Archives for October 2016

Episode 128: Brian Katulis

katulisBrian Katulis is a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress where his work focuses on US National Security and Foreign Policy.

He’s had a long career working and living in several middle eastern countries at key junctures in their history, including Jordan, Israel, Palestine and Egypt and we discuss many of these experiences in this conversation.
We kick off discussing a new report he helped write about some of the key challenges facing the next administration as it navigates an ever evolving political and security landscape in the Middle East.  If you want a deeper understanding of some of the key challenges the next administration will face in the middle east, have a listen.
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The Battle for Mosul

Mosul is Iraq’s second largest city, and in 2014 ISIS militants took the city as Iraqi army units fled. Now, a large scale military operation backed by the United States is underway to regain control of the city, which is situated in Northern Iraq.

The fight to re-take Mosul will likely create hundreds of thousands of displaced people. It may also have profound domestic and regional political implications, says my guest today Kirk Sowell, publisher of the Inside Iraqi Politics newsletter. He argues in a recent piece published by the Carnegie Endowment that the operation to retake mosul is part of a broader power struggle between Turkey and Iraq. The conversation you are about to hear explains the political and diplomatic context in which this battle is taking place.

If you believe, as Clausewitz said, that “war is the continuation of politics by other means” than it behooves all of us to understanding better the kind of regional, sectarian and even parliamentary politics at play in the battle for Mosul.  If you have 20 minutes and want to learn more about the broader political context of this fight, have a listen.

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Is this the end of the International Criminal Court?

Credit: PBS News

The ICC is the first permanent international court to prosecute war crimes and crimes against humanity and back in 2002 when it came to life, South Africa was a founding member. But late in the evening on October 20th news broke that South Africa is moving to withdraw from the International Criminal Court. Could the withdrawal of Africa’s most powerful country be the beginning of the end of the court?

In recent years the court has come under criticism by some African governments for holding a perceived bias against Africa, but until now no major country has withdrawn from the court after joining it. There is a fear that South Africa’s withdrawal will spark an cascade of countries doing the same thing. If South Africa’s withdrawal leads to a mass exodus, the ICC’s jurisdiction around the world could be significantly shrunk. Maybe even fatally.

On the line with me to discuss these questions and more is David Bosco, associate professor of international studies at Indiana University’s School of Global and International Studies. He is also author of the book Rough Justice: The International Criminal Court in a World of Power Politics and someone I have looked to over the years to help me understand the ICC’s role in international relations.

Episode 127: Sarah Chayes

20140914_ceip_chayes_1001-editSarah Chayes was a reporter for NPR working in Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban. Then, in early 2002 she decided to give up her career in journalism to help rebuild the country. She joined the NGO world, eventually founding an Afghan-based NGO. During this time, while living in the former Taliban stronghold of Kandahar, she became an advisor to the top US generals in Afghanistan and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm Michael Mullen.

These experiences in Afghanistan informed her prize winning book, Thieves of State: Why Corruption Threatens Global Security, which as the name suggests examines the corrosive effect of corruption in post conflict countries and beyond.

We kick off talking about the problem of corruption before discussing Sarah’s fascinating life and career.

Meet Antonio Guterres, the Next UN Secretary General

antonio_guterres_2012-750x400Last week the UN General Assembly officially elected Antonio Guterres as the next UN Secretary General. Guterres is a well known figure around the UN and in global politics more broadly. From 2005 to 2015 he served as the UN High Commissioner for refugees and before that he served as Prime Minister of Portugal.

His term begins on January 1st and I thought it would be useful and interesting to learn more about Guterres from two distinct perspectives.

This episode is in two parts. First, I speak with the Portuguese political commentator Pedro adao e Silva who discusses Guterres’ political career and more broadly the political context in which Guterres emerged as a national leader and political figure. We discuss some of the key moments of his term as Prime Minister and how his experience during the Portuguese revolution against a authoritarian regime may shape his performance as Secretary General.

