The election is finally over, so we can put all the posturing and heated campaign rhetoric behind us. What's ahead for foreign policy now that the presidency has been settled? What did we forget to talk about in the course of an election year that will now roar back onto the front pages, from China's new leadership to the advent of the cyberwar era?

We often look to Foreign Policy for the answers and the magazine's editor, Susan Glasser, will discuss what she expects will be on the foreign policy agenda in 2013.

Speaker: Susan Glasser, Editor in Chief, Foreign Policy Magazine

http://www.worldaffairs.org/speakers/profile/susan-glasser.html

The last four years, in comparison to the previous fifty, have seen considerable change in Cuba. In 2008, Fidel Castro stepped aside to allow his brother Raul to lead. At the same time, after a period of tight travel restrictions, the United States has made it easier for Cuban Americans to visit family and for Americans to travel legally to Cuba on cultural exchanges. This fall, President Raul Castro announced an impending end to much reviled exit visas Cubans must obtain in order to leave their own country legally for travel or work. These changes, along with experimental encouragement of private enterprise within Cuba, have renewed interest in the country and its relationship with the United States. Cynthia Gorney, a contributing writer for National Geographic Magazine, visited the island earlier this year and will share her insights into the current situation inside Cuba.

Asia’s rapid growth is leaving millions behind, causing a widening gap between rich and poor that threatens to undermine the region’s stability. Developing Asia’s growth story masks underlying, complex challenges that need to be urgently tackled by policy and decision makers.

Rajat M. Nag, Managing Director General of the Asian Development Bank, in conversation with Asia Foundation President David Arnold, will discuss the economic and governance challenges across the region.

There are still places on the planet of staggering beauty and biological diversity that defy the imagination. Countless species have yet to be described by scientists. These very places are being gradually carved up, cleared and converted to suit economic needs, with serious environmental consequences on a local and global scale. A growing recognition of the centrality of economics to the fate of the forest and other natural areas has spurred international conservation organizations to place new emphasis on understanding and changing the economics. Can an economically informed approach make a difference?

John Reid and Marcos Amend draw on over three decades of combined experience to address that question in a session that will look at the economic fundamentals of forest conservation. Their talk will focus on Brazil, looking at the country as both a regional powerhouse and home to some of the last Indigenous, forest-based cultures. Reid and Amend will show how Brazil's economy is driving development in the Amazon Basin, shared by nine countries, with important implications for biodiversity and demanding economically smart solutions. They will also provide a glimpse into economics at a local scale, where Indigenous people are trying to plan realistic businesses that maintain a role for standing forest.

The past few years have shown that America is facing hard times with complex challenges still ahead. The unemployment rate hovers around 8%, the income inequality gap continues to widen and American students are not receiving the best education possible. To add to this, the country is in the midst of political gridlock. To surmount these difficulties, Gus Speth asserts that transformative change is essential in the American political economy.

Speth will discuss his ideas for the specific adjustments that would be needed to move toward a new system, such as the “theory of change” that explains how system change can occur in America. In presenting his vision for American political, social and economic life, Speth envisions a future that will be worth fighting for and argues that Americans are capable of using their freedom and democracy in powerful ways to create a renewed America.

From the outside the conflict in Afghanistan has been painted as a war between pro-democracy forces and Islamist fanaticism. It is, however only one small part of the larger and much older conflict—between Kabul and rural Afghanistan, between the attraction of the modern world on the one hand and traditional Afghanistan on the other. Drawing on his Afghan and Muslim roots, Tamim Ansary reveals a centuries-old internal Afghan struggle the world has never fully understood. Ansary sheds light on a country desperately trying to find its identity, while undermined by its own demons, plagued by a 40-60 year cycle of invasion by outside forces and constantly at the center of an ill-informed international political debate. This event is in partnership with the Asia Society and Mechanics' Institute.

For more than 25 years the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) has terrorized large swaths of Central Africa, roaming between at least four African nations with impunity. While multinational efforts have been made to stop the group and its infamous leader Joseph Kony, the communities of the Eastern provinces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo are left to deal with the effects.

As head of the Catholic Church’s Peace and Justice Commission in northern Congo, Abbé Benoît Kinalegu helped to create an early warning network in which local activists report LRA attacks and movements, as well as set up a rehabilitation center to help children who have escaped the LRA. Kinalegu will be joined by Human Rights Watch Africa Researcher Ida Sawyer for a conversation about the challenges of working in the Eastern Congo, and how NGOs and local communities are working to stop human rights abuses and heal a traumatized region.

Helen Clark will consider the impact of growing inequality and environmental degradation and introduce poverty, inequity and environmental sustainability as inter-linked global challenges.

She will also examine how countries and communities are employing innovative, integrated approaches to simultaneously address these challenges, linking this to the outcome of the Rio+20 Conference on Sustainable Development.

The revolutions that have swept over the Middle East have captivated the world and changed the lives of millions in ways that have yet to be fully understood. What started in Tunisia and quickly spread across the Arab world, while relatively peaceful in some cases, quickly led to violent conflict in others—Libya in particular.

Drawing on extensive experience in the Middle East and Libya, and interviews with loyalists, rebels and senior US, EU and Libyan officials, Ethan Chorin will break down the Libyan revolution from the Gaddafi regime’s “rehabilitation” and acceptance by the West to the regime’s fall and possibilities for the future.

One year ago the grassroots “Occupy” movement spread strongly and quickly throughout American streets, media and consciousness. The movement has waned from the public eye, but the underlying ideas are still being voiced. Many are worried about inequality, poverty and the great role that money now plays in political elections.

Amy Goodman argues that these issues are a threat to American democracy. She will explore the causes of this sentiment and also touch upon a variety of other issues ranging from foreign wars to climate change and capital punishment to voting rights.