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VOLUME 23, NUMBER 1

January 2016

JANUARY 2016

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Overseas Opportunities U.S. Lags Behind Foreign

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Paris Summit Seeks To Find Consensus On Climate Change For delegations preparing for major multilateral conferences, managing expectations is a big part of the workload. So even before over 40,000 delegates headed to Paris for two weeks of climate change talks, officials were keen to tamp down expectations, while working behind the scenes to lock down a historic accord. / PAGE 7

SOUTH AMERICA Brazil is hoping that the Olympic Games this summer — South America’s first-ever Olympics — will usher in a turnaround for the battered country whose prestige on the world stage has been dented by a worsening economic crisis and a string of corruption scandals. / PAGE 13

Paris, Beirut Attacks Inspire Varying Degrees of Sympathy Just before the Islamic State killed 130 in Paris, it launched a spectacular attack on Beirut. There was an outpouring of grief, but the widely varying reactions to the two tragedies had many people asking why one group of people appeared to be more deserving of sympathy than another. / PAGE 10

Women Artists Pave Own Path Women artists embraced alternative avenues and materials to leave their mark on midcentury modernism. / PAGE 32

BY KARIN ZEITVOGEL

People of World Inﬂuence

Terrorism

Culture

Counterparts in Study Abroad t

he American victim of the attacks in Paris in November was California State University-Long Beach exchange student, Nohemi Gonzalez, 23. Gonzalez was having a drink with a friend at La Belle Equipe bistro when heavily armed gunmen opened fire on Nov. 13. The assault the gifted industrial in which design student was killed was one of a series in which 130 people of attacks died, many of them young adults.

Two years ago, when two homemade bombs exploded at the finish line of the Boston Department and the victims was Chinese graduate Marathon, one of the three Education (IIE). Both nonprofit Institute of International student Lingzi Lu, also 23. young women had immersed had gone to Copley Square Lu selves in the culture themwith two friends to watch of their host country and marathon, the way thousands were the of Bostonians, adoptive and their passion when their lives were cut short. There living born-and-bred, do every are over 17,000 American students year. living and studying in France, Gonzalez and Lu are among and roughly 300,000 Chinese studying in the United States. dents who leave their countriesthe growing number of stuLast year, a total of travel abroad to study, according of origin every year and countries and traveled 4.5 million students left their home abroad to study. Nearly 1 to the “Open Doors” port that was released in million of mid-November by the U.S. reState 20

| 19

Ex-Trade Official Praises Asia Pivot When the U.S. negotiated key details of the Trans-Paciﬁc Partnership (TPP), Wendy Cutler was at the center of the deal-making as acting deputy U.S. trade representative. Now, she’s taking her trade expertise to the Asia Society, where she’ll continue to focus on the fastest-growing region in the world — a mission that dovetails with President Obama’s Asia pivot. / PAGE 5

Diplomatic Spouses

BRAZILIAN

REBOUND

Iceland’s Power Couple Comes to D.C. Geir H. Haarde is an Icelandic political veteran who has been through electoral success and bruising battles. His wife, Inga Jona Thordardottir, intimately understands the trials and tribulations of a career in politics, having had one herself. / PAGE 33

WE’RE BUILDING

A SUPPORTIVE COMMUNITY WHERE LAW STUDENTS LEARN, COLLABORATE, ENGAGE, AND CREATE. TENLEY CAMPUS opening January 2016

tenley.wcl.american.edu

2 | THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | January 2016

#buildwhatmatters

Contents

THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | January 2016

25 32

NEWS

EDUCATION

CULTURE

19 Studying Study Abroad

People of World Influence An ex-U.S. trade official praises Obama’s pivot and his trade agenda with Asia.

7 Climate Consensus The Paris summit seeks to square what’s needed with what’s achievable. 10

Selective Sympathy Why did the Paris and Beirut tragedies elicit such different reactions?

12 Quiet Peacemaker Oman assumes a quiet yet influential role in Mideast affairs.

Cover Profile: Brazil Economically battered Brazil aims for an Olympic-size rebound.

Not-So-Promised Land For refugees who make it to the U.S., their journey has just begun.

Medical A summit on gene editing draws attention to a technology with promise and peril.

The U.S. lags behind its foreign counterparts in sending students abroad.

Crafty ‘Pathmakers’ Women artists found alternative avenues to leave their mark on midcentury modernism.

22 Breaking Down ‘Doors’

A record number of international students are coming to the U.S.

Diplomatic Spouses Iceland’s political power couple comes to D.C.

TRAVEL & HOTELS

Some More Please A scrappy “Oliver!” transports the Charles Dickens classic to modern-day London.

25 Cool Capital

Washington teems with wintertime activities to keep the cold at bay.

Dining To burn off that holiday excess, head over to a few health-conscious eateries.

28 Lyon Shines

The Paris attacks dimmed its Festival of Lights, but Lyon’s future still looks bright.

Film Reviews Five Turkish sisters find themselves trapped by their town’s repressive mores.

REGULARS 38 Cinema Listing 40 Events Listing 42 Diplomatic Spotlight

45 World Holidays 46 Classifieds 47 Real Estate Classifieds THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | January 2016 | 3

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WD | People of World Influence

Pivot Praise Ex-U.S. Trade Official Talks TPP, Obama’s Asia Outreach by Michael Coleman

hen the U.S. government negotiated key details of the recently completed — but yet to be ratified — Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) with 11 Pacific Rim nations, Wendy Cutler was at the center of the deal-making as acting deputy U.S. trade representative. It’s not the first time Cutler has been a key negotiator on strategic regional trade deals. During her nearly three-decade tenure at the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR), she focused primarily on strengthening trade ties with Asia. She helped negotiate the 2011 U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement, update the U.S.-China Joint Commission on Commerce and Trade, and generally make the trade agenda of the 21-member Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation more relevant. After a long career in government, Cutler shifted gears in October and took over as director of the Asia Society’s Washington office while simultaneously assuming the role of vice president of the Asia Society Policy Institute, an affiliated think tank that aims to bring Asia to the forefront of global policymaking. The TPP is a key component of that vision. After years of delicate, closed-door negotiations, the sweeping trade pact that would connect about 40 percent of the world’s economy was finalized during Cutler’s fi- president too much power, threatens national sovernal days in government, but the deal still faces months eignty and doesn’t address currency manipulation. Presidential politics have complicated Obama’s of scrutiny in Washington, where Congress must sign off on it before it can be enacted. After a bruising bat- fight to shepherd the deal through Congress in his tle with his own Democratic Party, President Obama lame-duck final year. The presumptive Democratic was able to secure so-called fast-track authority, con- nominee for the White House, Hillary Clinton, opsidered a prerequisite for any trade pact, largely by re- poses the TPP, even though she praised it as secretary lying on Republican votes. As a result, Congress can of state. Meanwhile, Republican frontrunner Donald Trump has railed against the either approve the deal or vote it deal as a “disaster.” Jeb Bush down but cannot amend or filiand Marco Rubio have been buster it. lukewarm to it. Since fast-track authority was Supporters and detractors cleared, however, GOP support of the TPP will find plenty of for the TPP has diminished. fodder in the sprawling, 30Pro-business Republicans have chapter agreement that covers traditionally embraced free everything from textiles to cars trade agreements, but even some to pork to financial services. staunch trade proponents who USTR estimates the deal would initially backed the TPP have eliminate more than 18,000 criticized it for not going far tariffs on the imports of goods enough to extend protections from the United States into the for the pharmaceutical and to11 other participating counbacco industries, among other tries. That could spur business complaints. Some Republicans growth in the U.S., but skephave offered tepid support, while tics say it would result in fewer others have suggested Obama worker and environmental promay need to reopen talks to fix tections and ship more Americertain holes, a daunting and can jobs overseas. unlikely prospect because that In the middle of the contenwould involve renegotiating with tious debate is Obama, who all the other TPP participants. has defended the TPP — the Meanwhile, on the opposite largest trade deal since the end of the spectrum, Democrats Wendy Cutler North American Free Trade have slammed the TPP as yet anvice president of the Asia Agreement — as the “highestother far-reaching trade accord Society Policy Institute standard trade agreement in hammered out behind closed history.” Among other things, doors with little public scrutiny. They argue it will line the pockets of big business he points out that the deal is the first of its kind to while costing American jobs and eroding environ- include strong, enforceable labor provisions that almental, consumer and labor standards. Liberals have low the formation of unions and collective bargainfound an unlikely ally in populist conservatives, who ing and address child labor; he also cites “groundalso oppose the deal on the grounds that it gives the breaking” environmental provisions to curb illegal

“

I think as a result of our policies on economics and on the strategic geopolitical and military front, we’ve developed a much closer relationship with Asia. And I think the TPP is a real cornerstone of this rebalancing policy.

”

Photo: Elena Olivo / Asia Society

fishing and wildlife trafficking. Moreover, Obama has sought to debunk claims that the TPP would set up a system of international arbitration that would bypass national laws, saying the mechanism would promote the rule of law, not undermine it. Above all, the administration argues that the trade pact would give American businesses a critical foothold in the fastest-growing region of the world, where market barriers remain relatively high. It encompasses some of America’s strongest allies and trading partners, including Australia, Mexico, Canada and Japan, together accounting for $1.5 trillion worth of trade in goods in 2012 and $242 billion worth of services in 2011. The White House has repeatedly said that without the TPP, U.S. businesses will be left behind and that, “If it’s not America, it’s going to be competitors like China.” On that front, China is not a party to the deal. While Obama insists the TPP is not intended to contain China, the accord is the centerpiece of the president’s Asia pivot to rebalance economic and military resources toward a region where Beijing has increasingly flexed its muscle and to reassert America’s preeminence as a Pacific power. It is a region with which Cutler is intimately familiar, having focused on strengthening trade ties with Asia for nearly three decades with USTR. “Trade negotiations have taken me to nearly every corner of Asia,” Cutler said upon joining the Asia Society. “Asia is like a second home to me.” In a recent Diplomat interview, Cutler discussed her new job, why she thinks the controversial TPP deal is good for America and her view of Obama’s much-vaunted — and some say as-yet unrealized — pivot to Asia. The Washington Diplomat: What do you hope to accomplish as vice president of the Asia Policy Institute, which was launched last year and is led by Kevin Rudd, a former prime minister of Australia? See Cutler • page 6 THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | January 2016 | 5

Cutler cOnTinUEd • PAgE 5

WENDy cuTLEr: It’s a relatively new institute that was created under the Asia Society to bring the Asian perspective to Washington on pressing policy issues that are facing the Asia-Pacific region. I’m very excited about joining, and in addition to running the Washington office and raising the profile and really integrating us into the dialogue on Asian matters in Washington, I plan to focus in terms of substance on trade and women’s empowerment issues. TWD: There seems to be a fair amount of talk in international policy circles about creating more professional opportunities for women in Asia, where society can be quite patriarchal. The women who do have power in government are often the daughters or descendants of powerful men. How can you use your new role to empower Asian women? cuTLEr: One of the key challenges facing women in the workforce in Asia is the lack of role models and senior women to really look up to and to gain from their experience and learn how to advance in one’s career. I hope that through working on projects that involve mentoring and experience sharing and networking and really helping younger women develop the skills necessary to advance in the workplace that we can make a real contribution. TWD: Now that the TPP has been finalized, what’s left to do? cuTLEr: The action really moves to the capitals of the TPP countries where they need to follow their domestic procedures and get the agreement passed in their legislatures. After that, countries will need to work to get the agreement put into force. All of those discussions are going on now domestically, including in the United States. TWD: The agreement created unusual political bedfellows. Many congressional Democrats, especially those with close ties to organized labor, opposed President Obama’s administration on the deal. But it was one of the only times in Obama’s tenure as president that most Republicans actually backed him. How did the contentious domestic climate aﬀect the negotiations from the American perspective? cuTLEr: As we negotiated we knew this agreement would be controversial and that there were opponents. That’s really true on any trade agreement I’ve worked on. There are people who see benefits to the agreement, but there are always people who have concerns and feel that somehow the agreement is going to hurt them. As negotiators we tried to advance the national interest and try to make sure that people benefitted from the agreement. As our Congress considers this agreement, I’m confident that when they look at the whole of it and they look at all the areas where gains are made, they will come to the conclusion that the gains will outweigh any concerns they may have. TWD: You’ve said TPP promotes U.S. values in Asia, including those related to labor, the environment and open access to the internet. How so? cuTLEr: These are areas where this agree-

PhOTO: ElEnA OlivO / ASiA SOciETy

former Acting deputy U.S. Trade representative Wendy cutler, left, appears at an Asia Society program in new york with former Australian Prime Minister and Asia Society Policy institute President Kevin rudd.

ment goes way beyond anything we’ve negotiated previously, including the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement. Here what we tried to do is build on what we achieved in past free trade agreements to make sure that the labor obligations were subject to dispute settlement in line with other commercial disputes and also that new areas were added such as the need for countries to have a minimum wage, and the agreement by countries to create acceptable working conditions. In the area of the environment, the agreement goes beyond the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement. It gets into important areas of deforestation, overfishing and wildlife trafficking. These are really all pressing areas in the Asia-Pacific looking ahead. It addresses that and it also ensures that these obligations can be challenged under the enforcement procedures obtained in the TPP. TWD: At one point there were significant gaps in the trade negotiations between the United States and Japan regarding access for U.S. automobiles in the Japanese market. Were those gaps closed? How? When Americans think of trade with Japan, they’re generally thinking electronics and cars, so this is obviously important from a domestic perspective. cuTLEr: We had a number of challenges facing us in the auto negotiations. One was the staging of the elimination of U.S. tariffs for trucks and autos. We were very far away on that issue a year ago. We were able to achieve long staging for both trucks and cars and the reason why this is so important is that the non-tariff measures that we succeeded in eliminating in Japan, those provisions will go into effect right away so our car companies will have the opportunity to sell more in the Japanese market before the U.S. tariffs start to come down. TWD: You’ve expressed hope that more nations can join the agreement. Is that realistic? cuTLEr: During the negotiations a lot of countries were brought into the TPP, most recently Canada, Mexico and Japan. The agreement includes what are called accession provisions, which allow the entry of new countries. The agreement was always envisioned to be an open platform agreement so more countries were always envisioned joining the TPP. Since the agreement has been completed, a number of countries, including Korea, Indonesia and the Philippines, have

