Global Dispatches -- World News That Matters

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 Somalia to Dadaab. This ballooning population is straining humanitarian agencies' ability to provide basic services to populations in need.  My guest today, Hassan Maiyaki is the country director for Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) in Kenya. He describes a worsening humanitarian situation there, measured in part by a sharp rise in acute child malnutrition. We discuss why the situation is seemingly getting worse and what can be done to help provide for the basic needs of a rapidly expanding refugee population.     

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 from Israel and Palestine for many years. We kick off discussing some of the broader context from which this escalatory cycle of violence  has emerged. This includes a ten month old series of stepped up raids by Israel into the West Bank and Gaza. We also discuss why this current violence may or may not lead a to a so-called Third Intifada, and the link between Israel's new far rightwing government and the apparently devolving crisis.    

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 victims rights advocates who secured a conviction.  We kick off discussing the abuses of Hissene Habre and the successful legal strategy that resulted in a life sentence. We then take a step back and discuss the lessons learned from this successful trial that might be applied to other abusive leaders elsewhere.  

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. Oona Hathaway is seeking to change that. She is a professor at Yale Law School who has been advocating for the creation of a UN-backed special tribunal to prosecute the crime of aggression committed by Russian leaders in Ukraine.  In recent weeks and month, this proposal is gaining some traction.  We kick off discussing and defining what we mean by the "crime of aggression" before the discussing the politics of creating a special internationally backed mechanism to prosecute specific Russian leaders, including Vladimir Putin, for the crime of aggression.     

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 forces, resulting in dozens of deaths so far.  I spoke with reporter Simeon Tegel just as protesters were moving en masse from rural parts of the country to the capital city, Lima. Simeon Tegel is a freelance journalist and contributor to the Washington Post. We kick off discussing the scene in Lima before having a longer conversation about the causes and consequences of this mounting political crisis in Peru.       

On February 25th, Nigeria will hold federal elections. Nigeria is the largest democracy in Africa and one of the largest multiparty democracies in the world. Incumbent Muhammadu Buhari is respecting term limits and stepping aside, leaving and open field.  In recent history, Nigerian politics has been dominated by two parties. But with about one month before elections there is a surprising third party candidate, Peter Obi, who is leading in the polls on a surge of support by young Nigerians.  Guest Cynthia Mbamalu is director of programs for Yiaga Africa, a civil society organization that works to promote democracy in Africa.  She explains how and why young people in Nigeria may determine the outcome of Nigeria's elections.  We kick off discussing the major candidates before having an in depth conversation about the youth vote, including how a protest movement against police brutality has inspired a youth political awakening.   

Agathe Demarais was a treasury official in the French government working in Moscow and Beirut when she saw, first hand, some of the unintended impacts of US sanctions. Agathe Demarais is the global forecasting director of the Economist Intelligence Unit and author of the new book Backfire: How Sanctions Reshape the World Against US Interests. The book makes the provocative argument that an over-reliance on sanctions as a tool US foreign policy is making sanctions a less effective tool of US foreign policy.  In our conversation, Agathe Demarais explains how US sanctions are sort of like antibiotics in which overuse can cause resistance.      

According to the International Monetary Fund, 22 countries in Africa are either in debt distress or at high risk of debt distress --that is, they are unable to fulfill their financial obligations to creditors.  This is nearly double the number of countries in Africa in some form debt crisis just a few years ago.  Why so many African countries are facing a fiscal crisis today and the implications of debt distress for economic and social development is explained at length by my guest today Mark Plant, senior policy fellow at the Center for Global Development.  We kick off discussing why Ghana and Zambia are illustrative of broader fiscal trends in Africa and then have a discussion about the policy conundrums facing countries as they navigate fiscal crises and seek to satisfy creditors without sacrificing substantial gains in economic and social development.    

In December protests erupted in cities across Bangladesh, including the capital Dhaka. The proximate cause was skyrocketing inflation triggered in part by Russia's war in Ukraine. But as my guest Michael Kugelman explains these were not mass protests, but rather highly partisan events ahead of elections scheduled for this year.  Michael Kugelman is director of the South Asia Institute at the Wilson Center in Washington DC.  We kick off discussing the significance of these protests. We then have a longer conversation about how these protests fits into broader trends in Bangladeshi politics and economy -- including Bangladesh's remarkable economic growth and its increasing authoritarianism under prime minister Sheikh Hasina. 

In this episode, we are joined by Chris Miller, author of the new book "Chip Wars: The Fight for the World's Most Critical Technology." The books tells the story of microchip, including its history and its profound impact on international relations and geopolitics today.  Chris Miller is an Associate Professor of International History at the Fletcher School at Tufts University. We discuss why the microchip is central to our world today, how Taiwan and South Korea became the two major international hubs for the manufacture of specialized chips, and the geopolitical implications of a chip manufacturing supply chain that relies on just a few key nodes. We also discuss efforts by the US to prevent China from building a domestic advanced chip manufacture industry.