Today's episode is produced in partnership with the Global Challenges Foundation. The Foundation is dedicated to raising awareness of global catastrophic risks and strengthening global governance to address them. Global Challenges Foundation's 2026 Global Catastrophic Risks report outlines five of the biggest risks facing humanity today, including ecological collapse, the topic of this episode. You can find this report at globalchallenges.org/gcr-2026. Two of the authors of the chapter on ecological collapse are my guests today. David Obura is the director of CORDIO East Africa, a nonprofit research organization based in Kenya, and chair of the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services. Eva Mineur is head of climate and sustainability at Global Challenges Foundation. We kick off by discussing what we mean by ecological collapse and examining examples of this phenomenon already underway around the world, before turning to a longer conversation about how to strengthen international cooperation and global governance to prevent ecological collapse—and the catastrophe it would entail.
Your very own To Save Us From Hell co-host Anjali Dayal briefed the United Nations Security Council on Monday! She was paired with former UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon for a special meeting of the Council dedicated to examining the role of the Secretary-General and the process for selecting Antonio Guterres's successor. Anjali gives co-host Mark Leon Goldberg a behind-the-scenes account of what it's like to sit in the briefers' chair at the famous horseshoe table and shares highlights from the meeting. After the paywall, Mark and Anjali discuss a glowing New Yorker profile of International Atomic Energy Agency chief—and UN Secretary-General candidate—Rafael Grossi. It's certainly a PR coup for the Argentine, but does PR really matter when it comes to running for UN Secretary-General? We discuss! And one more thing: this is the 50th episode of To Save Us From Hell. Fifty episodes of deep dives into power, politics, and the UN's place in the world. Huge thanks to everyone who listens—and especially to our paid subscribers, who make this show possible. If you've been on the fence, now's the moment: grab a paid subscription using the discount link below, get access to our full episodes and support the show with a cult following around the UN! https://www.globaldispatches.org/40percentoff
In 1998, 120 countries came together to adopt the Rome Statute, creating what would become the International Criminal Court. Four years later, that treaty entered into force, and the ICC officially opened its doors as a permanent court tasked with prosecuting individuals accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Now, looking around the world today, it's clear the ICC has not put an end to war crimes or crimes against humanity. But even so, the court—and the treaty that created it—have profoundly shaped international politics in ways that are often overlooked. My guest today is Mark Kersten. He's a Senior Consultant with the Wayamo Foundation and an Assistant Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice at the University of the Fraser Valley in British Columbia. We start with a brief history of the ICC, and then dig into how the court has influenced not just legal definitions of war crimes and crimes against humanity, but how states themselves behave. When we spoke, Mark had just returned from the ICC's annual Assembly of States Parties—the court's main governing body. He explains why that meeting offers a window into some of the biggest challenges the ICC now faces, including the very real possibility of U.S. sanctions—not just against individual court officials, but against the institution itself. This episode is produced in partnership with Lex International Fund, a philanthropic initiative dedicated to strengthening international law to solve global challenges. It's part of our ongoing series highlighting the real-world impact of treaties on state behavior, called "When Treaties Work."
2025 was a year of global protests. More than 70 countries across every region of the world experienced anti-government demonstrations. Some of these movements — such as those in Nepal and Madagascar — led to the toppling of governments; others emerged in countries with little history of protest, like Tanzania. Many were youth-led, with Gen Z protesters drawing inspiration from one another across borders. My guest today is Thomas Carothers, director of the Democracy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, where he runs the Global Protest Tracker. Drawing on data from the Tracker, he and co-author Judy Lee recently published an essay on the drivers of global protests in 2025, which we discuss in our conversation. We begin with some big-picture global trends before turning to a longer discussion about whether Gen Z–led protests can be considered a global movement.