6 | THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | JANuAry 2016

expressed interest. Other countries like China have said they are studying the agreement very closely now. There seems to be a growing interest and over time there will need to be consultations with the existing members — all 12 members — to see if those countries are indeed interested and ready to join, which means agreeing to live up to the high standards of the TPP. TWD: Marc Perrone, president of the 1.3 million-member United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, has strongly criticized the TPP, saying it will push Americans into an unfair competition with workers in Vietnam who make less than a dollar per hour. He says the result will be a race to the bottom where corporations either lower wages or send jobs overseas. What is your response to that? cuTLEr: I think this agreement has the highest standards in the labor area that we’ve ever had in a trade agreement. That’s been coupled with these action plans we’ve concluded with Vietnam and a couple of other countries…. I’m optimistic that over time we’ll see a great improvement in Vietnam’s labor standards, and in addition, I would note that in the action plan with Vietnam there is a provision that basically ties the U.S.-Vietnam market access gains with Vietnam’s implementation of its obligations under the agreement. TWD: Domestic critics of the deal also say it will force the U.S. to accept more seafood and meat imports from countries like Malaysia, whose food safety standards are notoriously lax. Does this deal compromise food safety for America or other nations? cuTLEr: There is nothing in the TPP that would require the U.S. or any country to lower their food standards. In fact, what TPP is about is ensuring that food standards are set at high levels and that any restrictions on food imports are made in accordance with science and not just people’s feelings about food. I think those concerns are really unfounded. TWD: Let’s talk about President Obama’s highly touted pledge at the outset of his second term to pivot America’s foreign policy focus from the Middle East to Asia. Critics contend that the pivot hasn’t really happened either because of ongoing adverse circumstances in the Middle East or because it was just hollow rhetoric. What is your take on the pivot?

cuTLEr: I like to call the pivot ‘rebalancing’ and I really believe it has happened and it’s happened on a number of fronts. We’ve been so much more engaged with Asia under this administration. I can’t even begin to count the number of trips this president has taken to Asia and it’s not like he’s just going to the APEC meeting and coming home. When he goes, he’s going to a number of countries and he’s doing a lot of outreach to different segments of the population. I think as a result of our policies on economics and on the strategic geopolitical and military front, we’ve developed a much closer relationship with Asia. And I think the TPP is a real cornerstone of this rebalancing policy. I think it’s so important as our economic ties really strengthen with these countries that … greater stability will be promoted among these countries, so I’m optimistic that the TPP will be passed and it will really contribute to strengthening ties between the U.S. and Asia. Now that we’re in the post-TPP world, we want to work with other countries in Asia to figure out the best way to integrate our economies in the Asia Pacific looking at TPP and the other initiatives going forward and really finding common ground between them. A lot of people now are talking about conflicts between TPP and RCEP [Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations], and I don’t really see these different initiatives as rivals or as competing initiatives. I think they are all complementary and leading toward trade liberalization. I hope that we … can take a fresh look at all of these issues. TWD: You led the negotiations on the U.S. Korea Free Trade Agreement. In the two years that this landmark agreement has been in effect, South Korea has become the sixth-largest trading partner of the United States, exports of U.S. manufactured goods to Korea have increased, Koreans are buying more U.S. services than ever and U.S. exports of a wide range of agricultural products have seen significant gains. The agreement has also improved Korea’s investment environment through strong provisions on intellectual property rights, services and investment, supporting U.S. exports. Do you view all of that as a harbinger of good things to come under the TPP? cuTLEr: A lot of people were very, very concerned about our negotiations with Korea and what this would mean for trade. In reality, we’ve seen the outcome has been winwin. Our exports have grown exponentially. That may have slowed down at certain points during the three-year implementation phase, but that’s really coincided with the slowdown in the Korean economy, where we’ve seen exports to Korea from non-FTA countries slowing at a much quicker pace. Also, since the FTA, our relationship with Korea has strengthened on all fronts. We’re very close partners. I would say that as a result of these free trade agreements, we’ve developed closer relations with these countries that really carry over to many different aspects of our relationship. WD Michael Coleman is a contributing writer for The Washington Diplomat.

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WD | Environment

Climate Consensus Paris Seeks to Square What’s Needed with What’s Achievable by Sean Lyngaas

or delegations preparing for major multilateral conferences, managing expectations is a big part of the workload. Nothing can take the wind out of global initiatives like inflated hopes that come crashing down in acrimony at a summit. So even before nearly 150 heads of state and over 40,000 delegates from 195 countries headed to Paris for two weeks of climate change negotiations, officials were keen to tamp down expectations, while working behind the scenes to lock down a historic accord that could at least put the world on the path to curbing greenhouse gas emissions. Delegates at the U.N. climate change summit in December likely had the stifling experience of Copenhagen from six years ago in mind. The Danish capital was in 2009 the scene of a long impasse that eventually yielded a modest agreement to cut greenhouse gas emissions that left many observers disappointed. “There’s always a danger of setting expectations too high and under-delivering. And for a lot of people, that was … the lesson from the 2009 negotiating experience,” said Sarah Ladislaw, director of the Energy and National Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). Paris is the latest iteration of the Conference of Parties (COP), an annual United Nations summit for countries to mull action on the greenhouse emissions that scientists say are warming the planet, causing acute environmental damage. Negotiators in Paris are seeking nothing less than a global, legally binding agreement to cut emissions that can serve as a blueprint for years to come. As of press time, talks were still under way and there was no guarantee that the massive gathering would clinch a deal, which, to be binding, requires the unanimous consent of nearly 200 nations. But unlike Copenhagen, hopes were high that the will was there to strike a landmark accord. Heading into Paris, most countries released voluntary pledges for cutting greenhouse gas emissions starting in 2020, promises dubbed Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs). The Paris summit, or COP21, will put those national pledges under scrutiny for adequacy and fairness, in addition to possibly creating a mechanism to review and reassess those pledges periodically. Negotiators at COP21 will also look to solidify an agreement on financing to mitigate the effects of climate change on poorer nations. Rich countries have promised the fund will be $100 billion a year by 2020. A major stumbling block in the past has been reluctance by developing countries, which are now among the world’s top greenhouse gas polluters, to rein in emissions, thereby sacrificing their economic growth, in order to address a problem brought about by developed powers during their industrial growth spurts. Notably, India, the world’s numberthree greenhouse emitter, remains wary of agreeing to emissions cuts without significant financial compensation. But the fact that the world’s top two polluters, China and the United States, agreed to jointly limit their emissions bodes well for the talks, as does Obama’s admission that wealthy countries played a role in triggering planetary warming. “I’ve come here personally, as the leader of the world’s largest economy and the second-largest

credit: UN Photo / Rick Bajornas

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, right, and Irina Bokova, director-general of the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), look out at the Eiffel Tower from UNESCO headquarters in Paris ahead of the climate change talks.

“

On the international stage, we knew a new approach would be needed to rally all nations to take action…. We concluded that climate targets should be set by countries themselves, not imposed on them. Paul Bodnar

”

U.S. National Security Council senior director for energy and climate change

emitter, to say that the United States of America not only recognizes our role in creating this problem, we embrace our responsibility to do something about it,” he said. Despite the good vibes ahead of the Paris summit, participants and observers say whatever outcome emerges is merely a beginning. The goal for the talks is to catalyze the more aggressive national policies that experts say are needed to avoid the full brunt of climate change, the impacts of which include rising sea levels, extreme weather patterns, floods, droughts, food shortages and resource scarcity that could exacerbate conflict, displacement and

poverty. Experts note that 19 of the 20 warmest years in recorded history have occurred in the past two decades; 2015 is on pace to be the hottest year ever. Some scientists reckon that the world has to limit temperature rises to 2 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels to head off the more devastating effects of climate change. But that number may be slipping out of reach. Many experts say that at best, COP21 will produce an accord that cuts emissions by about half the level needed to avert catastrophe. The 128 INDCs posted by countries to the U.N. website by the October deadline would still lead to increases of 3.5 degrees, 3.1 degrees or 2.7 degrees Celsius (depending on calculations) compared to pre-industrial levels, according to Brookings Institution scholar Timmons Roberts. Still, leaders ranging from U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to Pope Francis to President Obama have said that COP21 could be the world’s best, and last, chance to take meaningful action on climate change. Declaring that “no nation — large or small, wealthy or poor — is immune” to climate change, Obama invoked the words of Martin Luther King Jr. to warn that “there is such a thing as being too late.”

Lessons from Past Summits Obama administration officials have been keen to relegate the multilateral bickering of Copenhagen to a historical footnote and cement the president’s environmental legacy in Paris. “The stars are more aligned to reach agreement than I have ever seen before,” said Todd Stern, the See climate • page 8 THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | January 2016 | 7

Climate cOnTinUEd • PAgE 7

State Department’s special envoy for climate change, according to the Guardian. “There is no comparison between Paris and Copenhagen in 2009. We have this opportunity, this moment. Countries are going to have to be willing to depart from some of their fixed positions to seek common good.” COP21 represents an evolution of the multilateral approach to addressing climate change. The 1997 Kyoto Protocol included legally binding targets and focused on rich countries’ emissions, with an eye to reduce them 5 percent below 1990 levels between 2008 and 2012. The United States, however, never ratified the agreement and dropped out altogether in 2001, while China and India were never party to it. Copenhagen, meanwhile, was more bottom-up with everything and anything on the table. “Paris is in some ways trying to bring those two approaches together in a way that’s effective,” Jennifer Morgan, global director of the World Resources Institute’s Climate Program, told The Diplomat. White House officials say they have learned their lessons from Copenhagen and Kyoto. “On the international stage, we knew a new approach would be needed to rally all nations to take action,” Paul Bodnar, the National Security Council’s senior director for energy and climate change, said on a recent conference call with reporters. “We absorbed the hard lessons of Kyoto

crEdiT: Un PhOTO / ricK bAJOrnAS

Thousands of delegates gather for the opening of the U.n. climate change summit in Paris, known as cOP21.

and heated bipartisan concerns,” Bodnar added. “We concluded that climate targets should be set by countries themselves, not imposed on them.”

SinO-AMEricAn cOOPErATiOn KEy One of the main currents buoying the “Paris will be different than Copenhagen” argument is the greater cooperation on climate issues shown recently by China and the United States, the world’s two largest polluters. In November 2014, Obama and Chinese

President Xi Jinping turned heads by together announcing their countries’ respective goals for handling greenhouse gas emissions. Washington pledged to reduce emissions 26 to 28 percent from 2005 levels by 2025 (the most the White House reckons it can achieve without congressional action), while Beijing said its emissions would peak by 2030 and it would boost its share of renewable energy by then. Last September in Washington, Xi also announced China would adopt a capand-trade scheme by 2017. The White House’s Bodnar was decidedly upbeat on what he perceived as China’s

more constructive role in efforts to combat climate change; he declared that Obama and Xi’s announcements “marked a new era in climate diplomacy.” There are other moves by Beijing that are giving heart to those hoping for more decisive action on climate change. For one, the Chinese government’s unusual public signaling of what an acceptable agreement would look like ahead of the Paris summit showed a proactive approach to striking a deal, according to Ladislaw of CSIS. That development, along with Xi’s announcement with Obama, amount to a “sea change” in China’s approach to climate change, she said. Beijing’s recent pledge to contribute $3.1 billion to help developing countries combat climate change is something that would have been unthinkable just a couple years ago, Ladislaw added. Obama met with Xi the morning after the U.S. president’s arrival in Paris. Having that meeting early on in the talks “sends a strong message to the world about their shared commitment to combat climate change and to see an ambitious agreement achieved,” said Ben Rhodes, the president’s deputy national security adviser for strategic communications. Obama still faces significant opposition back home in delivering on his Paris promises. Republicans in Congress have vowed to oppose any formal treaty that emerges in Paris and block funding for the president’s environmental initiatives. Even though China doesn’t face the same political hurdles given its authoritarian system, public support for action is tepid. According to a recent Pew Research Center survey, just 18 percent of Chinese say climate change is a

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Before They Went There

They Came Here

Credit: UN Photo / Rick Bajornas

From left, French Minister of Ecology, Sustainable Development and Energy Ségolène Royal, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and U.S. President Barack Obama talk at the luncheon hosted by French President François Hollande for world leaders attending the U.N. climate change conference in Paris.

very serious problem (as opposed to 45 percent in the United States), even though half of those surveyed in China said climate change is harming them now.

