New Thinking for a New World - a Tallberg Foundation Podcast: Recent Episodes
Tällberg Foundation
Aiming to provoke people to think — and therefore act — differently about the global issues that are shaping their future, the Tällberg Foundation is sharing some of its conversations in podcast form. The podcast invites you to hear from leaders from different sectors and geographies as they explore issues that are challenging and changing our societies.
We live in the age of the refugee. Arguably, no country in the West has been more welcoming to refugees over the years than Sweden has. Progressive, secular, social democratic, Swedes have worked hard to integrate migrants into their society, to help refugees create new lives in their new home country.
How then do you explain what happened last month during Easter when Stockholm, Malmö and other cities were racked by riots and violent clashes between police and mostly Muslim young men?
Lars Åberg, one of his country's leading journalists and a prolific author, has thought and written about these questions for years. Listen as he explains what Sweden has done right, but also what it has done wrong.
As Russia's war on Ukraine grinds on with no end in sight, what's at stake may be changing. As Blitzkrieg turned into a war of attrition, arguably the confrontation is becoming about something much bigger than European security arrangements. It's becoming about how the world works, about democracy versus autocracy, about free versus not free. A surprising list of countries, big and small, are either actively or passively supporting Putin's war. Why?
Our guest has a theory; indeed, more than a theory, he has lived experience. Leopoldo López is a Venezuelan patriot, who has been imprisoned for his efforts to resurrect democracy in his country, and who, it's safe to say, is high on the list of people whom President Maduro wishes would just go away. Listen as Leopoldo explains how the fight to save Ukraine reflects a much bigger, existential fight for freedom everywhere.
Russia’s war on Ukraine has set off the largest movement of refugees in Europe since the last World War.
At least 2.7 million of these refugees have fled to Poland, a country with a spotty record—at best—when it comes to accepting migrants. But this time is different: even as the country builds a wall on its border with Belarus to keep out migrants from the Middle East, Poles and their government are welcoming the Ukrainians pouring across their border. Why the difference? Will there be limits to the hospitality?
Marta Górczyńska, a Polish human rights lawyer, is hopeful. She has seen and dealt with her country’s efforts to close the border with Belarus as well as its enthusiastic opening of the border with Ukraine (at least for Ukrainians). Will the better angels prevail?
One of the many unintended consequences of the Russian invasion of Ukraine is the renewed discussion among politicians, as well as in the popular media, of nuclear war.
How worried should we be about Russian or Korean or Chinese or prospectively Iranian nukes? Have we suddenly moved from a world of nonproliferation to a world of proliferation?
Dr. Tytti Erästö is an expert on nuclear weapons at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). For her, a key assumption has long been that rational leaders would never use nuclear weapons. But now she is asking, what about irrational ones?
Perhaps the biggest known unknown in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is China's role. What does that actually mean? How far will China go to keep Russian troops in the field? Promises aside, are there in fact limits?
Tough questions that are very difficult, maybe impossible to answer, but our guest Alicia Garcia-Herrero recently offered some possibilities. Alicia is a senior fellow at the European think-tank BRUEGEL, as well as the chief economist for Asia Pacific at Natixis, a French investment bank.
The only hope for a world awash in troubles is that leaders with vision, universal values, and determination will seize the moment. But just bemoaning the lack of leaders accomplishes nothing. That’s why we established the Tällberg-SNF-Eliasson Global Leadership Prize.
In 2021, our global jury selected two amazing leaders: Asha de Vos, a Sri Lankan marine biologist and Tero Mustonen, a Finnish climate scientist, fisherman and community leader.
Listen as two jurors—David Kiernan and Marthe Reinette—discuss leadership, challenges and hope with the winners.
The whole world really is watching Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine. Except for audiences in Russia itself, that is.
Among the many thousands of Russians reportedly fleeing their country are scores of Russia’s best journalists who have (understandably) given up the good fight. However, at least one has not: Yevgenia Albats. When the government stopped her from publishing and ended her radio show, she found ways to keep talking to her Russian audiences. At great personal peril, Yevgenia tells it like it is—to the Russians who depend on her and to us, who need her.
Arguably, any understanding of the Russian invasion of Ukraine must take into account the Beijing Winter Olympics or, rather, the meeting there of Presidents Xi and Putin. Can there be any doubt that they included Putin’s war plans as well as Xi's willingness to provide support when the much-advertised Western sanctions eventually kicked in?
Why did Xi apparently green light Putin's war? What does China potentially gain from war in Europe? How does this war fit into China's long-term strategy?
Listen as Jonathan Ward reflects on China’s role in Russia’s war and the implications for the United States and the rest of the West.
The world is transfixed by the tragic images emerging from Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine. Unfortunately, many modern conflicts never really end. Whether or not that will be the case in Ukraine remains to be seen. We too quickly move on to the next issue, assuming that what's done is done.
War correspondents and war photographers know better. Our guest, Janine di Giovanni has spent much of her celebrated career so far reporting from the Balkans, Africa and the Middle East. She has witnessed the worst of what mankind can do to itself, but also the best that people under extraordinary circumstances can do for others.
Listen as she discusses her experiences.
Most of us thought the war in the Balkans would be the last conflict in Europe. We were wrong. A revanchist Russia is trying to redraw borders, roll back history, and change Europe’s security reality. It’s impossible to predict how or when this ends. The Tällberg Foundation recently hosted a conversation about the conflict in Ukraine and its implications. This conversation featured Jan Eliasson, former Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations, Pierre Lellouche, former French parliamentarian and minister, and Dalia Bankauskaitė, a strategic communications expert at Vilnius University in Lithuania, and was moderated by Alan Stoga, Tällberg’s chairman.