Over the course of Syria's fourteen-year civil war, around one million people went missing, presumably killed. Among them was the father of my guest today, Maryam Kamalmaz. Maryam's father was an American psychotherapist who traveled to Syria on a humanitarian mission when he was detained and disappeared by the Assad regime. She campaigned for his release, but eventually learned that he had died in detention. Today, Maryam Kamalmaz is the Director for Missing Persons Affairs at the Syria Emergency Task Force, an advocacy group based in Washington, DC, where she is supporting international efforts to identify the roughly one million people who went missing during Syria's civil war. We begin by discussing the case of her father before having a broader conversation about why finding the missing—and their remains—is so important for Syria's democratic transition following the fall of the Assad regime. This is a powerful conversation, recorded live at the Halifax International Security Forum in late November.
On December 4, the entire United Nations Security Council made an unprecedented trip to Syria. It is hard to overstate what a significant turning point this represents — both for the Security Council and the United Nations as a whole. For thirteen long years, the civil war in Syria was the largest and most brutal conflict in the world, and one that stymied the United Nations by exposing massive geopolitical rifts between key global powers. We may now look to Gaza or Ukraine as examples of paralysis at the Security Council — but it was Syria that first broke it. Now, all fifteen members are in Damascus, in an important show of unity. Mark and Anjali break down why this trip is so significant and what role the UN can play in supporting Syria's democratic transition. After the paywall: Mark and Anjali discuss shocking new revelations about the UN's budget, and what the official "pre-launch" of the selection process for the next Secretary-General tells us about how the UN's next leader will be chosen. Discount link to listen to full episode: https://www.globaldispatches.org/40percentoff
The Halifax International Security Forum always includes a sizable and bi-partisan group of United States Senators who were suddenly put on the spot: Did they think Ukraine should accept this ultimatum? By Saturday afternoon, several senators issued a joint statement condemning this plan. Then something extraordinary happened. A couple hours after this joint statement was released, an even larger and more bi-partisan group of senators gave a press conference in which Republican Senator Mike Rounds said that he and two other senators had just got off the phone with Marco Rubio, who was en route to Geneva to meet with Ukrainian officials and European allies. According to Senator Rounds, Rubio said this stridently pro-Russian 28 point plan was not an American plan at all, but rather a Russian proposal that was improperly leaked to the press. But then, about two hours later, Rubio publicly disavowed that disavowal! He posted on Twitter that "The peace proposal was authored by the U.S." So what the heck is going on here? I caught up with Toronto Star columnist and fellow Substacker Justin Ling to try to make sense of this bizarre turn of events. We kick off discussing the back and forth on this plan, but then have a deeper conversation about what this episode reveals about American global leadership and what the conversations in Halifax revealed about how America's traditional middle power allies, like Canada and Europe, are adjusting to a world order in which the United States is an unreliable ally and unstable international actor.
When Damascus was liberated in December of last year and Bashar al-Assad fled to Moscow, thousands of the regime's political prisoners were released from jail. Around the region, Syrians who had fled the country began returning home. It was a joyous occasion for so many who had lived as refugees in neighboring countries — including in Lebanon, which had hosted more Syrian refugees than any other country. But there are still hundreds — possibly thousands — of Syrians who remain political prisoners in Lebanon. Most, if not all, of these prisoners are being detained by Hezbollah for their activities opposing the Assad regime, which was a key Hezbollah ally during Syria's civil war. In today's episode, I speak with one of those detainees — whom I will call Omar — who managed to smuggle a phone into a prison in Lebanon. Omar was detained in 2024, but prior to that he worked to expose Hezbollah's mass detention of Syrian opposition activists. In our conversation, he tells his story and that of his fellow detainees. This episode came about through a chance encounter with Mouaz Moustafa as we were both attending the Halifax International Security Forum last week. Mouaz Moustafa is the director of the Syria Emergency Task Force and has played a key role in supporting Syria's democratic transition since the fall of the Assad regime. I actually met Mouaz a couple of years ago at this same conference, and when I ran into him in hallway this year, he pitched me the story and offered to translate the interview. This episode would not have happened if not for the Halifax International Security Forum, so a special thank you to the conveners of this important global gathering.
