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Global Dispatches -- World News That Matters

Global Dispatches
  • 4.8 (301)
  • POLITICS
  • UPDATED WEEKLY

The longest running independent international affairs podcast features in-depth interviews with policymakers, journalists and experts around the world who discuss global news, international relations, global development and key trends driving world affairs. Named by The Guardian as "a podcast to make you smarter," Global Dispatches is a podcast for people who crave a deeper understanding of international news.

  1. 2D AGO

    Let the Race for UN Secretary General Begin!

    On Tuesday and Wednesday this week, the four candidates for UN Secretary-General made their case at the UN General Assembly. Across twelve hours spanning two days, they took questions from UN member states and civil society groups eager to learn more about their priorities, proclivities, and leadership styles should they become the next UN Secretary-General on January 1, 2027. It was a marathon — and my To Save Us From Hell co-host Anjali Dayal and I watched it all! In today's episode, we tell you what we learned. To kick things off, we explain how the process for selecting a UN Secretary-General works — and how these hearings fit into it. We then break down what we heard from each of the candidates: Michelle Bachelet, Rafael Grossi, Rebeca Grynspan, and Macky Sall, bringing you the key highlights and takeaways. Consider this your curtain-raiser for a year of public campaigning and backroom dealmaking that will result in the selection of the next UN Secretary-General in the coming months.

    45 min

  2. 5H AGO

    The High Stakes of a Major UN Meeting on Nuclear Weapons

    The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty is the most important and impactful global agreement on nuclear weapons. 191 counties have joined the NPT since it entered into force in 1970, with just a few notable exceptions, including India, Pakistan, Israel and South Sudan. The NPT has three essential pillars: countries that do not have nuclear weapons cannot acquire them; countries that do have nuclear weapons need to work towards disarmament; and countries should have the ability to access civilian nuclear technologies, under proper safeguards. Every five years, the parties to the NPT come together for what is known as a Review Conference in which they assess progress towards these three pillars and discuss ways to enhance the treaty. The NPT RevCon, as it's known, is one the major multilateral conference on nuclear security, and it is taking place at UN from April 27 to May 22. Joining me to discuss the significance of this NPT Review Conference is Kelsey Davenport, Director for Nonproliferation Policy at the Arms Control Association. We kick off with a discussion of the NPT itself, and it's impact over the decades and then have a long conversation about the key storylines, diplomatic intrigues and key policy debates that will unfold over the next three weeks at the UN. Consider this episode your curtain-raiser for the most important global gathering on nuclear security of the half-decade. A few notes. This episode is produced in partnership with Ploughshares, a foundation committed to reducing and ultimately eliminating nuclear threats. I'll have a follow up episode at the end of conference that discusses what exactly happened during the NPT RevCon. Also, I'll be attending much of the RevCon in person. I'll be serving as something akin to a "pool reporter," covering this conference in support of dozens of international journalists who report on nuclear security issues and feeding them news and insights from the confab. This project is backed by the Stanley Center for Peace and Security Developing Story Project, an initiative to support, strengthen, and sustain reporting on nuclear weapons and related issues. I'm looking forward to this. If you are around the UN, say hi.

    32 min

  3. APR 20

    How the Iran War Is Already Fueling a Global Food Crisis

    The closure of the Strait of Hormuz is causing a surge in food prices around the world — particularly in places already in the midst of a humanitarian crisis. And it's about to get worse. This is the planting season for much of Africa and Asia, and fertilizer shortages mean that farmers are cutting back. Come this fall, crop yields will be reduced. One of the epicenters of this trend is Sudan, which, after three years of civil war, is the site of the world's largest humanitarian emergency. This is where I caught up with my interview guest, Kate Philipps-Barrasso, Vice President for Policy and Advocacy at Mercy Corps, a large international humanitarian relief organization. She spoke with me from Port Sudan, on the Red Sea, where she describes the immediate impact that the war in Iran has had on access to food and water. Mercy Corps recently released a report showing how fuel, fertilizer, and shipping disruptions have affected Somalia, Sudan, Pakistan, Ethiopia, and Myanmar, including the kinds of decisions farmers are making right now. The war in Iran's impact on global food prices has thus far been on the periphery of commentary about the conflict — but as this conversation shows, there is great urgency in understanding the cascading humanitarian consequences that are already unfolding.

    27 min

  4. APR 16

    Can International Institutions Survive Democratic Backsliding? Live from Lewis & Clark College

    Today's episode was recorded live at Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon, for the annual Lewis & Clark International Affairs Symposium. The theme of this year's symposium was Crumbling Pillars: The Age of Authoritarianism. For this live episode, I speak with Lewis & Clark professor Kyle Lascurettes about how democratic backsliding and authoritarian resilience are impacting the United Nations and other international institutions. Kyle Lascurettes and I speak for about 25 minutes before a really interesting question-and-answer session with students. A huge thank you to the students for both their great questions and for organizing the whole thing. This was the 64th annual Lewis & Clark International Affairs Symposium, which is entirely student-run. I had a great time meeting many of the students and spending the day on this gorgeous campus.