Wars have cycles: sooner or later, the fighting ends and the negotiations begin. Of course how the fighting ends will shape whatever negotiations ensue. But it is never too early to think about the future contours of the map of Europe.
This episode with Emma Ashford, Washington-based Atlantic Council geopolitical expert, was recorded before Russia attacked Ukraine. Nonetheless, Emma's thoughts and speculation about a new security structure for Europe are even more important now than when we discussed them before President Putin chose to go to war.
Joel Kotkin, Executive Director of the Urban Reform Institute, recently published an essay on democracy’s demise. Donald Trump is not the villain of the piece. Rather, he argues that the withering of democratic process and institutions reflects the deeper transformation of our societies: the emergence of a ruling technocracy; the use of the pandemic and the environmental crisis to constrain individual rights; the growing distance between the governing and the governed. All of it made worse by the mind-boggling concentration of economic wealth.
Climate change is the ultimate example of a problem that can only meaningfully be addressed at the global level. Last November, more than 100 countries sent delegations to Glasgow for the 26th United Nations High Level Meeting on Climate.
The results were mixed. Many new commitments were made, but not enough to meet the 1.5 degrees goal. And that was the easy part; delivering policies that actually bend the arc of global climate change is quite another. How likely is that? Is the UN process working?
No one is better positioned to answer those questions than Denmark's Climate Ambassador Tomas Anker Christensen. Tomas was deeply engaged in the European and global run-up to Glasgow, in the negotiations in Scotland, and in the effort since then to translate words into action.
In many, perhaps most countries in the West, there is a wide and growing gap between citizens and their political leaders. Governments often fail to deliver on basic aspects of the social contract and voters sometimes respond by endorsing extreme solutions on the right or the left.
If there is a silver lining, it is that our sorry condition has caused some people to rethink how politics ought to work and try to reinvent, rather than tear down, democratic processes and institutions. Alice Barbe, a French political activist, do exactly that and recently shared her ideas, hopes and solutions.
Hostile troops massing on the border of a Central European democracy. Russia's threats against Ukraine and its demands for new security and arrangements in Europe sound all too familiar. Of course, the huge difference today is that Germany is not only firmly anchored in the West but is a cornerstone of the European Union. What will Germany do? Constanze Stelzenmüller—an expert on Germany, geopolitics and trans-Atlantic relations who is based at the Brookings Institution in Washington—is deeply knowledgeable about all aspects of the crisis. Listen as she shares her views on what is at stake.
The Middle East is changing. New investment and trade relationships are emerging based on economics, not religion. In December more than 700,000 Saudi kids participated in a four-day rave in the Saudi desert with regular intermissions for Islamic prayers. What's going on? Has the Middle East of strict Islam suddenly turned into something more modern? Have the Arabs figured out how to move beyond religious conflict?
Neil Quilliam is a deeply knowledgeable, experienced expert in the region. He has been engaged with the politics, economics, and societies of the Middle East and North Africa for decades: today from Chatham House and earlier through his service in the UK's Foreign and Commonwealth Office.
Whether we like it or not, global politics today is defined by the confrontation between autocracies and democracies. Not surprisingly, as historian and journalist, Anne Applebaum wrote in the Atlantic in November: “The Bad Guys are Winning.” As she put it, "If the 20th century was the story of slow, uneven progress toward the victory of liberal democracy over other ideologies—communism, fascism, virulent nationalism—the 21st century is, so far, a story of the reverse.” Listen as Applebaum discusses how this new world (dis) order might evolve.
We live in a digital society. Unfortunately, some of the results include cybercrime, illegal spying, intimidation and identity theft.
It’s bad enough when these activities are aimed at you or me; much worse when they target dissidents, crusading journalists, etc.
Ronald Deibert and his colleagues at the Citizen Lab are in the business of fighting back, using cutting-edge technologies to protect citizens and civil society from digital predators. Listen as he explains how they do the voodoo they do so well.
The Taliban's surge to power in Afghanistan is one of those events that will have repercussions for years to come.
Jamila Afghani succeeded in getting out with her family. Jamila is an educator and an activist. Her work to elevate the rights and improve the education of women and girls is based on her studies of Islamic law, which she believes is typically misinterpreted to give them second-class status. Listen as she talks about escaping the Taliban, and what she expects for her country.
Under President Xi Jinping, China has shown a growing willingness to act outside the accepted geopolitical, economic and even diplomatic global framework and practices.
Australian Kevin Rudd has spent a considerable part of his life thinking about, working on, and negotiating with China — as a diplomat, twice as his country's prime minister, and currently as president of the Asia Society. Arguably no other western leader knows China better. Listen as he assesses where China is today, and where it wants to be tomorrow.
Great leaders may or may not be born that way, but their skills and abilities certainly evolve and mature over time. That is why we established an Emerging Leader category for the TSEGL Prize.
The jury selected two leaders. Pashtana Durrani, an Afghan activist and educator. Christian Ntizimira, a Rwandan who champions palliative care in central Africa.
Listen as two jurors—Shahidul Alam, photographer and human rights activist and Gouri Mirpuri, a social entrepreneur—discuss leadership with the two winners.
The only hope for a world awash in troubles is that leaders with vision, universal values, and determination will seize the moment. But just bemoaning the lack of leaders accomplishes nothing. That’s why we established the Tällberg-SNF-Eliasson Global Leadership Prize.
This year, our global jury selected two amazing leaders: Asha de Vos, a Sri Lankan marine biologist and Tero Mustonen, a Finnish climate scientist, fisherman and community leader.
Listen as two jurors—David Kiernan and Marthe Reinette—discuss leadership, challenges and hope with the winners.
The Middle East of today is significantly different than the region that has been such a locus of conflict over the past 50 years. Key actors seem to be refocusing their political and diplomatic efforts. In this context Jordan is playing a major role and their diplomacy has kicked into high gear in this search for a new, positive future.