Kabul is running out of water. If present trends continue, the capital of Afghanistan could run completely dry by 2030. There are several reasons for this. The first is climate change: there is less snowmelt to feed the city's aquifers. The second is aging infrastructure: pipelines are decrepit or, in some cases, non-existent. The third is management: in a city reeling from water shortages, people are drilling their own wells in yards and basements, with no regulation from the de facto Taliban government. The fourth is population pressure: the city has grown sixfold in the last twenty years. And over the last year alone, millions of Afghans who had fled to neighboring Iran and Pakistan have been forcibly returned, adding to already substantial resource pressures. This is causing extreme stress on the people of Kabul, who, according to my guest today Marianna von Zahn, are now spending about 30% of their income on water. Marianna von Zahn is the Afghanistan Country Representative and Director of Programs for Mercy Corps, which recently released a report on the dire water crisis in Kabul and will soon release a similar report on water shortages in other parts of the country. We kick off by discussing the scale and impact of the crisis in Kabul before having a longer conversation about what can be done to mitigate it. This includes exploring ways the international community can work with Taliban authorities to stave off an impending humanitarian catastrophe. https://www.globaldispatches.org/40percentoff
U Thant was a Burmese diplomat and the third Secretary-General of the United Nations. He assumed the role following the death of Dag Hammarskjöld in a plane crash in the Congo in 1961, and soon became one of the most consequential players in international affairs for over a decade. Thant's contributions to some of the key global challenges of the era were widely celebrated at the time but have since been overlooked—until now. A brilliant new biography, Peacemaker: U Thant and the Forgotten Quest for a Just World, places the former Secretary-General at the heart of several crucial moments of the 1960s, including the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Vietnam War, post-colonial struggles in the Congo, and much more. The book is written by Thant Myint-U, a historian who has worked at the United Nations—and who also happens to be U Thant's grandson. In our conversation, Thant describes how his grandfather went from being a schoolteacher in rural Burma to, just 15 years later, playing a key role in mediating the Cuban Missile Crisis as UN Secretary-General. We also discuss Thant's efforts to end the Vietnam War before it escalated, and his work confronting a fascist regime in a breakaway region of the Congo. More broadly, we explore the lessons that the current UN system and its Secretary-General can draw from U Thant's remarkable tenure. Thant Myint-U is the author of Peacemaker: U Thant and the Forgotten Quest for a Just World.
My interview guest today, Axel Marschik, is a veteran Austrian diplomat who has thought extensively about how the General Assembly can play a more robust role in peace and security when the Security Council fails to do so. In a paper that was widely discussed around the UN, Ambassador Marschik proposed that the General Assembly craft pre-authorized sanctions that would be automatically triggered if the Security Council is "unable or unwilling to act to confront some of the most serious violations of international law, including aggression and mass atrocity crimes." Under his proposal, the General Assembly would design a suite of sanctions in the abstract that would become very real—and automatically imposed on the offending party—through a General Assembly vote should the Security Council fail to take meaningful action. In our conversation, Ambassador Marschik fleshes out this idea, including what sorts of sanctions he has in mind and how to translate this concept into a General Assembly resolution creating such a mechanism. Ambassador Marschik currently serves as Austria's Ambassador to Germany and previously served as Austria's Permanent Representative to the UN from 2020 to 2025. This episode of Global Dispatches is produced in partnership with Lex International Fund, a philanthropic initiative dedicated to strengthening international law to solve global challenges. It's part of our ongoing series highlighting the real-world impact of treaties on state behavior, called "When Treaties Work."
On October 29, Tanzania held national presidential elections — and lo and behold, incumbent President Samia Suluhu Hassan "won" with a staggering 98% of the vote. Everyone knew what was going on. The election was a sham from the start: her main rival is sitting in prison awaiting a treason trial, and the election commission that certified her landslide is stacked with loyalists. Election hijinks aren't new in Tanzania, which has effectively been a one-party state for decades. What was new this time was the public reaction. Tanzanians — who don't have the same protest culture you see in nearby Kenya — poured into the streets in massive demonstrations demanding political change. For a moment, it felt like something was shifting. And then, just days later, security forces violently shut it all down, killing an unknown number of people. My guest today, Constantine Manda, an assistant professor at UC Irvine, helps unpack what happened and why this moment matters. We start with the political logic behind Samia declaring herself the 98% winner, then dig into what these protests and the crackdown reveal about Tanzania's political future.