Banking on Renewables There are numerous paths to meaningfully limiting the global rise in temperatures, but most agree that doing so requires big economies to transform how they produce and consume energy. Despite nuclear energy’s small carbon footprint, interest in nuclear has faded in some countries in the wake of the March 2011 meltdown of the Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan. Germany has made plans to take all of its nuclear plants offline by the end of 2022. Japan, meanwhile, has tentatively brought at least one nuclear reactor back online under stricter regulations after the Fukushima disaster. Interest in renewable energy has waxed with nuclear energy’s wane. The cost of producing power from renewable sources such as solar and wind has dropped considerably in the last five years, making the technologies more palatable to consumers. But solar and wind are also more fickle than fossil fuels in that their production is dependent on the weather. Renewables also tend to have larger up-front investment costs than fossil fuels, though those costs can be recovered and outweighed through savings in fuel and other benefits over time. Germany has been among the most ambitious countries in its pursuit of renewable energy, setting a goal of producing 40 to 45 percent of its power from renewable sources by 2025. Patrick Graichen, a former energy official in the German government, laid out the sizable challenge for countries looking to accelerate their use of renewable energy. “You run into a system that has fluctuations and high capital cost, and that is what makes this energy transformation really a challenge, because it’s not just shifting from one fuel to another, it’s about shifting from a fuel-dependent technology to a weatherand capital-based technology,” said Graichen, who is now executive director of Agora Energiewende, a German think tank. He spoke Oct. 27 during an appearance at the Brookings Institution. The German push to adopt renewable energy sources is not without tradeoffs and costs. Intermittent doses of solar and wind power have rankled Europe’s power market. More renewables have sometimes

meant high electricity bills for Germans. From 2010 through 2014, the renewable energy surcharge on German households and business had nearly tripled, according to a Wall Street Journal report. Successful ramping of renewable energy sources will require meticulous policy planning paired with ambition. A 2012 study by the U.S. National Renewable Energy Laboratory found that renewable power generation from available technologies, combined with a more flexible power system, “is more than adequate” to supply 80 percent of total U.S. power generation in 2050. But such a scenario would depend on a rosy blend of substantial investments in infrastructure and steady growth in renewable sources across the country. The U.N. framework that the Paris talks will build on allows each country to chart its own course in emissions reductions, but that course does not operate in a vacuum. Governments around the world took note of the renewables boom in Germany, along with that country’s growing pains in navigating an inchoate industry. To that end, renewables were a key theme in Paris. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, for example, announced an “international solar alliance” of over 120 countries to be headquartered in India. The United States also announced an initiative with 19 other nations to double spending on the research and development of clean energy technologies by 2020, in concert with a private-sector coalition led by Microsoft founder Bill Gates to invest in “potentially transformative energy systems” with “near zero carbon emissions.” The Paris climate talks are an opportunity for governments to differentiate lofty rhetoric from plausible plans for a lower carbon future. The early days of the conference already underlined countries’ ambitions for tackling the problem. But the devil will be in the details of national plans, and the climate’s well being will depend on them. WD

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THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | January 2016 | 9

WD | Terrorism

Selective Sympathy Paris, Beirut Tragedies Elicit Range of Reactions by Justin Salhani

s Islamic State extremists attacked Paris on Nov. 13, a former French protectorate was already mourning a similar attack from the day before. The coordinated assault on a concert hall, soccer stadium and a string of cafés in the French capital killed 130 and wounded over 350, while multiple suicide bombers struck Beirut’s southern suburb of Bourj el-Barajneh, killing 44 and injuring 200. While the Paris siege monopolized Western media coverage over the following days, the Beirut bombing received scant attention. As Facebook released a tricolored filter option for profile pictures and activated a safety function to locate French residents, many around the world asked why one group of people appeared to be more deserving of sympathy than others. For many, the Western media’s disparity in coverage was the primary culprit. Some journalists and writers, however, like Vox’s Max Fisher, preferred to deflect the blame from the media and put the onus on news consumers. He pointed out that the Beirut bombings were extensively covered by major media outlets including the New York Times and Associated Press. “Yet these are stories that, like so many stories of previous bombings and mass acts of violence outside of the West, readers have largely ignored,” Fisher wrote, recalling the difficulties he had getting readers to pay attention to the violence wracking Baghdad when he covered the height of the Iraq War in 2010. “But unless the victims are either children or Christian, I have never really succeeded in getting readers to care about such bombings that happen outside of the Western world.” More than ever before, consumers dictate the news cycle. Social media trends largely define which stories get top billing, and content providers, i.e. media outlets, follow these trends to drive traffic and increase a story’s reach. News consumers and the media are connected in a self-perpetuating cycle. The Western media marathon coverage of the Paris rampage was driven by multiple factors. In addition to being a Western country, France is one of the world’s most popular tourist destinations. Millions have posed for photos under the Eiffel Tower and walked the storied Louvre. News consumers in the West, generally speaking, have a stronger connection to Paris than they would to Beirut. There may also be an element of desensitization at work, with many Westerners — wrongly or rightly — associating the Middle East with turmoil and violence. In contrast, spectacular terrorist attacks are still a rarity in a Western capital like Paris, whereas they have become routine in war zones like Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. The exceptional nature of the Paris attack made it newsworthy, although such calculations are cold comfort to the residents reeling from the slaughter in Beirut. Whatever the reason, statistics concerning coverage of the two attacks show a strong disparity. As the data scientist Suman Deb Roy wrote in Medium: “In the first 30 hours, 443 media outlets wrote about Beirut at least once. Comparatively, 4,507 media outlets covered Paris during this time. We see a massive spike in the coverage within the first hour for Paris. In fact, within the first six hours, almost 40% of the domains that would ever cover the Paris incident had already posted about it.” 10 | THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | January 2016

Photo: ‘Paris Shootings - The day after (22593744177)’ by Maya-Anaïs Yataghène / CC BY 2.0 via Commons

French police gather evidence outside the Bataclan theater on Nov. 14, the day after Islamic State-inspired militants killed 130 people in a wave of coordinated attacks across Paris.

“

American media routinely covers, in much more detail, events that happen in the U.S. and Europe…. Our media routinely fails to give adequate attention to a slew of important stories, and what is deemed ‘important’ falls along complex lines of racial, economic, and regional hierarchy. Jill Filipovic writer and blogger

”

Deb Roy also backed up Fisher’s assertion that consumers influence coverage, as evidenced by social media traffic in the wake of both attacks. “What we see looks disconsolate — attention for Paris in Twitter literally dwarfs attention on the Beirut bombings,” he wrote. “After an hour of both stories breaking, the highest attention received by links about Beirut bombings is just 5% of what the Paris links achieved in the same time.” Jill Filipovic, writing Nov. 16 in Cosmopolitan, argues that the disproportionate focus on Paris over Beirut is not just a media problem, but an “audience problem.”

“We live in a world now where no one wants to pay for news. Newspapers are struggling, and foreign bureaus have been shuttering for years,” she pointed out. “We complain that we don’t see the reporting we want. But aside from an outraged Facebook status, many of us in the U.S. don’t actually seem to want the kind of reporting we claim to value — we’re overwhelmingly not paying to subscribe to the outlets that do good, in-depth reporting about places around the world.” Part of this is an extension of proximity — “we naturally care more about events that are close to home and issues that more directly impact us. Media coverage reflects that, and to a degree, it should.” At the same time, Filipovic acknowledged that Western media tends to place a higher value on Western lives. “American media routinely covers, in much more detail, events that happen in the U.S. and Europe,” Filipovic wrote. “American media also routinely covers, in much more detail, events and issues that disproportionately impact white people and the wealthy. Our media routinely fails to give adequate attention to a slew of important stories, and what is deemed ‘important’ falls along complex lines of racial, economic, and regional hierarchy.” This hierarchy is connected to psychology. Even if a news consumer hasn’t been to Paris or Beirut, their brain might empathize more with Western victims of violence than non-Western ones. “[Cognitive neuroscientist Emile] Bruneau noted that human empathy is largely driven by whether the victims of harm are ‘ingroup’ or ‘outgroup’ — that is, whether we perceive victims to be similar, or different than us,” Emily Atkin and Beenish Ahmed wrote at ThinkProgress. “This could be race, culture, or ideology-based. It all depends on the situation.” Besides possibly relating more to the victims of the Paris attack, behaviorists theorize that Western-

ers feel ambivalent toward a region rife with conflict. Indeed, while tragedy can elicit sympathy, it can also breed antipathy. In the limited bandwidth of today’s fast-paced media cycle, people have grown numb to news of a bombing in Baghdad or Damascus. Even though Beirut has been relatively calm in recent years and suicide bombings are an anomaly, the country has experienced periodic bouts of violence, including a 2006 war with Israel and the reverberations of Syria’s civil war. Here too, the uneven media coverage of various crises illustrates certain biases. For example, the massive refugee exodus from Syria that has overwhelmed neighboring countries like Lebanon has generated far fewer headlines than the migrant crisis plaguing Europe. Shortly after the Beirut bombing, stories began circulating that called the Bourj el-Barajneh neighborhood a “bastion” or “stronghold” of the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah. Considered a terrorist organization by the U.S., Hezbollah commands strong political support from Bourj el-Barajneh’s predominately Shiite population. But the population is not unanimous in that support. Furthermore, Christians as well as Palestinian and Syrian refugees also live there, some of whom may or may not back Hezbollah. The use of such language often infers a component of militarism to the area, as opposed to the reality: Bourj el-Barajneh is a bustling neighborhood of civilian inhabitants. Beirut-based journalist Annia Ciezadlo wrote an article aptly titled “Paris is a city. Beirut is a ‘war zone,’” in which she argues

Photo: ‘Sydney Opéra House (tricolore flag)’ by Ludopedia / CC BY-SA 3.0 via Commons

The Sydney Opera House in Australia is illuminated in the colors of the French flag in a show of solidarity following the Paris terrorist attacks.

NOTE: Although every effort is made to assure your ad is free of mistakes in spelling and content it is ultimately up to the customer to and make the19final ple hostage killed was proof. briefly picked

Photo: ‘Bourj el-Barajneh entrance - Flickr - Al Jazeera English’ by Al Jazeera English - P1020664 / CC BY-SA 2.0 via Commons

Bourj el-Barajneh in Lebanon, where an Islamic State suicide bombing killed over 40 people, is a bustling neighborhood that is also home to a Palestinian refugee camp, seen above.

up, with CNN attempting to present it to a

The first two faxed changes will be made at noWestern cost to the advertiser, subsequent changes audience by explaining the connection between a victim of the attack and be billed a rate of $75 per faxed alteration. Signed ads are considered approved. that the way we talk about these places mat-will And yet allatthose things happen here, too. ters. They are the daily neighborhood life that the Democratic-presidential front runner HilClinton. suicide bombing in Camer“In the Western press, Lebanon is a coun- bombing here,check like the this one inad Paris, was cal- lary Please carefully. Mark any A changes to your ad. oon and Nigeria that killed a dozen people try perpetually at war. To Western readers, culated to destroy.” when several girls detonated suicide vests the pressures of a 25 percent population inad isWhile the sign outpouring grief following If the correct and faxofto: (301) 949-0065 needs changes crease, a war next door, and another series of the Paris attacks stood in stark contrast to the barely registered as a blip on newscasts. bombings don’t seem like an inconvenience, trickle that similar tragedies have inspired, Boko Haram, an extremist organization that Diplomat (301) 933-3552 killed more people in 2015 than the Islamic because most Americans think of war The whenWashington this lopsided pattern is certain to continue of being responsible for they think of Beirut,” she wrote. in today’s heightened security atmosphere. State, is suspected W “The beauties of everyday life — the Approved smell For__________________________________________________________ weeks after Nov. 13, the Paris attacks the attack. D of fresh bread from a bakery, the laughter of dominated the news cycle, while warnings of Changes ___________________________________________________________ children on their way to school, lovers sitting attempted attacks in Germany and Belgium Justin Salhani (@JustinSalhani) ___________________________________________________________________ in a café — don’t define Beirut’s image in the were also high on the Western media radar. is a contributing writer for West the way they do for a city like Paris. An assault in Mali that took over 100 peo- The Washington Diplomat.

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3 THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | January 2016 | 11

WD | Diplomacy

Quiet Peacemaker Oman Assumes Low-Key Yet Influential Role in Mideast Affairs by Victor Shiblie

USCAT, Oman — Iran’s nuclear ambitions, Syria’s brutal civil war and ongoing hostilities in Yemen dominated Middle East news in 2015 — all while a fourth country that rarely makes headlines, the Sultanate of Oman, quietly worked behind the scenes to resolve all three crises, boosting its foreign policy credentials in the process. On Nov. 18, Oman celebrated both the 75th birthday of its longtime ruler, Sultan Qaboos bin Said, and the 45th anniversary of independence. The sparsely populated country — 3.6 million people live on an area that’s roughly the size of Arizona and just as bonedry — belongs to both the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and the Arab League. “The Omanis have shown themselves over a period of decades to be reliable partners to everyone in the region,” said David Hamod, president and CEO of the National U.S.-Arab Chamber of Commerce. “Under the leadership of His Majesty Sultan Qaboos, people know that when Oman makes a commitment, it will always keep that commitment,” said Hamod. “This is one of the main reasons why Oman has been so successful in serving as an intermediary between the United States and other entities who may not always share our interests.” That’s code for Iran, which faces Oman across the Strait of Hormuz, where only 18 miles of water separate the two countries, and through which 15 million barrels of oil — or 40 percent of the world’s total output — pass every day. Oman’s strategic location, economic interests and a tradition of pragmatism have guided its calculations to remain on good terms with Iran while not alienating its partners in the West. Muscat was instrumental in bringing Washington and Tehran to the bargaining table over Iran’s nuclear program, serving as a venue to conduct back-channel talks that later evolved into the public negotiations that clinched a landmark agreement last summer to curb Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief. Shortly after Barack Obama’s re-election, Sultan Qaboos reportedly delivered a letter written by the U.S. president to Hassan Rouhani, Iran’s reform-minded president. Earlier, Sultan Qaboos had also quietly facilitated the release of three American hikers detained after crossing the Iranian border. Throughout 2013, the Omani capital secretly hosted face-to-face talks between top administration officials and their Iranian counterparts, becoming a trusted intermediary in the often-contentious, high-stakes nuclear negotiations that would eventually overcome decades of enmity between Washington and Tehran. As Yahya Alharrasi, an official with the Omani Ministry of Information, put it: “If you can’t cut the hand, why not shake it?” So Oman took advantage of its position as one of the few Gulf countries to enjoy friendly relations with Iran to bring both sides together, albeit quietly — in keeping with its low profile. During a recent visit to Oman, The Washington Diplomat spoke with Hatim Al Taie, editor-in-chief and CEO of Al Roya, a daily Arabic-language business newspaper. Al Taie said that in order to understand Omani foreign policy today and its motives for bringing Washington and Tehran together on the nuclear issue, one must go all the way back to 1977, the year Egyptian

12 | THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | January 2016

Photo: U.S. State Department

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry meets with Sultan Qaboos bin Said in Muscat, Oman, on May 21, 2013.

