More than 3,000 children have been killed in Gaza since Israel began bombarding the enclave three weeks ago. The number of children reportedly killed in the conflict has surpassed the annual number of children killed in conflicts around the world since 2019, according to Save the Children.  This week on Intercepted, Murtaza Hussain is joined by Khaled Elgindy, the director of the Program on Palestine and Palestinian-Israeli Affairs at the Middle East Institute and author of “Blind Spot:...

The dystopian images coming out of Gaza, as Israel continues its scorched-earth campaign, show horrific destruction and the killing of civilians. Over the weekend, Israel escalated bombardments in Gaza, raising the death toll to over 5,000 with more than 62 percent of fatalities being women and children, according to the latest U.N. reports. There is a growing concern Israel’s war on Gaza will draw other nations into the conflict, including Lebanon, Iran, Egypt, and Turkey. This week on...

The Indian government was locked in a crisis over its alleged assassination of a Canadian citizen when a war between Israel and Palestinians in the Gaza Strip broke out that threatens to upend the global order. As the liberal international system begins to fray under these pressures, Indian author and journalist Pankaj Mishra joins host Murtaza Hussain on this week's Intercepted to discuss how the war in the Middle East is reshaping global politics, the evolution of India’s foreign policy,...

The Israeli government of Benjamin Netanyahu has initiated a total blockade of Gaza amidst a merciless scorched-earth bombing campaign. The country’s defense minister said Israel will operate with an iron fist in its war against “human animals” following the well-coordinated surprise attacks over the weekend led by Hamas. The unprecedented raids into Israel over the weekend killed scores of both Israeli military and civilians. Hamas has vowed to execute Israeli hostages in retaliation for...

Nearly the entire population of 120,000 ethnic Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh has been forced to flee their homes after the latest Azerbaijani military assault, according to Armenian authorities and the U.N. This week on Intercepted, Maria Titizian, editor-in-chief of EVN Report, joins Jeremy Scahill and Murtaza Hussain to discuss the history leading up to the recent Azerbaijani offensive and mass exodus of civilians, the collapse of the Republic of Artsakh, and the emerging geopolitical...

In the early morning hours of September 26, 2022, in the deep abyss of the Baltic Sea, an international mystery of substantial consequence began to unfold when a bomb ruptured the Russian-dominated Nord Stream pipeline. It was the opening salvo in a four-pronged attack that day that would leave three of the four pipelines incapacitated. One year later, no suspects have been arrested and no sponsor — nation state or otherwise — has been formally accused of responsibility. This week on...

The U.S. orchestrated a secret arms deal to send weapons to Ukraine, helping Pakistan reach the threshold needed for an International Monetary Fund loan to save the country's economy, according to two sources with knowledge of the arrangement and documents leaked to The Intercept. This week on a special Deconstructed and Intercepted crossover episode, Ryan Grim and Murtaza Hussain discuss their reporting on the behind-the-scenes maneuvering of Pakistani arms sales to the U.S. for the purpose...

This is a special crossover episode with our sister podcast, Deconstructed. It's a big investigation from Ryan Grim and Murtaza Hussain. Last week, Intercept journalists Ryan Grim and Murtaza Hussain published a bombshell investigation into Pakistan’s political crisis. Grim and Hussain were provided a Pakistani intelligence document by an anonymous source, outlining how the U.S. government pressured the Pakistani government to oust former Prime Minister Imran Khan. This week on Deconstructed,...

Troops from Niger ousted the country’s democratically elected president, Mohamed Bazoum, last week. One of the coup leaders had previously received training from the U.S. government, becoming the 11th coup in the region led by U.S.-trained officers. This week on Intercepted, Nick Turse, investigative journalist and contributing writer with The Intercept, joins Jeremy Scahill and Murtaza Hussain to discuss the unfolding events in Niger and the Sahel region. Turse outlines how Africa has seen...

Despite months of widespread protests, Israel's right-wing government passed a law on Monday curbing the authority of the country's Supreme Court to block government decisions. This legislative action is just the beginning of a larger plan aimed at bolstering the nationalist Israeli right's grip on power. This week on Intercepted, Jeremy Scahill and Murtaza Hussain are joined by Mairav Zonszein, an Israeli American journalist and a senior analyst on Israel-Palestine at the International...

The United States sent cluster munitions to Ukraine, bombs banned by 123 countries due to how they kill and maim indiscriminately over a wide area and for years after a conflict. This week on Intercepted, Marc Garlasco — the military adviser at PAX, a Dutch nongovernmental organization where he works to protect civilians in armed conflict, joins Jeremy Scahill and Murtaza Hussain to discuss how cluster munitions kill civilians during war and long after, and why their use — even by the United...

The fatal police shooting of 17-year-old Nahel Merzouk during a traffic stop in Paris, France, sparked days of protests across the country. This week on Intercepted, host Murtaza Hussain is joined by Yasser Louati, a French political analyst and human rights advocate to discuss how Merzouk’s death struck at the fault lines underlying social discontent building in the country and the increasing power of the police. If you’d like to support our work, go to theintercept.com/join — your donation,...