2025 marks 50 years of the Biological Weapons Convention. Back in 1975, the treaty entered into force, and by banning biological weapons worldwide, it became the first global treaty to prohibit a particular weapon of war. The Biological Weapons Convention is widely adopted — 189 States Parties have pledged to never develop, produce, stockpile, or use biological weapons. And thankfully, these weapons have not featured much in modern conflict. But over the last 50 years, profound advances in the life sciences and bio research have emerged which, according to my guest today, pose a distinct challenge to this treaty. Jaime Yassif is the Vice President for Global Biological Policy and Programs at the Nuclear Threat Initiative, a nonprofit global security organization focused on reducing nuclear, biological, and emerging technology threats. We kick off by discussing the history of this treaty, including why the time was right 50 years ago for it to come together. We spend most of our conversation, though, exploring the ways in which this treaty might be strengthened to adapt to a changing landscape of potential biological weapons risks today. This episode is produced in partnership with Lex International Fund, a philanthropic initiative dedicated to strengthening international law to solve global challenges. It's part of our ongoing series highlighting the real-world impact of treaties on state behavior, called "When Treaties Work."
About a year and a half ago, I published an episode of Global Dispatches titled "A Genocidal Massacre Is Looming in Darfur." At the time, the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces had conquered nearly all of Darfur, in western Sudan, except for its largest city, El Fasher. The RSF was laying siege to the city in preparation for an assault, and everything we knew about how this group operates suggested that if El Fasher fell, a mass atrocity would follow. Earlier this month, as it became apparent that the RSF was poised to launch its final assault, I published another episode explaining what was at stake. On October 27, El Fasher fell. And now, hundreds of thousands of civilians trapped in the city are being systematically killed. What is happening in El Fasher today was both predicted and predictable. The RSF are the rebranded Janjaweed—the same militia that carried out the first Darfur genocide twenty years ago. And since Sudan's civil war began in April 2023, every city in Darfur that has fallen to the RSF has become the site of ethnic massacres and credible accusations of genocide. Now the largest city in the region and last bastion of resistance has fallen and a major mass atrocity event is underway. My guest today, Mutasim Ali, is the same person I interviewed for that episode a year and a half ago. He is from El Fasher and serves as a legal advisor to the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights. We kick off discussing the significance of El Fasher in the context of Sudan's civil war and discuss the RSF's history of violence before having a long discussion about events ongoing in El Fasher today and what needs to be done to stop this violence. It's a heavy conversation, but worthy of your attention. Support our coverage with your paid subscription https://www.globaldispatches.org/40percentoff
Cameroonians went to the polls earlier this month in national elections, and on October 27th, a constitutional commission packed with loyalists confirmed that 92-year-old incumbent Paul Biya had won an eighth consecutive term in office. If he serves out his term, Biya will be 99 years old. After 43 years in office, Cameroonians are used to the electoral shenanigans that have kept Biya in power. But this time, things feel different, according to my guest today, Tony Vinyoh. He's a Cameroonian writer who spoke to me from an undisclosed location in Cameroon. There are protests underway throughout the country, and people are being detained by security forces for questioning the official election results (hence the need for this security protocol.) We kick off discussing the volatile political situation in Cameroon right now, with two politicians claiming victory. Tony Vinyoh then explains why the prevailing mood in the country is profoundly different compared to the aftermath of previous (rigged) elections. He lays out where the unrest is headed and why Cameroonians are clamoring for outside mediation. Please support our global reporting with your paid subscription https://www.globaldispatches.org/
North Korea has been extremely repressive for a very long time. But over the last several years, the crackdowns have gotten worse. New reporting from The Economist shows how the regime is clamping down on South Korean cultural influences, strengthening its border to prevent escape, and sharply curtailing what were already limited free markets. My guest today, Patrick Foulis, calls this the "North Koreafication of North Korea," and it comes after a period of relative easing. Patrick Foulis is the foreign editor of The Economist. We kick off by discussing the various ways in which these crackdowns are happening before having a longer conversation about why Kim Jong Un's North Korea is tightening repression — much of which has to do with its changing relationships with Russia, China, and even the United States.
