PassBlue UN Podcasts

Japan's dual focus for its UN Security Council presidency – preventing conflicts as well as nuclear disarmament – align with its foreign policy and history of nuclear disasters but as it leads the Council for this month, Ambassador Yamazaki says the Security Council is struggling with its main job of building peace and preventing violent disputes.

Seton Hull link: www.shu.edu/diplomacy/visiting.html

GC tv link: www.globalconnectionstelevision.com/

The UN CHARTER: A Question of Faith

“The substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”

SAN FRANCISCO -- Our third and final episode of the podcast series “Act of Creation” is ready for your ears. It’s a fitting end to a great journey. Episode 1 looks at the years leading up to the famous San Francisco Conference of 1945, when the Charter was signed and the United Nations was born; the episode then moves up to the Conference’s opening day on April 24. Episode 2 dives into the Conference itself, showing the intense diplomatic maneuvering as well as the ambitious intentions that were needed to turn the Charter into a reality. Now, in Episode 3, we start on the day the Charter was signed and celebrated, June 26, 1945, and then take listeners decade by decade into the Charter’s future.

In this episode, Stephen Schlesinger, the American historian and author of the book “Act of Creation: The Founding of the United Nations,” does a stellar job of telling that story, spinning through the decades. We see more examples of international drama and exceptional leadership as well as their opposite. You’ll hear the ideas and voices of such figures as Eleanor Roosevelt, Kofi Annan, Harry Truman and Dag Hammarskjold. They weave and bob in the large, deep mental space created by Schlesinger’s brilliant point of view, both wickedly intelligent and often surprisingly poignant. Perhaps most movingly for me, and at first unexpected, is hearing the aural unfolding of humanity’s profoundest values.

The story of the founding of the UN, besides being riveting, entertaining and filled with vivid personalities, parades these values at the only moment in time –arguably-- where the entire world was paying attention: the end of World War II. These values and ideals may seem naïve to some listeners now, but when you hear them echoing loudly from the past, the words by St. Paul in our title may seem stubbornly wise and solidly reasonable. “Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” Our hope is that this final episode provides resonance to these words and demonstrates the persistent power of ideals not yet realized: a clarion call for all of us to get to work.

Many thanks to Schlesinger for sharing these tales with such good will and tremendous smarts, and to Dulcie Leimbach, a founder, with Barbara Crossette, of PassBlue and the executive producer of this series, for her insights, encouragement and patience! Two truth warriors fighting the fight every day, it’s been my honor and great pleasure to have been able to work alongside them for these last couple years.

Thanks to all for listening. We look forward to your feedback: [email protected].

DAN BECKER, producer and composer

Guyana may not not want a permanent seat in the UN Security Council but it definitely wants a ceasefire in Gaza "as soon as possible." As rotating president for February, the country's ambassador to the UN, Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett, tells PassBlue that another top priority for the month is impressing on the world how climate change affects food security and, ultimately, global peace. She also touches on Guyana's territorial disputes with Venezuela.

Seton Hull link: www.shu.edu/diplomacy/visiting.html

GC tv link: www.globalconnectionstelevision.com/

France, a permanent member of the Security Council, is president of the body in January. Ambassador Nicolas de de Rivière says his country will headline Gaza this month, where the number of civilian casualties incurred by Israel's "broad and massive military operation" is "way way too high."

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Seton Hull link: www.shu.edu/diplomacy/visiting.html

GC tv link: www.globalconnectionstelevision.com/

As Ecuador’ assumes the leadership of the United Nations Security Council this month, the country wants to focus on the broader peace and security issues in the Mideast rather than the Israel-Hamas war, even as it devastates civilians in the Gaza strip.

Listen to our podcast to find out what it hopes to do about transnational organized crimes in Latin America and UN peacekeeping in the Central Africa region.

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Seton Hull link: www.shu.edu/diplomacy/visiting.html

GC tv link: www.globalconnectionstelevision.com/

In this episode, we meet a family who fled Xinjiang Province, or what they prefer to call East Turkestan, to the US and are now teaching a new generation in the diaspora about Uyghur language and culture. We also meet a New York City restaurateur who is keeping Uyghur cuisine alive.

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Seton Hull link: https://www.shu.edu/diplomacy/visiting.html

GC tv link: https://www.globalconnectionstelevision.com/

Brazil recently won a sixth term in the Human Rights Council. Before the election, we spoke to the country’s deputy permanent representative to the UN, Norberto Moretti, on the country’s candidacy. We also talked about the reversal of deforestation in the Amazon and the lack of debate on migration in the UN Security Council. With context provided by Prof. Gustavo Macedo at Ibmec in Sao Paulo.

Seton Hall: https://www.shu.edu/

Global Connection Television: https://www.globalconnectionstelevision.com/

If you want to join the European Union, make sure you are at peace with Athens. But Ferit Hoxha, Albania’s envoy to the UN and rotating president of the UN Security Council for September, is unperturbed about possible obstacles Greece may put in Albania's way, regardless of certain disputes. PassBlue interviewed Hoxha and Engjellushe Morina, a senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, for this month's episode of UN-Scripted. We discuss how Russia's invasion of Ukraine has helped Albania stand out in the Security Council in its two-year term as well as the country's push to join the EU. Hoxha also declares what he can't wait to do in December, when his country's stint is up in the Council. Tell us what you think of this episode @Pass_Blue

Seton Hall Advert: https://www.shu.edu/

Global Connection Television: https://www.globalconnectionstelevision.com/

As the US takes over the Security Council, famine and human rights are the banner themes for August. We chat with foreign affairs analyst Jeffrey Laurenti about the Black Sea Grain deal, perennial Israel and Palestine fracas and Afghanistan’s foreign reserves. Laurenti, who is American, says Israel’s extreme right-wing government is alienating its Jewish support in the US. Would that be enough to push the Biden camp to be firm with its longtime ally in the Mideast?

Tweet us at Pass_Blue to share your views.

Seton Hall Link: https://www.shu.edu/

GC Tv link: https://www.globalconnectionstelevision.com/

Our latest episode of “Act of Creation” takes listeners deep into conversation with Stephen Schlesinger, author of the book of the same name, which celebrates its 20th anniversary this September and chronicles the birth of the United Nations through the signing of the UN Charter. That is arguably the moment when the UN was born, at the end of a two-month conclave that began on April 25, 1945, most famously referred to as the San Francisco Conference.

The second episode of our three-part series moves from the human flavor of the first episode, where we put the conference into historical context, setting the atmosphere, the quality of the air that was being breathed in at the time. World War II was still underway, Hiroshima was only a few months away and United States President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was by far the most central figure to the creation of the UN than most listeners realized.