Global Dispatches -- World News That Matters

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The United Nations did some extremely rare in February: agencies declared that a famine was ongoing in parts of South Sudan. More than 100,000 people are affected by this famine and childhood mortality rates are already surging there. On the line with me to discuss why this famine declaration was made, what is means on the ground for the people affected by it and the humanitarian agencies trying to contain the damage is Steve Taravella, senior spokesperson for the World Food Program in Washington. And as Steve describes "famine" is actually a technical term -- it does not mean just having no food. Rather it is a threshold that is taken from a number of indicators that taken together mean that people are dying from starvation in extreme numbers. This famine declaration comes as the UN is also fighting intense food security crises in Yemen, Somalia and parts of Northern Nigeria. And Steve describes how this is really an unprecedented moment for relief organizations like his.

Diplomacy runs in her family. Sheba Crocker and her father Chester Crocker are the first parent-child combination to have both served as assistant secretaries of state. Crocker-the-elder was a noted Africa specialist who served in the Regan administration, and Sheba describes his how influence and the influence of her mother's family, who were Jews who fled eastern Europe to Zimbabwe, had a profound impact on her worldview. Bathsheba Crocker recently left her post as President Obama's Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs. She had served in various posts in the State Department for the entirety of the Obama administration and before that she worked in the office of the United Nations' special envoy for Tsunami Recovery and Relief-- and that "Special Envoy" was none other than Bill Clinton. Since leaving her post, Sheba admitted says she has more time on her hands these days and you find her on twitter and also writing for foreign policy magazine's Shadow Government vertical. We kick off with a discussion about how the transition to the Trump administration is shaking up the state department. ---

Greetings from the World Government Summit in Dubai! This one of those big international conferences (think: World Economic Forum in Davos) that is hosted by the government of the United Arab Emirates. It focuses on ways that governments can better serve their people and operate in the service of sustainable development. There's heavy UN participation (the Secretary General is giving an address.) The heads of the World Bank and IMF are also presenting, among many other national leaders and dignitaries. The first day of the summit focused on the question of "happiness"-- that is, how can governments measure happiness and design policies that promote happiness? The underlying premise is that happiness is more than a personal pursuit, but actually a public good. This is obviously on the fringes of public policy discourse in the United States and most other countries, but as one panelist, who is the Ecuadorian minister for Buen Vivar, pointed out: the pursuit of happiness was literally written into the founding documents of the United States. These days other countries have taken the mantle of taking a serious look at the intersection of public policy and happiness. In addition to Ecuador, here in the UAE there is a minister for happiness, Slovenia has a similar position as well; and the government of Bhutan an indicator it calls "Gross National Happiness." With me to discuss the intersection of happiness and public policy is economist Andrew Oswald who pioneered this line of study. We discuss how one actually measures and quantifies happiness in a way that's relevant to public policy and also some of the political implications of a happy verses a discontented population. This is cutting edge stuff and I think intellectually very interesting.

Crimes against humanity are ongoing in Burma and they are being committed by the state against the Rohingya people. This is a minority community in Burma that has historically faced intense discrimination, but there was some degree of hope that as the country transitioned to a democracy the situation of this community would improve. Alas, we are now nearly a year into the leadership of Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi and the plight of this minority community is as dire as ever. A number of recent reports have indicated an uptick in violence against the Rohingya -- including what appears to be the systematic use of rape and sexual violence. One of those reports was published by Human Rights Watch on February 6 and on the line with me to discuss the report and the broader situation of the Rohingya in both Burma and across the border in Bangladesh is Brad Adams, the Asia director of human rights watch. This is a fairly under covered story, but one in which I've tried to highlight on this podcast from time to time.

Dr. Larry Brilliant starred in a 1960s film that was a total flop. The movie was called Medicine Ball Caravan and it was a sort of documentary that followed Larry and a bunch of other hippies as they followed the touring busses of acts like the Grateful Dead. But despite the commercial failure of this film I would posit that it lead, though somewhat indirectly, to the global eradication of small pox. That's because after the filming ended, Larry kept the hippie caravan going until he reached India, and, while there, joined the World Health Organization's efforts to eliminate small pox from the country. It's a great story. Larry is now an epidemiologist with the Skoll Foundation and we have an absolutely fascinating conversation about his life and career, including how a chance encounter with Martin Luther King in 1962 forever changed his life. Many of these stories are included in his recently published memoir: Sometimes Brilliant:The Impossible Adventure of a Spiritual Seeker and Visionary Physician Who Helped Conquer the World's Worst Disease. We kick off discussing the current threat from global pandemics before pivoting to his extraordinarily unique life story.

