Africa

Meghan Garrity details the history of mass expulsions since the centennial of the signing of the Lausanne Convention—a treaty codifying the compulsory “population exchange” between Greece and Turkey. An estimated 1.5 million people were forcibly expelled from their homes: over one million Greek Orthodox Christians from the Ottoman Empire and 500,000 Muslims from Greece.

The authors' recent research suggests possible hopeful news: local communities — those most affected by fighting — may be remarkably receptive to the return of former armed group affiliates.

February 24th, 2020, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Dr. Gesche Joost, Professor of Design Research at the Berlin University of the Arts and head of the Design Research Lab since 2005, discussed the digital divide and how it will shape social connectivity in an event moderated by Cathryn Clüver Ashbrook, Executive Director of the Future of Diplomacy Project and the Project on Europe and the Transatlantic Relationship, and Lauren Zabierek, Executive Director of the Cyber Project.

Armed rebel groups push for funding and recognition, and often get it.

Chinese diplomats in Africa are robustly defending Beijing’s policies on Twitter as part of a new and sometimes aggressive public relations campaign which is playing out across the globe as the country’s envoys answer President Xi Jinping’s call to “tell China stories well”.south chi

Just two weeks ago, a tweet cost the global stock markets roughly $1.36 trillion (or Australia’s annual GDP). With 280 characters on Twitter, the U.S. President Donald Trump threatened to raise tariffs on select Chinese imports, instilling lower market confidence, triggering significant volatility, and exacerbating existing political uncertainties. To explore what is really at stake in Twitter diplomacy, it is important to explore why Twitter diplomacy matters, why world leaders use it, what it means for diplomatic relations, and how governments can manage the associated risks.

As part of a high profile tour of China in February, Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman (MBS) has overseen a range of multi-billion dollar pledges and MOUs with Beijing. This partly reflects Riyadh’s desire to diversify sources for investments and technology following the mass withdrawal of major Western business leaders from the Future Investment Initiative in October 2018, after the murder of Saudi Journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi Embassy in Istanbul. Yet cooperation with China on renewable energy, if successful, would realize a significant first step towards Saudi Arabia’s lofty ambitions for solar and wind power.