This past Thursday, on the 10th of November 2011, former U.N. Secretary-General, Kofi Annan delivered a speech at Stanford University on the occasion of the launch of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies' Center on Food Security and the Environment. Citing UN estimates,...

As he reflected on the Rwandan Genocide, a disillusioned Boutros Boutros Ghali, the former Secretary General of the United Nations stated the following during a 2004 Frontline interview: "[f]or us, genocide was the gas chamber -- what happened in Germany. We were not able to realize...

In Global Brief magazine's Strategic Futures segment recently published, experts and pundits were asked, what will be the key language(s) of this new century? Opinions were offered on why Chinese, Russian, French, Arabic, and Persian could be the lingua franca of the 21st century.

Persian! ('Persian'...

In the days to come, the world will come to learn whether the Republic of Sudan -- Africa's and the Arab world's largest country -- will continue as one nation, or be...

On 13 December 2010, The Elders released a joint statement that is sure to strike a chord with anyone interested and genuinely concerned with cause of peace and progress in the Middle East (ME). Acknowledging that decades of peace-talks, US brokered or otherwise, focused on resolving...

The news of Aung San Suu Kyi's release less than a month ago on the November 13, 2010, after nearly two decades of state surveillance and house arrest was greeted by jubilation from all four corners, nourishing the yearning soul of the democracy movement in Burma (or more...

As the geopolitical chess games and drive for competitive advantage in the Middle East continue to generate winners and losers, fueling instability and rising tensions, one is inclined to ask how much longer before this regional dynamic will push the region towards an all-out war or contribute further...

The drums of war against Iran in response to its nuclear program are getting ever louder, with headlines in Western media adopting a tone increasingly similar to those heard in the period leading up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

The prototypical example of such incendiary rhetoric is none other...

In a 2009 interview with Global Brief magazine, Louise Arbour, former UN Human Rights Commissioner and current President and CEO of the International Crisis Group, named Nelson Mandela her favourite historical leader.

Arbour is not alone.

Last month, South Africans and millions around the world celebrated Nelson Mandela...

Geopolitics in the 21st century is shaped against the background of an increasingly globalized and still ever-competitive world, where states, perhaps as never before, can no longer thrive in isolated vacuum. Apart from the European Union (EU), there are countless other examples of a global trend towards regional alignment.