The Elucidators return after a week off to discuss the results of the presidential election in the United States, which, while decisive, are still playing out for some very irritating, unfortunate, and potentially dangerous reasons. While all of that nonsense fulminates, the entire world also received some excellent news on the COVID-19 vaccine fro…

This week on The Elucidators: Decoding Global News, we’re digging into one of our very favorite topics: the future of nuclear weapons! As of this past weekend, 50 countries have ratified the Treaty to Prohibit Nuclear Weapons, a UN-backed effort to relegate nukes to the dustbin of history. But stuffing the nuclear genie back into its bottle won’t b…

This week on The Elucidators: Decoding Global News, we journey to Thailand, which most Westerners associate with pristine beaches and a welcoming, peaceful culture. Little do most outsiders know that the “Land of Smiles,” despite its many charms, has long been one of the least politically stable countries in the world. This year, tens of thousands …

This week on The Elucidators: Decoding Global News, we take a brief detour to one of the nastier places in modern politics: the Far Right. Right-wing extremists ranging from anti-government militias to neo-Nazi parties have been increasingly vocal in the United States and Europe in recent years, and this year’s chaos seems to have kicked extremist …

This week on The Elucidators: Decoding Global News, we’re checking in on Brexit! The seemingly endless wrangling between the United Kingdom and the European Union to decide their post-divorce economic relationship is nearing a hard stop at the end of this year. The next few weeks may be the last, best chance for the two sides to avoid an economical…

This week on The Elucidators: Decoding Global News, we step into the Caucasus, a mountainous Eurasian region where an ongoing rivalry between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the contested region of Nagorno-Karabakh has erupted into open fighting. Could neighboring Great Powers Turkey and Russia be drawn into a larger war that neither really wants to fi…

This week on the Elucidators: Decoding Global News, we journey to one of the most dangerous places on Earth, the Taiwan Strait, a narrow body of water that separates the island nation of Taiwan from the People’s Republic of China. This past weekend, China sent dozens of warplanes across the Strait’s median line, sending an unmistakably threatening …

This week on The Elucidators: Decoding Global News, friend of the show Prof. Ryan Weldzius of Villanova University swings by to give us the 411 on the global economy in 2020 and beyond. The COVID pandemic has disrupted every major economy in the world, from the United States to the European Union to China, and kicked off what appears to be a new er…

This week on The Elucidators: Decoding Global News, we’re checking into the situation in Rwanda, where Paul Rusesabagina, the hotel manager whose heroism during the 1994 Genocide inspired the Oscar-nominated movie Hotel Rwanda, has been arrested and accused of terrorism. What does this surprising move on the part of authoritarian President Paul Kag…

This week on The Elucidators: Decoding Global News, we go to Japan, where Shinzo Abe, the longest-serving Prime Minister in modern Japanese history, is stepping down after eight years in office. After Japan suffered through decades of economic stagnation and decline, Abe attempted to make major reforms in both the domestic and foreign policy arenas…

This week on The Elucidators: Decoding Global News, we dive into the deep blue waters of the Eastern Mediterranean, where Turkey’s strongman President Erdogan is in a dispute with historic enemy (and fellow NATO member) Greece, along many other neighboring countries, over access to newly discovered oil and gas resources on the sea floor. Is Erdogan…

This week on The Elucidators: Decoding Global News, we’re going to discuss a big, symbolic diplomatic move that occurred in the Middle East last week: the normalization of relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, two countries that have been in a formal state of hostilities for decades. In one of the few successes the Trump Administra…

This week on the Elucidators, we’re recording on Tuesday August 11th, a week after a massive blast hit Lebanon’s capital city of Beirut, one of the most culturally important metros in the Arab world, and a place that was once known as “The Paris of the Middle East.” Sadly, a lethal blend of incompetence, corruption, oligarchic politics and explosiv…

This week on The Elucidators, we’re hitting three topics of note across the world of international relations. First off, the Russians claim to have won the race to a coronavirus vaccine... but they may have cut a few important corners on the way to first place. Second, in a predictable but still shockingly fast development, Hong Kong has used its n…

Modern hydroelectric dams are among the most economically consequential structures countries build. When they work well, they can protect downstream areas from devastating floods, while also providing steady water flow for agriculture and vast amounts of electricity for economic development. On the other hand, their construction is often politicall…

Most Americans’ direct experience with the European Union is probably limited to the colorful Euro bills--featuring pictures of Roman arches and statues and such--that we use to buy stuff when touring Athens, or Paris, or Berlin, saving us from having to change money into a new national currency every time we switch cities. But the European Union i…

