On November 4th, the Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed launched military operations against the Tigray People's Liberation Front, the TPLF, which is the group that controls the Tigray region in Northern Ethiopia.  Tensions have been simmering for some time between the Federal government, which Abiy controls and the TPLF. Now, one year after winning the Nobel Peace Prize, Abiy has launched a military campaign that could very well spark a widespread civil war.  On the line with me to discuss recent events in Ethiopia and offer some analysis of why the country is on the brink of civil war is Mastewal Terefe, an Ethiopian policy analyst and lawyer.  We kick off discussing the events of November 4 before having a broader conversation about the causes of escalating tensions between Abiy and the TPLF. As you will see in this conversation, there is a great risk right now that this conflict between the federal government and TPLF spreads to other armed groups that are organized along ethnic lines.  Alliance for Peacebuilding PeaceCon 2020 Mastewal on Twitter 

Ethiopia is on the Brink of Civil War

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American aid is on its way to Ukraine. This week, Congress passed a $95 billion foreign aid bill that includes about $60 billion for Ukraine. This aid had been stalled for months, mostly due to Republican intransigence in the House of Representatives. But now, the funding is being released, and according to my guest today, it will have a significant impact on the battlefield in Ukraine.  Evelyn Farkas is the Executive Director of the McCain Institute and served as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Ukraine, Russia, and Eurasia during the Obama administration. We discuss the influence this new aid package will have on the trajectory of the conflict and why its timing is critical. Farkas recently returned from Ukraine, where officials told her they were bracing for a new summer offensive by Russia. 

How The New American Aid Package for Ukraine Will Impact the War

Diplomats are gathering in Ottawa this week for the latest round of negotiations on a treaty to end plastic pollution. Back in 2022, 175 countries agreed to develop a legally binding agreement on plastic pollution by 2024. This meeting in Ottawa is the penultimate round of negotiations and a critical moment in the long effort to curb the environmental damage caused by the rampant production and use of plastic today. On the line with me to discuss what these negotiators hope to achieve and some of the key obstacles in the way of a robust treaty on plastic pollution is Erin Simon, Vice President and Head of Plastic Waste and Business at the World Wildlife Fund. We kick off discussing the problem of plastic pollution before having a broader conversation about these treaty negotiations. This includes a conversation about some key diplomatic stumbling blocks preventing the adoption of a treaty on plastic pollution. 

Can A United Nations Treaty to Curb Plastic Pollution Make it to the Finish Line?

On April 1st, Israel launched airstrikes on an Iranian diplomatic compound in Damascus, killing seven Iranian officials, including a very senior general. Iran responded with a massive drone attack on Israel, marking the first time that Iran directly attacked Israeli soil. All this is happening, of course, in the context of the conflict in Gaza. My interview guest Dalia Dassa Kaye is a Senior Fellow at the UCLA Burkle Center for International Relations and a Fulbright Schuman Visiting Scholar at Lund University. She has done extensive research and writing on the mechanics of armed conflict escalation in the Middle East, which we discuss in the context of this current crisis. We kick off discussing the recent series of events since April before having a broad conversation about the dynamics of escalation between Israel and Iran. This includes the potential that the United States becomes more deeply dragged into this conflict in the Middle East.

Iran, Israel and A Perilous Moment in the Middle East

On the one year anniversary of the outbreak of civil war, Sudan is the largest humanitarian crisis in the world today. On April 15, 2023, fighting spread from Khartoum to other parts of the country, including Darfur, where the conflict took on ugly ethnic dimensions, potentially leading to genocide. Over 8 million people have been displaced, and the UN is warning of famine in parts of the country. My interview guest today, Kholood Khair, is the founder and director of Confluency Advisory, a think-and-do tank formerly based in Khartoum. She explains how the conflict has evolved over the last year and why the humanitarian crisis is as dire as ever. In our conversation, we spend a lot of time discussing potential ways out of this crisis, which thus far have been elusive. Kholood Khair explains:   How the conflict in Sudan began.   How the conflict has changed over the last year.   Why the conflict is becoming more complex and harder to solve the longer it lasts   What the international community, including the United States, can do to better support a peace process.   Please support our ongoing efforts to cover undercovered global stories by becoming a paid supporter of Global Dispatches on Substack or Apple Podcasts https://www.globaldispatches.org/

Sudan's Most Horrible Year

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency, better known as UNRWA, was established in 1949 to support Palestinians displaced during the first Arab-Israeli war. Today, it provides services and humanitarian relief to nearly 6 million Palestinians in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, the West Bank and of course Gaza.  There has always been some tension between Israel and UNRWA, but since the October 7th attacks and the Israel war in Gaza, Israeli leaders have sought to dismantle UNRWA all together and the United States seems to be a willing partner in this effort. Following accusations that 12 out of UNRWA's 13,000 staff in Gaza took part in the October 7 attacks, the United States suspended funding for UNRWA and many other key donors followed suit. This funding suspension took place even as UNRWA's humanitarian relief networks in Gaza are widely regarded as irreplaceable. To the extent that aid is reaching besieged populations in Gaza, it is UNRWA facilitating the deliveries.  My interview guest today, Jonathan Lincoln is a former United Nations official who served as a Senior Coordination Officer at the Jerusalem office of the UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, where he worked on aid in the West Bank and Gaza. He is now the interim Director of the Center for Jewish Civilization at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service. He recently wrote a piece in Foreign Affairs about the necessity of UNRWA and the need for reforming the agency which inspired this interview.

Ethiopia is on the Brink of Civil War

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