Ambassador Dina Kawar, Jordan's ambassador to the United States, is both an observer and participant in this transformation. Listen as she parses the possibilities, good and bad, of this rapidly changing region.
Do you care about the future of the oceans? Seventy percent of the earth is covered by water. If we want a livable planet, we need livable oceans. Can we save the oceans? If failure is not an option—and it should not be—who needs to do what?
Oceanographers Sylvia Earle from the United States and Asha de Vos from Sri Lanka talked about water, the oceans, threats, and solutions. Both are explorers, educators, and activists and both are winners of the Tällberg-SNF-Eliasson Global Leadership Prize.
We live in a digital society. Unfortunately, some of the results include cybercrime, illegal spying, intimidation and identity theft.
It’s bad enough when these activities are aimed at you or me; much worse when they target dissidents, crusading journalists, etc.
Ronald Deibert and his colleagues at the Citizen Lab are in the business of fighting back, using cutting-edge technologies to protect citizens and civil society from digital predators. Listen as he explains how they do the voodoo they do so well.
Rapidly accelerating climate change is uniquely modern — but climate change is not. Can indigenous people who understand nature differently than most of us teach us how to cope with today’s terrifying challenges?
Tero Mustonen is a climate scholar who combines indigenous knowledge with academic research. He is also a leader of the SnowChange Cooperative and is currently the head of his town of Selkie in North Karelia, Finland. Listen to his insights on how to promote positive change on a damaged planet.
Under President Xi Jinping, China has shown a growing willingness to act outside the accepted geopolitical, economic and even diplomatic global framework and practices.
Australian Kevin Rudd has spent a considerable part of his life thinking about, working on, and negotiating with China — as a diplomat, twice as his country's prime minister, and currently as president of the Asia Society. Arguably no other western leader knows China better. Listen as he assesses where China is today, and where it wants to be tomorrow.
The disastrous impacts of climate change are evident. Do we have the technologies in hand to decarbonize economies in ways that are compatible with how people want to live? Can we do this?
Saul Griffith, the Australian inventor and engineer, insists that the answer is emphatically yes. We have all the technology we need to transform the United States from laggard to leader in the effort to change the arc of the warming climate. And, if the United States can do it, everyone can.
What is actually being done about climate change? The gap between rhetoric and action is critical.
Santiago Gowland, CEO of the Rainforest Alliance has spent years working with businesses, NGOs and citizens around the world to mitigate some of the biggest impacts of climate change. Listen as he discusses urgent efforts to reverse the degradation of rainforests and to create truly sustainable supply chains that are good for people as well as for the planet.
As we in the West become more conscious of inequalities that have been part of our societal fabric for a long time, we're becoming less sure of our identities.
If art is a window on the soul of a nation, what does ours look like? Who do we think we are in the sense of identity? What's our mood?
Of course, these are questions without answers or, at least, unique answers. Shirin Neshat, an acclaimed Iranian visual artist, and Jonathan Burnham at HarperCollins, discuss our evolving zeitgeist.
Listen as Tomas Anker Christensen, Denmark’s Climate Ambassador, and Daniel Martinez-Valle, Chief Executive Officer of Orbia, a Mexico based global company, discuss the need to develop effective partnerships between government and corporations, to find a better balance between globalism and nationalism, and to innovate solutions that assure the transformation to a low carbon economy creates, rather than destroys, jobs, growth and economic opportunity.
The Taliban's surge to power in Afghanistan is one of those events that will have repercussions for years to come.
Jamila Afghani succeeded in getting out with her family. Jamila is an educator and an activist. Her work to elevate the rights and improve the education of women and girls is based on her studies of Islamic law, which she believes is typically misinterpreted to give them second-class status. Listen as she talks about escaping the Taliban, and what she expects for her country.
Rapidly accelerating climate change is uniquely modern — but climate change is not. Can indigenous people who understand nature differently than most of us teach us how to cope with today’s terrifying challenges?
Tero Mustonen is a climate scholar who combines indigenous knowledge with academic research. He is also a leader of the SnowChange Cooperative and is currently the head of his town of Selkie in North Karelia, Finland. Listen to his insights on how to promote positive change on a damaged planet.
Over the years Latin America has seen more than its share of coups, dictators, autocrats, and stolen elections. Why hasn't liberal democracy developed deeper roots in Latin America? Why do many Latins seemingly embrace “strong man” rather than democratic solutions to their social, economic, and political problems?
Brian Winter, editor-in-chief of Americas Quarterly and a journalist who has covered the region for twenty years, has some answers—but also lots of worries.
The Taliban victory in Afghanistan and the abrupt U.S. withdrawal are the most dramatic evidence of a profound realignment in the politics of the Middle East.
How are these developments seen in Iran? What kind of Middle East do the leaders, including president Ebrahim Raisi, want and what are they prepared to do to get it?
Listen as Ambassador Seyed Hossein Mousavian, Middle East Security and Nuclear Policy Specialist at Princeton University, describes his view of what happens when the U.S. loses a war.
Can Bolsonaro bully his way into reelection? Will the country’s democratic institutions be so damaged by him that Brazil’s future stability could be at risk? Most importantly, what do the Brazilian people want?
Sergio Amaral has a long career as a top Brazilian diplomat, presidential policy advisor, and consultant to some of São Paulo’s global companies and has an insider's perspective on how his country actually works. Listen as he discusses the future of Brazilian democracy.
Cyber insecurity is a reality of life in the digital age. We all worry about being hacked, about losing personal or corporate secrets. But what happens when nations do it? Is that war? Who makes the rules of cyber warfare? Are there already cyber powers?
