News + Media

	News@E40 September 8, 2009 Starr Forum on U.S.-Cuba relations Cuban scholars Julia Sweig and Wayne Smith will be discussants at a Starr Forum entitled: Cuba-U.S. Relations: The Beginning of a Long Thaw? Sweig is a senior fellow and director for Latin America Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. She is the award-winning author of Inside the Cuban Revolution, and, most recently, Cuba: What Everyone Needs to Know. Smith is senior fellow and director of the Cuba Program at the Center for International Policy, and a visiting professor of Latin American studies at Johns Hopkins University. Smith served in the State Department as executive secretary of President Kennedy's Latin American Task Force and chief of mission at the U.S. Interests Section in Havana. The Starr Forum event, which is free and open to the public, will be on Wed, Sept 23, at 4:30 PM, in the Wong Auditorium, MIT Bldg E51.
	News Release September 8, 2009 BBC journalist joins CIS CIS announces today that Firle Davies, a journalist for the British Broadcasting Corporation, has been named the 2009–10 IWMF Elizabeth Neuffer Fellow. Davies is the fifth recipient of the annual fellowship, which gives a woman journalist working in print, broadcast, or online media the opportunity to focus exclusively on human rights journalism and social justice issues.
	News@E40 August 26, 2009 CIS moves to E40 CIS is delighted to announce our new location at E40-400. All of the Center's programs and people are now together on one floor, which will help foster better research and teaching. The Center will celebrate the new space with a formal reception soon after the fall semester commences.
	News@E40 August 4, 2009 MISTI interns share global insights The Center's MISTI Program has placed more than 400 MIT students as interns in nine countries this year. Shirin Kasturia (Brain and Cognitive Science '10) is researching healthcare technology for elderly and disabled people at Innovaciones Socio Sanitarias in Valencia, Spain; Alyssa Roque (Mechanical Engineering '11) is developing thermal systems powered by solar energy at the Technion, Israel Institute of Technology; Ken Lopez (Management '12) is working on a Braille screen at Tecnologico de Monterrey University in Cordoba, Mexico; and Julian Hernandez (EECS '09) is developing new iPhone technology at France Telecom in Paris—to name just a few. Learn more about the MISTI experience by reading the students' online posts from around the globe.
	News@E40 July 27, 2009 MIT-Italy Director receives Italian honors Serenella Sferza, director of the Center's MIT-Italy program, was named Cavaliere della Repubblica Italiana for her work promoting Italian culture and research. She was one of five individuals honored at a ceremony by the Consul General of Italy in Boston on June 2, 2009. The honorees were selected by the president of the Italian Republic, Giorgio Napolitano.
	Audit July 14, 2009 Multilateral imposition: an immodest proposal for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict Michael Barnett, University of Minnesota Which is more likely in the next five years: that the Israelis and Palestinians negotiate a peace agreement or that they continue a “status quo” that turns into an accidental suicide pact? The safe bet is suicide.
	News@E40 July 13, 2009 Fearless Iranian exile speaks out Fatemeh Haghighatjoo, a leading advocate of human rights and democracy in Iran, and a former visiting scholar at CIS, is profiled in the Boston Globe. Haghighatjoo, who has been in exile since 2005, first came to the United States with the help of John Tirman, executive director and principal research scientist at CIS. Since her time at CIS, she has been a visiting scholar at the Kennedy School at Harvard, the University of Connecticut, and now resides at UMass-Boston. Called fearless and outspoken, Haghighatjoo was a member of the 6th Majlis, Iran's reform parliament, and was the first to resign when the anti-reform measures of the Supreme Leader began to take shape. Haghighatjoo, a psychologist with a Ph.D. in counseling, was president of the student movement faction in the Majlis and a deputy in the Mosharekat Party. According to Haghighatjoo, "democratization is the central issue for Iran." Read article»
	Audit July 10, 2009 Israel-Palestine: great expectations or misplaced euphoria? Anat Biletsky, MIT Anat Biletski audits President Obama's speech in Cairo and Prime Minister Netanyahu's counter-speech in Israel. Anat Biletski is professor of philosophy at Tel Aviv University. She is the former chair of B'Tselem and a research affiliate at the MIT Center for International Studies.
	Analysis + Opinion July 2, 2009 Achieving detente with Iran John TirmanBulletin of the Atomic Scientists The apparently fraudulent Iranian presidential election and the domestic unrest have presented President Barack Obama with a problem. Since his own election, Obama slowly has tried to open a diplomatic path to Iran, which, while scarcely consistent or imaginative, had the potential to be productive. However, because of its violent response to the protests that followed the election and the election fraud itself, Iran's current leadership lacks both moral and political legitimacy, making bold U.S. diplomacy difficult.
	News@E40 June 26, 2009 Fotini on 'Flipping the Taliban' Fotini Christia, member of the Center's Security Studies Program and assistant professor of political science at MIT, co-authored an essay on Afghanistan in the July/August 2009 issue of Foreign Affairs. The authors write, "Although sending more troops is necessary to tip the balance of power against the insurgents, the move will have a lasting impact only if it is accompanied by a political 'surge,' a committed effort to persuade large groups of Taliban fighters to put down their arms and give up the fight." Read the full essay: "Flipping the Taliban: How to Win in Afghanistan." Related is a Starr Forum event on Afghanistan featuring a discussion between Fotini and Admiral William Fallon, USN (RET). Watch the video»