Global Dispatches -- World News That Matters

Delegates from around the world are en route to Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt for the 27th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Better known as COP27. The conference lasts from November 6th to the 18th. These COPS are key moments for international climate diplomacy. And since the 2015 Paris Agreement, it is the main mechanism in which countries renew, review, and assess their progress towards the Paris Agreement goals to limit global warming to at least 1.5 degrees celsius. In this episode, we give a preview of the key stories, debates and outcomes expected to drive the agenda in Sharm el Sheikh with a Twitter Spaces roundtable we recorded on Thursday, November 4th with guests Pete Ogden, Vice President for Energy, Climate, and the Environment at the United Nations Foundation, Nisha Krisnan, Director for Climate Resilience in Africa with the World Resources Institute, Mark Hertsgaard, executive director of Covering Climate Now and the environment correspondent for The Nation, and Dr. Omnia El Omrani, the first ever Youth Representative for COP27.

There are a record number of cholera outbreaks around the world today. Consider this data point. In 2022 alone, 29 countries have reported a cholera outbreak. This compares to 20 countries over the previous five years. The outbreaks are distributed across several regions: countries in the Caribbean, middle east, Africa, and Asia are experiencing cholera outbreaks -- some for the first time in decades. Amidst all these concurrent outbreaks, there is a global shortage of cholera vaccines to the point that public health officials are suspending the the standard two-dose vaccination regimen in favor of just a single dose. In this episode, we speak with Louise Ivers, director of the Harvard global health institute, and the Massachusetts general hospital center for global health about why there a sudden surge in outbreaks worldwide, where are the outbreaks the worst, and what can be done about this vaccine shortage.

On October 18th, the White House released an expansive new strategy on Countering Biological Threats, Enhancing Pandemic Preparedness, and Achieving Global Health Security. The strategy sets out a whole-of-government approach to mitigating biological risks. This includes naturally occurring pathogens as well as dangerous new pathogens created in a lab. In this episode, we speak with Nikki Teran, Director of Biosecurity Policy at Guarding Against Pandemics. We discuss the substance of the new US biodefense strategy -- its strengths, weaknesses, and potential barriers to implementation. Nikki Teran also describes as the Bio-risk threat landscape writ large, including the pathogens and broader trends in biosecurity that a strategy like this seeks to mitigate.

On October 21st, the United Nations Security Council imposed individual sanctions on Jimmy Cherizier, a former police officer turned gang leader in Haiti. For weeks, the coalition of gangs headed by Cherizier, known as the G9 Friends and Allies have imposed a blockade on the main fuel terminal in Haiti. Fuel is now getting more scarce by the day, with prices surging to as much as 20-dollars a gallon. This is exacerbating an already dire humanitarian situation, with parts of Port au Prince experiencing what the United Nations deems catastrophic food insecurity. Meanwhile, amidst the chaos and fighting, a new cholera outbreak is sweeping through neighborhoods of Port au Prince. In this episode, we are joined by Jacqueline Charles Caribbean Correspondent for the Miami Herald and a longtime reporter covering Haiti, to discuss the biography of Jimmy Cherizier before having a longer conversation about Haiti's recent gang wars and the relationship between gang violence and politics in Haiti.

At time of recording an ongoing Ebola outbreak in Uganda has sickened 64 people. 24 people have died. The outbreak was declared on September 20th in a rural community but has since spread to Kampala, the sprawling capital city. In recent years, health officials in Africa have become very adept at responding to ebola outbreaks, and have relied on a highly effective vaccine that was developed in the wake of the 2014 West Africa ebola outbreak. However, there is no vaccine for the particular strain of ebola circulating in Uganda today. In this episode, we speak with John Johnson, vaccine and epidemic response advisor with Doctors Without Boarders France to talk about the origins of this outbreak and how it has spread, how healthcare workers are responding, and why there's not vaccine for this particular strain of Ebola when other ebola vaccines have proven to be so effective.