In 2016, Flaviu Georgescu was found guilty and sentenced of attempting to traffic weapons to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, an insurgent group on the U.S. terror list. But when he was arrested by Drug Enforcement Administration agents, he told the officials he was working for the CIA. This week on Intercepted, Trevor Aaronson, contributing writer with The Intercept, joins host Murtaza Hussain to discuss Georgescu’s case. In the second season of Aaronson’s podcast, "Alphabet...

This week, the Turkish government announced it will raise its monthly minimum wage by 34 percent to address inflation and the economic crisis in the country. Despite the long-standing problems in Turkey, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan recently won a contested reelection, further consolidating his 20-year rule. This week on Intercepted, Gönül Tol, the founding director of the Middle East Institute’s Turkey program, joins Murtaza Hussain to discuss the Turkish elections. Tol runs through...

The Ukrainian military’s counteroffensive against Russia is underway. Aided by the U.S. and other Western powers, Ukraine is making a push to expel Russian troops. This week on Intercepted, Jeremy Scahill and Murtaza Hussain are joined by Rajan Menon, the director of the Grand Strategy program at Defense Priorities and author of several books, including "Conflict in Ukraine: The Unwinding of the Post-Cold War Order.” Menon was recently in Ukraine, and he describes the developments in the...

This week, strategists at JPMorgan, the biggest U.S. bank, warned there are signs of “de-dollarization” around the world. Dedollarization is the push by countries, including Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, and others, to move away from the U.S. dollar as the world’s primary reserve currency. This move poses a big challenge to U.S. economic hegemony. This week on Intercepted, Canadian businessperson and mining financier Frank Giustra joins Jeremy Scahill and Murtaza Hussain to...

For the past few weeks, former Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan has been at the center of an unprecedented political crisis. In the lead-up to new elections, Khan was arrested and released on corruption charges intended to keep him out of his office. Meanwhile, his supporters have been facing off against the military, as the armed forces crack down on his political party in a campaign aimed at excluding them from political life. The conflict drives at the heart of the most important issue...

An Intercept investigation, years in the making, reveals previously unpublished, unreported, and underappreciated evidence of hundreds of civilian casualties that were kept secret during the conflict in Cambodia and remain almost entirely unknown to the American people. This week on Intercepted, host Murtaza Hussain talks to Nick Turse, an investigative journalist and contributing writer for The Intercept, about his work to uncover the mass violence Kissinger ordered and oversaw in Cambodia...

On September 26, 2022, at approximately 2:03 a.m. local time in the Baltic Sea off the southeast coast of the Danish island of Bornholm, the Nord Stream 2 underwater pipeline was rocked by a blast. That explosion, followed by a series of other targeted detonations on the older Nord Stream 1 pipelines some 17 hours later, were swiftly assessed to be the result of deliberate sabotage. The explosions off the Swedish and Danish coasts set off an international mystery with unimaginably high...

Nearly 50 years ago, the Church Committee began holding hearings to investigate the CIA and U.S. intelligence agencies’ lawless and secret efforts to spy on and plan assassination plots. This week on Intercepted, Jeremy Scahill is joined by James Risen and Thomas Risen to discuss how the CIA — without oversight from Congress and at times behind the backs of U.S. presidents — orchestrated coups against popular democratic governments from Guatemala to Iran and spied on anti-war activists and...

Last week, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy held a long call with Chinese President Xi Jinping, in which Xi appealed for negotiations to begin between Ukraine and Russia. This week on Intercepted, hosts Jeremy Scahill and Murtaza Hussain are joined by Alfred W. McCoy, the Harrington professor of history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the author of “To Govern the Globe: World Orders and Catastrophic Change.” As McCoy explains, China’s role in brokering a peace deal could be...

U.S. war planners have indicated that Ukraine plans to launch a spring offensive in an effort to retake territory lost in Russia’s invasion. Military analysts have also suggested that Kyiv, backed by the U.S.-led NATO alliance and its weapons shipments, is likely to attempt to purge Russia from Crimea. Russian President Vladimir Putin has indicated that he has no plans to cease his military operations, and the stage is being set for further bloodshed with no end in sight. This week on...

Last week, federal officials arrested Jack Teixeira, a 21-year-old airman in the Massachusetts Air National Guard, accusing him of having leaked hundreds of pages of classified Pentagon documents on a Discord server. The documents offer rare insights into the war in Ukraine and the extent of military casualties and reveal the presence of U.S. and other NATO nations' special forces clandestinely operating in the war zone. They also document how the conflict is spilling over into the Middle...

Vice President Kamala Harris wrapped a historic tour of Africa last week, where she positioned the U.S. as a reliable and trustworthy security and economic partner. This week on Intercepted, host Murtaza Hussain is joined by investigative reporter, Nick Turse, to discuss his latest reporting on U.S. counterterrorism efforts in Africa. Since the war on terror was launched, the U.S. government’s ventures in Africa have been more focused on military aid than economic support. Harris’s trip comes...

Despite China warning “serious confrontation in the U.S.-China relationship,” House Speaker Kevin McCarthy confirmed plans to meet with Taiwan's President Tsai Ing-wen when she visits California on Wednesday. This week on Intercepted, Elbridge Colby, former defense strategist during the Trump administration, joins Jeremy Scahill and Murtaza Hussain to discuss and debate the emerging bipartisan consensus that China threatens U.S. economic and military dominance. They discuss the impact of the...