Marcus Willet has spent decades thinking about such questions at the UK Government Communications Headquarters, and at London’s International Institute for Strategic Studies. Listen as he discusses the risks and challenges facing us in the digital age
2021 may go down in history as the year of the Great Awakening. Can we really innovate our way out of the mess? Are we smart enough to translate discoveries into tangible benefits for people? And, can we do so faster than pathogens mutate, accumulated emissions change weather or draughts destroy land?
Livio Valenti sits at the intersection of cutting-edge science and the demand for innovative solutions in healthcare, biotech, and material sciences. Listen as he discusses why he thinks we can do this.
The world is a mess: climate change in real time, the pandemic, widespread social and political unrest, high pitch geopolitical tensions. In the midst of this firestorm, people are suffering. Climate migrants need to escape fires, hurricanes and floods. Families flee wars and oppression.
Where do they go and who will take them?
Lawyers Becca Heller and Kristine Rembach are in the business of finding answers, one refugee or migrant at a time.
The 20th century ended when the Berlin Wall fell and the collapse of the Soviet Union. If you've come of age since then, the struggles of The Cold War are the stuff of history books. German millennials who are starting to come to power in society look at the world differently than their predecessors.
How will this change the country? What does it mean for Europe and Germany's role in the world? Ulrike Franke, senior policy fellow at ECFR, is a German millennial who has thought about these questions.
Neuroscientists today know more about how the brain works than ever before; unlocking the brain's potential could transform our world. But it could also be abused, with nightmarish consequences.
Dr. Rafael Yuste works at the forefront of neuroscience, based at Columbia University. His pioneering work has led him to become a champion for protecting individual neuro-identity and neurorights. In that initiative, he is joined by Jared Genser, a leading international human rights lawyer
What does China—or, China’s leadership and the Chinese Communist Party— want from the rest of the world?
Jonathan Ward, an American who is rapidly becoming one of that country's leading China experts, thinks they want victory. Dr. Ward, who has lived and worked in China and has a deep affinity for the Chinese people, recently published a new provocative book, China's Vision of Victory. Listen as he shares his perspective on the issue that could literally change the course of history.
As we in the West become more conscious of inequalities that have been part of our societal fabric for a long time, we're becoming less sure of our identities.
If art is a window on the soul of a nation, what does ours look like? Who do we think we are in the sense of identity? What's our mood?
Of course, these are questions without answers or, at least, unique answers. Shirin Neshat, an acclaimed Iranian visual artist, and Jonathan Burnham at HarperCollins, discuss our evolving zeitgeist.
By any measure, Latin American democracy is in trouble. From Mexico to Argentina there has been an accelerating erosion of representative democracy. Is the witches’ brew of the pandemic, underperforming economies, weak rule of law, and structural inequalities more than democracy can bear?
Eduardo Amadeo, Argentine economist and politician; Sergio Guzman, Colombian political risk analyst and commentator; Patricio Navia, Chilean political scientist and academic have some answers.
Increased poverty and malnutrition; greater inequality; damaged and depleted health care systems; rising social and political tensions. But is this a crisis or opportunity?
This week’s guests are dedicated to trying to make the world the kind of place it could and should be. Vidhya Ramalingam is a recognized expert on the use of technology to disrupt violent extremism online. Sarah Durieux focuses on mobilizing citizens online, to help them achieve policies they care about.
Lithuania is a frontline state in the growing confrontation—some think it is already war—between East and West. Dalia Bankauskaitė, a security expert at Vilnius University, and Marius Laurinavičius an analyst at the Vilnius Institute for Policy Analysis, are both in that camp. They insist that Russia’s hostility, partly exercised through its puppet Belarus, is aimed not just at Lithuania, but at Europe and the U.S.
Is this what war in the 21st century feels like? What do Putin and Lukashenko wan
2020 will be remembered as the Pandemic Year, when a deadly pathogen somehow moved from bat to human—and the rest is history still being written. Six out of 10 infectious diseases are zoonotic: everything from COVID and the other coronaviruses to rabies, West Nile, even the plague.
Dr. Gladys Kalema-Zikusoka has a better idea, she believes that zoonotic disease is controllable by simultaneously working to improve the health of humans and animals, at the points where they meet.
Is the Middle East going through a realignment as significant as after World War I or since Israel was created in 1948?
New realities are emerging: peace among key Arab countries and Israel and growing confidence that local leaders can best produce peace, prosperity and security in the region.
Ambassador Yousef Al Otaiba, the United Arab Emirates long-serving ambassador to the U.S. s and also a key player in the process of creating this new Middle East, discusses the future of the Middle East.
By any measure, Latin American democracy is in trouble. From Mexico to Argentina there has been an accelerating erosion of representative democracy. Is the witches’ brew of the pandemic, underperforming economies, weak rule of law, and structural inequalities more than democracy can bear?
Eduardo Amadeo, Argentine economist and politician; Sergio Guzman, Colombian political risk analyst and commentator; Patricio Navia, Chilean political scientist and academic have some answers.
Agriculture as it is practiced today—industrial scale ranching and farming—is already a huge contributor to the accelerating pace of climate change.
Is there a better alternative? Can we produce enough food to meet humanity's growing needs and wants, without further environmental damage?
Our guest this week has positive answers to those questions. Didier Toubia is co-founder and CEO of Aleph Farms, a company that grows steaks from cow cells. Real steaks—without the downsides of factory farming.
How is Africa doing? In one sense, that's a nonsensical question to ask about 55 countries and almost 1.4 billion people, but even dumb questions can sometimes have smart answers.
In this episode, Michela Wrong, who has spent nearly three decades writing about Africa, as a journalist and author, talks about the people, the politics, and the day-to-day realities. Her book, Do Not Disturb, takes a deep dive into President Kagame’s Rwanda which can be read as a window into Africa’s present and its futur
In this special episode, you will meet two Tällberg-SNF-Eliasson Global Leadership prize winners. Listen as two prize recipients and friends, scientist, inventor, and entrepreneur Fio Omenetto and social innovator and entrepreneur Bright Simons, discuss how great leaders can change everything.
