to climat...

The Democratic Republic of Congo held elections on December 30th that would mark the country's first peaceful transfer of power since its independence in 1960. The long serving ruler, Joseph Kabilla had effectively delayed these elections for years, but finally promised to step down and cede power to the winner of these elections.  Votes were cast. Ballots were counted. A winner declared--and acco...

A protest movement in Sudan is posing the biggest challenge to the genocidal regime of Omar al Bashir in decades. The protests began just before Christmas, ostensibly over an increase in the price of bread and they quickly spread. Predictably, the regime has responded with violence but nevertheless, these protests persist. On the line with me to discuss the origins of this protest movement, how it...