In this special post-election edition of To Save Us From Hell, Mark Leon Goldberg and Anjali Dayal explain what to expect — and what not to expect — from Donald Trump’s approach to the United Nations during the next four years. Will he burn Turtle Bay to the ground? Mostly ignore the UN? Cozy up to Russia at the Security Council? And will the next UN Ambassador be Anjali’s old Middle School classmate? We discuss all this and more! This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this...

UNRWA is a unique humanitarian agency. It is both a humanitarian relief provider for millions of Palestinians across several countries, and in many places, it functions as a de facto municipal government, providing services like schools, healthcare, and trash collection. Together, UNRWA provides a social safety net for 2.5 million people in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza. And now, all of that might end. Earlier this week, the Knesset passed a bill that would effectively force UNRWA...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.globaldispatches.org UNRWA is a unique humanitarian agency. It is both a humanitarian relief provider for millions of Palestinians across several countries, and in many places, it functions as a de facto municipal government, providing services like schools, healthcare, and trash collection. Together, UNRWA provides a social safety net for 2.5 million people in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza. And now, all of that...

The Israeli Defense Forces have continued their deliberate attacks on UN peacekeeping positions in southern Lebanon, including an incident in which UNIFIL Blue Helmets were injured by white phosphorus, an incendiary chemical agent used by the Israeli army. Why does this keep happening, and what can make it stop? Meanwhile, António Guterres finds himself in hot water with the Ukrainians for his attendance at the BRICS Summit in Russia, and a major UN conference on biodiversity is underway in...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.globaldispatches.org Over the last week, Israel has directly targeted the positions of UN Peacekeepers in Lebanon. Several peacekeepers have been injured, but none killed—yet. The real tragedy of these ongoing attacks against UNIFIL is that they are undermining the one entity that can provide an off-ramp to further escalation in Lebanon and throughout the region. The path to de-escalation runs through UNIFIL. But for the...

The UN Human Rights Council consists of 47 member states that serve three-year terms. They are elected to their seats by a vote in the General Assembly. Unlike most General Assembly votes, this one is done by secret ballot. On October 9, the UN General Assembly considered 19 candidates for 18 open seats on the Human Rights Council. The loser? Saudi Arabia. (Phew.) In this week’s episode of To Save Us From Hell, we take a deep dive into the UN Human Rights Council — how it works, some of its...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.globaldispatches.org In the 79 years of the United Nations, no country has ever declared a UN Secretary General Persona Non-Grata—until now. On Wednesday, Israel made history when it PNG’d Antonio Guterres, saying he was no longer welcome to set foot on Israeli soil. The reason? In a statement condemning Iran’s attack on Israel, he apparently didn’t condemn it enough. Meanwhile, can the UN stop the escalating war between...

It’s an annual UNGA tradition! For the umpteenth year in a row, Richard Gowan, Anjali Dayal, and I sit down for a wide-ranging chat about all things UNGA. Richard Gowan, of course, is the oft-quoted UN expert who serves as the UN Director of the International Crisis Group. The three of us caught up a few hours after Biden’s farewell UNGA address and spent a good portion of our conversation dissecting his speech and reflecting on how the United Nations has changed during Biden's tenure as U.S....

Linda Thomas-Greenfield made big waves around the UN this week when she rolled out a new and rather detailed American proposal for reforming the staid United Nations Security Council. The proposal is quite concrete and would likely be popular among most of the 193 UN member states. But is this just a cynical ploy to curry favor with Africa and much of the developing world ahead of UNGA? And how could a plan like this turn from an idea into concrete action? In today’s episode, Anjali Dayal and...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.globaldispatches.org About 140 world leaders are scheduled to address the opening of the 79th United Nations General Assembly. That’s a lot of speeches! In today’s episode, co-hosts Mark Leon Goldberg and Anjali Dayal preview some of the most anticipated speeches of UNGA. From inspirational and high-minded addresses by moral heavyweights to cringeworthy speeches by coup leaders and war criminals, we break down some of the key...

"A rare bright spot amid the disastrous conflict in the Gaza Strip" is how UNICEF described the successful first phase of a massive polio vaccination campaign in Gaza. Polio was confirmed three weeks ago, and over the last several days, UNICEF, the WHO, and UNRWA have taken advantage of humanitarian pauses in the fighting to administer hundreds of thousands of vaccine doses. In our first segment, we discuss how this vaccination campaign is being carried out and why it has been successful so...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.globaldispatches.org On August 8th, a committee representing most UN Member States approved a draft text of a new United Nations Convention Against Cybercrime. Despite the support from the majority of UN member states, civil society and private sector groups are arguing against its adoption. In fact, the proposed Convention on Cybercrime has the dubious distinction of being opposed by industry titans like CISCO, Amazon, and...