Iran's not in great shape. A deeply unpopular government run by aging Islamic theocrats... a bad economy crippled by American sanctions... and a runaway COVID-19 pandemic have already combined to push this big, important Middle Eastern power towards the edge. And now, on top of everything else, some of Iran's most sensitive military sites -- includ…

We've been keeping an eye on the situation in Hong Kong since last year, when hundreds of thousands of mostly youthful Hong Kongers hit the streets to demonstrate for increased autonomy and democracy. About a week ago, China's response arrived in the form of a very powerful new National Security Law, the import of which can be boiled down to one wo…

This week, Steve and Soumi conduct a quick look back at 11 months of The Elucidators. We started all the way back in August 2019, when giants walked the Earth, with our hot take on a mysterious nuclear explosion in northern Russia. Then over the course of 44 near-weekly episodes, we jumped through every continent but Antarctica -- which is kind of …

Black Lives Matter. Due to social media technology, the filmed police murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis traveled around the world in minutes. Now, what started out as a homegrown American movement a few years ago has gone global, with very large (and peaceful) anti-racism protests rippling from South Africa to South America. Is this merely a st…

@RealDonaldTrump threatened to pull out 1/3 of the American troops stationed in Germany…without telling Congress…or Ze Germans. Nice guy! What does this mean for the future of NATO—the world’s oldest multinational military alliance—and the United States military presence in Europe? If we end up leaving, should we care? Why or why not? This week, St…

You’re China. (Hi, China!) In the last 8 months, you were the source of this century’s worst pandemic, bungled the early management of the outbreak at home, and mislead the international community about it for months. But now that things are under control health-wise in the Middle Kingdom and the United States is distracted by major internal issues…

Lies. Malarkey. Propaganda. Fake news. Misinformation. Disinformation. Weaponized Nonsense. The internet has all of these… as well as… real public information and actual news! This week, Steve and Soumi talk about the deluge of disinformation and how we all play part in spreading it, whether it comes from foreign governments or homegrown conspiracy…

Q: How did a mild-mannered Ethiopian microbiologist end up one of the most talked about people in the ongoing pandemic? A: International politics. This week, Steve and Soumi discuss how Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Director General, found himself in @RealDonaldTrump’s political crosshairs, as well as: What i…

Since we first discussed the #coronavirus outbreak in China last week, A LOT has changed: There are now more than 7,800 confirmed #nCoV2019 cases and 212 deaths worldwide... as well as over a hundred full recoveries. The vast majority of this activity remains in China, but we're seeing a handful of cases elsewhere, including other Asian countries, …

This week, Steve and Soumi discuss the new #Coronavirus, the threats of pandemics in a globalized world, and what countries can do to handle problems that are bigger than nations. Buckle up cuz #pandemics can come at you fast! Observe what's happened in the last three weeks: December 31: China tells the World Health Organization (#WHO) about concer…

January 8: The Iranian regime says Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 crashed a couple hours prior because of "mechanical errors." January 11: Actually… we shot it down because we mistook it for an incoming missile. Also this is America’s fault! We will not take any questions about why a commercial flight was allowed to take off while we wer…

Follow this maze, if you can. Last week, #Trump ordered the assassination of #Iran General Qassem #Soleimani as payback for Iran-linked Shia militias protesting in front of the U.S. embassy in Baghdad, #Iraq. The Iraqi parliament then passed a symbolic, non-binding measure to have the #Americans leave their country over this violation of Iraqi sove…

*BREAKING NEWS ALERT* Just before we were about to post this episode Thursday evening, President Trump ordered a targeted assassination of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani in a drone strike on Baghdad Airport. Welp. Soleimani was a) not a good guy in any way, shape or form, being responsible for Iran's proxy militias and therefore countless deaths …

Q: How can a law offering a path to citizenship for religious refugees from neighboring countries lead to nationwide protests? A: When the law excludes Muslims from that path... and there are already 200 MILLION Muslims in your country. This week, Steve and Soumi discuss mass protests in India over Hindu nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s c…

Much like the well-known horror film franchise (albeit with fewer hockey masks and machetes), Brexit is scary and just doesn’t seem to end. In this latest installment of UK Democracy: Endless Madness, the world will find out who the UK’s next Prime Minister will be on the appropriately (actually randomly) chosen date of Friday, December 13th. Eithe…

Q: What annual event is the biggest, most important, and least fun party in the world? A: It's the United Nations' Conference of Parties (COP) to combat climate change. (Fine. It's more of a conference than a party…let it go, nerd.) Through December 13th, representatives from 200-ish nations are meeting in Madrid, Spain to discuss rising carbon emi…

Back in August, we checked in on #Hong Kong eleven weeks into the city's millions-strong pro-democracy protests. Fourteen weeks later, those protests are still rolling, with even greater intensity -- and they are now generating electoral consequences too! Local district counsel elections this past week registered MASSIVE victories for the pro-democ…

