Cambridge, MA – Dr. Khalid Alsweilem, former Chief Counselor and Director General of Investment at the Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency (SAMA), has been appointed a non-resident fellow at Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. At the Belfer Center, Dr. Alsweilem will focus on the study of sovereign wealth funds, with a particular focus on Saudi Arabia’s reserve sovereign funds and their linkages to the real economy. 

In October, 2012, at the foot of a rocky hillside in eastern Kazakhstan, a group of American, Russian, and Kazakh nuclear scientists and engineers gathered for a ceremony marking the completion of a secret 17-year, $150 million operation to secure plutonium in the tunnels of Degelen Mountain—an abandoned site of Soviet underground nuclear testing. "Plutonium Mountain: Inside the 17-Year Mission to Secure a Dangerous Legacy of Soviet Nuclear Testing," a report released today by The Project on Managing the Atom at Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, provides details on one of the largest nuclear security operations of the post-Cold War years.

Meghan O'Sullivan, Jeane Kirkpatrick Professor of the Practice of International Affairs at Harvard Kennedy School and head of the Belfer Center's Geopolitics of Energy Project, has been named vice-chair of the All-Party Talks in Northern Ireland. She will join Council on Foreign Relations President Richard N. Haass in chairing the talks aimed at addressing some of the most divisive issues affecting Northern Ireland.

Tom Donilon, National Security Advisor to President Obama from 2010 until last month, is joining Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs as a non-resident Senior Fellow.

The International Center for Climate Governance (ICCG) has named Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs winner of the 2012 ICCG Climate Think Tank Ranking in the Global category. The Belfer Center was cited as the most influential institution outside of Europe “working in the field of climate change economics and policy.” The European winner is the Basque Center for Climate Change (BC3) in Spain. See full report here.

The Summer 2013 issue of the Belfer Center newsletter features recent and upcoming activities, research, and analysis by members of the Center community on critical global issues. This edition highlights the Belfer Center’s expanding work on complex cybersecurity issues and Middle East challenges, offers reflections on the role of the U.S. in Iraq, and spotlights work being done by the Center and its affiliates on environment and energy issues.

"Former Senator Sam Nunn, founder and CEO of the Nuclear Threat Initiative... and former Senator Richard Lugar were awarded the prestigious 2013 Richard E. Neustadt Award at Harvard Kennedy School on May 2... Dean David Ellwood noted that the award is bestowed annually to honor one or more individuals “for creating powerful solutions to public problems, drawing on research and intellectual ideas as appropriate.”

The Spring 2013 issue of the Belfer Center newsletter features recent and upcoming activities, research, and analysis by members of the Center community on critical global issues. This edition highlights the Belfer Center’s deepening engagement with China.

When Lee Kuan Yew speaks, who listens? Presidents, prime ministers, chief executives, and all who care about global strategy.

Graham Allison and Robert D. Blackwill, two leading strategic thinkers, asked Lee Kuan Yew the toughest questions that matter most to thoughtful Americans weighing the challenges of the next quarter century. The result is their new book, Lee Kuan Yew: The Grand Master’s Insights on China, the United States, and the World – published today by MIT Press.

The Winter 2012-13 issue of the Belfer Center newsletter features recent and upcoming activities, research, and analysis by members of the Center community on critical global issues. This edition highlights the Belfer Center’s commemoration of the 50^th anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis. In addition to the background on those 13 days in 1962 when the world was on the brink of nuclear war, the Center focuses on the decision-making that averted a nuclear catastrophe and the lessons from that event for leaders of today. We include winners and winning entries from our “Best Cuban Missile Crisis Lessons” contest, co-sponsored with Foreign Policy magazine.