December 2006

In This Issue

• Leveraging US Strength in an Uncertain World
• Fall 2006 Courier: "Our New Atomic Age"
• Reporting From Lebanon
• Joint Multilateral Forces in Sudan?
• Elections in Congo

Features

From Our Conference on Global and National Security. On December 7 the Stanley Foundation convened the largest conference in its 50-year history. Our first Stanley Foundation Conference on National and Global Security, held just two blocks from the White House, featured a wide range of authors, academics, security experts, military strategists, think-tank leaders, and others who gathered to consider the topic "Leveraging US Strength in an Uncertain World." A wealth of content from the conference—including full transcripts and audio from the six panel discussions—is available along with video, blogs, photos, and more.

Fall 2006 Courier Now Available. "Our New Atomic Age" is the theme of this issue, which asks if global teamwork on nuclear weapons can be improved and examines the cases of Iran and North Korea. Plus, an interview with Ambassador Chas. Freeman, a look at the new secretary-general of the United Nations, and exploring the worldwide classroom. Read the full issue.

Reporting From Lebanon. Last month the Stanley Foundation cosponsored a Reuters Foundation workshop on general news reporting at the American University of Beirut. Course instructor Nick Phythian writes that the six American and six Middle Eastern journalists who attended got a chance to look at the world's top news stories from the other side. Also, read workshop participant Adam Jadhav's reporting from Lebanon in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and view his multimedia slideshow.

Beyond the Headlines

African Union-United Nations Force Suggested for Sudan. The United Nations is pressuring the Sudanese government to accept an alternative to a peacekeeping force comprised only of UN forces for Darfur. Representatives on the ground have been calling for an expansion in the operations to handle the widening conflict. The Sudanese government had complained that such a force would constitute a foreign intervention in its domestic politics. The United Nations' compromise was to suggest an expanded African Union-United Nations hybrid operation to give it more regional legitimacy. The Sudanese government accepted in principle but wants to limit the United Nations' role in Darfur to advisory and technical capacities. Statistics on how many deaths have been caused by the fighting range from 200,000 to double that.

Elections in Congo. On December 6 the Democratic Republic of Congo swore in the country's first democratically elected president in 40 years. This comes after a particularly violent period in the Congo's history that saw the loss of thousands of lives and the displacement of thousands more. The recent election highlighted the importance of multilateral action through the United Nations (which setup up MONUC- Mission des Nations Unies en République Démocratique du Congo). The United Nations brokered the truce that originally quieted the conflict and played an indispensable role in the recent elections.

Friend of the Foundation

The International Reporting Project is designed to educate US journalists about global issues and to increase and improve the coverage of international topics in the US news media through fellowships, conferences, and fact-finding visits. A new report on the 2006 Media Gatekeepers trip to Egypt, "Covering the Arab World," is now available.

Stay Active

Control Room, a documentary examining Al Jazeera's coverage of the current Iraq conflict, is the centerpiece of a new Stanley Foundation "Now Showing.." event toolkit. The "Now Showing..Control Room" toolkit includes everything you need to hold an event in your community or on your campus. Request your event toolkit today!

New Resource

In January the latest edition of the Great Decisions briefing book will be available to individuals and groups interested in discussing global issues. The 2007 edition includes articles on the following foreign policy themes: the Middle East, climate change, Mexico, migration, South Africa, war crimes, Central Asia, and children's rights. The briefing book is supplemented by many other materials available from the Foreign Policy Association.