“

The Omanis see themselves more as facilitators than as middlemen — someone who helps parties who might have issues or reasons not to be on close terms with each other find ways to overcome those obstacles…. They typically look for ways to facilitate resolutions to regional conflicts or tensions through dialogue and diplomacy. Richard Schmierer former U.S. ambassador to Oman

”

President Anwar Sadat shocked the world with his historic trip to Jerusalem. “When Sadat visited Israel, the only country that stood up for Egypt when everybody else cut diplomatic relations was Oman,” Al Taie explained. “We didn’t take any negative action against Sadat, and now when we look back, we realize Oman was on the right side. If all the Arabs got behind Sadat — even though we didn’t agree with everything Sadat did — at least his position would have been stronger.”

Later on, during the Iran-Iraq War, which raged from 1980 to 1988 and killed an estimated 1 million people, Oman remained neutral. “We didn’t support Saddam Hussein like the other Gulf countries. We decided not to be part of this game,” Al Taie said. “This war was absurd, ridiculous and silly. Oman tried to push for peace, and kept the same distance from Iraq and Iran. We didn’t take sides.” Again, when Iraqi forces under Saddam invaded Kuwait in 1990, Oman “pushed to the maximum to have a solution. It was very clear that we needed to find a peaceful solution to this crisis and not go to war, but of course it didn’t go through.” Many other examples of Oman’s regional neutrality and determination to avert conflict abound, including the recent war in Afghanistan waged by the Taliban against U.S. coalition forces. Al Taie said that “extremists from every Arab country except Oman” went to Afghanistan to fight the Americans. When it comes to hatred of Uncle Sam, no country in the Middle East tops Iran, which has not had diplomatic relations with the United States since the 1979 takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran by student revolutionaries. But in 2011, Omani negotiators managed to secure the freedom of three American backpackers who had inadvertently strayed across an unmarked stretch of the Iran-Iraq border and were promptly arrested by the regime as American spies. According to a December 2009 cable sent by the U.S. Embassy in Muscat and exposed by WikiLeaks, Oman’s foreign minister, Yusuf bin Alawi bin Abdullah, had offered to set up talks between the U.S. and Iran to free the hikers as long as both sides kept things quiet. Richard Schmierer, who served as American ambassador to Oman from 2009 to 2012, recalls that orSee Oman • page 18

WD | Cover Profile

Brazil Besieged Economically Battered Country Hopes for Olympic Rebound by Larry Luxner

ll the world’s eyes will be on Brazil in August, when Rio de Janeiro hosts South America’s first Olympics ever. Yet for most of Brazil’s 200 million citizens, the Summer Games will amount to little more than 16 days of distraction from a worsening economic crisis that saw inflation hit 10 percent and GDP shrink by 3 percent in 2015. Nor will the upcoming XXXI Olympiad do much for Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, whose government is mired in various corruption scandals that at best have left her deeply unpopular, and at worst could lead to her eventual impeachment. Meanwhile, Rousseff ’s predecessor and mentor, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has come under increased scrutiny of late, also for influence-peddling. And in September, Standard & Poor’s downgraded Brazil’s sovereign debt to junk, further threatening the government’s credibility with foreign investors. On the surface at least, Luiz Alberto Figueiredo Machado, Brazil’s ambassador in Washington, doesn’t seem terribly worried — either about where the ongoing inquiries may lead, or about what economists already consider Brazil’s worst recession in 25 years, following a decade of supersonic growth that made the country one of the most enviable emerging economies in the world. “What you see is democracy at work. You see a country with strong institutions that are investigating and prosecuting persons accused of corruption,” the ambassador told us. “Some of them are very important businesspeople; some belong to political parties. It’s a victory for Brazilian society to see that independent, impartial institutions are doing their jobs.” Figueiredo, 60, was Rousseff ’s foreign minister for a year and a half before assuming his current post Jan. 1, 2015. He spoke to The Washington Diplomat from his office at the recently remodeled Brazilian Embassy off Massachusetts Avenue. “Other countries went through similar investigations of wrongdoing in the past. What is important is that this is not a crisis,” he insisted. “Not doing so would be a crisis, because then the institutions would not be working independently.” The fact is that Brazil’s first woman president, who narrowly won a 2014 runoff election, has seen her approval ratings dip as low as 8 percent as federal investigators probe a massive kickback scheme at state-run oil giant Petrobras. Complicating matters is the 68-year-old president’s role as chairwoman of Petrobras during many of the seven years the alleged corruption took place. Prosecutors say the company approved inflated contracts to suppliers and subcontractors in exchange for $1.6 billion in kickbacks. Some 77 percent of Brazilians in a February 2015 poll said their president knew about the corruption, in which over 100 people have been charged with crimes, including one of the country’s wealthiest businessmen and a top senator. That — and the tanking of Brazil’s economy after years of prosperity — led to recent massive demonstrations in a dozen major cities including Brasília, the capital; São Paulo, Brazil’s largest metropolis; and the ambassador’s native Rio, amid calls for her impeachment. In December, impeachment proceedings against Rousseff began, although the process could take months. On paper, the president has the numbers to stave off what she’s termed a “coup,” but she has suf-

Photo: Lawrence Ruggeri of Ruggeriphoto.com

fered prominent defections from within her own party and the courts seem ready to let the process play out. While her fate remains unclear, a special committee would need a two-thirds vote in the House to start an impeachment trial in the Senate — a high bar given the country’s political paralysis.

“

I think people understand what is going on…. They also understand that economic difficulties happen to all countries. The United States is recovering from a difficult period. You have cycles in your economy and now we are going through this low cycle.

”

Luiz Alberto Figueiredo Machado ambassador of Brazil to the United States

In the meantime, frustration with Rousseff — and nostalgia for the heady days of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva — remain widespread. A former Marxist guerilla and technocrat, Rousseff lacks Lula’s political savvy but was handpicked by him to carry on his legacy. Lula presided over an era of impressive economic gains, buoyed in part by high commodity prices. Among other achievements, his administration invested in social programs that lifted tens of millions out of poverty; it slashed hyperinflation; curbed ram-

pant inequality; boosted education and health care; and ushered in a period of stability that saw the former president leave office as a global rock star with sky-high approval ratings. Underneath the success story, however, lurked deep-seated problems, which exploded in 2013 as millions turned out to denounce rising public transportation fees, particularly in the face of cost overruns related to the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Olympics. The mass protests eventually mushroomed to encompass general dissatisfaction with anemic growth, endemic graft, police brutality and a hodgepodge of other issues. Simmering discontent with Rousseff ’s embattled government fueled large-scale protests in 2015 and could trigger more demonstrations ahead of the Olympics, especially as austerity measures and price hikes for electricity and gasoline kick in. But Figueiredo discounts the significance of anti-Dilma sentiment across Brazil. “Street protests are natural,” he said. “Every country has a leader, a president, a symbol, and it’s understandable that the anger would somehow be directed against the leader, as if the leader was responsible for the problems. What the [corruption] investigations and prosecutions are showing is that those who are responsible are being held responsible.” He added: “That anger also has to do with the economic situation. Brazil fared very well in 2008, when the world went through a major financial crisis that continues until today. We managed to protect the economy and achieve very important gains for the population; our policies have lifted around 40 million people out of poverty.” Yet those gains are in danger of being virtually wiped out by the current crisis. Brazil’s $2.3 trillion economy — seventh-largest in the world — is expected to end 2015 between 3 and 4 percent smaller than it was a year ago; that compares See Brazil • page 14 THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | January 2016 | 13

Brazil Continued • page 13

to a record 7.6 percent growth in 2010, Lula’s last year in office. In mid-September, Brazil’s currency, the real, fell to its lowest level since its introduction two decades ago. Meanwhile, growth continues to be sluggish in China, Brazil’s top client for commodities ranging from sugar to coffee beans. Rousseff herself has admitted that in addition to external factors such as the drop in commodity prices, her own mismanagement contributed to the sharp downturn. “Ms. Rousseff pressured the central bank to reduce interest rates, fueling a credit spree among overstretched consumers who are now struggling to repay loans. She cut taxes for certain domestic industries and imposed price controls on gasoline and electricity, creating huge losses at public energy companies,” wrote Simon Romero in the New York Times in September. “Going further, she expanded the sway of Brazil’s colossal national development bank, whose lending portfolio already dwarfed that of the World Bank…. Ms. Rousseff ’s critics argue that she also began using funds from giant government banks to cover budget shortfalls as she and her leftist Workers’ Party headed into elections.” Peter Hakim, president emeritus at the Inter-American Dialogue, a Washington-based think tank, has written extensively on Brazil. “The economy continues to be very weak. It’s really wobbling very badly,” he told us. “There’s very little sense of any move toward sustainable recovery. There’s no sense that even the policies that would address some of Brazil’s most serious economic problems are having any real success.” Hakim added that Brazil-watchers are still waiting for the economy to rebound. “Unemployment has been rising. Brazil is in a very nasty recession, but frankly, this is less catastrophic than previous crises,” he said. “There’s broad agreement that expenditures have to be brought down dramatically. Brazil has to open up its economy more and take better advantage of international trade.” To that end, Rousseff visited the United States in late June and early July, meeting with President Obama in Washington and hobnobbing with top business leaders in New York as well as California’s Silicon Valley; adventures included visiting the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial with Obama and riding in a self-driving car at Google’s headquarters in Mountain View, Calif. Among other things, she and Obama agreed to boost the share of renewable, non-hydropower electricity to 20 percent by 2030 — a goal that would require tripling the use of renewables in the United States and doubling it in Brazil. The U.S. Department of Agriculture also agreed to allow fresh beef imports from 14 Brazilian

Photo: ‘Rio night’ by Rosino – Flickr / CC BY-SA 2.0 via Commons

Above, Botafogo Bay in Rio de Janeiro glitters at night. At right, Stock quotes ticker by the BM&F Bovespa in São Paolo, Brazil’s stock exchange.

states, while the State Department said it would move toward visafree travel — hopefully in time for the 2016 Rio Olympics. Figueiredo said Rousseff ’s trip, which he helped arrange, opened up “incredible opportunities” for the bilateral relationship. “Dilma visited companies that already have large investments in Brazil. She is extremely interested in all aspects of science and technology, but more specifically in innovation. That’s the name of the game, and that part of her visit was to see how Brazilian institutions could interact with American institutions that are focused on innovative ideas,” he said. Figueiredo’s first post was at the United Nations in New York, where he served for three years in the late 1980s. He also represented his country in Chile, Canada, France (with Brazil’s delegation to UNESCO) and Washington, in the late 1990s. Before returning to Washington for his current position, Figueiredo was Brazil’s permanent representative to the United Nations and, most recently, foreign minister. He said Rousseff ’s U.S. visit “really exceeded our initial expectations” and that “from the viewpoint of a new ambassador, I could not have gotten here at a better time.” Others might disagree, including Hakim, who says WashingtonBrasília relations have never really taken off the way they should have. “The problem is not Brazil, and it’s not the United States. It’s the two countries together. They know the importance of the relationship

14 | THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | January 2016

Photo: ‘Sao Paulo Stock Exchange’ by Rafael Matsunaga – Flickr / CC BY 2.0 via Commons

but lack confidence and trust,” Hakim said, observing that bilateral trade totaled only $73 billion in 2014, compared to $590 billion with China and $534 billion with Mexico. “For whatever reason, Brazil and the U.S. have never found a way to really cooperate on much. The two countries like each other a lot, their business people work together and their diplomats get along, but actually turning goodwill and friendship into cooperation has been very difficult.” For the moment, Rousseff may have bigger things to worry about as she tries to enact spending cuts without exacerbating Brazil’s economic woes, a delicate balancing act for any government. Carl Meacham, director of the Americas Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), notes that after Brazil’s downgrade by S&P, Rousseff ’s administration presented a plan to counteract the country’s “disastrous” budgetary deficit, now estimated at a record $13 billion, or 0.8

percent of GDP. But the proposed spending cuts and tax hikes could be counterproductive, he warned, further decelerating the economy, even as it faces widespread resistance across the political spectrum, including from within the president’s own left-leaning Workers’ Party. “Ultimately, the political and economic components of the crisis are intricately connected: Brazil is trapped in a vicious cycle, with the political instability feeding the economic crisis, and vice versa,” Meacham wrote in an Oct. 2 CSIS policy paper. “If Dilma’s latest efforts to resolve the political gridlock by making concessions to the rival Brazilian Democratic Movement Party (PMDB) come from the correct assumption that the party will play a key role in determining her future, this move will most likely only add to the political fragmentation that is plaguing the country,” he warned. “There is no doubt Brazil needs a fiscal package — and

that it needs it now. But it has to be something well thought-out and consistent, accompanied by measures that ensure a gradual return to growth. Otherwise, the remedy might end up being worse than the disease.” Figueiredo admits he’s not an economist, so he lacks the technical knowledge to analyze Rousseff ’s response to date. But he says “what the government is doing is making deep cuts in the budget and other measures that would somehow lead to disappointing [popularity] ratings. We think that by 2016, we will see a different scenario. The measures being applied now are a remedy for that — and remedies take time to work.” Foreign trade comprises only 16 percent of Brazil’s GDP, so the country’s exposure to China’s problems is “important but not decisive,” said Figueiredo. Nor, he said, is the drop in oil prices, which has seen crude fall to under $40 a barrel, even though Petrobras is now the world’s most indebted oil

