I was a precocious pre-pubescent child when I first encountered the word penetrate in a newspaper. It was not really a proper newspaper, I must confess. It was, more accurately, a rough pamphlet of a few pages with words typewritten in blue font. I still remember poring over the page where the word appeared, the […]
Flying over the Democratic Republic of Congo’s Katanga Province, one cannot help but marvel at the beautiful scenery from the dense forests on plains and occasional hills, with meandering rivers and scattered lakes. To add onto this geographical beauty, the country’s sub-soil is overflowing with natural resources – from minerals to oil and natural gas […]
I visited Guinea Bissau, a very poor West African country as part of an IMF staff visit that assessed the country’s progress and mapped out future development goals. Despite long-lasting instability, harsh colonial legacy and proximity to Ebola-stricken countries, Guinea Bissau enjoys relative stability after the democratic elections in 2014 and is making progress in […]
Max Weidenfeld Travel Grant Report on the UN High Level Event commemorating the 20th Anniversary of the World Program on Youth at the UN General Assembly, 29th May 2015 Never before have there been so many young people in the world. Never again is there likely to be such potential for economic and social […]
As a result of a generous donation by the Eranda Foundation in honour of Lord Weidenfeld’s father Max Weidenfeld, a small travel fund is available annually to provide Scholars with financial support for travel required for research, academic and professional development purposes where this is deemed to be useful and necessary. These funds are allocated […]
“It is extremely likely that human influence has been the dominant cause of observed warming since the mid-20th century.” – Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change, Fifth Assessment Report 2013 This key finding of the IPCC’s report provides a damning indictment of the influence of anthropogenic activities on the climate system and a reflection of the […]
The international community has failed Libya. While this may come across as a harsh verdict to the many organizations, governments and individuals, sometimes well-meaning, who since 2011 have been flocking in and out of the country in an attempt to secure its transition to state-hood, it is the case that many of those transactions remained confined […]
Weidenfeld-Roland Berger Scholar Fatemeh Hashemi (Magister Juris, 2014-15) writes of her personal mission to improve female education in Iran, through her family’s inspiring university foundation. My home country of Iran is a country of over 75 million people located in the Middle East. It has a long and illustrious history as a great civilization with […]
Being honoured with a Weidenfeld-Hoffmann scholarship, I decided to study activism in Russia and China. I set off to Kunming, the capital of Yunnan province to find relevant initiatives and to get to know young people who voluntarily work for the improvement of the society. Fortunately, I didn’t need to look for long – in […]
California is in the fourth year of a critical drought. As the most productive agricultural region in the United States, the Californian drought has significant ramifications for food security in the country as well as nations that rely heavily on food imports. California is a major player in the global commodities market, exporting large amounts […]
