Taiwan will hold presidential elections in January 2024. Needless to say, these elections will have extremely consequential geopolitical implications. The two main candidates have differing views of Taiwan's relationship with China. Lai Ching-te of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) is the current Vice President and represents the stronger pro-independence faction of Taiwanese politics. His main rival, Hou Yu-ih of the Kuomingtang (KMT)  supports closer relations between Taipei and Beijing. And this year there is a surprising third party candidate, Ko Wen-je of the Taiwan People's Party (TPP), who is is shaking up what is conventionally a two party presidential contest.

Joining me for an in-depth conversation about Taiwanese politics and these upcoming elections is Kharis Templeman, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution where he is the program manager of the Project on Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific Region. We kick off discussing the political history of Taiwan following the Chinese civil war and then have an in-depth conversation about each of the candidates' positions on the key issue of cross straight relations. 

Less developed countries rightly lament the lack of access to funding for sustainable development that donor countries routinely promise, but rarely deliver. To remedy, dozens of Presidents, Prime Ministers and high-level officials met in Paris for the Summit for a New Global Financing Pact to rethink the "global financial architecture" to support developing economies grow in a climate compliant way. This summit was intended to kickstart momentum toward new funding opportunities for sustainable development, including enacting reforms at the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. 

This was a big moment for the sustainable development community and joining me to explain what happened is Clemence Landers, a senior policy fellow at the Center for Global Development. We kick off discussing why such a meeting was necessary in the first place, including a trifecta of crises that is driving economic distress in less developed countries today. We then discuss the outcomes of the meeting, and what it means for global development and climate change debates going forward. 

Amed Khan has been described as a "direct action philanthropist." He goes to the frontlines of humanitarian crises on his own and uses his personal wealth and networks to deliver whatever the communities say they need. For the past two years, Amed Khan has been in Ukraine near the frontlines of fighting in places like Bakhmut. When we spoke he had just returned from Kherson, which experienced catastrophic flooding following the sabotage of a major dam upstream.

We kick off discussing how he got into this line of work in general, and to Ukraine in particular. As he explains he has a long history in Ukraine, but more recently worked with Ukrainian special forces to help rescue Afghans as Kabul fell to the Taliban. This was just months before Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

We discuss why "frontlines philanthropy" is a unique approach to humanitarianism, the advantages and limitations of which we discuss at length.

Over the decades, Senegal has earned a reputation as a reliably stable democracy in West Africa. But recent events have put that reputation to test.  Over the last month, Senegal has been rocked by widespread protests against the government of President Macky Sall. These protests were sparked by the arrest and conviction of a prominent opposition party leader, Ousmane Sanko. The government response to these protests has been brutal. More than a dozen people have been killed, many by live ammunition fired into crowds of protesters.

Joining me to discuss recent events in Senegal is Carine Kaneza Nantulya, deputy director within the Africa division at Human Rights Watch. We discuss what lead to these protests and what Human Rights Watch uncovered about the government’s deadly response. We then have a broader discussion about what is driving democratic backsliding in Senegal

Back in 2017, the Trump administration announced that the United States would formally leave UNESCO, the UN's education, science and cultural organization. When the Biden administration came to office it promised to reverse course and rejoin UNESCO.  On June 12 this year it announced a plan to do just that. 

Joining me to discuss America's complicated relationship with UNESCO and explain why the Biden administration is seeking to rejoin is Peter Yeo, President of the Better World Campaign and Senior Vice President at the United Nations Foundation.  We kick off discussing what exactly UNESCO does and how it supports American interests before having a longer conversation about this recent frought history between UNESCO and the US. Peter Yeo then explains the process by which the Biden administration is seeking to rejoin UNESCO. 

Since fighting broke out in Sudan on April 15th this year, more than million people have been displaced internally and internationally. Many of the borders across which Sudanese have fled are not functional borders -- that is, there is no process to register or screen people who are entering a country. According to my guest today, non-functional porous borders are exacerbating an aleady dire humanitarian crisis. 

Margaret Monyani is a senior migration researcher at Institute for Security Studies in South Africa. We kick off discussing why the African Union is focusing more heavily on border control and administration before having a longer conversation about what Sudan's refugee crisis tells us about African borders today. 

On May 14th, Thailand held general elections. The results were a shock to the Thai political system.  

Since a 2014 coup, the military leaders have dominated Thai politics. A main opposition party has challenged military rule, but has been genereally thwarted at every turn.  However, this year a third party emerged victorious: and their vision for the country represents a radically progressive shift in Thai politics. 

The Move Forward Party, lead by a charismatic Harvard and MIT educated 42 year  Pita  Limjaroenrat won the elections. And they did so, according my guest today, by chanellening a kind of progressive populism that can change Thailand's domestic political culture and foreign policy in big ways. 

Prashanth Parameswrn is a Fellow at the Wilson Center and founder of the ASEAN Wonk Substack Newsletter.  We kick off discussing the political context in which Move Forward won these elections. We then have an extended conversation about how the Military Junta has rigged the Thai political system in such a way that the Move Forward Party may never actually be able to form a government. Even if they did, the threat of a coup would loom large. We then have an extended conversation about what this election means in terms of Thai foreign policy and geopolitical competition in Southeast Asia between the US and China.   

On June 7th, the Professional Golf Association announced a merger with a Saudi backed rival golf league known as LIV Golf. Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund, which is controlled by Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman, backed this deal. The chairman of the Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund will serve as the chairman of this new yet-to-be named golf league.  In other words, Saudi Arabia just bought the sport of Professional Golf. 

This move comes on the heels of other Saudi forays into professional sports, including the purchase of the Newcastle United Premier League soccer team in 2021.

The Saudi purchase of professional golf is a clear example of an attempt to rehabilitate its public image through sports, otherwise known as "sportswashing."  

Joining me to discuss this Saudi public diplomacy gambit is Alex Ward, National Security Reporter for Politico.  We kick off discussing the lessons learned from Saudi Arabia's purchase of Newcastle United and then have a conversation about the PGA merger in the context of Saudi Arabia's politics and foreign policy. 

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In the early hours of Tuesday, June 6th a major Dam on the Dnipro river in Russian occupied Ukraine suffered catastrophic damage. Floodwaters are now rushing downstream and sending tens of thousands of people fleeing.

The path of these destructive floodwaters roughly follows the frontlines between Russian and Ukrainian forces in Southern Ukraine and this breach comes just as Ukraine's much anticipated counteroffensive gets underway. This obviously raises the question: did Russia sabotage the Kakhovka dam to thwart a Ukrainian counteroffensive? 

I'm joined today by the former US Ambassador to Ukraine John Herbst.  He is a retired career foreign service office and now the senior director of the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center. We kick off discussing the destruction of the Kakhovka Dam, including the likelihood that it was deliberately destroyed by Russia. We then have an extended conversation about what the destruction of this dam means for Ukraine's counteroffensive.\

The second leading cause of death from infectious disease around the world is Tuberculosis, following COVID. 10 million people globally develop TB each year, and in 2021 1.6 million died from Tuberculosis. 

So why is a disease that is preventable and curable still inflicting such a major toll on the health and welfare of so many people and what can be done to reduce the burden of TB around the world? Joining me to answer these questions and more is Dr. Lucica Ditiu, executive director of the Stop TB Partnership. 

We kick off discussing trends in TB around the world including how covid impacted efforts to reach global targets around reducing sickness and death from TB. We then have a longer conversation about what can be done to accelerate progress against this deadly disease.