company. “I think people understand what is going on,” the ambassador told us. “They also understand that economic difficulties happen to all countries. The United States is recovering from a difficult period. You have cycles in your economy and now we are going through this low cycle…. When I talk with investors, they tell me they’re in Brazil for the long run and will invest even more.” Peter Schechter, director of the Atlantic Council’s Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center, agrees to a certain extent. “Six or seven years ago, the Economist had a picture on its cover of Brazil’s Cristo Redentor statue taking off like a rock. Now some people might think of it falling into the sea,” he quipped. “Beyond the headlines, though, Brazil has made massive steps to bring millions of people into the middle class. Brazil is going through a bad period now, but hopefully reforms that are needed are going to be passed.” Schechter believes that Rousseff will survive all attempts to impeach her and serve out her second term, which ends in 2018, when Lula himself might re-enter the fray and run again. “Chances are good that sometime in 2016, the business cycle will begin to turn and she’ll be able to do some of the reforms needed,” he said, adding that despite the bureaucracy of doing business in Brazil, “it’s a free-market economy [whose] institutions have shown themselves to be incredibly resilient. The justice system investigating the Petrobras scandal is admirable; a lot of other Latin American countries would love to have a justice system like the one in Brazil. These are federal employees, yet they are investigating corruption at all levels. Investors will take heart in the fact that there’s a judicial process that works.” Schechter noted that investigators looking into the scandal are casting a wide net, including within the rival PMDB. “The ruling party does not have a monopoly on accusations of corruption,” he said. “This spreading scandal has touched everybody.” Hakim agrees that Rousseff ’s chances of actually being impeached are very low, “unless someone finds that smoking email that would put her at the center of the Petrobras scandal,” he said. “The general feeling in Brazil is that it’s not going to come any closer [to Rousseff ] than it has. The prosecutors had free rein and caught some of the biggest fish in Brazil. They’re going after Lula, in fact, but have not been able to find any reason to go after Dilma yet. If they do find something on her, only then she’s in trouble.” Figueiredo bristled at suggestions that his president may have known about the shady dealings at Petrobras while she was chairwoman there, and became visibly upset when asked about a separate corruption investigation targeting friends and associates of Lula. “I am here to take care of the relationship between Brazil and the United States, and that’s what I’m doing,” he said, refusing to answer any further questions about the former populist president, who left office in 2010 with a record 83 percent approval rate and, according to Hakim, “was Brazil’s most revered leader ever.” The ambassador would much rather talk about the upcoming Olympics. Coming only two years after the 2014 FIFA World Cup — which lured over 1 million foreign soccer fans to Brazil — the 2016 Summer Games are expected to attract 11,000 athletes and 7,000 staffers from 205 countries. The Paralympics, which immediately follow the main games, will involve 4,500 athletes and 3,000 staffers from 178 countries, Figueiredo said, reeling off statistics. Some 25,000 journalists will cover the Olympics,

Brazil at a glance Independence Sept. 7, 1822 (from Portugal)

GDP per-capita $16,200 (2014 estimate)

Location Eastern South America, bordering the Atlantic Ocean

GDP growth 0.1 percent (2014 estimate)

Capital brasilia Population 204 million (July 2015 estimate) Ethnic groups White 47.7 percent, mulatto (mixed white and black) 43.1 percent, black 7.6 percent, Asian 1.1 percent, indigenous 0.4 percent (2010 estimate) Religions roman catholic 64.6 percent, other catholic 0.4 percent, Protestant 22.2 percent, other christian 0.7 percent, Spiritist 2.2 percent, other 1.4 percent, none 8 percent (2010 estimate)

Unemployment 4.8 percent (2014 estimate) Population below poverty line 21.4 percent Exports Transport equipment, iron ore, soybeans, footwear, coffee, automobiles Imports Machinery, electrical and transport equipment, chemical products, oil, automotive parts, electronics National flag of Brazil

PhOTO: ‘Oil PlATfOrM P-51 (brAzil)-2’ by divUlgAÇÃO PETrObrAS / Abr - AgÊnciA brASil / 3.0 br viA cOMMOnS

GDP (purchasing power parity) $3.2 trillion (2014 estimate)

SOUrcE: ciA WOrld fAcTbOOK

dilma rousseff receives the presidential sash from her predecessor luiz inácio lula da Silva on Jan. 1, 2011.

PhOTO: ‘POSSE dilMA 2010 8’ by fAbiO rOdrigUES POzzEbOM/ Abr - AgÊnciA brASil / cc by 3.0 br viA cOMMOnS

and another 7,200 will cover the Paralympics, with a combined broadcast audience of 5 billion people. Asked if Brazil will be ready in time for the Olympics, he said “absolutely.” “The World Cup was a huge success. It was more complex than the Olympics because we had 12 host cities. For the Olympics, it’s only one,” said the Rio-born diplomat. Officially, 400,000 foreigners are projected to visit Brazil during the Olympics, but it could end up being twice as much. In addition, he said, “we’ll have 85,000 security people, which will certainly be the largest security operation in the country’s history.” The ambassador insisted that private investment in the upcoming Olympics is higher than any other sporting event ever, comprising 56 percent of the total $10 billion the Games are likely to cost, though noted economics professor Andrew Zimbalist estimates that Brazilian taxpayers will bear 75 to 85 percent of the final costs. “Almost all the Olympic venues are ready, and other structures are right on schedule. So we have no concerns about the preparations,” the ambassador said, adding that “if you go to Rio now, you’ll see a totally different city, especially in the infrastructure: transportation, accommodations, new attractions and new museums. Old areas of the city are being revitalized. The port area is one clear example of that. We know there will be long-lasting benefits for the population, especially in infrastructure.” Yet many Brazilians are still furious over the $3 billion their government spent building five new stadiums and renovating seven others for the 2014 World Cup. “Brazilians have not benefitted from the tournament. There has been no legacy for them. The World Cup still makes them angry. There is regret that we even staged it,” Rio Mayor Eduardo Paes told ESPN in mid2015, estimating that corruption at all 12 venues comprised 30 to 40 percent of final construction costs. Paes added that “there was a last-minute rush to finish the work, and this is where the corruption kicked in,

because a lot of public money had to be thrown at the stadiums to ensure their delivery.” Figueiredo denies such accusations, telling us, “We were ready when we said we’d be. We really were, and we proved it during the games. Fans from all nations watched the games in fun, peace and harmony — and this is a huge lesson for all countries.” However, the real lesson may be that Brazilians are simply sick and tired of business as usual. “Brazil is running out of both the goodwill of foreign investors and the cash surpluses of a decade-long boom in commodities. Its

Blancpain_WashingtonDiplomat_Villeret_DDF.indd 1

P-51 is the first 100 percent brazilian-owned oil platform. Petrobras, brazil’s state-owned oil company, has been mired in a series of corruption scandals that have ensnared the country’s top politicians.

failure, yet again, to find ways to diversify its economy away from dependence on commodities has now come to a head,” said New York communications executive Tom Vogel, who specializes in Latin America. “All of this economic pressure magnifies the importance to the average Brazilian of any corruption,” Vogel said. “Anyone who has followed Brazil and Petrobras over the last 30 years cannot claim to be surprised by the scandal there now. What’s new is that more Brazilians are aware of the depth of the corruption and understand how it directly connects to the country’s economic woes today.” WD Larry Luxner is news editor of The Washington Diplomat.

12/8/14 10:49 AM

THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | JANuAry 2016 | 15

WD | International Affairs

Not-So-Promised Land For Refugees, Asylum Seekers in U.S., Hardship Endures by Karin Zeitvogel

efugees and asylum seekers who reach the United States may be free of the persecution, threats and dangers that drove them from their home country in the first place, but they face a whole new set of difficulties once they arrive in the promised land. Since 1975, more than 3 million refugees have resettled in all 50 U.S. states. Many have built successful new lives, although they have also faced the inherent hardships of uprooting one’s life to start from scratch in a foreign country. Take Hamza Thakir, for instance. Thakir fled Baghdad with his family in 2006 after his father, a former diplomat under Saddam Hussein, was taken from the family home for questioning by American soldiers. The older Thakir was allowed to return home the same day, but “we decided then that it was time to go,” Thakir told The Washington Diplomat at his home in New Jersey. The family packed a few possessions, piled into two taxis and left Baghdad for Jordan, where they regisPhoto: ‘Lotshampa refugees in Beldangi Camp’ by Alemaugil tered with the UNHCR as refugees. But the registrations were only valid for 18 months. One day, after Bhutanese refugees in the Beldangi camp in Nepal show their Bhutanese passport. The United States has accepted over 75,000 that time was up, Thakir was stopped in the street by refugees from the remote Himalayan mountain kingdom since 2008. Jordanian police. Because he had no papers authorizing him to be in Amman, the then-25-year-old was wheels in motion to bring his family to the United minimum wage and they’re expected to be OK. Also, jailed and threatened with deportation back to Iraq, States. Family reunification is one of the top three newly arrived refugees are only receiving one to three where he and his family were certain he would be priorities of the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program months of assistance for rent and food and things like killed — not just because of his father’s connection (USRAP). The program is limited to certain national- that. After that, the resettlement agency brings a facto Saddam’s regime but also because his brother had ities, which are decided each year. Even though Iraqi tory job to the household and makes it seem like the worked closely with the U.S. military. families were on the list in 2009, the authorities only refugees can keep up with the Kardashians,” he said After a family friend helped secure Thakir’s release, wanted to allow Thakir’s older brother to join him in with a wry laugh. his application to be resettled in the United States was the U.S., leaving his elderly father and sisters in Amaccelerated, and he arrived at Newark Airport in Au- man. (Even if an application is approved, resettlement Belying Bhutan’s gust 2008. He was alone; his can take two years or longer.) family had to stay behind in With the help of a group of U.S. Happiness Index Jordan. veterans who had fought in Iraq, Living on a shoestring budget and adapting to life For Thakir, finding work Thakir persisted and, a year after in a new country has driven many refugees over the and a place to live were he arrived in New Jersey, welcomed edge. But the group that is suffering disproportionatethe easy parts of coming most of his family to America. One ly in the United States appears to be the Bhutanese. to America. He practically sister stayed behind in Jordan with Bhutanese are, at a glance, an improbable group of walked off the plane into a her husband and twin toddlers. They refugees. Their country of origin is a tiny, remote Hijob with a Jordanian family were barred entrance after the hus- malayan mountain kingdom nestled between China friend who bought cars over band’s background check came up and India. Fiercely traditional, it touts what it calls a here and sold them back in with alleged “derogatory” elements gross national happiness (GNH) index in its measures the Middle East. He also against him. U.S. immigration offi- of development success. The concept of the happiness found a small apartment in cials have refused to say what is stop- index, which Bhutan pioneered in the 1970s, is that as Elizabeth, N.J. — one of the ping them from allowing the rest of a country develops, it should pay as much attention to worst cities in the U.S. for Thakir’s family in. non-economic aspects of well being, like how happy violent crime, but a haven The year that Thakir’s family ar- its citizens are, as it does to material indicators. of tranquility for someone rived, in 2009, the family reunificaAt an international conference this year on gross from 21st-century Baghdad. tion program was suspended “due national happiness, Bhutanese Prime Minister LyonBut in other areas of life, to high levels of fraud uncovered via choen Tshering Tobgay noted that a 2015 survey of Thakir encountered chalDNA testing,” which is part of the GNH in Bhutan found that 43.5 percent of residents lenges. First, as happens with health and security screening pro- are “extensively or deeply” happy, and that GNH in many immigrants, the U.S. cess. The program was not reinstated the kingdom has improved significantly since the last authorities did not recoguntil four years later. time a survey was conducted in 2010. nize Thakir’s degree from an Thakir is now married to the sister So why, then, have tens of thousands of Bhutanese Iraqi university. So instead of an Iraqi friend and still living in left the country? Why do Bhutanese make up such a of doing the master’s degree New Jersey. Even bringing his bride large proportion of refugees coming to the U.S., and U.S. State Department he had dreamt of completto the United States from Sweden, why are those refugees nearly twice as likely to coming when he was languishing where she was living as a refugee, was mit suicide when they get here as the U.S. population in Amman for nearly two years, he enrolled at Kean a saga that took two years and several lawyers to ac- at large? University and did a second undergraduate degree. complish. The simple answer belies Bhutan’s happiness index, He graduated with a bachelor’s in public administra“The resettlement program is very weak for fami- which is based on the four pillars of equitable social tion last year. lies,” Thakir said. “I have seen people with kids beIn between work and his studies, Thakir set the ing asked to survive with like factory jobs, at the See Refugees • page 18

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The vast majority of the nearly 20 million refugees in the world today will receive support in the country to which they fled. A small number, particularly the most vulnerable, will be resettled in a third country, such as the United States.