The Summit of the Future is a two day confab on September 22 and 23 that kicks off the opening of the United Nations General Assembly and High Level Week. It is being billed as “once-in-a-generation” opportunity to revitalize the UN and multilateralism in a time of great global turmoil and restore trust in international cooperation as a means of solving common global challenges. That may sound impractically idealistic, but the Summit itself is the culmination of years of discussions,...

As certified UN-Nerds, Anjali Dayal and Mark Leon Goldberg's ears always perk up when they see the UN represented in pop culture. In this special episode of To Save Us From Hell, we take a deep dive into how the United Nations is portrayed in popular music, television shows, and film. From Lou Reed to Charlize Theron to Doctor Who —we explore the cultural impact of the United Nations from the 1950s to today. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or...

Our first segment discusses both spurious and verified accusations that some UNRWA staff in Gaza may have been involved October 7th attacks. Two new reports this week shed light on how wild accusations against UNRWA are less than credible. Our second segment looks at how the UN is approaching the war in Sudan, which by the numbers is the worst humanitarian crisis in the world. We discuss a Security Council meeting on Darfur featuring the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court and a...

Before we sat down to record this week’s episode, authorities in Iran announced that Hamas’ political leader, Ismael Haniyeh, was killed in Tehran. This news came just hours after Israel claimed responsibility for the targeted assassination of a top Hezbollah commander, who was killed in retaliation for a gruesome missile attack in the Golan Heights. Amidst this flurry, there is a heightened prospect that conflict will escalate further throughout the region. However, the UN offers a way out...

US Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield visited Port-au-Prince this week in a show of support for UN-backed efforts to bring a modicum of stability to Haiti. Her visit comes on the heels of the deployment of Kenyan police officers to Haiti and a recent vote in the Security Council to back the UN’s Office in the country. In our second segment, we discuss the kick off of the race for the 80th President of the General Assembly, who will take office next year and profoundly...

It’s been a tumultuous week in American politics: an assassination attempt on Trump, JD Vance nominated as the Republican vice presidential candidate, and the ongoing Republican National Conventions. In this episode of To Save Us From Hell, we take a look at what a second Trump presidency would mean for the United Nations. We discuss Trump’s views and approach to the UN from his first term in office, how COVID-19 completely changed his attitudes towards the UN, and what we can expect from a...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.globaldispatches.org If Biden declines to run for re-election, the most likely replacement is Vice President Kamala Harris. In this week’s episode of To Save Us From Hell we take a deep dive into Kamala Harris’ views of the United Nations. We discuss how she’s engaged with the UN since becoming Vice President and why there are some subtle but important distinctions between her approach to the UN and that of President Biden. We...

A new month means a new president of the UN Security Council. On July 1, Russia took the helm of the most powerful body in the United Nations system and announced that Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov would chair two Security Council meetings during Russia’s presidency. The problem is, Lavrov is under a travel ban and asset freeze by the United States for his actions related to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. In our first segment, we discuss what happens when leaders under American sanctions come...

The United Nations Interim Mission in Lebanon (UNIFIL) has more peacekeepers deployed per square kilometer than any other UN peacekeeping mission in the world. These peacekeepers have helped avert an all-out war between Israel and Hezbollah in the past, but tensions are very high right now. Our second segment focuses on a summit this week between Taliban officials and representatives of about 30 governments and international institutions, convened in Doha under UN auspices. This meeting is...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.globaldispatches.org For most of the history of the United Nations, China was not a major power. The China of today was only given its seat at the UN in 1971. (Prior to that, the seat was occupied by Taiwan.) For the subsequent two decades, China was mostly focused inward. It was not until relatively recently that China has taken a keen interest in using the United Nations to advance its foreign policy agenda. So what is that...

As we sat down to record the episode, Vladimir Putin was being feted in Pyongyang by Kim Jong Un. The two had just signed a security pact revived from the Cold War era, signaling an ever-closer alliance and marking the death knell of nearly 20 years of North Korea nuclear diplomacy at the Security Council. Meanwhile, over the last ten days we’ve seen the first meaningful progress at the Security Council on the two worst crises in the world: Gaza and Sudan. We discuss what lead to a...