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Living Under ISIS Under existing United States law, asylum-seekers having given material support to designated terrorist organizations cannot apply for asylum in the United States. This is called the material support statute under the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) and is meant to protect the United States from admitting potentially dangerous refugees. In the Syrian […]

BY KATIE PARRY Over the last month Germany has quietly moved to make family reunification harder for many recently arrived migrants.  New rules will mean that migrants given “subsidiary protection” status, which includes at least one in five Syrians, will not be able to bring their families to join them in Germany for at least […]

On Wednesday, April 6, 2016, the Fletcher School’s Fares Center for Eastern Mediterranean Studies and Program in International Negotiations and Conflict Resolution hosted Lebanese statesman and businessman, Fouad Siniora.  Mr. Siniora served the Hariri government as Finance Minister in two separate stints, eventually rising to the position of Prime Minister between 2005 and 2008. Known […]

BY NATALIE UNTERSTELL The world is currently watching Brazil fight the “longest recession in a century, the biggest bribery scandal in history, [and] the most unpopular leader in living memory,” and that’s not even counting the Zika virus epidemic. An equally severe but less visible crisis is also facing the country right now:  discrimination against […]

BY JESSICA CUSSINS The Harvard Kennedy School encourages us to ask what we can do. At a time when a U.S. government shutdown is an ongoing and legitimate concern, the importance of getting things done should not be underestimated. But as graduate students taking time away from the confines of the workplace, we are in […]

“Until very recently Singapore’s past was a matter of supreme indifference for most Singaporeans simply because they believed this island never really had a history worth remembering…” – S. Rajaratnam, ‘The Uses and Abuses of the Past’, 1984. A quick Google search for “slavery in Singapore” returns references to “Modern-day Slavery”, as many have termed […]

In Spring 2016, JMEPP Guest Interviewer Federica du Pasquier of the Center for Middle East Studies at Harvard interviewed Pierre Krahenbuhl, Commissioner General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) during his visit to the Middle East Initiative at Harvard’s Belfer Center. Below is an excerpt from the […]

BY JEN SMITH Over the weekend, the Panama Papers were top news from Argentina to Zimbabwe. They have dominated the coverage in The Guardian and Financial Times, two British papers. By contrast, the New York Times placed the story on page 3; the Washington Post and Wall Street Journal were similarly quiet. With more than […]

This week’s ouster of so-called Islamic State (ISIS) forces from the Syrian city of Palmyra sparked cautious optimism from some observers. Aside from the destruction of the city’s ancient ruins, Palmyra appeared less damaged than had been originally feared after its takeover by the Islamic State. Yet under the surface of this reclaimed land lies […]

During the Iran-Iraq War, which was set off with the Iraqi invasion of Iran in 1980 and which ended in 1988, sectarian ideology was used profusely, both as a tool for propaganda and to help both nations in strengthening their positions. The Sunni versus Shia framework was used as the pretext by Saddam Hussein for Iraq’s […]

BY MICHAEL GOOD How does one measure urban revitalization? For the Kresge Foundation in midtown Detroit, it is the sound of hammers clanking on steel beams as formerly empty lots surrounding its offices finally undergo construction. It’s bulldozers and work crews tearing up Woodward Avenue to install tracks for the new M-1 line, a light […]

  After meeting five Syrian and Palestinian refugees trying to make their way from Milan to Sweden in the quest for asylum, an Italian journalist and a Palestinian poet decide to help them by faking a wedding. After all, “what border policeman would ever stop a bride to check her documents?[1]” As part of this […]