The Chinese Communist Party Congress is always a key moment on the Chinese political calendar. Every five years, party delegates select party leadership. This includes the selection of the top most ranks of the Chinese Communist Party, including its General Secretary. Being a one party state, the head of the Chinese Communist Party is also the President of China. Over the last several decades, General Secretaries of the Chinese Community Party serve at most two consecutive five year terms, but Xi Jinping is bucking this trend. He is widely expected to be installed for a third term -- demonstrating that he is the most powerful individual leader in China since the time of Chairman Mao. In this episode, we are joined by Jessica Chen Weiss, professor of China and Asia-Pacific studies at Cornell University to talk about the significance of this Party Congress, and to shed some light on what a more ensconced and more powerful Xi Jinping might mean for China and its relationship with the rest of the world, including the United States, as well as discuss the significance of this Party Congress.

Iran is in the midst of the most significant protest movement in years -- and it is being lead by women and girls. The spark that ignited this movement was the murder of 22 year old Mahsa Amini, who had been arrested by Iran's morality police for improperly wearing her headscarf. She was beaten to death in police custody. Protests erupted throughout the country, with women and school aged girls audaciously flaunting laws around dress codes. It is a feminist lead uprising against the ultra-conservative government lead by Ebrahim Raisi and, as some argue, against the Islamic revolutionary system that has governed Iran since 1979. In this episode, we are joined by Negar Mortazavi, an Iranian-American journalist and commentator and host of the Iran Podcast. We discuss how these protests started and then spread to become an intersectional movement. We then have a in-depth conversation about the Iranian government's response and what may come next.

Last March, there seemed to be a glimmer of hope that the brutal civil war between the Ethiopian federal government and the breakaway Tigray People's Liberation Front would come to an end. The government announced a ceasefire and an African Union lead peace process was underway. The conflict began two years earlier, in November 2020 with clashes between Tigrayan regional forces and federal government troops. It quickly escalated. This included the intervention of Eritrean troops to support the Ethiopian government. Over the ensuing months, the conflict caused the worst humanitarian crisis in the world. There's been severe food shortages, a humanitarian blockade, a telecoms blackout and massive displacement. Thus, that moment in March when a ceasefire was declared -- was extremely welcome. But just four months later, the ceasefire was shattered and now the conflict is entering a new and dangerous phase as Eritrea is re-entering the conflict in a very big way. In this episode, we are joined by Zecharias Zelalem, a freelance journalist who covers Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa to discuss how we got to this point. We begin our conversation by discussing the circumstances that lead to this ceasefire and its dissolution before talking about the current trajectory of the Ethiopia-Tigray conflict.

These are perilous moments in the conflict in Ukraine. In response to the Ukrainian military's stunning gains in recent weeks, Putin is escalating. He has enacted a military mobilization within Russia and is once again threatening the use of nuclear weapons. How seriously should we take these nuclear threats? In what scenarios and circumstances might Putin actually use a nuclear weapon. And how should the Biden administration and NATO respond if, indeed, Putin goes nuclear? We put these questions and more to Jon Wolfsthal a longtime nuclear policy professional and aid to then Vice President Joe Biden who currently serves as senior advisor to Global Zero and as a board member for Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.

On October 2nd, Brazilians headed to the polls for the first round of national elections. At the top of the ticket were two very familiar names in Brazilian politics: incumbent president Jair Bolsonaro and former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, known best simply as Lula. These two men are starkly different kinds of politicians. Bolsonaro is very much a right wing populist, often compared in style to Donald Trump. Lula is former union leader who served as Brazil's president from 2003 to 2010 and later served 580 days in prison before his conviction was annulled. After the first round of presidential ballots were cast, Lula won 48.4% of the vote and Bolsonaro, 42.2%. Since no candidate won over 50%, the election will go to a run-off on October 30. This election is deeply consequential for the future of democracy in Brazil and also carries important international implications, which we discuss with today's guest, Matthew Taylor, professor of international studies at the School of International Service at American University. We start off by discussing the first round results and electoral dynamics heading into the second round, before having a deeper conversation about what this election means for Brazil and the world.