Last week, 195 nations meet in Paris to decide the fate of the systems that support life on earth. Again. Since 1995, a majority of the world’s countries has met every year but failed to reach a lasting agreement to figure out what to do about the warming planet. This annual event, which weighs heavier […]
Impressions Aboard the Train from Abidjan to Ouagadougou
October 1, 2015 Three hours before the train to Ouagadougou was scheduled to leave, the station in Treichville, in southern Abidjan, the economic capital of Côte d’Ivoire, hummed with more activity than it had seen in days. Across from the crowd control barriers, ticket-holders sipped Nescafé on a concrete ledge, shielding their faces from the […]
The Sinister Effects of Warmer Water
“At night, it looked like another city,” Isabel tells me as she gestures out her office window toward the sea. “There were hundreds of lights. But now, what do you see?” she asks me. “Nada,” I reply. Isabel Soto Gonzalez runs the daily operations at the marina in Santa Rosalía. She tells me that the […]
Russia: Adversary or Ally?
On Thursday, December 10, Marvin Kalb and Gregory Feifer – two of the sharpest minds writing about Russia whose views diverge – debated this urgent question at an event hosted by ICWA and Johns Hopkins SAIS. The fault lines in US thinking about Russia and the pressing decisions facing the Obama Administration, were exposed in stark relief. Is […]
Jonthon Coulson
Fellowship Award Recipient (2016-2018) We are pleased to announce the selection of Jonthon Coulson as the next Fellow of the Institute of Current World Affairs. Jonthon will spend two years in Indonesia researching and writing about educational spaces, moments, and movements in that country. Jonthon is a doctoral student in the Curriculum and Teaching program at Columbia […]
The National Front Has Been Successful Because It Tackles Issues Others Avoid
The National Post – In their latest op-ed ICWA Trustee Julie Barlow and Past Fellow Jean-Benoît Nadeau explain the growing support for National Front, a right-wing alternative to France’s two mainstream parties, the Socialists and Les Républicains. They posit that the National Front is gaining support because of its willingness to address issues like immigration, nationalism, and race, which are political taboos […]
The Global Migration and Refugee Crisis: Challenges, Lessons, and Opportunities
(video) (scope & program) This conference will explore three key dimensions of the migration crisis, uncovering lessons from past crises, elucidating the immediate and most critical challenges emanating from the MENA region, and examining the positive potential of the migration flows. […]
Speech Bubble: A Comic Festival in Algiers
12 Nov 2015 Le Festival International de la Bande Dessinée d’Alger is held on hallowed ground. Between the massive Martyrs Monument and the Army Museum, the white tent city of booksellers, exhibitions, plenaries and workshops sits above the hills, upon a multi-floor shopping center of the Esplanade de Riadh El Feth. The Martyrs Monument’s distinctive […]
Karabakh’s Soccer Refugees Take on Europe
Politico- In Thomas Goltz’s latest article, he writes about the small soccer team called Qarabağ-Ağdam, the “Horsemen” from Azerbaijan and the struggles they have overcome during and after the 1988-94 Karabakh War, consisting of “a bitter war, exile and the long climb to international football heights.” Goltz goes in depth about how far they have had to come in order to […]
Book review: Historian Paul Rahe Recounts Epic Spartan Tales and the Defeat of the Mighty Persian Empire
The National- Past Fellow Paul Rahe’s has recently released a new book, The Grand Strategy of Classical Sparta. In his review of The Grand Strategy, Steve Donoghue writes that the book “is intensely well-researched and well-balanced” and that it “tells the old stories in a new light.” The book is the first in what will be a trilogy […]