    1h 12m

  5. APR 13

    How China Views the Iran War

    As I am recording this on Friday, April 10, JD Vance is en route to Islamabad, Pakistan, for negotiations over a ceasefire announced on April 7. This ceasefire is shaky at best. It is clear that there was never a common understanding between Iran and the United States about what might be included in a ceasefire, but American and Iranian delegations are headed to Islamabad to discuss these details. My view is that this will likely be a long and drawn-out process with limited chances for meaningful progress in the near term. Still, the level of violence in the region is reduced from what it was before the ceasefire, and that is a good thing. There has been some reporting that China played a backroom role in helping convince Iran to come to the negotiating table, which I find interesting given the wide range of views among the Chinese foreign policy elite about how Beijing should approach this conflict. My guest today, Jacob Mardell, is Lead Analyst at Sinification, a Substack that tracks these very debates in Chinese foreign policy. He scours Chinese publications, blogs, and official statements to help the rest of us get a pulse on foreign policy debates in China. We have a long conversation about the contours of Chinese thinking about the war in Iran and the broader Middle East, including whether China might be willing or able to step in as a credible mediator, as well as the risks and opportunities China sees if the U.S. gets bogged down in another war in the Middle East.

    27 min

  6. APR 9

    From Detection to Decision-Making: Understanding Pandemic Risk | Before the Outbreak, Episode 2

    Pandemic Risk Assessment is an emerging scientific toolkit designed to assess how pandemic risk is evolving over time. Rather than predicting the next outbreak, it integrates evidence across scientific disciplines to identify the drivers and estimate the probabilities of pandemic outbreaks. And in so doing, it can help policymakers prioritize prevention and preparedness investments before crises emerge. Pandemic Risk Assessment is still an emerging field, but there is growing momentum to institutionalize it, with discussions exploring a range of possible models, including options inspired by bodies such as the IPCC, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which is the UN-backed scientific body that regularly updates policymakers on the latest findings on climate change. Joining me to discuss why pandemic risk assessment is needed, what a robust scientific process might look like, and how to make it a permanent feature of our global pandemic preparedness landscape are Serina Ng and Ben Oppenheim. Ben Oppenheim is a non-resident fellow at the Berkeley Risk and Security Lab and at the Center for Global Development. Serina Ng is a Director at the World Health Organization and Executive Head of the G20 Joint Finance Health Task Force Secretariat, which is hosted at the WHO. Today's episode is produced in partnership with the United Nations Foundation as a part of a series called Before the Outbreak, which examines the role of disease surveillance in stopping the next pandemic

    28 min

  7. APR 6 • SUBSCRIBERS ONLY

    The UN Has a Plan to Open Hormuz (Two of Them, Actually) | To Save Us From Hell

    The war in the Middle East has claimed its first UN casualties: three Indonesian peacekeepers in Lebanon were killed in under 24 hours. With Israel intent on occupying the same part of southern Lebanon that UN peacekeepers are meant to patrol, can the peacekeeping mission even continue? Meanwhile, in New York, a Secretary-General-led diplomatic effort to open the Strait of Hormuz for humanitarian and fertilizer shipments is taking shape, while the Security Council debates authorizing the use of force to escort food through the strait. Do either of these efforts have a meaningful chance of success? Anjali and Mark discuss all this, as well as the latest — unexplained — shakeup in the Secretary-General race.

    35 min

  8. APR 6

    How Existing Disease Surveillance Networks Can Catch New Outbreaks | Before the Outbreak, Episode 2

    Many of our best surveillance tools today that were originally built to target specific diseases like polio and malaria have become critical infrastructure for outbreak response and early warning across a wide range of pathogens. This includes laboratory networks, diagnostic tools, and community health workers—all of which play vital roles in broader outbreak preparedness. In today's episode, two experts who have helped create platforms to monitor and respond to specific diseases explain how those systems have been leveraged to detect and respond to outbreaks of all kinds. Hamid Jafari served as Director of Polio Eradication for the World Health Organization's Eastern Mediterranean Region, and Krystal Burungi Mwesiga is an entomologist at the Uganda Virus Research Institute, where she works as a research and outreach associate with the Target Malaria, a not-for-profit research consortium. We kick off by discussing how these disease-specific surveillance platforms work, then broaden the conversation to how they've been adapted to respond to other outbreaks—and what can be done to make these tools even stronger. This episode is produced in partnership with the United Nations Foundation as part of a series called "Before the Outbreak" that examines the role of disease surveillance in stopping the next pandemic.

    34 min
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The longest running independent international affairs podcast features in-depth interviews with policymakers, journalists and experts around the world who discuss global news, international relations, global development and key trends driving world affairs. Named by The Guardian as "a podcast to make you smarter," Global Dispatches is a podcast for people who crave a deeper understanding of international news.

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