“Youth is the hope of our future.” When it comes to governance, is that a good thing in a world where there is a growing body of evidence that youth's satisfaction with democracy is declining in many countries?
This episode is part of Tällberg Foundation's exploration of the future of democracy. Listen as Cristóbal Marín Rojas and Julien Richard, discuss the challenges of making democracy work. Both are students at the Paris School for International Affairs at Sciences Po.
The Tällberg-SNF-Eliasson Global Leadership Prize named in honor of Jan Eliasson, one of the most accomplished global diplomats of our era. In this special episode, Jan and Alan Stoga, chairman of the Tällberg Foundation discuss how great leaders can change everything.
What can you do? Take Jan’s call to action seriously and nominate someone who deserves to be honored at tallbergprize.org
Music: "Without You" by Oxime © 2021. Permissions granted courtesy of Oxime Audio https://www.oxime-audio.com
It wasn't that long ago that globalization was universally perceived as a good thing, when policymakers celebrated free trade agreements, and when countries competed to lower barriers to the free flow of goods.
But we seem to be moving from a world where markets ruled to one where politics rules.
Weijian Shan, chairman, and CEO of PAG, one of Asia's leading investment firms, shares his unique perspective, not just on global markets, but on how the world really works.
A shape-shifting event like the global pandemic affects almost everyone on the planet—especially children. They have seen their education, social and mental health development, nutrition, and health badly damaged. And, it is worse for girls, because in too many countries, girls don’t have anywhere near adequate access to schools, health care, even food.
In this episode, Dr. Maliha Khan, one of the leaders of Malala Fund, talks about how the pandemic has made that goal even more difficult to achieve.
In this episode you will meet Nithya Ramanathan, a 2020 prize winners. Nithya is an engineer and social entrepreneur, saving lives through the innovative application of technology, creating and applying data-driven solutions to global challenges. Listen, as she is interviewed by Cecilia Weckstrom, Sr Director, Diversity, Inclusion & People Innovation, Lego and a member of the 2020 prize jury.
Music: “Without You” by Oxime © 2021. Permissions granted courtesy of Oxime Audio https://www.oxime-audio.co
What does China—or, more particularly China’s leadership and the Chinese Communist Party— want from the rest of the world?
Jonathan Ward, an American who is rapidly becoming one of that country's leading China experts, thinks they want victory. Dr. Ward, who has lived and worked in China and has a deep affinity for the Chinese people, recently published a new provocative book, China's Vision of Victory. Listen as he shares his perspective on the issue that could literally change the course of his
Early in 2020, when the global pandemic was still gathering force, UNICEF published a prophetic, deeply disturbing document. If anything, what actually has happened—and continues to happen—to children everywhere is, if anything, probably worse than UNICEF imagined.
Robert Jenkins is leading UNICEF's global education response to the pandemic and brings decades of experience and a global perspective to what might easily be the most important and longest lasting impact of COVID. How worried is he?
Today’s world is short of a lot of things—sustainable environment, peace, prosperity, equality—but what we lack most is innovative, global, values-based leadership. If we can find and nurture that kind of leadership, the rest will follow.
In this special episode, Jared Genser (one of the three 2020 prize winners), an international human rights lawyer who is teaching and mentoring the next generation of human rights lawyers, is interviewed by Shahidul Alam, photographer, writer, activist and 2020 J
Increased poverty and malnutrition; greater inequality; damaged and depleted health care systems; rising social and political tensions. But is this crisis or opportunity?
This week’s guests are dedicated to trying to make the world the kind of place it could and should be. Vidhya Ramalingam is a recognized expert on the use of technology to disrupt violent extremism online. Sarah Durieux focuses on mobilizing citizens online, to help them achieve policies they care about.
Europe is increasingly divided: between the frugal North and the Club Med South; between the illiberal East and the progressive West. In many ways, the latter is more profound at a time when democracy is under pressure almost everywhere.
Our guests are engaged in this conflict. Zuzanna Rudzińska-Bluszcz, Poland's Office of the Commissioner for Human Rights and András Léderer, Hungarian Helsinki Committee. Listen as they discuss the profound conflicts that will shape their countries for decades to com
Today's world is short of a lot of things, but what we lack most is innovative, global, values-based leadership. If we can find and nurture that kind of leadership, the rest will follow.
In this special episode, you will meet Sylvia Earle, one of the three 2020 prize winners. Listen, as she is interviewed by Ashok Mirpuri, Singapore's ambassador to the U.S and a member of the 2020 prize jury
Music: "Without You" by Oxime © 2021. Permissions granted courtesy of Oxime Audio https://www.oxime-audio.co
Venezuela has been in a death spiral for years. The country have been devastated by political repression and economic depression; its people suffer from huger, malnutrition, shortages of food, medicine and, perhaps worst of all, opportunity. More than 5 million have fled.
David Smolansky was chased from his elected post of mayor of El Hatillo and avoided jail by seeking political asylum in the US. Listen as he imagines how his country can go from a failed, kleptocratic state to a prosperous democracy.
Social media has become the lifeblood of modern culture. But it has evolved in ways which reward excessive outrage and which encourage hyper attention to the immediate—untethered from traditions, knowledge, and values.
In this week's podcast, Lee Bollinger, President of Columbia University, is considered one of America's leading legal scholars on freedom of speech talks about the challenges of social media.
Europe has had a bad few years. The struggles between North and South mostly over economics, between East and West mostly over values. Brexit, which shifted the locus of power eastward and distracted European leaders from any possibility of a more positive agenda. The pandemic, which among all its other impacts led to interrupted borders in a Europe that prided itself on having no borders.
