CHIASMOS: The University of Chicago International and Area Studies Multimedia Outreach Source [audio]

Keynote address by Jose Woldenberg, former president Federal Electoral Institute; from the Latin American Briefing Series of the Center for Latin American Studies (http://clas.uchicago.edu).

A talk by Hal Whitesman, Financial Times' Chicago and Midwest bureau chief. Thanks to demand from big emerging economies, most South American governments have become increasingly "resource nationalistic" and have ramped up social spending to meet the needs of the poor and the indigenous, causing poverty levels to drop - at the same time as poverty has been on the increase in the United States. Will the U.S. continue losing influence in Latin America? Will China soon dominate the area both commercially and strategically? Can the U.S. do business with countries from Mexico to Argentina without interfering in their internal affairs?

A talk by David Scheffer, Director of the Center for International Human Rights at Northwestern University. As senior adviser to Madeleine Albright and then as President Clinton’s ambassador-at-large for war crimes issues, David Scheffer was at the forefront of the efforts that led to criminal tribunals for the Balkans, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, and Cambodia, and that resulted in the creation of the permanent International Criminal Court. All the Missing Souls: A Personal History of the War Crimes Tribunals is Scheffer’s gripping insider’s account of the international gamble to prosecute those responsible for genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity, and to redress some of the bloodiest human rights atrocities in our time. Introduction by Susan Gzesh, Executive Director of the University of Chicago Human Rights Program and Senior Lecturer in the College.

Since the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change was established in 1994, efforts to secure international agreement on climate policy have gained increasing attention, but compromise on the issues has not been easy to achieve.

For the last decade, Venezuela’s “Bolivarian Revolution” has captured international attention. Poverty, inequality, and unemployment have all dropped, while health, education, and living standards have seen a commensurate rise. Venezuela Speaks! is the real, bottom-up account of the country's bloodless uprising and reorganization. Co-editor Carlos Martinez will explain how the stories in Venezuela Speaks! offer a different perspective than that of the international mainstream media, which has focused predominantly on Venezuela’s controversial president, Hugo Chavez.