Global Dispatches -- World News That Matters

Protests sweeping Iran are unlike anything the regime has faced since coming to power in 1979. What began as demonstrations by shopkeepers in Tehran over the sharply devalued Iranian rial quickly morphed into sustained, nationwide anti-government protests. The government responded with extreme brutality, killing thousands of people—and in doing so, once again put itself in the crosshairs of the United States. Donald Trump has publi...

On Christmas Day, the United States launched a series of missile strikes in Nigeria, ostensibly against jihadist groups. In the weeks prior, Donald Trump had been claiming that Christians in Nigeria were being subjected to systematic attacks by such groups, and he framed these strikes as a "Christmas present" that killed jihadist leaders and destroyed terrorist camps. But that does not seem to hav...

Danes are reeling from the aggressive nature of Donald Trump's designs on Greenland — but there is little they can do to stop the United States from acquiring the territory, whether by force or coercion. This is an odd position for Denmark, which has long been one of America's staunchest allies, as well as a core member of the European Union and NATO.

My interview guest, Søren Lippert, is the CEO of an independent security policy t...

I'm joined by one of my favorite fellow podcasters and Substackers, Kaiser Kuo, host of the long-running Sinica Podcast, for a wide-ranging conversation on China, Venezuela, and America's shifting role in the world. We start by unpacking how trade ties between Venezuela and China have produced a deeply imbalanced relationship between Caracas and Beijing, before turning to Beijing's reaction to Trump's audacious move in Venezuela an...

The Security Council convened an emergency meeting on Monday in response to American military operations in Venezuela that captured Nicolás Maduro and his wife— forcing dozens of countries to publicly respond to one of the most audacious U.S. actions in recent memory.

Anjali and Mark break down what unfolded in the chamber: which countries issued the strongest condemnations, which were more restrained, and which attempted to thread...

In a stunning U.S. military operation carried out in the early hours of Saturday, January 3rd, American forces captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife. As of Saturday afternoon Eastern Time, the two were en route to New York, where they are expected to face criminal charges tied to a U.S. indictment issued roughly five years ago.

The operation fo...

In 2022, countries agreed to negotiate an international treaty to end plastics pollution. They gave themselves a two-year deadline to finalize the treaty text — and needless to say, that deadline has not been met.

The conventional wisdom is that these treaty negotiations are hopelessly gridlocked, with some countries pushing for a wide-ranging agreement while oth...

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. Yo...

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' ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 i...

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...

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 senat...

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 c...

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 dril...

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 ...

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 Sec...

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 ef...