CARIBBEAN
April 29, 2013
"Diluting the Terror Watch Lists"
Op-Ed, Boston Globe
By Juliette Kayyem, Lecturer in Public Policy
"...[T]he necessity to remove Cuba from the list is immediate. We need to rationalize these terror lists, whether they designate individuals or countries. The term 'state sponsor of terrorism' means nothing if Cuba is on the list: It simply says we kind of don't like you and will find any reason to make it hurt. An over-inclusive list, as we are seeing in the Boston case, can be as damaging as an under-inclusive one."
March 7, 2013
"Chavez Death Creates Risk, Opportunity"
Op-Ed, Boston Globe
By Juliette Kayyem, Lecturer in Public Policy
"By eliminating the automatic refugee status granted to Cubans if they somehow reach US soil, we would stop tempting them to take to the seas in rickety boats and inner tubes on which many lose their lives. We would also put the whole world on equal footing, determining which refugees are allowed to stay not by whether we like (or don't like) their country's leadership, but whether they have valid reasons to stay, including a fear of political reprisals. It is time we end a Cuba policy that has sowed ill will among our southern neighbors and non-Cuban immigrant populations in the United States."
February 28, 2013
"UN's Cold, but Correct, Call on Haiti"
Op-Ed, Boston Globe
By Juliette Kayyem, Lecturer in Public Policy
"Putting aside whether the UN's attitude has been sympathetic enough, whether it should vet peacekeeping forces better before deploying them, and whether the organization has a moral obligation to give Haiti more help with its public health needs, Ban's decision will protect all relief efforts in the future. It is the only outcome that provides the necessary protections to those who are asked to work voluntarily in dangerous situations. Most importantly, it will maintain an incentive for nations to support UN efforts for assistance or peacekeeping missions that have, by any measure, done far more good than harm."
February 22, 2013
"Developing Country Farmers Bridge the 'Biotechnology Divide'"
Op-Ed, Technology+Policy | Innovation@Work
By Calestous Juma, Professor of the Practice of International Development; Director, Science, Technology, and Globalization Project; Principal Investigator, Agricultural Innovation in Africa
"Farmers in developing countries, however, are bridging the 'biotechnology divide.' According to a new report by Clive James of the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-Biotech Applications (ISAAA), 'For the first time, developing countries grew more, 52% of global biotech crops in 2012 than industrialized countries at 48%.'"
December 24, 2012
"The Year in Numbers"
Op-Ed, Boston Globe
By Juliette Kayyem, Lecturer in Public Policy
"The never-ending negotiations about the pending fiscal cliff sometimes amount to nothing more than a dizzying array of numbers. Who can count that high? The negotiations also make us think that the only stastistics that mattered in 2012, or will matter in 2013, involve dollar signs. A year in pictures may be compelling and beautiful, but the year in numbers gives a strong hint of what to anticipate in the year ahead."
Winter 2012-13
Belfer Center Newsletter Winter 2012-2013
Newsletter
By Sharon Wilke, Associate Director of Communications
The Winter 2012-13 issue of the Belfer Center newsletter features recent and upcoming activities, research, and analysis by members of the Center community on critical global issues. This edition highlights the Belfer Center’s commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis. In addition to the background on those 13 days in 1962 when the world was on the brink of nuclear war, the Center focuses on the decision-making that averted a nuclear catastrophe and the lessons from that event for leaders of today. We include winners and winning entries from our “Best Cuban Missile Crisis Lessons” contest, co-sponsored with Foreign Policy magazine.
Winter 2012-2013
"Cuban Missile Crisis Events Highlight Decision-Making"
Newsletter Article, Belfer Center Newsletter
During October 2012, the Belfer Center remembered the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 with a series of events that highlighted the threat and lessons that leaders can take from the most dangerous moment in human history.
November 2, 2012
"Lessons from the Cuban Missile Crisis for Today’s Crises"
News
By James F. Smith, Communications Director, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
In Harvard Professor Graham Allison’s view, “the significant unknowns” during the Cuban Missile Crisis nearly catapulted John F. Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev into nuclear war. For former diplomat Nicholas Burns, the principal take-away from the crisis was the importance of giving an adversary a way out of a confrontation short of complete surrender. Allison and Burns were panelists on Oct. 14 at a forum at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston to consider the modern lessons flowing from the missile crisis. The event kicked off an intensive series of seminars and workshops for scholars from Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs to mark the 50th anniversary of the missile crisis. Panel moderator Juliette Kayyem, Kennedy School lecturer in public policy, reminded the audience that the missile crisis is often framed through the myth of the tough American president staring down the Russian foe and making him blink. Kayyem said that version fails to capture the nuanced secret diplomacy and the American concessions that made a deal possible.
October 29, 2012
"US View of Cuba is Stuck in the 1960s"
Op-Ed, Boston Globe
By Juliette Kayyem, Lecturer in Public Policy
"The movement of people, including through immigration rules, is a powerful force compelling many foreign policy changes. Cuba's reforms will increase the ties between the nations; American constituencies tied to the past will be left fighting a relic. It is simply no longer a question of whether the United States is willing to assess its Cuba strategy, just when."
*Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Juliana Cheney Edwards Collection, Tompkins Collection—Arthur Gordon Tompkins Fund, and Fanny P. Mason Fund in memory of Alice Thevin. *© 1963 Estate of Pablo Picasso / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.
October 24, 2012
"Picasso, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and Malcolm Wiener"
News
By Sharon Wilke, Associate Director of Communications
As visitors step through the doors of the Kennedy Memorial Library for events commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis, they will find on display Picasso's 1963 Rape of the Sabine Women - on loan from Boston's Museum of Fine Arts. The connection between Picasso's painting and what is widely accepted as the most dangerous moment in human history was brought to light for many by Malcolm Wiener, a member of the Belfer Center’s International Council and the person for whom Harvard Kennedy School’s Malcolm Wiener Center for Social Policy was named.