The Security Council is deep into negotiations around authorizing an international stabilization force for Gaza. But even if the Council approves such a mission, will it actually deploy? In this episode of To Save Us From Hell, Mark and Anjali share their doubts. Also up: the Trump administration blew up a global deal to put a price on carbon in international shipping — a move that would have pushed the industry toward zero emissions. Mark and Anjali break down this latest clash between Washington and the U.N. But first, Anjali and Mark sit down with Heba Aly, director of a new coalition called Article 109, which is taking on a bold mission: reforming the U.N. Charter itself. Article 109 is a little-known provision of the Charter that enables member states to review and revise it — but it's never been invoked. So, is now the right time to open up the U.N. Charter to review? What would that actually entail? And is it even a good idea? Listen and learn! The full episode is available for our paying subscribers. https://www.globaldispatches.org/40percentoff
Rhetoric and actions from the Trump administration suggest that the United States is seeking to forcibly oust Nicolás Maduro from power in Venezuela Is the U.S. really going to attempt regime change in Venezuela, and what would that even look like? Joining me from Caracas is Phil Gunson, Senior Analyst for the Andes Region at the International Crisis Group. We kick off discussing the mood in Caracas right now amid this increasingly threatening American posture before having a longer conversation about whether the U.S. is indeed seeking regime change, what that might entail, and the profound risks of American intervention in Venezuela.
A ceasefire is holding in Gaza. Aid is beginning to flow. The remaining Israeli hostages have been released, as have nearly 2,000 Palestinians from Israeli detention. This has been a truly remarkable day in the Middle East. But can this positive momentum be sustained? I recorded this conversation with Matt Duss of the Center for International Policy just moments after Donald Trump met with an impressive array of world leaders in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, in a ceremony designed to cement his personal investment in this peace plan. We kick off by discussing the significance of the spectacle and ceremony in Sharm el-Sheikh, then have a longer conversation about how the ceasefire came together and the many pitfalls that remain. This ceasefire is fragile. Hamas is reconstituting. And the Israeli government remains opposed to a viable Palestinian State. But this is nonetheless a significant inflection point after two years of brutal war.
UNGA is over. But its legacy lives on. We recorded this episode as news broke of a potential ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, and so we look back at UNGA80 to trace the ways in which the world's largest diplomatic gathering may have provided some key momentum for a breakthrough on Gaza. Mark and Anjali also go deep on a new Gang Suppression Force that the Security Council just authorized for Haiti. But can this international intervention in Haiti succeed when so many before it have failed? Finally, Mark and Anjali make their Nobel Peace Prize picks. Spoiler alert — it ain't Donald Trump. Unlock full access to this episode with a 40% discount. https://www.globaldispatches.org/40percentoff
Aram Juri
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M. Aghaii
Negar mortazavi is an Islamic republic apologist. women in Iran are being killed and this is the journalist you select to talk with, someone who has tried to whitewash regimes atrocities for decades, along with her NIAC friends. unfollowed. God knows how many more liars you have invited to your podcast and how much more lies you have spread. shame on you.
Maryam Gamal
Hello, Thank you for this program. I always gain new perspectives when listening to your podcasts. As the GERD is a politically-tense topic for countries involved, specially Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia, representatives from each company tend to have bias (generally-speaking). I recommend having a similar interview with an Egyptian and a Sudanese expert to gather all perspectives. Thanks, Maryam (from Egypt)
Piyush Tripathi
extremely biased and one sided opinions presented in this episode. not sure if this is topical for this podcast
Michael Klas
broken source episode can't play?!