Juneau World Affairs Council

The Juneau World Affairs Council presents “North Korea, Bellicose Tweets and Other Nuclear Challenges We Face” with Philip Yun. Yun is the executive director of the Ploughshares Fund, a nonprofit that works to eliminate the dangers of nuclear weapons. Yun’s professional background includes time in academia, U.S.-North Korea diplomacy during the Clinton administration, and practicing law.

The Juneau World Affairs Council presents “Vladivostok Today” with U.S. Consul General Michael Keays. Keays has led the U.S. Consulate in the Russian Far East since 2016. He’s been in the Foreign Service for over 25 years, with past postings in Israel, Poland and Jamaica. Keays contrasts modern U.S.-Russia relations with his experiences in the mid-1990s, when was at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow.

The Juneau World Affairs Council presents “The Ocean’s Health: Challenges and Opportunities for Awareness and Conservation” with Dr. Carlos Yaipen-Llanos. Dr. Yaipen-Llanos is a marine veterinarian and founding president of the Organization for Research and Conservation of Aquatic Animals, or ORCA, in Peru. Through his work, he’s seen devastating effects on Peruvian waters and marine animals from human impacts and climate change.

The Juneau World Affairs Council presents “Vulnerable Vietnam: A Photo Story Focused on Climate Change in the Mekong Delta” with Lione Clare. Clare is a photographer from Sitka with a professional interest in climate change and conservation. She was in Vietnam earlier this year documenting effects of climate change.

The Juneau World Affairs Council presents David Ramseur, author of “Melting the Ice Curtain: The Extraordinary Story of Citizen Diplomacy on the Russia-Alaska Frontier.” Ramseur is a former Alaska journalist, and high-level staffer to Governors Steve Cowper and Tony Knowles, and Anchorage Mayor and U.S. Senator Mark Begich. He organized a 1988 flight between Nome and Provideniya in Siberia, to reunite indigenous people split by the Cold War. He’s currently a visiting scholar at the University of Alaska Anchorage’s Institute of Social and Economic Research.

Constanze Stelzenmuller is a senior fellow in the Center on the United States and Europe at the Brookings Institution. She is an expert on German, European, and transatlantic foreign and security policy and strategy; NATO; the EU’s foreign, security, and defense policy; international law; and human rights.

She is a former editor of the German weekly DIE ZEIT, and is a frequent commentator on American and European radio and television, including National Public Radio, and the BBC.