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By all accounts, the situation in the Tigray region of Ethiopia is extremely grim and about to get much worse. The United Nations now says that famine has struct parts of the region. The civil war in Ethiopia continues without and end in sight. Meanwhile, fraught national elections are scheduled for June 21.
Ethiopian journalist Zecharias Zelalem explains how we got to this point and where the conflict may be headed next.
Ban Ki-moon served as the eighth Secretary General of the United Nations from 2007 to 2016. He is out with a new memoir titled Resolved: Uniting Nations in a Divided World.
We cover quite a bit of ground in this interview, including his perspective on what the covid crisis revealed about the strengths and weaknesses of the United Nations, what can be done to bolster multilateralism today, his frustrations with the Security Council and what advice he might offer to his successor Antonio Guterres. We also spend a good deal of time talking climate change diplomacy, which was Ban's signature issue as Secretary General.
Resolved: Uniting Nations in a Divided World, by Ban Ki-moon
For The Love Of Hong Kong: A Memoir From My City Under Siege, by Hana Meihan Davis
President Biden has nominated Sarah Margon as Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor. This is the top American global human rights watchdog and the most important human rights position in the US foreign policy bureaucracy.
In 2015, Sarah Margon came on the podcast for a long conversation about her life and career in human rights. Listen back to this conversation to learn the events that shaped the worldview of Biden's pick for top human rights official.
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Our Debut Book: For The Love Of Hong Kong
https://www.amazon.com/Love-Hong-Kong-Memoir-Under-ebook/dp/B09645ZRZQ
Hana Meihan Davis comes from a long line of democracy activists in Hong Kong. Today, they are all either in exile, facing arrest, or somewhere in between.
Hana Meihan Davis is the author of the new book For The Love of Hong Kong: A Memoir From My City Under Siege, which tells the story of Hana's family and friends who have been on the frontlines of an epic struggle to defend democracy, freedom of speech and human rights in the face of increasing repression by Chinese government authorities. This is the first book under the new Global Dispatches publishing imprint.
On Sunday May 23rd a Belarusian fighter jet intercepted a civilian Ryan Air flight and forced it land in Minsk, Belarus. Authorities promptly arrested a dissident journalist onboard and his girlfriend.
Often described as "Europe's Last Dictator," this incident was an audacious example of the lengths that the regime of Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko would go to silence opposition voices and dissidents.
Guest: Sofya Orlosky, senior program manager for Europe and Eurasia at Freedom House.
As the world turns towards greener economies there will be a surge in demand for natural resources that enable a less carbon intensive future. This includes the mineral cobalt, which is key component of batteries.
Most of the world's supply of Cobalt is in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. This raises the prospect that increasing demand for Cobalt might contribute to insecurity in the DRC.
On the line to explain the link between mineral extraction and conflict in the DRC and how cobalt mining can lead to peace and sustainable development is Laurent Kasindi, Program Quality Specialist at Search for Common Ground.
Elected in 2019 as a 37 year old third party candidate, the president of El Salvador Nayib Bukele is a political phenom. He has a hipster's disposition, but an authoritarian's proclivities. a
On the line to explain the rise of Nayib Bukele and the demise of democratic checks and balances in El Salvador is Frida Ghitis, She is a world affairs analyst and columnist for World Politics Review. We kick off discussing the sudden rise of Bukele in Salvadorian politics before entering into a discussion about the implications of his authoritarian tendencies.
Conflict in Israel and Palestine is escalating in ways we have seen before: an Israeli military assault on Gaza as rockets fly from Gaza to Israel. But what distinguishes this latest iteration of the Arab-Israeli conflict is that violence is spreading within Israel. Over the last several days there have been multiple incidents of mob attacks between Jews and Arabs in towns in Israel with mixed populations between Palestinian citizens of Israel and Jews. The threat of widespread communal violence is now very acute.
On the line with me to help me understand the events leading up to this latest conflict and where it may be headed next is Dana el-Kurd. She an assistant professor at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies and a researcher at the Arab Institute for Research and Policy Studies.
The last time World Food Program Chief Economist Arif Husain came on the show to discuss global trends in food security was 15 months ago. Needless to say, since January 2020 and the onset of the pandemic food insecurity and hunger around the world have gotten much worse. We kick off this conversation discussing a new report on global hunger and food security before have a longer discussion about what, exactly, is driving a current surge in food insecurity and hunger around the world today -- and what can be done about it.
It was a combination of imperial ambition and white supremacy that inspired the advent of the field of global health in the 19th century and that colonialist legacy can still be seen in the practice of global health today.
Guest: Dr. Ashti Doobay-Persaud is an Assistant Professor of Medicine and Medical Education at Northwestern University where she co-directs the Center for Global Health Education and is the Faculty Director of the Master of Science in Global Health program. Learn more about the MSc in Global Health https://sps.northwestern.edu/global
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