Global I.Q. Podcast

For years as the South Asia correspondent for The Economist, Adam Roberts lived in India and got to know the nation while "tasting the spice and feeling the dust and the heat." Now reporting from Europe, Roberts tells us in this Global I.Q. With Jim Falk that India is facing many issues along with economic success. Population and pollution rise to the forefront, but with urbanization there are gender issues and even a "flashpoint" over cows.

In this Global I.Q. Minute with Jim Falk, the journalist/author Graeme Wood sees the "big contradictory religion" of Islam as having the potential to be "a faith of either war or peace." He says there was a time when "it might have been possible" to keep ISIS from having "the space that they had to develop." He also addresses the question, "Is ISIS on the run?" And what is the U.S. role?

What about Venezuela? The Council's International Perspectives Series speaker Dr. Harold Trinkunas focused on the economically unsteady nation in his Global I.Q. Minute With Jim Falk. And, he explained the reasons "Washington doesn't pay that much attention to Latin America."

Helene Cooper of The New York Times begins her Global I.Q. Minute with Jim Falk in an unusual way, a quick "personal history" note about North Carolina vs. Duke. Then, the Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter moves into family history and Liberia's historical women's movement, an inspirational story of political change coming not just to the nation but also to the African continent. It is a story of newfound safety for the women of the nation.

Mexico's Ambassador to the United States Gerónimo Gutiérrez, in his Global I.Q. Minute with Jim Falk, touches on what he sees as a hopeful future for an improved NAFTA. Regarding campaign issues, i.e., the "wall," the Ambassador says that does not form "part of the bilateral agenda."

In this Global I.Q. Minute with Jim Falk, Executive Editor of The Economist Daniel Franklin explores technology's disruption of the workplace and offers a caveat to one profession that "will never be out of work" but will face changes.

"Texas has hugely benefited from being open to the world," David Miliband, the president and CEO of the International Rescue Committee, declares in his Global I.Q. Minute with Jim Falk, He also outlines challenges refugees face – from an uncertain landing (they went to nearly 3 dozen nations last year) to lives put on hold by President Trump's executive orders. Amidst all that, there's a growing crisis in Yemen. Also, for refugees, he says, "Education is a lifeline, not a luxury."

Our Council guest, the writer and Middle East analyst Geneive Abdo examines the "complicated" cultural/religious change and the Shi'a/Sunni divide. What created momentum for violence in the Islamic world. Is this battle political or existential? How does Iran fit into this conflict? Is there a U.S. role? This Global I.Q. Minute with Jim Falk gets the answers.

In this Global IQ Minute with veteran military advisor Stephen Biddle, the topic is the future of American support in Iraq and Afghanistan, U.S. effect on region's conflicts and the contested Afghan/Pakistan border which Biddle describes as "famously porous" and an area where the sides have a "tendency to negotiate by 155 millimeter artillery."

This Global I.Q. Minute with Jim Falk focuses on a novelist, his inspiration and his goals. Istanbul-based writer Elliot Ackerman, a U.S. Marine with combat experience in Iraq and Afghanistan, has lived a life that has led him to what he calls an "improbable friendship, " an opportunity for understanding that helps him "trace the emotional topography" of "complex geopolitical events."

Global I.Q. Minute with Jim Falk is sponsored by Greenberg Traurig, LLP