By now, you are well aware of President Trump's sweeping ban on migrants from seven Muslim majority countries; the indefinite suspension of refugees from Syria and the suspension of all refugee resettlement into the United States for at least four months. The executive order is, of course, the subject of intense debate and discussion here in the United States, but I wanted to get a sense of how this executive order is playing out in the region so I called up one of my favorite scholars and public intellectuals who studies the politics of the Middle East, Marc Lynch. Marc describes how different countries are reacting to the executive order and the implications it has for both domestic politics in the Middle East and those countries' foreign policies. This is a useful conversation that puts into context the foreign policy and international relations implications of this executive order. If you have 20 minutes and want to understand what this policy means for Middle East, have a listen.

Princeton Lyman was a long serving US Diplomat who has become one of the leading experts on African politics and policy. He most recently served as President Obama's special envoy to Sudan and South Sudan from 2011 to 2013; but before that had an extensive career in the foreign service that included stints as US Ambassador to Nigeria and to South Africa during the negotiations that lead to the end of Apartheid and the election of Nelson Mandela. And we do have an extensive conversation about his participation in those historic negotiations. We spoke the day that news broke that Donald Trump was readying an executive order that would severely curtail refugee resettlement to the US, including from a number of Muslim majority countries. Princeton served as the top US official for refugee issues during the George HW Bush administration so we kick off discussing how those potential restrictions fit into the history of US refugee resettlement policy. We then pivot to a longer conversation about his life and career, including his rather unique first name. It's a good story. A classic one, actually.

On his third day on office President Trump signed a memorandum re-instating what is known as the "Global Gag Rule" or sometimes alternatively as the "Mexico City Policy." This is a policy that Republican Presidents enact and Democratic presidents lift when they come to office. Simply put the rule places restrictions on NGOs that receive US government assistance about what they can say about abortion. As you can imagine, this policy is very much caught up in domestic US politics about abortion, but when Donald Trump signed the order re-instating the rule, his version of it went much, much farther than the George W. Bush administration or any republican administration since the Regan era. On the line with me to discuss the Global Gag Rule, it's history and impact on women's lives is Seema Jalan, the Executive Director of the Universal Access Project and Policy, Women and Population, at the United Nations Foundation. She does an excellent job of explaining the policy why the Donald Trump version of it is a big departure from previous republican administrations and in fact may affect every aspect of US global health assistance around the world.

In many ways Ambassador Khalilzad was the ideal person with whom to speak at the dawn of the next republican administration. He served in senior positions in the Bush white house, including as ambassador to his native Afghanistan and Iraq and was also someone on the shortlist for Secretary of State as Donald Trump assembled his cabinet. We kick off discussing what to expect from Trump's foreign policy and how the new president will approach some of the myriad of challenges around the world before pivoting to discuss his own fascinating personal story that took him from poverty in Afghanistan to the heights of power in Washington DC--stories I should note that are included in his recently published memoir: Then Envoy: From Kabul to the White House: My Journey through a Turbulent World" To set the scene for you a little bit, this event was taped in the event room of 1871, a tech co-working space. There were about 200 people in the crowd, most of whom were members of IVY: The Social University which organized the event. This episode is presented in partnership with IVY: The Social University. Through a robust curriculum spanning policy, entrepreneurship, social impact, and the arts — IVY members enjoy access to a lifetime of new experiences, friendships, and ideas. Whether it's in-person talks with world-class leaders including Ambassador Cameron Munter, GE Chairman Jack Welch, and Pulitzer Prize Winner Nicholas Kristof; cultural expeditions to Cuba and Iceland; or tickets to the Opera or Ballet — IVY provides its members a lifetime of learning. Over the past three years, the IVY community has grown to 20,000 inspiring members in seven cities across the nation including New York, D.C., Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Boston and Miami. Register on IVY.com to begin the application process (2 minutes, no commitment) — and you'll receive a $100 event credit if you join IVY and mention GlobalDispatches in the referral section when registering.