 | | January 13, 2012 |  | On January 14th, voters in Taiwan will choose their next president. Regional expert Bryce Wakefield discusses the dynamics of the race and the factors likely to decide the outcome. moreAlso, experts discuss the post-election implications for Taiwan, its neighbors, and the U.S. more | |
Washington Launch at The Wilson Center
The Council of Women World Leaders |  | January 11, 2012 As the Council of Women World Leaders celebrates its 15th anniversary and a move to The Wilson Center, Finnish President Tarja Halonen, former Irish President Mary Robinson, and U.N. Special Representative Margot Wallstrom share their stories for the next generation.
Transcript | Video | Audio |  | Event // January 11, 2012 President Dilma Rousseff's first year in office was marked by a decline in domestic economic growth and an increase in corruption scandals. Yet Rousseff ended 2011 with a 72% approval rating. The Wilson Center's Brazil Institute reflects on Brazil's first female president's performance and what lays ahead on the domestic and international fronts. |  | Video // January 5, 2012 Sanctions are affecting the average Iranian, says Director of the Middle East Program Haleh Esfandiari on PBS' "Newshour." The importance of this, she says, is the internal pressure it will place on the Iranian government. |  | Event // January 11, 2012 Each year, 350,000 women die of pregnancy-related causes and 25 percent of these women are between the ages of 15 and 19. Sadia Chowdhury from the World Bank and Jennifer Redner of the International Women's Health Coalition highlight the need for repositioning maternal health and adolescent girls on the world's development agenda. | Wilson in the News | Iran says it is enriching uranium at a secure underground location and it is also threatening to shut down the oil shipping lanes in the Strait of Hormuz. While some worry that military action may be necessary, Public Policy Scholar Michael Adler tells CBS News he does not think military intervention is inevitable. "The sanctions are designed to cause Iran so much economic pain that they have no choice but to strike a deal on their nuclear program," Adler says. | "A small number of Latin American governments have made common cause with the Iranian government in confronting the U.S.," said Cynthia Arnson, director of the Latin America Program. "That's not the foreign policy objective of most countries in the region." | Cynthia Arnson, director of the Latin American Program, says Ahmadinejad's arrival in Venezuela permits Iran to claim it still has friends. "And it's particularly useful to have allies in Latin America, which has traditionally been considered the United States' backyard. So it's a really important way of thumbing its nose at Washington and making common political cause with governments in the region who also share an anti-imperialist and anti-U.S. ideology," Arnson says. | "I'll try to not be overly pessimistic," said Laura A. Liswood, the secretary general of the Council of Women World Leaders, a policy program of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, talking by phone from London where she was traveling last week. She cited the loss of jobs in public and private sectors and bemoaned reports that young women are opting to go back to college rather than taking low-paying jobs. By doing so, she said, they are missing out on early work experience while their male counterparts get it. Like other feminists, she is frustrated at the snail-pace climb of women into powerful, decision-making executive positions. | The Council of Women World Leaders marks its 15th anniversary this year, and there's a long way to go before women reach parity with men at the highest levels of government. That's all the more reason for women like Robinson, who have scaled those heights, to share what they've learned with the next generation. | The US Congress and the Obama administration should repair and reenergize the manner in which the United States delivers civilian aid to Pakistan. Doing so will not be inexpensive, but failing to act could be infinitely more costly, writes Director of the Asia Program Robert Hathaway in a piece for YaleGlobal looking at the deeply troubled US-Pakistani relationship. | A new Gallup poll shows 40% of American voters identified themselves as politically independent in 2011, the highest yearly yield in the poll's history. Senior Scholar Linda Killian discusses whether independents get burned out after their favored candidate doesn't make it past the primaries or if they will successfully push mainstream candidates towards the fringe in 2012. | There was a time in America when debate mattered, when declamation was standard fare of a youngster's education, when people knew about disputation and rhetoric and dialectics, when beyond a mastery of a subject, how one expressed an opinion, whether with wit or humor or insight, was important, writes Senior Scholar James Reston, Jr. | Aaron David Miller discusses the effectiveness of Obama's international diplomacy strategy of engagement rather than confrontation on Fox News, referencing such specific examples as Iran, Syria, North Korea, and Venezuela. | Experts say Mexico has also moved too slowly in trying to clean up its dysfunctional law enforcement institutions, from corrupt local police forces to a judicial system that is broadly incapable of securing justice. "The government is having some success in breaking up the cartels and moving this gradually from a national security crisis to a public security crisis," said Andrew Selee, director of the Mexico Institute at the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars. "But that requires a broad public security strategy that we haven't seen yet: Not just arresting capos but building local police and prosecutors that can lock up the bad guys." | The Mexican government has failed to create the tracking system it needs to understand criminal trends and improve security, experts say, even as it has become more secretive with the limited information it has. "Our frustration is that they have some information and some numbers, something that would be valuable and they are not releasing them," said Eric Olson, a security expert at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington. "And there is a whole bunch of other things that are not well defined and can lead to erroneous conclusions." | Although the first female president of Latin America's emerging global power may lack the charisma of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, her wildly popular predecessor, voters seem to have warmed to her no-nonsense approach. "People identify in her a seriousness of purpose and a reserved style that is kind of a relief after the often very narcissistic and loud years of Lula," says Paulo Sotero at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington. | | | | | | Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars
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