Global Dispatches -- World News That Matters

"Worm Wars" is shorthand for an ongoing scientific debate about the efficacy of de-worming programs; that is, programs supported by governments and non profits to stop the transmission of parasitic wo...

19 Aug 201521min

There is a new ebola vaccine. And it works spectacularly well. A recent paper in the Lancet demonstrated of the 7,600 people in Guinea who received the vaccine, not one person contracted the virus. Th...

13 Aug 201521min

The FARC Insurgency in Colombia has been raging for fifty years. And now, after a long peace process, it may soon be coming to a formal end. But even though a peace deal may be signed, whether or not ...

5 Aug 201522min

South Sudan is in a tailspin. On July 9, the country commemorated its 4th anniversary of independence but it was hardly a celebration. Since December 2013 the country has been in a freefall stemming f...

29 Jul 201529min

Jessica Jackley co-founded Kiva and revolutionized micro-lending. Her new memoir Clay, Water, Brick tells the story of the founding of Kiva and her own personal journey from a religious family in Pitt...

27 Jul 201546min

This is a special bonus episode of Global Dispatches. Mark speaks with Prof Laura Seay about the implications of President Obama's decision to visit Ethiopia, and what it says about US policy toward A...

26 Jul 201513min

President Obama is visiting Kenya this week. This is his first trip to his father's country of birth since becoming president, and people in Kenya are certainly treating it like a homecoming.  Here wi...

22 Jul 201529min

The nuclear deal with Iran is essentially grand bargain: Iran agreed to curtail its nuclear program in exchange for a gradual easing of international and national sanctions. But as President Obama is ...

15 Jul 201519min