Global Dispatches -- World News That Matters

Burkina Faso, the landlocked country in West Africa, is in the midst of an escalating humanitarian emergency. Over half a million people have been displaced in the last year -- a 500% increase from one year ago, according to the latest data from the United Nations.  The vast majority of the newly displaced are fleeing an unrelenting series of terrorist attacks. Most of these attacks are occurring in regions near the border with Mali. But terrorist violence has also reached the capitol city Ouagadougou including high profile strikes against foreign targets, like an attack on a western hotel in 2016 and an attack on the French embassy in 2018.    As we enter 2020, the scale and pace of terrorist attacks has picked up in intensity. This includes a late December attack in the town of Arbinda, in a province that borders Mali, which saw at least 37 civilians killed.  Also, earlier this year, there was a bombing of a bus carrying school children that killed 14 people.  This surge in violence in Burkina Faso comes six years after peaceful protests lead to the ouster of longtime ruler Blaise Compaoré.  And according to my guest today, the increase pace of terrorist attacks in Burkina Faso might be tied to upcoming elections in 2020, which are being contested by Blaise Compaoré's political party.    Arsene Brice Bado is professor of political science at the center for research and action for peace, known as CERAP, at the Jesuit University in Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire. He is from Burkina Faso, and in this conversation he offers a few explanations for why his country is experiencing such violence after a rather euphoric period following the ouster of Blaise Compaoré. We kick off discussing some recent attacks in Burkina Faso before having a longer conversation about the causes and consequences of increasing violence in Burkina Faso. We also discuss what kinds of policies and what kinds of international engagement might help reduce the prospect of further violence. If you have twenty minutes and want to understand why Burkina Faso is experiencing a man-made humanitarian emergency, and what that means for the broader Sahel region -- and the world,  have a listen.  I am very excited to announce that this episode is the first in a series of episodes supported in part from a grant from Carnegie Corporation of New York. The grant will help the show feature African perspectives on peace and security issues in Africa. Needles to say, I am very excited for the content that will be produced from this partnership. I'll discuss it in more detail after the episode.   

On January 12 2010, a 7.0 magnitude earthquake struck Haiti.  Hundreds of thousands of people lost their lives. Millions more were made homeless. Around the world, there was a huge outpouring of support and solidarity for the people of Haiti. This included billions of dollars pledged for Haiti relief and reconstruction.  Ten years later, much of the rubble is gone. But the massive reconstruction plans have  materialized to a degree commensurate with the promises that were made at time.   So what happened to the billions of dollars pledged and to the grand promises to "build back better?"  On the line with me to discuss what happened with Haiti earthquake reconstruction is Jacqueline Charles. She is a veteran reporter with the Miami Herald who has reported this story for many years. I caught up with her in Port Au Prince where she was covering events around the 10th anniversary of the earthquake. Her series in the Miami Herald, called Haiti Earthquake: A Decade of Aftershocks is an absolute must read and I'll post a link to it on the homepage. The series includes an interview with Bill Clinton, who was the major international figure raising money for Haiti reconstruction and helping to coordinate the international response. He served, for a time as the co-chair of a commission directing international relief efforts and Jaqueline Charles and I discuss the legacy of Bill Clinton's efforts to that end.  

