14 Items

David Miliband and Nick Burns

Martha Stewart

Newspaper Article - Harvard Crimson

Former Diplomats Discuss Global Refugee Crisis

| Feb. 23, 2018

David W. Miliband, president and CEO of the International Refugee Committee, discussed the global refugee crisis with Kennedy School professor Nicholas Burns at an Institute of Politics event Thursday evening.

At the event, entitled “The Refugee Crisis and What Can Be Done About It,” Miliband and Burns, who served as the Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs during the Bush administration, discussed ongoing humanitarian challenges in Syria, connecting the issue to a broader “forgotten crisis” of global population displacement.

Trump Salute

Le Point

Magazine Article - Le Point

Burns : « Il renie soixante-dix and de diplomatie » (Burns: "He rejects seventy years of diplomacy")

| Feb. 02, 2017

In an interview with Amin Arefi of French magazine Le Point, Ambassador (ret.) Nicholas Burns reflects on the first ten days of the Trump administration and the trajectory of American foreign policy going forward. Burns explains the fundamental differences between Donald Trump and George W. Bush, and the  worrying implications of Trump's indifference towards the US-backed system of alliances that has upheld the liberal world order for the past seven decades.   

President-elect Trump

Evan Vucci/AP

Newspaper Article

Trump denies grace periods to Obama’s ambassadors

    Author:
  • Mengqi Sun
| Jan. 06, 2017

With two weeks until Inauguration Day, President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team has issued an unusual order in the history of US foreign service: a blanket mandate that all politically appointed US ambassadors step down by Jan. 20, with no exceptions, as several US diplomats told The New York Times and Politico.

- Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School Belfer Center Newsletter

Exploring Social Contracts in the Arab World

| Spring 2016

In this issue, the Belfer Center is pleased to feature the contributions of Hedi Larbi, the 2015–2016 Kuwait Foundation Visiting Scholar at the Middle East Initiative. During his stay, Larbi led a dynamic study group of students, fellows, and faculty in examining social contracts. In 2014–2015, he served as Minister of Economic Infrastructure and Sustainable Development and as Economic Advisor to the Prime Minister of Tunisia.


Students take a break from meetings for an excursion to Petra and Wadi Rum desert in Jordan.

Loic Bruderlein

- Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School Belfer Center Newsletter

Students See Middle East Challenges Firsthand

Spring 2015

More than 40 Harvard students traveled to the Middle East over the winter break to assess–firsthand–the rehabilitation needs of Syrian refugees in Jordan and alternative energy and environmental challenges and opportunities in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The Belfer Center’s Middle East Initiative supported the field visits.

Magazine Article - Harvard Gazette

Kissinger, On Diplomacy

Nov. 19, 2014

Considered one of the most important American diplomats of the 20th century, onetime Secretary of State Henry Kissinger visited the Harvard Law School (HLS) campus last week to share some of the lessons learned as adviser to Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford.

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- Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School Belfer Center Newsletter

Atiyeh Vahidmanesh: Education Inequality in the Middle East

    Author:
  • Isabella Gordillo
| Fall/Winter 2014 -15

Atiyeh Vahidmanesh became inspired to focus her research on the inequality of educational opportunity after hearing her Virginia Tech advisor and former Belfer Center Visiting Scholar, Djavad Salehi-Isfahani, speak on the issue at a seminar. Salehi-Isfahani also introduced her to the Belfer Center, where she then applied for a research fellowship with the Middle East Initiative through its new Emirates Leadership Initiative. Vahidmanesh, a PhD student in economics at Virginia Tech, describes her research as somewhat interdisciplinary between economics and education.