HKS in the News March 15, 2012

1. Taliban Call Off Talks as Karzai Urges Faster U.S. Transition (Semple) New York Times

2. Obama delivers a clear message on Iran (Burns) Boston Globe

3. A matter of trust: The city-university connection (Braga, Glaeser, Luberoff, Winship) Radcliffe Magazine

4. Self-immolations in Tibet must resonate in America (Yodsampa) Christian Science Monitor

5. Ashley Judd goes to the mat to prepare for rigours of Missing (Judd)

Calgary Herald (Canada)

Taliban Call Off Talks as Karzai Urges Faster U.S. Transition

New York Times

March 13

Quoted: Michael Semple, Carr Center

Topic: Peace talks in Afghanistan

Prospects for an orderly withdrawal of NATO forces from Afghanistan suffered two blows on Thursday as President Hamid Karzai demanded that the United States confine troops to major bases by next year, and the Taliban announced that they were suspending peace talks with the Americans....

“Acknowledging their involvement in Qatar talks was a significant move for the Taliban. They expected that the U.S. would move quickly with confidence building measures,” said Michael Semple, a Fellow at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard’s Kennedy School. “The transfer of Taliban leaders to Qatar was top on the list. The Taliban announcement of suspending engagement in Qatar is a response to their frustration at the US’s slowness to deliver.”

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Obama delivers a clear message on Iran

Boston Globe

March 15

Commentary by: Nicholas Burns, Future of Diplomacy Project

Topic: U.S. policy on Iran

WHEN PRESIDENT Obama declared that we should try diplomacy with Iran before war, it was fascinating, and a little disconcerting, to watch his army of critics strike back. In a brash bellowing for war that amounted to an ultimatum to the White House, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insisted that bombing Iran was still the answer. Presidential hopefuls Rick Santorum and Mitt Romney, as well as other Republicans, declared the president to be, in effect, feckless, reckless, naïve, and misguided in planning to talk to Iranian mullahs.

The irony is that Obama’s Iran policy is remarkably close to that of the Bush administration and the Romney campaign. To prove it, Obama delivered the toughest message of his presidency to the Iranian leadership. He will stop Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. He will not support containment, as it might lead others in the region to go nuclear. He has Israel’s back. And he is not bluffing.

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A matter of trust: The city-university connection

Radcliffe Magazine

Winter 2012

Quoted: Anthony Braga, Edward Glaeser, Rappaport Institute

Cited: David Luberoff, Christopher Winship

Topic: Recent conference on city-university relations

For 17 years Anthony Braga has worked closely with the Boston Police Department (BPD) on a variety of initiatives, including the prevention of gang violence, the disruption of illegal gun markets, and prisoner re-entry programs....

City government has to "have enough trust in itself to let in outsiders," said Edward L L. Glaeser, director of the Rappaport Institute and the Fred and Eleanor Glimp Professor of Economics at Harvard.

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Self-immolations in Tibet must resonate in America

Christian Science Monitor

March 14

Commentary by: Andrea Strimling Yodsampa, Belfer Center

Topic: Political protests in Tibet

...Tibetans are in mourning – not only for the loss of their homeland and the threat to their culture under the Chinese Communist regime, but for the 25 monks, nuns, and lay people who have set themselves on fire over the past year. Eighteen are known to have died. Others have been taken away by the Chinese authorities. Their whereabouts and well-being are not known.

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Ashley Judd goes to the mat to prepare for rigours of Missing

Calgary Herald (Canada)

March 14

Profile on: Ashley Judd MC/MPA 2012

Topic: Topic

It's no small thing to play a trained operative for the CIA, Ashley Judd said with a straight face. It's not a job she took lightly.

"Well," she said, after a pause. "It seems to have gone rather well."...

Judd was studying for her master's degree in public administration - at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government, no less - when she first heard the pitch for a TV thriller about an international woman of mystery and a mother.

"It was a sensational idea, I thought: a mother looking for her missing son," Judd said. "And, hey, each episode is event-TV set in a glorious European capital. What's not to love?"