”

16 | THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | January 2016

WD | Genet ics

Future of Gene Editing U.S. Summit Draws Attention to Technology with Potential, Peril by Karen Pallarito HealthDay News

hat if faulty genes in your DNA could be easily corrected, avoiding the ravages of diseases like cystic fibrosis or certain cancers? That is the promise of gene editing, a new technique being heralded as an enormous advancement in genetic engineering. Scientists say its speed, efficiency and cost-effectiveness make it an excellent tool for replacing rogue genes that cause human suffering and early death. But worries about the technology’s darker side have mounted ever since Chinese researchers in April reported results of an experiment to edit a defective gene in a human embryo. For ethical reasons, researchers say they used an abnormal embryo. The team concluded that gene editing isn’t yet sufficiently reliable and precise enough to apply the technique in humans. Nevertheless, some scientists and bioethicists worry that gene editing may be used one day to create “designer babies” and forever alter the human genome. Experts from around the globe are gathered in Washington, D.C., in early December to discuss the clinical potential and ethical pitfalls of human gene editing. The three-day international summit, convened by the U.S. National Academy of Science and National Academy of Medicine with the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the U.K.’s Royal Society, concluded Dec. 3. The debate swirls around a gene-editing technology called CRISPR (pronounced crisper), short for clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats. Much like film editors delete and replace scenes in a motion picture, scientists use mice and cell cultures, not humans, she gene editing in the lab to clip said. strands of DNA at the precise “No one is talking about gene editing site of genetic defects and splice in the context of designing, changing in a fix. genomes for designer babies. That’s not To most people, “CRISPR is what scientists are doing,” she insisted. still an unknown term,” Rep. Pyle studies Duchenne muscular Bill Foster, an Illinois Demodystrophy (DMD), the loss of muscle crat and the only Ph.D. scientist function caused by a gene mutation. currently serving in Congress, Few people with DMD live beyond said in opening remarks at the their 30s, according to the U.S. Nationglobal summit on Tuesday. Yet, al Human Genome Research Institute Foster said he has been fielding in Bethesda, Md. increasingly urgent requests for “If we can correct that mutation in meetings to discuss the technolthese patients, then we can give them ogy breakthrough and its impliback the missing gene and give them cations for society. a permanent cure,” she said. “That’s John Holdren, a senior White the long-term goal, but the challenges House adviser on science and are really in understanding how safe the technology policy, told summit technology is.” attendees that the Obama adClinical applications of the technolministration continues to hold April Pyle ogy won’t be seen until it can be perfectthe position that editing the hued, ensuring that only the targeted gene man “germline” — meaning the associate professor is snipped, preventing “off-target” muof microbiology, immunology genes passed on to future genand molecular genetics tations in the genome, Pyle explained. erations — “is a line that should at the UCLA David Geffen Scientists also must find ways to safely not be crossed at this time.” School of Medicine deliver the technology to patients. April Pyle, an associate profesIf perfected, gene editing would have sor of microbiology, immunology and molecular genetics at the UCLA David Geffen immediate implications for treating genetic disorders School of Medicine in Los Angeles, told HealthDay involving a single mutation in a specific gene. Marcy Darnovsky, executive director of the Centhat researchers have widely adopted the gene-editing tool to better understand how genes function and how ter for Genetics and Society in Berkeley, Calif., who to correct faulty genes. But scientists are using it in spoke at the summit, agreed that the technology may

“

No one is talking about gene editing in the context of designing, changing genomes for designer babies. That’s not what scientists are doing.

”

Photo: iStock

hold great promise. “Human gene editing used to treat existing patients, if it can be done safely, may turn out to be medically important,” she told HealthDay. But Darnovsky added that human germline gene editing for reproduction, prohibited in some 40 countries, “would be extremely risky.”

LEARN MORE: For more information, visit the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine at www.nationalacademies.org/ gene-editing/index.htm. To date, the Center for Genetics and Society has collected upwards of 155 signatures from scientists, ethicists and others calling for strengthened prohibitions that would prevent the technology’s use for genetically modified humans or designer babies. Permitting germline editing “would likely be used for enhancement purposes by those who could afford it, and this could all too easily open the door to new forms of inequality and discrimination,” Darnovsky explained. “We need not and should not risk those societal outcomes,” she said. WD Karen Pallarito is a HealthDay News reporter. Copyright © 2015 HealthDay. All rights reserved. THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | January 2016 | 17

Oman cOnTinUEd • PAgE 12

deal well. “During my time there, the Omanis played a positive role in engaging the Iranians and arranging for the release of the three American hikers,” he told The Diplomat. “That created an atmosphere where it was possible for the Iranians and us in the West to decide maybe we could engage on the nuclear issue.” Schmierer, who has since retired from the Foreign Service and now works at the Washington-based Middle East Policy Council, says that because of Oman’s history, its people are outward looking and quite accepting of differences. Under Sultan Qaboos, the country also pursues a foreign policy that’s independent of much larger Saudi Arabia, which dominates the GCC. “The Omanis see themselves more as facilitators than as middlemen — someone who helps parties who might have issues or reasons not to be on close terms with each other find ways to overcome those obstacles,” he ex-

plained. “They typically look for ways to facilitate resolutions to regional conflicts or tensions through dialogue and diplomacy.” It’s also a matter of simple economic pragmatism, says trade consultant Farris M. ElNasser, CEO of Lion-Archer LLC. “Although Oman possesses one of the most professional and formidable militaries in the GCC, it has maintained a policy of relative neutrality and continues to implore its GCC partners to pursue diplomatic solutions to the conflicts in Syria, Iran and Yemen. And yet, Oman’s foreign policy has as much to do with its economic outlook as it does with its diplomatic and military engagements,” he wrote in a November 2015 report. “Cooperation with the other Gulf countries has not led to meaningful economic integration, nor has it yielded critical employment opportunities for young Omanis in wealthier GCC states,” the paper argues. “In Oman’s calculations, the opening of Iran as a major economic hub and market — coupled with the sultanate’s special mediator status with the U.S. and Europe — will more than make

Refugees cOnTinUEd • PAgE 16

development, cultural preservation, environmental conservation and good governance. Many Bhutanese refugees in the United States — more than 76,000 have arrived here since 2008 — are members of the Lhotshampa minority that was forced out of the Buddhist kingdom in the 1990s. They have been living since then in refugee camps in Nepal, without electricity and with few job or education opportunities for them and their children. When they arrive in the United States, they, like other refugees, are expected to get a job within three months so that they can pay their rent and put food in their bellies. They also have to repay the cost of their tickets to the United States, which can run in the thousands of dollars. Add to that the language barrier, which makes finding a job more difficult; the extreme culture shock of being transplanted from a thatched hut in a rural refugee camp to an apartment in a U.S. town; and worries about family left behind in refugee camps, and the cycle of despair is complete. According to a study published in 2012 by the Refugee Health Technical Assistance Center and the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, the suicide rate among U.S.-resettled Bhutanese refugees was 20.3 per 100,000, higher than both the global rate of 16 per 100,000 and the U.S. rate of 12.4 per 100,000. The study found that 71 percent of the Bhutanese refugees who committed suicide during the three years between 2009 and 2012 did not have a regular income and nearly 60 percent were unemployed.

PhOTO: U.S. STATE dEPArTMEnT

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry looks at a wall of khanjar knives (traditional Omani daggers) during a visit to the Muttrah Souk in Muscat on nov. 10, 2014, during a break in P5+1 negotiations over iran’s nuclear program.

up for any losses its bold political stance may incur vis-àvis the GCC.” Oman is distinct from other countries in the region for a number of reasons. It has a diverse population that includes ethnic groups ranging from the Baluchi, originally from Pakistan, to Swahilispeaking Arabs who trace their origins to Zanzibar, on Africa’s east coast. Besides boasting the most ethnically diverse population of any Arab country, Oman is unusual in another aspect: three-fourths of its people

“You can only imagine the stress and strains of folks coming here,” psychiatrist Ken Thompson said in an interview published on the University of Southern California Annenberg’s Center for Health Reporting website last year. “They get very little support for a brief period of time, and then they are left to find their way in the world. They have to get jobs, language skills, the pressures on the families are intense and they’ve already been highly traumatized and dealt with all kinds of circumstances,” he said.

‘WE’rE frOzEn in ThE SAME SiTUATiOn’ Carmen Kcomt didn’t get any of the sparse help that refugees get when she came to the United States from Peru in 2003 to escape political persecution and physical attacks. A judge in Peru, Kcomt had been assigned one of the country’s most highprofile cases three years earlier: a suit to prove, or disprove, that then presidential candidate Alejandro Toledo was the father of a teenage girl. Throughout the investigations, which coincided with a political campaign that saw Toledo elected president, Kcomt and her family became the targets of threats and physical violence. Once, she was dragged down the street by two men on motorcycles. She received threats over the phone regularly. Her three sons needed bodyguards. Her emails and phone calls were monitored. A year after he was elected president in 2001, Toledo finally conceded that he was the girl’s father. Kcomt had “won” the battle, but the war had taken its toll on her and her family. So in 2003, she moved to the United States with her family and a year later applied for asylum.

18 | THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | JANuAry 2016

belong to the Ibadi sect of Islam, which is neither Sunni nor Shiite (Oman’s Sunnis live mainly in coastal villages, while its few thousand Shiites reside in the cities). “The Iranians see Oman as a country that does not share the Sunni-Shia distinction,” Schmierer explained. “For that reason, Iran is more willing to engage with a country like Oman, which can use that goodwill to help diffuse tensions with other countries.” Indeed, said Al Taie, “five years ago, it was considered

It was the start of a new round of troubles, many of them caused by the slow-moving, bureaucratic U.S. asylum process. “My asylum process took four years, eight months. It felt like 20 years,” Kcomt told The Washington Diplomat. “From the time I arrived to the day I was granted asylum, I didn’t have any documents. Nothing at all. Asylum seekers only get a work permit after they’ve been granted asylum,” she said. “You don’t know if you belong here; you know you don’t belong there any more. You don’t have a place, you don’t have hope sometimes and many times, you just want to go back, even though you know you would be putting your life in danger. Because there is no way to survive in this country with no benefits, no work permit, no job, no language, no money — nothing at all,” she said. Kcomt was granted asylum in 2008 and became a U.S. citizen in 2013 — a year before Thakir did. Refugees and asylum seekers are encouraged to apply for a permanent resident’s green card as soon as they are authorized to, because if circumstances change in their countries of origin and they don’t have a green card or citizenship, their asylum status could be revoked and they could be sent back. At the UNHCR Refugee Congress in 2013, refugees and asylum seekers from all 50 U.S. states lobbied on Capitol Hill for the asylum process and refugee resettlement in the United States to be sped up and the knot of bureaucracy to be untangled. That was two years ago. “You know what happened?” Kcomt asked. “Nothing. We’re frozen in the same situation.” WD Karin Zeitvogel (@Zeitvogel) is a contributing writer for The Washington Diplomat.

impossible to bring these two sides together [for nuclear talks], but in the summer of 2013, Sultan Qaboos visited Tehran to intervene personally. I think it was very fruitful in the end.” Oman is also trying to broker an end to the hostilities between its two neighbors, Saudi Arabia and Yemen, which have been raging ever since the ouster of Yemen’s president, Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi, in March 2015. Saudi Arabia has led a coalition air campaign — code-named Operation Decisive Storm — against the Iran-backed Houthi rebels who overthrew Hadi and his government. The fighting has killed over 2,600 people and exacerbated a humanitarian crisis in the Arab world’s poorest country. Oman is the only Arab monarchy that declined to participate in the Saudi-led offensive, which has been criticized for indiscriminately striking civilian targets. As Foreign Minister Alawi told reporters earlier this year, “Oman is a nation of peace. We cannot work on peace efforts at the same time we would be part of a military campaign.” According to Amnesty International, since the conflict in Yemen began, more than 2,000 civilians — including at least 400 children — have been killed, “and the vast majority of civilian deaths and injuries have been caused by the Saudi-led coalition’s often reckless and indiscriminate aerial bombing campaign.” Schmierer, noting Oman’s lengthy desert border with Yemen, said many Omanis have sympathy for their neighboring country and have provided assistance to Yemen. “The dispute involving Yemen is with the Houthi community, which is Shia. The Iranians are working with them, to the detriment of the elected government,” he said. “Oman, not being Sunni or Shia, potentially could play a helpful role in diffusing that conflict and getting the parties to come to a resolution.” Similarly, Alawi traveled to

Damascus in late October to meet with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in an effort to end Syria’s civil war, which has killed more than 250,000 people and displaced half the population. Oman was not untouched by the Arab Spring revolt sparked five years ago by the self-immolation of Tunisian fruit vendor Mohamed Bouazizi, yet unlike protesters in Tunis, Cairo, Damascus and Tripoli, young Omanis demanded only the reform of the Qaboos government, not his ouster. Demonstrations were relatively subdued and no one got hurt. “When you see the destruction taking place all over the Arab world, the objective of stability is a positive one,” said Abdulla AlHarrasi, chairman of Oman’s Public Authority for Radio and TV. “In 2011, we had youths looking for jobs, not to destroy the state or overthrow the sultan. This is a very peaceful country.” It’s hard to overstate the sultan’s central role to the modern development of Oman. After taking power in a bloodless coup against his father in 1970, Sultan Qaboos instituted a modernization campaign that opened Oman to the outside world and transformed it from an impoverished backwater into an affluent, influential regional player. Under his moderate leadership, Sultan Qaboos has dramatically boosted employment, education, health care and infrastructure while slashing poverty. His achievements — and the stability they have engendered — have made him a revered fatherly figure, even amid calls to diversify the oil-dependent economy, tackle youth unemployment and loosen government restrictions to allow greater freedom of expression. Yet when it comes to the virtually taboo issue of what will happen once Qaboos — who has no children, no siblings and no designated successor despite his health issues — passes from the scene, Schmierer said he’s not overly concerned. By law, the royal family must appoint a successor within three days of the sultan’s death; according to a recent report in the Sydney Morning Herald, the ruler’s cousins Assad, Haitham and Shihab bin Tariq al-Said are the most likely successors. “I am quite confident that Sultan Qaboos has put in place a well-functioning government apparatus that will continue to serve Omanis very well,” the retired diplomat told us, “regardless of who might become the sultan.” WD Victor Shiblie is publisher and editor in chief of The Washington Diplomat.