Pierre Lellouche, former French parliamentarian and minister, worries that bad is likely to get worse.
2020 was an awful year for Iran. It started with the assassination of the country's leading general and ended with the assassination of its most important nuclear scientist. American “maximum pressure” combined with mismanagement took a huge toll on the country. Yet, the regime seems more firmly in power today than a year ago. How can that be?
Sima Shine, Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) and Dr. Sanam Vakil, Chatham House's Middle East Africa Program, discuss Iran, today and tomorrow.
Even amid optimism about vaccines and declining infection rates, there is mounting evidence that the pandemic is generating a global mental health crisis. How do we cope with the results? Could rising levels of child abuse, spousal abuse, drug abuse, homicide and suicide leave even deeper marks than COVID itself?
Dr. Jonathan DePierro, Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at the Icahn School of Medicine, Mount Sinai and Michael Niconchuk, neuroscience researcher in Zaatari, try to answer these questions.
The pandemic has forced most of us to move from real life to virtual life and we are mostly unhappy about the results. Is there a cure for Zoom fatigue?
For answers, we turned to a magician. Magic used to be fundamentally physical, requiring a lot of interaction between the magician and his audience. Mark Mitton, a world class magician, whose performances produced Springsteen-like enthusiasm explores how magical thinking (or, at least, a magician’s thinking) can help us through this crisis.
Worth Repeating: What are some of the challenges Africa faces in its future? At least so far, what plagues Africa is less Covid-19, than its consequences: collapsed economies, an industrial world that is closing to Africa, a deceleration (if not reversal) in globalization, a new “Cold War”, severe climate change, and the need to develop faster to serve its young population. Alan Stoga talks to Yvonne Aki-Sawyerr, mayor of Sierra Leone’s Freetown, and Carole Wainaina, a leader of Africa50.
We live at a time of pandemic, recession, challenges to democracy, shifts in global power. The response of many organizations, is to hunker down and survive. But some are embracing the challenges and opportunities of change. The Robert Bosch Stiftung, under the leadership of Sandra Breka and others, recently rethought, rebooted and relaunched its operations. Listen as she discusses how they fared and what kind of world she and her colleagues hope to help shape.
The amazing events of recent weeks—Donald Trump’s efforts to undo an electoral outcome, the assault on the Capitol, and the impeachment of the former President —caused many Americans to worry about the stability of their government.
Congressman Dick Gephardt, believes America needs bipartisanship to cope with the divisive spirits that are tearing at the country. He talks about some of the things that urgently need to be done, not just in the United States, but everywhere that democracy is under pr
History is replete with leaders drawing real or metaphorical lines in the sand, challenging opponents to cross only if they dare. David Andelman, an American journalist and author, believes that one way to understand global risks and challenges is to explore the nexus of red lines that define global politics. Indeed, Andelman argues that never before have global affairs been so entangled by red lines. Moreover, he says that Donald Trump made everything worse. Can we recover without a catastrophe?
Since the onset of the pandemic, much of life has shifted from the real world to the virtual world. For many, it has been a painful, frustrating experience. For others, it has been liberating and highly productive. For all, we will inevitably emerge changed by the experience.
We explore living online with a woman whose job it is to make the experience as productive and pleasant as possible. Jaime Teevan is Microsoft’s Chief Scientist for Experiences and Devices.
Pascal Lamy, former Director General of the World Trade Organization, is arguably one of the most prominent, thoughtful and enthusiastic supporters of a global leadership role for Europe.
But is the Europe that seems more divided—north versus south, east versus west—than united really ready to lead? If so, how? If so, who? In this episode of New Thinking for a New World, Lamy offers some intriguing answers, further developed in his Strange New World: Geoeconomics vs. Geopolitics
2020 will probably be remembered as the year of COVID. But more importantly, to our collective futures, it's the year that saw the emergence of the scientist as an accepted, necessary player in public policymaking. Probably not since Sputnik and the space race have scientists and science been so visible in the halls of power.
Our guest has long worked at the intersection of science, politics, and policy. Dr. Ali Nouri, a molecular biologist, is the President of the Federation of American Scientists.
2020 will be remembered as the Pandemic Year, when a deadly pathogen somehow moved from bat to human—and the rest is history still being written. Six out of 10 infectious diseases are zoonotic: everything from COVID and the other coronaviruses to rabies, West Nile, even the plague.
Dr. Gladys Kalema-Zikusoka has a better idea, she believes that zoonotic disease is controllable by simultaneously working to improve the health of humans and animals, at the points where they meet.
The U.S. election has come, but not quite gone as President Trump continues to resist the otherwise apparent victory of Joe Biden. Notwithstanding that drama, what did the voting tell us about America, Americans, and democracy?
Scott Miller, political and business consultant, and Josh Steiner, investor and adviser to Bloomberg LP, are deeply immersed in U.S. politics, from significantly different perspectives.
Once again, the Amazon is burning—and deforestation may be approaching a tipping point that could turn the world’s largest rain forest into dry savanna or even dessert. What are the potential consequences? Why aren’t we terrified? Who should be doing what?
André Guimarães, executive director of IPAM Amazonia, one of the premier research organizations studying the Amazon, has answers in this episode of New Thinking for a New World.
The competition between China and the United States is the defining geopolitical reality of the 21st century. The evolution of its new Great Game will determine whether our collective future will be one of prosperity or disaster.
This week, we talk to Kishore Mahbubani, the renowned Singaporean global strategist. He knows both super powers, understand the risks of a potential collision and has ideas about how to avoid one. His most recent book—as well as this conversation—asks, Has China Won?
