Archives for June 2016

Both the European Union and the United Kingdom are important players in international development, in fact the EU is the single largest foreign aid provider; and the United Kingdom’s own aid programs, run by the Department for International Development, or DfID, are considered some of the more innovative agencies in this space.Also, the UK is one of just a few countries to actually have met a commitment to spend 0.7% of its gross national income on global development.

So, it would seem the fallout from Brexit could potentially be pretty profound. To go over these big issues, I caught up with Mikaela Gavas of Overseas Development Institute, which is a highly respected UK-based think tank that focuses on global development issues. And Mikaela, in particular, works on Pan-European global development policies so she is able to offer a really interesting insight into these questions. Also, toward the end of the interview, Mikaela expresses some consternation that as a British expert on EU policy, she may soon loose some credibility with her continental peers.

If you are a global development nerd, Mikaela will give you a lot to chew on. If you are a more casual observer of internationals affairs, this conversation offers a good distillation of one way in which Brexit may have some profound global implications.

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You’ve probably heard about the dispute in the South China Sea. And if you have heard about it, you are probably aware that it involves disputed territorial claims between China and its neighbors, and that in defense of American allies in the region, the US navy is positioning military assets in the area.

In this episode we go a bit deeper into this dispute, its origins, and broader global implications — of which there are many. On the line to discuss it all is Gregory Poling, a fellow with the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. We kick off discussing a case that the Philippines has brought against China at an international court of arbitration, the result of which is expected very soon.

The dispute between China and its neighbors is a key test of whether a rising China will adhere to major UN treaty, a measure of China’s regional ambitions, and a marker for the extent to which the United States is willing to go to bat for its allies in the regions. In other words, the dispute in the South China Sea represents the confluence of several global trends.  Have a listen!

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I caught up with my guest today, Arms Control Association president Daryl Kimball from his hotel in Vienna. Daryl, along with hundreds of diplomats around the world were gathered for the 20th anniversary of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.

This is a treaty that bans the testing of nuclear weapons and establishes a global monitoring system to ensure that no one can secretly test a nuclear bomb. The treaty was signed by the USA and most countries on the planet back in 1996, but it has not been ratified by some key countries, including the United States, and accordingly has not formally entered into force.

Despite that, Daryl Kimball explains how the CTBT has become a very effective treaty over the past two decades, in particular through deployment of a system of monitoring stations around the world that can detect anomalous seismic activity and radioactive discharge into the atmosphere. We also discusses the implications of the continues non-ratification of the treaty by the USA.

The Gambia is a small country in western Africa. It’s a narrow sliver on the ocean, surrounded by Senegal. It has a population of under 2 million, and according to my guest today, Jeffrey Smith, it is the worst dictatorship you have never heard of.

Smith is a consultant to human rights activists in Africa through his firm Vanguard Africa. In our conversation he describes the politics of repression in Gambia and how the deteriorating situation there is having profound regional, and even global consequences. Indeed, Gambia as small as it is, is actually a major source of refugees crossing the Mediterranean to Europe. We also discuss a foiled coup plot that was planned in the United States by Gambian-Americans last year.

The Gambia is obviously not much in international headlines so I was glad to be able to shine a spotlight on this really under covered story. Even if you have barely heard of the Gambia or if you follow African politics closely, I think you will appreciate this conversation.

Over the past week, a number of scientists and bio-ethicists expressed deep concern that holding the Olympics this summer in Rio de Janeiro could enable the Zika virus to spread far and wide.

I caught up with one of the world’s leading experts on Zika, Dr. Peter Hotez and put the question to him. Among other affiliations, Dr. Hotez is dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of medicine, where he is also a professor of pediatrics and molecular & virology and microbiology, and president of the Sabin Vaccine Institute.  He describes why these fears are largely overblown and unfounded. Instead, he argues that we should really be focusing our attention on the spread of Zika to the Caribbean and Southern United states.

In this conversation, Dr. Hotez explains to us laypeople why Rio is actually no longer a hotbed for Zika. (It’s science, but it’s easily understandable). He also explains why dithering in congress over providing funding for mosquito control could have potentially catastrophic consequences for people living in the Gulf of Mexico.

This is Dr. Hotez’s second time on the podcast. In January, just as Zika was coming on people’s radars, he discussed the impending epidemic and explained why the scientific community was largely caught flat footed by it.