Education A special section of The Washington Diplomat

•

January 2016

photo: alvareZ / istoCk

Overseas Opportunities U.S. Lags Behind Foreign Counterparts in Study Abroad •

by karin Zeitvogel

he American victim of the attacks in Paris in November was California State University-Long Beach exchange student, Nohemi Gonzalez, 23. Gonzalez was having a drink with a friend at La Belle Equipe bistro when heavily armed gunmen opened ﬁre on Nov. 13. The assault in which the gifted industrial design student was killed was one of a series of attacks in which 130 people died, many of them young adults.

Two years ago, when two homemade bombs exploded at the finish line of the Boston Marathon, one of the three victims was Chinese graduate student Lingzi Lu, also 23. Lu had gone to Copley Square with two friends to watch the marathon, the way thousands of Bostonians, adoptive and born-and-bred, do every year. Gonzalez and Lu are among the growing number of students who leave their countries of origin every year and travel abroad to study, according to the “Open Doors” report that was released in mid-November by the U.S. State

Department and the nonprofit Institute of International Education (IIE). Both young women had immersed themselves in the culture of their host country and were living their passion when their lives were cut short. There are over 17,000 American students living and studying in France, and roughly 300,000 Chinese studying in the United States. Last year, a total of 4.5 million students left their home countries and traveled abroad to study. Nearly 1 million of see ABroAD • page 20 THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | JANuAry 2016 | 19

Abroad Continued • page 19

them traveled to the United States, but just 304,000 Americans left their stateside universities to study abroad. Among Americans who did study abroad, the preferred destinations were European countries and China, although the number of U.S. students who traveled to China fell by 4.5 percent last year, while all the European countries in the top 10 destinations saw increases. Paradoxically — or perhaps understandably, given that so few Americans want to study outside of the country — the United States is the most popular destination by far for international students, welcoming nearly 1 million youngsters last year from around

the world. China was the top country of origin of international students, with 304,040 Chinese studying in U.S. colleges and universities, a rise of 11 percent over the previous year. The number of Indian students coming to the United States shot up by even more — 29.4 percent — to nearly 133,000. Students from China and India now make up nearly 45 percent of the total number of international students in U.S. higher education, according to “Open Doors.” Other countries that saw large increases in the number of students at U.S. universities were Brazil, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. It’s notable that many foreign governments are generous with scholarships for students wishing to study abroad. They see these students as an investment in the future of the country. U.S. officials agree with them. Assistant U.S. Secretary of State for Educational and Cultural Affairs Evan Ryan said at the launch of the “Open Doors” report

20 | THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | January 2016

in Washington in November that studying abroad provides “a forum to solve global challenges.” IIE Deputy Vice President of International Partnerships in Higher Education Daniel Obst said a study abroad experience helps young people as they embark on a career by giving them the opportunity to embed themselves in the culture of the country in which they live. “The more you understand other people, the better you can work on international teams and so on,” he said. While U.S. officials ostensibly support the notion of Americans studying overseas, they don’t always put their money where their mouths are, at least not compared to other governments. “Open Doors” points out that while the number of Americans studying abroad has more than tripled in the last two decades, reaching nearly 305,000, that still only accounts for about 10 percent of all U.S. graduates. In contrast, nearly 1 million foreign students made the trek stateside last year. Among the obstacles to studying abroad for many Americans are the perceived cultural and language differences in a foreign country. IIE’s Project Atlas, which tracks the movement of the millions of students who study abroad each year, said that out of nearly 16,000 students in 19 countries who took part in a recent poll, three-quarters said learning German was a problem that kept them from studying in Germany. Two-thirds said the same thing about France and French, while half said they were worried about studying in China because of the language. (That German is seen as more daunting than Mandarin is a little mind-boggling.)

To get around the language barrier, many countries are offering university courses in English. “What we are seeing is that the number of English-taught programs offered around the world, but especially in Europe, is increasing significantly, and we’re seeing many more students, including American students who often don’t speak foreign languages well enough to enroll in a foreign university, are now seeking out Germany and France or other countries for full degrees,” Obst said. Money is another issue. Even though tuition at public universities in Germany and France is free or cheap, especially when compared to the U.S., Americans still say the cost, or perceived cost, of studying abroad is keeping them from doing it. Many U.S. students assume that funding a semester or year abroad would be prohibitively costly and would have to be entirely self-funded, when, in fact, many European institutions are far more affordable than their U.S. counterparts. Foreign students contributed over $30 billion to the U.S. economy in 2014, Obst said. But even countries that do not charge tuition, or charge much less than the United States, benefit economically and culturally from having foreign students in their classrooms and lecture halls. In Germany, for instance, where most universities are tuition-free, international students are seen as future “ambassadors for German businesses and German culture abroad,” Rupert Huth, a former vice president of the German Rectors’ Conference and spokesman for higher education in Germany, said in an interview with naturejobs.com. To overcome American reservations about

studying abroad, IIE has launched a project called Generation Study Abroad, which aims to double the number of American students studying abroad by the end of the decade, partly by making them more aware of the scholarship opportunities available to them. In the 18 months since it was set up, Generation Study Abroad has raised $185 million and teamed up with 650 partner organizations dedicated to boosting study abroad among Americans, Obst said. Much of the $185 million will go to scholarships and grants, he noted. On the day the â€œOpen Doorsâ€? report was released, the State Department announced it was opening a study abroad office (https:// studyabroad.state.gov) to encourage more Americans to spend at least part of their time at a foreign university and to increase the diversity of students participating in international exchange programs. Thatâ€™s another problem: The typical American student who studies abroad is a white woman in her junior year of college. She will spend a semester or less studying abroad, Obst said. Gonzalez, a Latina, was helping to break down that stereotype, but Obst said a lot more needs to be done. â€œAll the colleges and universities in the U.S. need to do more to reach students who are not as well represented in study abroad as in the total higher education population: African Americans, Latino students, Asian American students, disabled students,â€? he said. Whether or not the number of minority students who study abroad goes up, the overall number of students from around the world who leave their homes to study somewhere else is expected to continue to rise. Thatâ€™s not only because of promotional efforts but also because more and more young people are opting to pursue an education beyond high

school â€” and this is putting a strain on the existing education infrastructure. Education consultant Bob Goddard wrote in his 2012 book â€œMaking a Difference: Australian International Educationâ€? that the number of students around the world who are enrolled in an institute of higher education is expected to reach 262 million by 2025, up by nearly 90 million from 2010 when there were 178 million people in tertiary education. Goddard predicted that by 2025, 8 million students will travel to other countries to study â€” nearly twice as many as do so today. Experts say most of the growth in higher education will be centered in developing countries, particularly China and India, which happen to be the two countries that already send the most students to the United States. Developing countries in Africa and elsewhere are also expected to see a tertiary education growth spurt. The United States will continue to draw many of the international students who say they like the countryâ€™s wide range of schools and programs, its high-quality education system and the way it welcomes international students. While 62 percent of students said they donâ€™t like the exorbitant tuition charged by U.S. universities, only slightly fewer said there are ample scholarship opportunities for students who want to study in America. One of those opportunities will be available to students at Gonzalezâ€™s alma mater, Cal State Long Beach. The university has launched a fund to honor the slain design student and help other Cal State students pursue their academic dreams abroad, as Gonzalez was doing in Paris. As of press time, the Nohemi Gonzalez Fund to Support International Study had raised over $20,000. WD Karin Zeitvogel (@Zeitvogel) is a contributing writer for The Washington Diplomat.

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WD | Education | Study Abroad

Rising Tide Latest ‘Open Doors’ Report Shows International Students Flocking to U.S. •

by Carolyn Cosmos

he rising tide of international students coming to the United States hit a record high of nearly 1 million students during the 2014-15 academic year — the biggest growth rate in 35 years, according to an annual accounting from the Institute of International Education’s “Open Doors” project and the U.S. State Department.

The influx is not only potentially generating a massive number of internationally savvy graduates, it has already pumped $30.5 billion into the U.S. economy, adding nearly 375,000 jobs here, said experts at the Association of International Educators (NAFSA) who analyzed the “Open Doors” data. The United States is the numberone study abroad destination in the world and hosts nearly double the number of students than the United Kingdom, the country currently in second place. Australia and Canada rank third and fourth. Quality accounts for America’s popularity, but so does capacity. The U.S. has 4,000 institutions of higher education, more than any other nation. Another aspect of the impetus driving the study abroad surge is economic incentive. “Studying abroad is one of the best ways undergraduate and graduate students gain the international experience necessary to succeed in today’s global workforce,” said Institute of International Education (IIE) President Allan E. Goodman. “And studying in another country prepares students to be real contributors to working across borders to address key issues in the world we share.” European Commission research published last year underscores that assertion: When experts looked at European Union students in a studyabroad program called Erasmus, they found that graduates with international experience fared much better in the job market. Additionally, five years after graduation, their unemployment rate was 23 percent lower than students who didn’t have international experience. The research covered 80 000 participating companies and students. The Erasmus message is clear: “If you study or train abroad, you are more likely to increase your job prospects,” said Androulla Vassiliou, the former European commissioner for education, culture, multilingualism and youth. U.S. officials agree that an international background is key to future business success, even for small, local enterprises. Mohamed AbdelKader, deputy assistant secretary for 22 | THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | January 2016

international and foreign language education at the State Department, recently blogged that, “It simply isn’t sufficient for a small business owner to have a basic understanding of accounting and management. Increasingly, she must think about where her product is sourced, the competition from overseas, and whether or not she can communicate across borders with suppliers who may not speak her language.” That message has resonated with governments across the globe. IIE attributes much of the recent jump in students studying abroad to economic awareness among government officials worldwide. For example, the European Commission plans to offer Erasmus grants to 4 million people through 2020. Other governments are following suit. According to IIE, the large increase in students coming to the U.S. from Brazil, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia has been fueled by governments “investing heavily in international scholarships for their students, sending tens of thousands of them abroad to develop a globally competent workforce.” Latin America and the Caribbean accounted for the fastest-growing region of origin for international students in the U.S. this year, increasing by 19 percent over the previous year. Students coming from Brazil alone rose 78 percent to nearly 24,000. This upswing was supported by 100,000 Strong in the Americas, a publicprivate partnership, and by other initiatives launched by governments in the region. Despite the growth from countries like Brazil and Saudi Arabia, one constant remain unchanged: The single nation sending the most students to the United States is still China, which sent nearly 305,000 students, or nearly a third of the international total here, a spike of 11 percent. Notably, however, India saw a record-breaking rise of nearly 30 percent, taking second place for the number of students enrolled in U.S. schools. India’s increase marked the highest rate of growth in the history of the “Open Doors” project — a span of over 60 years — and Indian students alone contributed $3.6 bil-

Photo: iStock

lion to the U.S. economy. Other countries in the top 25 places of origin ranged from thirdplace South Korea, which sent over 63,000 students; to Saudi Arabia, which landed in fourth with nearly 60,000 students; all the way down to number 25, Spain, which had just over 6,100 students studying here. In between were, in descending order, Canada, Brazil, Taiwan, Japan, Vietnam, Mexico, Iran and Britain. Notable increases were seen in Mexico, up 15.4 percent; Nigeria, up nearly 20 percent; and Kuwait, up 24 percent. Nigeria also ranked among the fastest-growing international student populations in the United

States. Locally, the largest university and college enrollments came from China. However, while students from India made up the second-largest international student groups in Virginia and Maryland, they were third in the District of Columbia, where they followed students from Saudi Arabia. Saudis were the third-largest group of students in Virginia schools and ranked fourth in size in Maryland institutions of higher education. On the surface, the boom in international students appears to be a boon for U.S. colleges and universities. But an analysis of the “Open

“

Studying abroad is one of the best ways undergraduate and graduate students gain the international experience necessary to succeed in today’s global workforce.

