International Politics

The Juneau World Affairs Council presents Nobel Peace Prize nominee Quratul Ain Bakhteari. Bakhteari founded the Institute for Development Studies and Practices in Pakistan, which effects positive change in communities by training and empowering young people. Bakhteari shares her inspirational story and discusses the leadership of women as midwives.

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 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.

The Juneau World Affairs Council, in partnership with the Rotary Clubs of Juneau and the Open World Leadership Center, present: “Mongolia Today: Profile, Strengths, and Politics” with Mongolian Parliament member Tsogtbaatar Damdin. Mr. Tsogtbaatar is a former cabinet minister and newly-elected member of the Mongolian Parliament.His primary focus is the development of responsible, accountable, open and efficient government institutions at both the national and local levels. He will give us a primer on his nation, its government, and its future.