Next, I speak with Michel Gabaudan, who is the president of the advocacy organization Refugees International. Gabaudan was a senior official at the UN Refugee Agency for many years and served in top positions under Guterres. He offers some perspective on Guterres’ leadership style of a complex UN agency and shares some insights into his skill sets, and how he interacts with powerful member states like the USA.

I was so glad to get both perspectives. Guterres is someone who I’ve followed closely as the UN Refugee Chief. I’ve seen him speak on numerous occasions, and both Pedro and Michel do a good job helping me understand how someone who has been so outspoken, in the words of Michel “speaks truth to power,” could still win the favor of the world’s most powerful country.

Beware the Global Superbug

 

Local staff nurse draws blood from MDRTB patient Seikholien, 45, for laboratory testing. Churchandpur, Manipur, India - 24, October 2012. Credit: MSF

Local staff nurse draws blood from MDRTB patient Seikholien, 45, for laboratory testing. Churchandpur, Manipur, India – 24, October 2012. Credit: MSF

At the United Nations last month there was a major meeting at the sidelines of the General Assembly about an issue called anti-microbial resistance. This meeting did not make much news outside the UN bubble, but it was arguably the single most meaningful thing to happen at the United Nations in months.

Anti-microbial resistance is one of the worst global health crises in the world that gets the least amount of attention. The antibiotics we use to treat common infections are becoming less and less effective. There are many reasons for this, including the overuse of antibiotics in livestock and the over-prescription of these drugs for humans. The implications of ever-increasing anti-biotic resistance is exceedingly profound for both the health and wealth of our entire planet. The foundation of modern medicine is in peril.

On the line with me to discuss the problem of antibiotic resistance, its origins, and what the international community is doing to confront it is Elizabeth Tayler. She is with the World Health Organization and is one of the few people on the planet working day in and out to reverse this trend. Tayler does an excellent job of describing the root causes of anti-microbial resistance, its implications for modern medicine and what the global plan is to confront it.

If you have 20 minutes and want a deeper understanding of a key global trend that will impact near every corner of the planet, have a listen.

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Episode 126: Charles Kenny

Charles Kenny is an optimist. He’s the author of several book about global development, including Getting Better: Why Global Development Is Succeeding–And How We Can Improve the World Even More, which was widely hailed across the spectrum and personally endorsed by Bill Gates.

Charles is a fellow with Center for Global Development where his work focuses on a wide array of topics, including the intersection of gender and development and we kick off with a discussion of some new research he’s worked on about strategies to reduce the prevalence of female genital mutilation–otherwise known as FGM. (If you are not aware, FGM is the deliberate cutting of female genitalia, often as part of a traditional ceremony in a girl’s adolescence. And Charles has researched policies in countries that helped to sharply reduce the number of girls subjected to this practice.)

Charles was born in the United Kingdom to a British father and American mother. He traces the roots of his optimism to his charmed upbringing in academic communities around Oxford and Cambridge. He had a long career at the World Bank before settling into his perch at the Center for Global Development, from which he has written a couple of books–both of which we discuss.

This is a great conversation–and we do have an interesting discussion about the problem of measuring country’s well being exclusively by looking at its economic growth.

 

 

Why the Colombia Peace Deal Failed and What’s Next

The 52 year civil war in Colombia between the government and the Marxist rebel group the FARC is the longest running conflict in the Western Hemisphere. But after years of painstaking negotiations, the conflict looked as if it is finally coming to an end. There is currently a ceasefire, and a peace deal was signed in September between FARC’s leader and the president of Colombia Juan Manuel Santos.

The government promised to put the peace deal to a final vote among the people of Colombia in a popular referendum, and low and behold, when the vote was taken in early October voters rejected the deal.

On the line with me to discuss the referendum results, the peace deal, and the implications of this failure to formally end this civil war is James Bargent, a freelance journalist based in Colombia. I caught up with James while he was in Medellin just days after the vote and he does an excellent job of describing the political climate that lead to this result, and games out scenarios for what happens next in this now quite tenuous peace process. A resumption of conflict is not out of the realm of possibility.