Global Dispatches -- World News That Matters

On February 1st, the Burmese military mounted a coup, deposing and detaining the civilian leadership of the country. The military arrested the de-facto civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi and other key …

On February 24 the very first shipments of a COVID-19 vaccine from COVAX arrived in Ghana. COVAX is the international cooperative effort around the development and distribution safe and effective COV…

The conflict in Yemen is entering a new phase. The Houthi rebel group that controls much of the country is launching a new offensive in an oil rich region of the country. Meanwhile, the Biden adminis…

We know that countries around the world sometimes favor coal because it is cheaper. But new research from my guest today Jan Steckel aims to pinpoint some of the political forces that drive investmen…

President Biden must soon make a key decision about American troop levels in Afghanistan. There are currently about 2,500 American troops in Afghanistan, but under a deal negotiated last year between…

2021 will be a consequential year for multilateral diplomacy on climate change. A number of key meetings are on the diplomatic calendar and they come just as the new Biden-Harris administration in th…

Over the last several weeks farmers in India have staged mass demonstrations to protest new government agricultural policies. The farmers say these new laws would be financially ruinous and allow lar…

The United States Agency for international development, USAID, is the premier global development agency of the United States government and one of the largest global development organizations in the …

With the peace process between Israel and Palestine seemingly intractably stalled, a new peace building plan that is modeled on Northern Ireland seeks to build grassroots support for peace. 

Peace-bu…

A military coup in Myanmar (also called Burma) has toppled the civilian government lead by Aung San Suu Kyi.

In this 2019 episode, former deputy National Security Advisor to Barack Obama Ben Rhodes e…

The security and humanitarian situation in the Central African Republic has rapidly deteriorated over the last several weeks. Rebel group control a key road from which goods, food and humanitarian su…

On January 23, protests erupted in several cities and town across Russia in support of Alexey Navalny, the anti-corruption activist who was poisoned in an assassination attempt last August.  Navalny …

Nigeria has a population of over 200 million people. It is the largest country in Africa.

The country is now in the midst of a second wave of COVID infections which is straining an already fragile he…

On January 14th, Uganda held national elections for president and parliament. The incumbent was the 76 year old Yoweri Museveni, who has ruled Uganda since 1986. His main challenger was a 38 year old…

A treaty to ban the use of nuclear weapons becomes international law on January 22, 2021.  The treaty seeks to do to nuclear weapons what previous international treaties have done to chemical and bio…

Ambassador Klaus Scharioth, who served as German Ambassador the United States from 2006 to 2011, discusses the implications of the Pro-Trump insurrection on US foreign policy and international relati…

Loujan al-Hathloul is a 31 year old Saudi women's rights activist in prison for challenging laws that inhibit women in Saudi Arabia.  In early January 2021, she was handed down a nearly six year pris…

There is a worsening Jihadist insurgency in a  province in Northern Mozambique called Cabo Delgado. The insurgency began in 2017, but in recent weeks the fighting has intensified substantially. Over …

One of the most visible tools of international cooperation on peace and security are UN Peacekeepers -- Blue Helmets. Today there are about 95,000  uniformed personnel deployed to to 13 missions arou…

The last four years have altered the global human rights landscape in some pretty significant ways. The Trump administration by and large abandoned multilateral forums for advancing a human rights ag…