Global Dispatches -- World News That Matters

The UN Summit kicks off next week in New York! This is always the most exciting time of year for us UN nerds. And between the Pope and Putin, this UNGA promises to be a very interesting one.

Here …

Elmira Bayrasli is the author of the new book "From the Other Side of the World: Extraordinary Entrepreneurs, Unlikely Places." She is also the co founder of Foreign Policy Interrupted, which seeks t…

Why do countries build fences and walls at their border and under what conditions are those walls and fences likely to work as intended? These questions are obviously topical right now, with the US-M…

When Jina Moore was in Middle School she became intensely curious about the Holocaust, reading about everything she could on the subject. That curiosity improbably led a girl from a small town in Wes…

The Syrian refugee crisis has finally made it to Europe's doorstep. Over the past several weeks, masses of refugees have made their way to southeastern Europe, mostly en route to Germany and other co…

My guest today, Juliana Barbassa is a journalist and the author of the new book Dancing with the Devil in the City of God: Rio di Janeiro on the Brink. 

Earlier this week the UN Security Council did something it's never done before: it held a meeting specifically focusing on violence directed against LGBT people. The council called two witnesses, bot…

There is a new ebola vaccine. And it works spectacularly well. A recent paper in the Lancet demonstrated of the 7,600 people in Guinea who received the vaccine, not one person contracted the virus. T…

The FARC Insurgency in Colombia has been raging for fifty years. And now, after a long peace process, it may soon be coming to a formal end. But even though a peace deal may be signed, whether or not…

South Sudan is in a tailspin. On July 9, the country commemorated its 4th anniversary of independence but it was hardly a celebration. Since December 2013 the country has been in a freefall stemming …

Jessica Jackley co-founded Kiva and revolutionized micro-lending. Her new memoir Clay, Water, Brick tells the story of the founding of Kiva and her own personal journey from a religious family in Pit…

President Obama is visiting Kenya this week. This is his first trip to his father's country of birth since becoming president, and people in Kenya are certainly treating it like a homecoming. 

Anand Gopal's first book, "No Good Men Among the Living: America, The Taliban and The War through Afghan Eyes," was a finalist for the 2015 Pulitzer Prize. And deservedly so. This book is easily one …

A panel of independent experts recently published an exhaustive and hotly awaited report on the future of UN Peacekeeping The panel was lead by Jose Ramos Horta, the Nobel Laureate and former preside…