Season seven - WORLD: we got this with Esau Williams

Join Esau Williams and guests on The 'WORLD: we got this' podcast series as they discuss some of the biggest - and some of the most neglected - world news stories of the week.

Episode 1: Dust Storm Diplomacy

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In March 2021, Seoul woke up under a thick yellow haze - the worst dust storm in a decade. South Korea blamed China, who promptly blamed Mongolia. Fingers were pointed, narratives emerged, and what seemed like a weather event quickly became a diplomatic one.

Since then, dust storms have continued to blight the region, and have emerged as a source of continual transborder tension.

Joining Esau in this episode, Dr Thomas White, co-author of the article Foul Weather Friends? The Transnational Politics of Dust Storms Between China and Mongolia, and Prof Andreas Baas, a physical geographer with expertise in desertification and land degradation.

Together, they unpack how dust storms stir up more than sand - touching on nationalism, environmental diplomacy, and the politics of green solutions - questions that resonate far beyond the Gobi Desert.

You can read more about this topic here

Ex-BBC man comes full circle as new podcast host

Esau Williams, the new host of the School of Global Affairs podcast, will be recording his episodes in the same building, Bush House, where he once produced programmes for millions of listeners to the BBC World Service.

Esau worked at the BBC as a journalist and presenter for over 13 years. He produced, edited, and presented some of the corporation’s flagship news and current affairs programmes, and even won the BBC the prestigious Peabody Award for his reporting on the 2014 Ebola outbreak.

Read more about our presenter, Esau.