 | | February 3, 2012 |  | Election 2012: Media, Money, and Swing Voters "Forty percent of voters are registered as independents," says Senior Scholar Linda Killian in a new CONTEXT interview. So-called swing voters want to make a statement with their registration in this next election. Also playing a role are the media and new campaign finance structures like super-PACs, The Nation Editor and Publisher Katrina vanden Heuvel tells dialogue. | |
 | Event // January 30, 2012 United Russia is weaker today partly because of changes the party made in its appointment of provincial governors during the Putin and Medvedev administrations, said Henry Hale, Director of the Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies at George Washington University. And although Putin is strongly favored, the outcome is still uncertain for Russia's upcoming presidential vote, as support ebbs for the former president as voters tire of more than a decade of Putin's dominance of national politics. |  | Video // February 2, 2012 Venezuelans will go to the polls next Sunday. In a rare showing of unity, opposition parties have agreed to select a single candidate to challenge President Chávez in the October elections, hoping to end more than a decade of his control of the presidency. Pollster Luis Vicente León discusses what lies ahead for Venezuela and the chances of an opposition victory. |  | Event // January 30, 2012 Endowed with an abundance of natural resource wealth and perhaps the largest human resource potential on the African continent, Nigeria is also burdened by various challenges that threaten the country's prospects for long-term development and stability. Ambassador Eunice Reddick, former U.S. Ambassador to Nigeria Howard Jeter, and Shell Oil Corporate Communications Director Olav Ljosne discuss the country's long-term challenges. |  | Commentary // February 1, 2012 We must ask whether investments to protect biologically rich areas are effective and sustainable if they don't respond to the many needs of the people who live there, writes Environmental Change and Security Program Director Geoff Dabelko in a column for Momentum magazine. | Wilson in the News | But Michael Adler, an Iran expert at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, noted that the Iranians resisted setting a formal agenda for the inspectors' visit, which suggested a lack of seriousness by the Iranians. "Iran has a history of offering to talk when it is under pressure, and then stalling so that the talks delay punitive measures against it," Adler said. | "Iran has opened its doors to the IAEA at the same time that it is threatening to close the Strait of Hormuz, and thus cause economic chaos by blocking oil shipments from Gulf states," writes Public Policy Scholar Michael Adler. "This mix of threats and conciliation gestures is nothing new almost a decade into the Iranian nuclear crisis. But with the confrontation seeming to be heading into an endgame, all eyes are on the UN inspectors' visit to see if Iran is ready to show signs of cooperation in order to defuse the current escalation." | Distinguished Scholar Robin Wright joined NPR's On Point to discuss the current status of the Arab Spring, the ongoing revolution, and challenges people are facing. | Dr. Turner, who heads the Woodrow Wilson Center's China Environment Forum, focused on the development of shale gas as an alternative to water-demanding coal. Of course utilizing shale gas presents its own environmental challenges—it is water-intensive up-front and water pollution can be a serious problem. Nonetheless, given the choice between adding more coal to China's energy mix and pushing forward with shale gas, Dr. Turner is probably right that, if managed properly, the latter is a very attractive option both for water and climate change concerns. | Program Associate for the Asia Program Michael Kugelman argues that Pakistan will experience neither an Arab Spring nor an Islamic revolution anytime soon. | "I would imagine that the U.S. would privately hope that Brazil will play a mediating role in issues that concern us, like human rights," said Cynthia Arnson, the director of the Latin American program at Washington's Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. | While radical revolution was not on the agenda at the World Economic Forum's Women Leaders Dinner, the question of leadership for the messy world was. As posited by moderator Laura Liswood, Secretary-General CWWL, in these turbulent times do we need the bold John Wayne style of leadership or do women see -- and bring -- something different? | Granted, says Fellow Maurice Jackson, race relations in D.C. are far from perfect. When it comes to whites and blacks, we still see disparities – like when it comes to income. "In Washington, D.C., the average white person makes $3.11 dollars for every dollar a black person makes," Jackson explains. "The average white family makes $101,000 dollars; average black family: $39,000." But he points to another momentous occasion that occurred at the Lincoln Memorial: Dr. Martin Luther King, Junior's "I Have a Dream Speech." And Jackson says that remarkable event gives him hope. | Participants agree that themes as diverse as energy, food, water, health, or development are closely linked, so climate change will have profound and multiple effects. We should also pay attention to the unintended consequences that may result from public decisions. For example, Geoff Dabelko, director of the Environmental Change and Security Program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, cites the objective of the European Union (EU) to use10% biofuels for transport by 2020. This decision, taken in order to reduce energy dependence on oil, also had the undesirable effect of increasing deforestation in Southeast Asia to increase the production of biofuels based on oil palm. | | | | | | Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars
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