The conflict in Syria is entering a new phase. Over the last several years Syrian government forces, backed by outside powers like Russia and Iran, have steadily regained control of territory held by rebel factions.  As they lay siege to opposition fighters, they forced groups, including massive numbers of civilians to retreat to a part of Syria called Idlib. This is in the Northwest of the country near the border of Turkey. Today, this is the largest rebel-held bastion. The number of fighters is relatively small compared to the some 4 million civilians trapped there.  Russian fighter jets and Syrian artillery have continued to target this area, though there has not been an all out ground invasion. Meanwhile, millions of civilians trapped here and also other rebel held parts of the country in the Northeast are dependent on humanitarian relief to stay alive.  For the last six years, the main lifeline for civilians in rebel held territory in these parts of Syria has been aid delivered across the border. What is significant about the cross border aid delivery is that it is done without the consent of the Syrian government; this is unusual because for both legal and practical reasons the United Nations and aid agencies it works with requires the host country's permission to operate. But in 2014, with humanitarian disaster mounting across the border from Turkey, and with the Syrian regime not permitting aid deliveries to rebel held parts of the country, the UN Security Council used its authority to authorize the cross border delivery of aid --  even if the Syrian government would not consent.  This was a big deal at the time, and allowed a massive aid operation to reach vulnerable populations in Northern Syria.  The Security Council resolution enabling the cross border delivery of aid requires re-authorization every year. And every year, even with Russian acceptance, it was re-authorized.  That was until this year. On January 10th Russia forced the Security Council to severely limit these aid operations. Now, says Vanessa Jackson of the humanitarian organization CARE International, cross border aid operations will be extremely limited and perhaps even cease all together in the near future.  Vanessa Jackson is the United Nations representative for CARE International. She has been following both the debate on Syria at the Security Council closely we discuss the impact of this restriction on the delivery of humanitarian aid as well as how this move fits into the broader trajectory of the conflict in Syria.  

We may be in for a very turbulent year of nuclear diplomacy with North Korea Since 2018, North Korea has had a self-imposed moratorium on the testing of nuclear weapons and long range missiles, like the kind that could reach the United States. The moratorium stems from the diplomatic opening between the United States and North Korea that culminated in three meetings between Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un.  However, even as North Korea has paused its long range missile and nuclear testing, it has continued other tests to advance its nuclear weapons program.  At the very end of 2019, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un delivered remarks in a New Year's speech that suggest what this self-imposed moratorium on nuclear and missile testing was over -- and on top of that, that North Korea has a powerful new weapon in its arsenal.  So what does this all mean for nuclear diplomacy with North Korea and the prospect of more provocations, or even outright conflict? On the line with me to discuss where we are headed with North Korea is Dr. Jeffrey Lewis.  He is a professor at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterrey. He is a longtime nuclear security expert and and North Korea watcher.  We kick off discussing the impact, if any, of the US killing of Iranian general Qassam Soulemani on North Korea's strategic thinking before having a longer conversation about North Korea's nuclear program and the prospects for diplomacy in 2020.   Also, last time Jeffrey Lewis was on the show we discussed his book, published in 2018, which is actually a novel that presents a very plausible scenario for a nuclear exchange between North Korea and the United States that takes place in 2020. So, naturally, we ended this conversation discussing the likelihood of whether or not the events he describes in his book may transpire. https://www.patreon.com/GlobalDispatches

I spoke to my guest today, Ilan Goldenberg, just a couple hours after Donald Trump addressed the nation following an Iranian missile attack on bases in Iraq. The Iranian attack, of course, was in retaliation to a US drone strike that killed a top Iranian official Qassem Souleimani on January third.  In his remarks, Donald Trump signaled that he was ready for the offramp and would not launch new military strikes in the near term. The Iranian government also said that the missile attacks on bases in Iraq had concluded their retaliation.  For the moment, the crisis is not poised to escalate. But, says Ilan Goldenberg, we can very much expect Iran to launch further reprisals in the future--and this could include terrorist attacks and assassination attempts against US targets. Ilan Goldenberg is a former Defense Department official in the Obama administration whose work focused on Iran. He is now director of the Middle East Security Program at the Center for a New American Security in Washington, DC. In our conversation we discuss the events of the first week of January and what comes next. Ilan Goldenberg describes the strategic thinking underway in Iran right now that lead to this missile strike on a base holding US troops in Iraq, and also why and how he expects further retaliation.  We also discuss how the US killing of Souleimani might affect Iran's compliance with the Nuclear Deal and what opportunities exist, it at all, for de-escalation.    https://www.patreon.com/GlobalDispatches 

