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Zuhra Bahman was out of the country on a business meeting when the Taliban took control of Kabul.
She is the Afghanistan country director for Search for Common Ground, an NGO that engages in community based peace-building work. I was eager to speak with her because it is very unclear to me and to the entire international community the extent to which NGOs will be able to operate under Taliban rule.
As Zurha Bahman explains, she is eager to get back to her work and life in Afghanistan -- but only if certain conditions are met. To that end, she is urging engagement with the Taliban to enable development and humanitarian NGOs to work in the country on behalf of the Afghan people.
Today's episode was recorded live in front of a virtual audience in partnership with CGIAR, the world's largest agricultural innovation network, as part of a series of episodes examining the links between climate variability and security.
The episode features a discussion amongst a panel of experts who explore the relationship between security and land use, including forestry.
Visit https://climatesecurity.cgiar.org/ to register for the next live event in this series.
Zubaida Akbar is an Afghan human rights activist living in Washington, D.C. She is desperately trying to get vulnerable people out of the country, including a group of female journalists who are almost certainly marked for execution by the Taliban.
We kick off discussing what she is hearing from her friends in Kabul as people attempt to flee the Taliban's retribution. We then have a very heavy conversation about the tragedy unfolding in Afghanistan.
Back in 2008, in the midst of both a global economic catastrophe and stalled progress on climate diplomacy, a unique multilateral platform called the Climate Investment Funds was born.
The G-8 created the Climate Investment Funds to support developing economies as they shifted to a less carbon intensive future. The Climate Investment Funds supports the development of clean energy markets and invests in projects and programs the enable clean energy transitions and adaptation to climate change.
The CEO of the Climate Investment Funds, Mafalda Duarte is on the podcast today to explain the significance of this multilateral platform to the common global effort to confront climate change.
The Global Peace Index is an ambitious effort to measure peacefulness around the world using quantitative data. Now in its 15th year, the Index has offered policymakers and analysts a useful way to measure key trends in peace and conflict.
Steve Killilea, founder and executive director of the Institute for Economics and Peace, is on the podcast to discuss the report's findings and what it suggests about trends in peace and conflict around the world.
This episode was recorded live in front of a virtual audience and produced in partnership with CGIAR, the world's largest agricultural innovation network, as part of a series of episodes examining the relationship between climate and security.
In today's conversation we discuss the key question of how one measures the relationship between climate variability and peacefulness or insecurity.
Sign up for the next live taping!
Yemen has two rival central banks. These banks have their own priorities and fiscal policies -- and were set up, in part, to help defeat the other and control the Yemeni Rial.
The result has been runaway inflation and food prices that are increasingly out of reach for ordinary Yemenis.
Annelle Sheline of The Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft explains how Yemen came to have rival central banks and how this situation fits into the broader conflict in Yemen.
On July 25th, Tunisian President Kais Saied fired the prime minister, dismissed parliament, and assumed dictatorial powers . This was a self-coup in which the president invoked an emergency clause in the constitution allowing him to rule by decree.
Tarek Megirisi, Senior Policy fellow at European Council on Foreign Relations, explains what happened in Tunisia and the broader domestic and international implications of this power grab.
United States Senator Chris Murphy wants to radically reign in the President's ability to use military force abroad. Chris Murphy is a Democrat from Connecticut and along with Independent Senator Bernie Sanders from Vermont and Republican Senator Mike Lee from Utah is a co-sponsor of the new National Security Powers Act.
This legislation would give Congress far more say in matters of war and peace than it currently enjoys. This includes placing strict limits on the ability of the executive branch to conduct military operations abroad without congressional approval; increased Congressional oversight on international arms sales; and reforming how the President is able to declare a national emergency.
Senator Chris Murphy is on the podcast today to describe the problem he sees this legislation as helping to solve; and why he thinks increased congressional oversight over war powers is important for renewing and sustaining American democracy.
In March 2020, when countries around the world started imposing COVID-19 lockdowns Kashmir was just emerging from a lockdown of its own. Several months prior, in August 2019 the government of India revoked the special status that Kashmir had enjoyed since the partition of India in 1947. This sparked mass protests, violence and a heavy handed government response -- including curfews and an internet shutdown.
But just as restrictions were slowly being lifted in the early part of 2020, COVID emerged and the Indian government opted to invoke COVID to impose new restrictions on the people of Kashmir. This includes new citizenship laws and restrictions on press freedom.
My guest today, Adnan Bhat is a journalist in Kashmir who has documented how COVID-19 has served as a pretext to advance policies that abrogate the rights of people in Kashmir. His article on this was published as part of the Stanley Center's "Red Flags or Resilience Series?" that uses journalism to explore the connections between the coronavirus pandemic and the factors for risk and resilience to mass violence and atrocities around the world.
This episode is produced in partnership with the Stanley Center. To view Adnan Bhat's article and other stories in this series please visit https://resilience.stanleycenter.org/
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