The United Nations turned 75 this year—but the pandemic overwhelmed its birthday party. The UN, built in a different world, has succeeded in its core mission: preventing World War III. But is the UN, as it is now constructed, relevant to the problems of the 21st century?
In this episode Alan Stoga talks to Jan Eliasson, a Swedish and global diplomat who served as Deputy Secretary-General, about a world that seems unwilling to embrace global solutions for global problems.
Do you think we live in a world that is increasingly dangerous, full of not just Great Power competitors, but potential enemies?
Such a world is described by General H.R. McMaster, a highly decorated U.S. military officer, former national security advisor and historian in his book, Battlegrounds. In this episode he discusses with Alan Stoga how he believes the U. S. and like-minded countries can maneuver through today’s complicated global realities to produce peace and prosperity for their citizens.
Like a great magician, the pandemic has drawn our attention away from things that are hiding in plain sight. One of those has been the plight of millions of refugees and migrants who are in camps or trying to escape from war, violence or poverty.
Myrto Xanthopoulou who recently was on Lesbos, Greece, Mike Niconchuk, neuroscientist and conflict researcher based in Jordan, and Megan Lopéz head of the International Rescue Committee's work in Latin America, describe the realities on the ground.
The world's a mess. The great powers today, the Chinese and the Americans, seem to disagree on most things. The UK has left the EU and the Europeans are split. China's pushing its neighbors. Russia's pecking at Europe's borders. Although each of those has its own story, is there something more fundamental going on? Are the geopolitical tectonic plates shifting?
Alan Stoga looks for answers from Robin Niblett, director at Chatham House, and an expert on British, European and American foreign policies.
South Sudan celebrated its hard-won independence in 2011, but today is considered one of the most fragile, even failed states in the world. What went wrong? Why are democratic governance and prosperity so elusive for the people of Sudan and much of the rest of the Horn of Africa? Peter Biar Ajak has answers and ideas for a better future. Ajak—a South Sudanese political activist, economist and former political prisoner—recently fled to asylum in the United States and spoke with Alan Stoga.
Closed borders, hoarded medical equipment, confused policies. By any measures, the pandemic has not been EU's finest hour. But could it been bad enough that Europe's leaders now know that they must do better? Might the failures of the last months produce a more successful future for Europe?
Ana Palacio, former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Spain, Magnus Schöldtz, former Ambassador at the Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs, talk about Europes challenges with Alan Stoga in this week's podcast.
Turkey and Greece are locked in a struggle in the Eastern Mediterranean that feels like it belongs more in 1920 than in 2020. Is war possible? Will Greece’s European allies come to its rescue? What happens if Turkey’s aggressive president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan miscalculates how far he can push the Greeks?
In this New Thinking for a New World podcast, Alan Stoga looks for answers from Constantinos Filis, Executive Director at the Institute of International Relations of Panteion University in At
One hundred years ago to the month, the collapsing Ottoman Empire was finally out of its misery in the Treaty of Sevre. However, in an echo of American author Mark Twain’s dictum that history never repeats, but sometimes rhymes, President Erdogan of Turkey today seems set on creating a new Ottoman power. He is playing a high stakes game that some think could even lead to war between Turkey and Greece or Egypt. Egypt’s Nabil Fahmy and Turkey’s Cengiz Çandar discuss what Erdogan wants with Alan Stoga.
Why do we seem unable to work together to manage our common home? Is the Covid pandemic considered “global” while Ebola was not, because Covid has laid waste to rich countries, while Ebola did not? Is the failure of governments that we see almost everywhere actually the failure of citizens for not demanding more of their leaders?
Cardinal Michael Czerny, who heads the Vatican’s work on refugees and migrants, offers uncomfortable answers in this conversation with Alan Stoga.
At least so far, what plagues Africa is less Covid-19, than its consequences: collapsed economies, an industrial world that is closing to Africa, severe climate change, and the urgent need to grow and develop faster to serve its young, demanding population.
How can Africa cope? Are solutions—or, at least, possibilities—to be found at the local, national or regional level?
Alan Stoga talks to Yvonne Aki-Sawyerr, mayor of Sierra Leone’s capital Freetown, and Carole Wainaina, a leader of Africa50
Why do nations, rich and poor, tolerate widespread slavery, human trafficking and even the buying and selling of young children in the 21st century? These abominations exist everywhere and at a scale that makes them one of the largest global criminal enterprises. How is that possible?
In this episode Alan Stoga explores the darkness of slavery—which consumes even very young children—with India’s Sunitha Krishnan. Sunitha, leads a dangerous, discouraging fight to rescue the enslaved and stop t
Like everything in life, Covid is producing losers and winners, not the least from the global recession it has spawned. It’s even possible that the economic effects will linger long after the pandemic has faded—and that the winners will still be winners. That’s one of the issues explored in the conversation with German business leader Kurt Lauk and long-time top American central banker Terry Checki. What happens when the global economy collapses, but global financial markets boom?
Why has the US stopped investing in itself? Why do things—from cell phones to highways to schools to trains—work better in countries that used to look to the US as their model? We speak with Christine Loh who is a Hong Kong-based academic, environmentalist, and former government official with deep ties to the United States. Her conversation with Alan Stoga raises questions about how and if the country can recover its dynamism.
Not to be trite or political but can America be great again?
Maybe this mess—a pandemic, collapsing economy and racial inequalities laid bare—is exactly what the US needs. Maybe the outcome will be a more normal country, instead of one that thinks it is exceptional. That might be better for Americans and the rest of the world, argues Jorge Castañeda, a Mexican educator, author and former Foreign Minister. In this episode, Castañeda talks about his latest book, “America Through Foreign Eyes” and explains why the US is headed in exactly the right direction.