In 2017, hundreds of thousands of Rohingya muslims were driven from their homes in Myanmar. At the time, a UN official called this a "textbook example of ethnic cleansing." And today, the government of Myanmar is being sued at the International Court of Justice for perpetrating a genocide. These attacks against the rohingya are the most recent and extreme example of sectarian violence and discrimination in Myanmar -- which is an incredibly diverse country with a long history of ethnic conflict.  So how does one stop this trend? How do you promote tolerance and pluralism in a place in which diversity has been used to fuel conflict?  On the line with me today is someone who is doing just that. Aung Kyaw Moe is the founder and executive director of the Center for Social Integrity in Myanmar. This is an organization that provides both humanitarian relief but also engages in peacebuilding and advocacy work. He is himself a Rohingya and has used humanitarian aid in parts of the country where Rohingya live to encourage cross ethnic partnerships.  Aung Kyaw Moe and his organization recently received a high honor, the Global Pluralism Award, which is conferred by the Global Centre for Pluralism, a joint partnership between The Aga Khan and the Government of Canada. We kick of discussing diversity in Myanmar before having a longer conversation about how that how diversity has been used as a wedge to ignite conflict, and how  Aung Kyaw Moe is working to reverse that trend.        

Pablo Yanguas is a research fellow at the Global Development Institute at the University of Manchester. He is the author of the new book "Why We Lie About Aid: Development and the Messy Politics of Change." In this conversation we discuss the central thesis of his book which is that there is a profound gap between the politics of development, and how economic development is actually achieved on the ground in the developing world. The book is provocative for arguing that the former causes us to misrepresent the latter.     This thesis rings true to my experience covering global development as a journalist for over a decade now. And I must say I found this conversation very clarifying--he identifies and ascribes political motives to trends that I have certainly seen covering these issues. And even if you are not a global development nerd, I think you will find this conversation very useful.    (Re-broadcast from February 2018)

Dr. Joanne Liu lead Medecins Sans Frontiers/Doctors Without Borders from 2013 to this past September. Listen back to her 2017 conversation in which she discusses why she joined MSF, and how MSF has evolved to respond to recent trends like the global refugee crisis and the increasing frequency with which hospitals are targeted in warfare. This is a powerful conversation that alternates between the wonky and the personal. 

The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria was created in 2002 as a partnership between governments, philanthropies and civil society.  At the time, these three diseases were completely out of control, killing millions of people each year and with no end in sight.  17 years later, thanks in large part to the Global Fund, we can imagine the end of AIDS, TB and Malaria.  Deaths from these three diseases have declined precipitously. Instances of infection have also declined--though not as sharply as mortality rates. In all, some $32 million lives have been saved through the Global Fund, which is essentially a pool of money that is strategically disbursed in select countries to reduce instances and deaths from these diseases. The way this money is raised is from contributions from donors, the most significant of which are countries. And in late October in Lyon, France the Global Fund held a pledging conference in which it sought to raise a minimum of $14 billion to cover its operations over the next three years.  And as my guest today Peter Sands explains it was something of a nail-biter in Lyon as to whether or not they would hit that goal.  Peter Sands is the executive director of the Global Fund. And in this conversation he takes us behind the scenes at that donor conference.  We discuss progress against those three diseases, how the global fund works and why of those diseases Tuberculosis has been the most difficult to confront.      

India's prime minister Narendra Modi was re-elected to office in May in what was a landslide victory for his BJP party.  Modi is a Hindu nationalist in a diverse country that includes one of the world's largest Muslim populations. He rose to political prominence in the early 2000s as the chief minister of Gujarat during inter-communal riots that lead to the murder of over a thousand people, mostly Muslims. He was widely accused of failing to stop the riots and has used the mass murder of Muslims in Gujarat in 2002 to his political advantage.   Modi was first elected Prime Minister in 2014 and since his re-election in May 2019, Modi has very much doubled down on implementing a stridently pro-Hindu agenda that is undermining secular democracy in India. This includes, most recently, the passage of a law that excludes Muslim immigrants to India of certain citizenship eligibilities.  That transparently anti-Muslim law has sparked massive protests across India, which at time of recording show little signs of abating.    On the line with me to explain how a newly re-elected Narendra Modi is using his political power to advance a Hindu nationalist agenda, what what that means in a country with nearly 200 million Muslims is Michael Kugelman. He is  Deputy director of the Asia Program and South Asia senior associate at the Wilson Center.  We kick off discussing this new citizenship law before having a broader conversation about how Narenda Modi is changing India, what that means for Indian democracy and international relations.