Q: What do you get when you raise fuel prices in Iran by 50-300%?A: Major protests all over the country. Q: So then what’s the government do?A: Shut down the internet and attack protesters with live ammo! Iran is two countries at the same time: a young, modern, and cosmopolitan nation of 80 million hoping to join the international community, AND a …

If a nation’s leader loses the support of his military and resigns, but no one steps into replace him… has there been a coup? This is no riddle. It’s one of the main political questions facing Bolivians days after their long-serving and (by all accounts) effective leader Evo Morales resigned, along with his Vice President, amid (well-supported) acc…

This week, a horrific tragedy unfolded in the high desert of Northern Mexico, where three SUVs full of women and children were gunned down with automatic weapons and subsequently burned to ashes. The fact that these folks were members of a Mormon fundamentalist sect that emigrated to the area in the late 19th century and still hold dual US / Mexica…

On October 26, 2019, American special forces raided the compound belonging to Abū Bakr al-Baghdadi (ABaB), the leader of the Islamic State in Syria’s (ISIS) and self-anointed caliph or head of all Muslims, resulting in an explosive fatality. In this week’s episode, Steve and Soumi delve into who this guy was, where he came from, what he did, how he…

On October 17th, Chilean President Sebastian Piñera was bragging to the international media about his country's status as a socioeconomic "oasis" in a sea of instability. Less than 48 hours later, violent protests were roiling Chile's major cities and the Chilean army was in the streets, shooting at protestors with live ammo and running people over…

Q: What does a 275% increase in your monthly wage get you? A: If you’re a Venezuelan depending on minimum wage, it gets you the equivalent of $8.That’s enough to buy about nine pounds of meat… for the entire month. And that's after after eight previous minimum wage hikes! In this week's episode of The Elucidators, Steve and Soumi discuss the long a…

Q: How do you spell betrayal?A: R-O-J-A-V-A—ROJAVA. That’s the name of the nascent Kurdish state in northern Syria that’s currently being bombed by Turkey.Q: Who are the Kurds?A: The largest ethnic group in the world without an official state of their own and the warriors most-responsible for forcing ISIS out!Q: Why is Turkey doing this?A: Well…bec…

Happy Birthday to the PRC, Happy Birthday to the PRC... it doesn't really flow that well, does it? But if you live in China and you know what's good for you, you were singing along to Xi Jinping's tune this week, when the Chinese Communist Party celebrated the 70th anniversary of the People's Republic of China's founding. Since 1949, the PRC has co…

This past week, both in protests around the world and at the annual meeting of the United Nations, demonstrators young and old demanded immediate action to combat climate change. But what would that really, concretely mean -- and is it politically possible? In this week’s episode, Steve and Soumi delve into the history of climate change and its pre…

BOOM! Faster than you can say "Happy Saturday," Saudi Arabia's main oil processing facility goes up in a big drone and cruise missile strike, global oil prices go vertical, and Saudi Prince Mohammad Bin Salman's big IPO plans for Saudi Aramco go horizontal. Who the heck are these Houthi guys claiming credit for the strike... and why are the Iranian…

This week we get into the thorny problem of the United States' "Forever War" in Afghanistan. We're 18 years in. Is there an end in sight? It may actually have been, unbeknownst to almost everyone, until President Trump announced that he had canceled secret peace talks in literally the least secret way possible -- on Twitter! Sometimes truth is stra…

We had really hoped to delay our first Brexit episode to the point that Brexit failed and we wouldn't have to talk about it... but we didn't quite get there :( Thanks a lot, Boris Johnson! In this episode, we delve into BoJo's Brexit-related tricksiness vis-a-vis the British Parliament, along with the governing structures of the United Kingdom and …

Don't look now, but the Amazon Rainforest -- which is the size of the entire continental United States -- is on fire in an unusually big and dangerous way. Is the Brazilian government under right-wing populist Jair Bolsonaro to blame, or is the story much more complicated than that? Probably the latter because we're talking about it! In this episod…

Eleven straight weeks of massive protests have paralyzed Hong Kong, one of the wealthiest and most politically important cities in the world. In this episode we discuss: "One Country, Two Systems," Shenzhen, Xi Jinping, income inequality, the Umbrella Movement, Opium Wars, and so very much more! Bonus: Russia's turned off its (voluntary) internatio…

Uh oh, something blew up in a village in Russia's Far North. Steve and Soumi investigate. Topics covered this week include: nuclear weapons strategy, arms control, the Cold War, shirtless Putin, Kim Jong Un's hair.By Steve Palley and Soumi Chatterjee