Looking for silver linings may be an integral part of the human condition. Even during the bleakest moments—like during a global pandemic, leadership failures and profound social stress everywhere—we try to find bits and pieces of positive energy and new ideas. Juan Enriquez, one of the world’s leading authorities on the economic and political impact of life science technology, and Fio Omenetto, who works at the cutting edge of living materials engineering, on a search for the upside of the global mes
American Carnage or American Dream? It matters to everyone everywhere whether or not the US is in terminal decline or resetting the basis of its democracy and its society. If the former, the global order will change in incalculable ways. If the latter, life after the pandemic could actually be better.
Three global thinkers—a Mexican journalist (Ana Paula Ordorica), a Kenyan poet (Sitawa Namwalie) and a Congolese choreographer (Faustin Linyekula)—what they think is happening in America now.
Like everywhere else, Morocco must cope with the potentially overwhelming health, economic and political consequences of the pandemic. But unlike most places, the country has a well-designed, focused strategy to mitigate the worst of what is happening and, possibly, to position itself—and the rest of Africa—for a better future.
In this episode Ahmed Reda Chami—President of the Economic, Social and Environmental Council of Morocco—discussed the challenges facing his country as well as the rest of
In the midst of a global pandemic, leaders and people have turned local. That is not all bad: some people are working to strengthen their local communities, exploring new grassroots solutions and showing support for local businesses. Could these contribute to a new normal that is more people-oriented and more sustainable? Listen to Rosario Diaz Garavito, The Millennials Movement, Baiqu Gonkar, Art Represent and David Ross, Copia, discuss the different future that could emerge from the Covid crisis.
Tomas Anker Christensen, Denmark’s Climate Ambassador, and Daniel Martinez-Valle, CEO of Orbia, discusses both the need and opportunity for urgent, positive creative climate activism in the wake of the pandemic. Also the need to develop effective partnerships between government and corporations, to find a better balance between globalism and nationalism, and to innovate solutions that assure the transformation to a low carbon economy creates, rather than destroys, jobs, growth and economic opportunity.
The global Covid-19 pandemic has exposed deep fissures in the global political and economic fabric. For democracy to survive, the social contract needs to be reimagined; economies needs to be re-engineered and climate change needs to be confronted.
In this episode, Danish politician and former President of the UN General Assembly Mogens Lykketoft argues that these inter-related challenges demand urgent action—and that if humanity moves fast, we could find new paths to a new, shared prosperity.
What is the state of the union? Has the American dream become an American carnage? The Covid-19 epidemic has laid bare many pre-existing fissures and deep distress in American society. These are some of the questions Scott Miller, CEO of the Core Strategy Group and co-founder of Sawyer/ Miller Strategic Consulting Group, and Joshua Steiner, Chairman of Castleton Commodities and Senior Advisor to Bloomberg LP, address in this episode.
Christiana Figueres passionately believes that the pandemic offers a unique opportunity to focus on constructive climate action. She discusses the possibility of leveraging the massive political and economic resources that governments around the world are mobilizing to stimulate the global, regional, national, corporate, and individual actions needed to cut emissions in half by the end of the decade. Is it possible to overcome “politics as usual” to inject some green into massive recovery spending?
Democracy is under huge pressure everywhere, made worse by the global pandemic. Too many governments in too many places are failing to deliver on the basic social contract with their citizens. Celebrated photographer and human rights activist Shahidul Alam of Bangladesh discusses these issues from the perspective of a country which struggles to conduct fair elections, where inequality is extreme and poverty even more so, and where failures of democratic institutions are condoned by great powers.
Democracy and democratic institutions were under severe pressure well before the novel Coronavirus appeared. Could the added burden of the pandemic break the back of democracy as we have known it?
Gabriela Cuevas, Mexican Congresswoman and Inter-Parliamentary Union President, and Paula DiPerna, strategic environmental advisor and former U.S. congressional candidate, discuss the risk that our democracies could be another casualty of Covid-19—and what we should do about it.
Anne Goldfeld, 2019 Tällberg/Eliasson Global Leadership Prize winner, is a clinician and a medical doctor with long experience—in the lab and on the front lines of care—with epidemics. Together with Alan Stoga, the Tällberg Foundation’s chairman, she discusses what we know about Covid19 and what we still need to learn--and why it is a global problem that needs a global response.
Rafael Yuste, a professor of biological sciences at Columbia University and a 2018 Tällberg Eliasson Global Leader speaks with Alan Stoga, the Tällberg Foundation’s chairman about recent and prospective progress in neuroscience. Could our evolving understanding of the human brain lead to a new Renaissance? What are the implications of this new knowledge? How do we protect each individual’s neural identity?
The three 2019 Tällberg/Eliasson Global Leadership Prize winners, Anne Goldfield, Faustin Linyekula and Saul Griffith share their perspectives on the future and their relationship with it. Together they discover how their respective expertise - medicine, dance and fighting climate change - are all fueled by the mystery of the unknown and desire to explore it.
Are Western democracies the model for non-Western countries or do they need different models? Do democracies represent all their constituents? How are minorities protected?
Kenneth Lusaka (Speaker of the Senate, Kenya), David Sperling (Senior Research Fellow, Strathmore Governance Centre; Kenya) and Ulrika Karlsson (Special Advisor on Global Health, Inter-Parliamentary Union) discussed these questions within the scope of “New Thinking for a New World.” Facilitated by Maarten Koets, Tällberg Foundat
After a Tällberg Workshop in Nairobi, three members of the Tällberg Foundation community gathered to reflect on the theme "New Thinking for a New World", what this looks like in Kenya and how identifying it is a matter of positionality - be it young or old, local or global.
Alan Stoga, Chairman, Tällberg Foundation, Mark Abdollahian, (CEO, ACERTAS and Professor, Claremont Graduate University, US) , Vishakha Desai (Senior Advisor for Global Affairs to the President of Columbia University)