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Jean-Pierre Cassarino holds a professorship at the Robert Schuman Center for Advanced Studies (RSCAS/European University Institute, Florence) where he directs the Return migration and Development Platform (http://rsc.eui.eu/RDP/). He is also research associate at the Tunis-based Institut de Recherche sur le Maghreb Contemporain (IRMC). Since the mid-1990s, he has published extensively on international migration, particularly on return migration and has carried out numerous field surveys investigating returnees’ manifold patterns of reintegration. Selected publications include: (ed.) Unbalanced Reciprocities: Cooperation on Readmission in the Euro-Mediterranean Area, The Middle East Institute Press, Washington, 2010; (ed.) “Conditions of Modern Return Migrants”, International Journal on Multicultural Societies, Vol. 10, Issue 2, UNESCO, Paris, 2008; (ed.) Return Migrants to the Maghreb Countries: Reintegration and development challenges, RSCAS, European University Institute, Florence, 2008; Tunisian New Entrepreneurs and their Past Experiences of Migration in Europe: Networks, Resource Mobilisation, and Hidden Disaffection. Ashgate Publishers, Aldershot, 2000. Email: [email protected]
Oman Emerges: An American Company In An Ancient Kingdom
MEI is proud to host author Lois Critchfield for a discussion about her new book, Oman Emerges: An American Company In An Ancient Kingdom. When Oman's Sultan Qaboos bin Said deposed his father in 1970, he inherited a neglected country with a modest oil income, but virtually no one qualified to advocate for his interests to the executives of Shell Oil – until he met James Critchfield, the author's late husband.
Turkey's Engagement in Iraq: Challenges and Opportunities for US Foreign Policy
The Middle East Institute's Center for Turkish Studies is proud to host Qubad Talabani, Charles Dunne, Can Oguz, and Gonul Tol for a discussion on Turkey's engagement in Iraq and its ramifications for US policy. In the aftermath of the US withdrawal from Iraq, vital US interests – including improving regional stability, limiting Iranian influence, maintaining an independent Iraq and preventing Iraq from becoming a haven for international terrorists – are still at stake in Iraq and the region.
The Middle East Institute is proud to host the IMF's Masood Ahmed for a discussion about the economic prospects in the MENA region. Specifically, he will discuss the prospects for the Middle East and North Africa region in light of the global economic recovery that has begun to gain traction after the deepest downturn in recent history. The region's oil-exporting countries are benefiting from solid oil prices, and oil importers are recovering from last year's economic slowdown.
Deja Vu in the Occupied Palestinian Territories: Economic Activity; Political Despair
Amira Hass is an award-winning correspondent for the Israeli daily, Ha'aretz. In her over 20 years covering Palestinian affairs in the occupied territories for Ha'aretz, Ms. Hass has lived three years in Gaza, and thirteen in Ramallah, the West Bank. She is the author of the highly acclaimed book "Drinking the Sea at Gaza" (Henry Holt, N.Y.) and "Reporting from Ramallah: An Israeli Journalist in an Occupied Land" (Semiotext). She also wrote the foreword and afterword of "Diary of Bergen Belsen 1944–1945 by Hanna Levy Hass (Haymarket Books).
With Pakistan caught up in four wars during the past nine years — the Afghanistan war, the War on Terror, the insurgency in the tribal areas, and the wave of terrorism unleashed by the Tehrik-i-Taliban (TTP) and the Punjabi Taliban in the rest of the country — it has often been said that the country is facing an existential threat. If this was a cliché before, it is no more so after the catastrophic floods. Pakistan had been living dangerously in the past, but the wars and floods threaten to wash away its future.
Turkey's Dual Track Approach Toward the Kurdistan Regional Government
Turkey’s policy toward the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in northern Iraq has undergone an important shift since 2009. Only a few years ago, Turkey did not recognize Iraq’s Kurdish Regional Government and refused to meet with its representatives in any official capacity due to its fear that recognition would embolden Turkey's own Kurdish minority to demand similar home-rule status.