”

Allan E. Goodman

president of the Institute of International Education

Doors” data conducted by the Chronicle of Higher Education in November notes that the positive impact has been uneven, with overseas students disproportionately pouring into certain institutions while other campuses get left behind. The Chronicle article by Karin Fischer points out that for the most part, international students are attracted to large research universities. “Because of their size, doctoral-granting institutions often have the easiest time absorbing additional students. And they have established channels for recruiting international students,” Fischer wrote. They’re going in large numbers to places like the top six “attractors” of international students this year: In the top spot is New York University, followed by the University of Southern California, Columbia University, Arizona State, the University of Illinois in Urbana Champaign and Northeastern University in Boston. All of these schools have more than 10,000 international students on each campus. But glaring disparities remain. The Chronicle analysis found that just 10

percent of colleges accounted for nearly 70 percent of the current growth. These institutions have made a concerted effort to recruit foreign students, in part to boost their bottom line in the wake of skyrocketing tuition costs, falling domestic enrollment and state budget cuts. Case in point: The fastest-growing major institution in the Chronicle study, Northeastern, enrolled 3.5 of every 1,000 foreign students coming here 10 years ago. This year it enrolled close to 11 of every 1,000. “In this Northeastern has something in common with two of the other institutions that have seen the largest gains in market share, Arizona State University (No.2) and New York University (No. 4). All three have aggressive, entrepreneurial leaders determined to brand their institution a ‘global university,”’ Fischer wrote. Foreign students pay higher tuition rates and their economic impact is far-reaching. According to the “Open Doors” data, top earner California received a $4.6 billion bump from its in-

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Doors Continued • page 23

ternational student population, while New York state garnered $3.7 billion and Massachusetts received $2.2 billion. But such recruitment strategies have their flaws. For one thing, they could make institutions overly dependent on foreign student money. For those colleges that can’t compete, they risk getting left behind. Meanwhile, the increasing concentration of international students into a few institutions reduces the diversity of their academic choices while also robbing many American students of the chance to experience an internationally mixed campus. The Atlantic’s Laura McKenna also raised the issue of educational diversity in a Nov. 18 article titled “The Globalization of America’s Colleges.” She pointed out that two out of three international students in the U.S. are funded by families who pay high out-of-state tuition at public institutions or costly private schooling up front, often with cash. A U.S. education is “the most expensive in the world,” she wrote. A year at New York University, for instance, runs more than $66,000. According to collegedata.com, attending even a moderately priced U.S. institution can can cost $25,000 to $50,000 annually to cover tuition, fees, living expenses and books. Only the very wealthy can afford to foot the total bill for such expenses and critics question the impact and propriety of America’s higher education system courting global elites, perhaps at the expense of poor- and middle-class American students by squeezing them out. IIE President Goodman counters that international students expose their American peers to a more globalized classroom experience — especially in light of the dearth of American students who choose to study abroad (also see main education article on page 19). While pitfalls in the system need to be addressed, the general trend is undeniable and, possibly, irreversible. As Goodman noted in the Atlantic article, “The world has discovered America.” WD Diplomat_SU_Ad_2015_Layout 1 8/17/15 3:12 PM Page 1

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Hotels &Travel A special section of The Washington Diplomat

•

January 2016

photo: gaylord national resort and Convention Center

Capital of Cool Washington Teems With Wintertime Diversions •

by sarah alaoui

t’s that time of year where you’ve checked off the last holiday party, ﬁnished the remaining leftovers and started thinking about bundling up by a warm ﬁre indoors to ride out the frigid temperatures outdoors. The weather may be chilly and the holiday rush winding down, but Washington in winter is still bustling with activities. “The nation’s capital is rich in holiday traditions like the lighting of the National Christmas Tree, a visit with Panda Claus at the National Zoo and a sing-along Messiah at the Kennedy Center,” said Elliott Ferguson, president and CEO of Destination DC, a membership nonprofit that markets the city as an attractive destination. “Everyone’s seasonal favorites are unique and D.C. satisfies them all: blockbuster art exhibitions, celebrations on and off the National Mall and shopping throughout our distinctive neighborhoods.”

Whether you prefer cozy indoor fun or festive outings, The Washington Diplomat spoke to several hotel experts around town for the inside scoop on how to beat the wintertime blues. From ice skating against iconic D.C. backdrops to stargazing in the comfort of a heated museum, we’ve got your itinerary covered for the cool months ahead.

photo: sCott suChman

top, a 65-foot-tall Christmas tree looms over the atrium of the gaylord national resort. above, the sofitel’s iCi urban bistro offers a four-course dinner for valentine’s day.

see ACTIVITIEs • page 26

THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | JANuAry 2016 | 25

representatives from the city’s Asian, Bolivian, Jamaican and African American communities — taking place along Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue and Milwaukee Place, SE. You can end Continued • page 25 the day with a musical celebration, “Let Freedom Ring!” hosted by the Kennedy Center and Georgetown University. The free concert Skating and Service will feature the Let Freedom Ring Choir and Alexandra Byrne, sales and marketing di- Grammy Award-winning singer Natalie Cole. Byrne also advised taking advantage rector for the Sofitel Washington DC Lafayette Square, says that part of D.C.’s charm is of January when the holiday crowds have that every neighborhood has its own unique thinned out to enjoy the myriad museums culture and character. One up-and-coming the city has to offer. Her top three favorites neighborhood that’s still somewhat off the include the National Museum of American beaten path is the Capitol Riverfront, dubbed History, Museum of Natural History and the by Bisnow as the city’s fastest-growing neigh- Air and Space Museum. Stay toasty indoors borhood. Located south of the U.S. Capitol while enjoying one of the Smithsonian’s three IMAX theaters, which boast between Capitol Hill and the Anathe largest screens in the recostia River, the 500-acre space is gion and offer an immersive home to loads of river views and experience that complements new restaurants, all conveniently museum exhibits. They also anchored by the Navy Yard Metro play Hollywood hits such station. as the latest installments of Byrne said that the historic “Hunger Games” and “Star Washington Canal in the heart of Wars.” Meanwhile, the Air the Riverfront, for example, is perPhoto: Greg Kinch and Space Museum Planetarfect for dusting off your ice skates ium’s 77-foot digital dome is and enjoying the rink in the win- The Smithsonian has three theaters with the largthe only full-dome cinema in tertime. The 12,000-square-foot IMAX est screens in the region. D.C. Audiences can journey rink in Canal Park offers lessons for beginners and a full bar at the nearby Park through time and space to view some of the Tavern to warm up after. The city also offers most extraordinary images not visible to the two other outdoor rinks (open until March): naked eye. If drama on stage as opposed to the big one inside the National Gallery of Art’s sculpture garden and a newer rink at the Washing- screen is your preference, escape the frigid ton Harbour in Georgetown with stunning temperatures outside by traveling to turn-ofthe-century Paris. The Sofitel’s January newsviews of the Potomac. The Sofitel recommends that its guests letter recommends that guests check out Lerncelebrate Martin Luther King Day on Jan. 18 er and Loewe’s musical comedy “Gigi, starring with a day of community service. At 8 a.m., Vanessa Hudgens and directed by Eric Schaefthe National Park Service will host a wreath fer. The pre-Broadway production will be playlaying ceremony at the MLK Memorial to ing at the Kennedy Center’s Eisenhower Thecommemorate the slain civil rights leader. At ater and tells the story of a free-spirited young 11 a.m., there will be a parade and peace walk courtesan-in-training who falls in love with a — featuring the Ballou Marching Band and prominent heir during La Belle Époque.

Activities

Of course, the Sofitel stays true to its own The hotel will also be wrapping up its popuFrench heritage and injects some of Pari- lar annual indoor winter wonderland known sian flair wherever possible. If you’d like to as “ICE!,” which features a massive array of ice get a head start planning Valentine’s Day for sculptures and ice slides for the whole family. your significant other, this 237The walk-through attraction room hotel, recently renovated includes an impressive 2 milto showcase the links between lion pounds of hand-carved ice Paris and D.C., offers a romantic sculptures, five ice slides, a live milieu. Its ICI Urban Bistro will carving zone known as “The host a four-course dinner on Feb. Frostbite Factory” and seven 13 and 14, prepared by Parisianindividual rooms retelling the trained executive chef Franck classic story of “Santa Claus is Loquet. On Feb. 14, the hotel’s Comin’ to Town” — all kept at a Photo: Sofitel Washington DC pastry chef will present a special chilly 9 degrees, so don’t forget Valrhona Chocolate event, with Sweet treats abound your gloves. For those wishing treats using the brand’s Opalys, at the Sofitel in D.C. to make the experience extra Dulcey, Bahibe, Manjari, Tainori special, there are VIP guided and Guanaja chocolates. Tickets are $80 per tours available. couple. If you aren’t shopped out from the holiday The next day, Feb. 15, the Sofitel will join season at this point, the Gaylord has convewith the D.C.-based art collective known as nient access to the Tanger Outlets, where you Art Soiree for a glamorous evening of danc- can get your fill of more than 80 name brands. ing and live entertainment, including a live For those wishing to save their money, the NaNew Orleans-style jazz band, DJ, costumed tional Harbor offers free rides on the 180-foot models and more to fête Mardi Gras in style, tall Capital Wheel, with views of Northern so get your most whimsical masquerade mask Virginia, D.C. and the surrounding harbor. ready. The Gaylord concierge team also recommends taking advantage of the cultural events happening this season, including: “West Side Icy Wonderland Story” at Signature Theatre (runs through Jan. Each year, the Gaylord National Resort and 24); the Washington Auto Show (Jan. 22 to 31); Convention Center transforms into a winter and the exhibits “Celebrating Photography” at wonderland. Located in the heart of the Na- the National Gallery of Art or “Womanimal: tional Harbor in Maryland, the entire resort is Zine Art by Caroline Paquita” at the National decked out in the spirit of the season, includ- Museum of Women in Arts. ing a 65-foot-tall Christmas tree and more than 2 million lights sprinkled throughout the atrium and outdoor garden. A centerpiece is Kimpton Growth With nine boutique hotels in Washington, the glass atrium, whose 19 stories offer sweeping views of the Potomac River and 1.5 acres Kimpton is gearing up to open a new flagship of shopping that has the feel of an outdoor hotel along D.C.’s bustling 14th Street Corridor market. Every night, the atrium hosts free in spring 2016. The new Mason & Rook Hotel shows of dancing fountains that shoot water will serve as a perfect base for those who want 60 feet up in the air in a magical combination close access to the some of the city’s trendiest bars, restaurants and shops. of lights, sounds and water.

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26 | THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | January 2016

12/7/15 8:19 AM

In addition, after months of extensive reno- enjoy small bites. Meanwhile, the nearby Ritz-Carlton in vations and a design revamp, Kimpton is rebranding the Savoy Suites Hotel as the Glover Georgetown is also ringing in the holidays Park Hotel this spring. The multimillion-dol- with a smorgasbord of tasty treats. Butlerlar project will become the company’s second passed French toast s’mores by the fireplace will be served nightly in the lobby, as will design-driven property in the city. World-renowned artist Michele Oka homemade hot apple cider prepared with Doner’s conceptual vision for the hotel was fresh, regional apples. Two holiday cupcake decorating workinspired by the neighborhood’s namesake, Charles Carroll Glover — a famed banker and shops on Dec. 6 and 13 will be hosted by Katherine Kallinis Berman philanthropist who helped and Sophie Kallinis LaMreshape the nation’s capital ontagne, co-founders of as a city of parks with donaGeorgetown Cupcake. For tions of nearly 3,000 acres of every dozen decorated, the parkland, including nearby hotel will donate one meal to Rock Creek Park. Local inspiGeorgetown Ministries. The rations, matched with Doner’s Ritz-Carlton Georgetown own penchant for abstract oris also offering “Sip, Savor, ganic art, combine to recreate Shop,” a seasonal packan atmosphere closely linked age bundling valet parking, Photo: Kimpton to the artist’s own studio. shopping bag storage and But before guests can enjoy Kimpton’s renovated Glover Park lunch for $39. A more lavish the park-themed hotel and all Hotel will debut this spring. boutique spa package priced the wonders of spring, they have to get through winter. For that, Philip at $465 includes a 25-minute cranberry and Biggerstaff, chief concierge at Kimpton’s Hotel pomegranate sugar scrub, 50-minute winter facial with Eminence Lip Enhancement and Palomar, offered some advice. Biggerstaff noted that the National Zoo is other goodies. Over at the recently renovated Embassy debuting its male panda cub named Bei Bei on Jan. 16 in what is sure to become a major Row Hotel, its new restaurant, Station Kitchlocal draw. Also, he pointed out that winter en & Cocktails, is serving up a Loaded Mocha is an ideal time to visit local art galleries that that includes spiced rum, espresso, chocolate aren’t swarming with tourists. “My favorite is and RumChata. Guests can also get cozy by the Phillips Collection only a few blocks away the fireplace in the hotel’s lobby with some from Hotel Palomar, or you could check out Hot Spice, a concoction of Cachaça, apple the newly reopened Renwick Gallery after its butter, chai, lemon and hot water. The stately Willard Intercontinental Washtwo-year renovation,” he told us. “Bonus: It’s indoors and always warm, no matter the tem- ington on Pennsylvania Avenue is offering a variety of holiday-themed packages, as well as perature outside.” The concierge offered a few other insider a Christmas Eve dinner, Nutcracker brunch, tips on hidden local treasures to Britain’s Bl- holiday tea and musical performances in the ouin Artinfo blog. Among his finds: the Faint- ornate lobby. Finally, the Marriott Marquis is creating ing Goat gastropub on 14th and U Streets; DNV Rooftop Bar atop the Donovan hotel; its first-ever life-size gingerbread house in Redeem specialty clothing shop; Bourbon its lobby. Using gigantic measures of holiday Coffee Capitol Hill; and the National Portrait baking favorites — 700 pounds of flour, 200 pounds of sugar, 15 pounds of cinnamon and Gallery. Or just sit back and grab a hot cocoa. 250 pounds of candy — the hotel’s 70-mem“When all else fails, the perfect January day in ber culinary team will construct a 10-footthe District has to include a warm cup of cof- high, A-frame gingerbread house. fee or some hot chocolate at Dolcezza.”

Hotel Happenings

Other Holiday Highlights

Hot chocolate is on tap at the Ritz-Carlton Jan. 1 is the last chance to catch a glimpse of on 22nd Street — but not just any hot choco- ZooLights at the National Zoo, featuring more late. The hotel is serving five indulgent, gour- than 40 animated light installations as well as met varieties from around the world, along a photo op with Panda Claws. with a “spiked” alcoholic version, on the WesEnjoy a month of musical performances tend Bistro’s outdoor patio, at the National Christmas replete with outside heatTree in President’s Park on ers and warm pashminas to the Ellipse, where concerts ward off the cold. The hot are held every night at dusk chocolates featured this year until Jan. 1. are inspired by D.C. (flavors Stroll through Tudor Place, are cherry blossom and Virthe mansion built by Martha ginia ham), India, Italy and Washington’s granddaughter France. almost 200 years ago, and Inside, the Ritz’s main attend a gingerbread houseThe Ritz-Carlton is serving an array lobby will be adorned with of indulgent hot chocolate variet- making workshop on Dec. 19 a Wishing Tree decorated ies from around the world. and 20. with holiday wishes from the Photo: Ritz-Carlton D.C. Theatrical traditions to ring children of Martha’s Table, as in the holidays abound, includwell as festive gingerbread ornaments created ing the Washington Ballet’s D.C.-themed renby executive pastry chef John Quinn. Guests dition of “The Nutcracker” at Warner Theatre who purchase a “wish” will receive a ginger(through Dec. 23), complete with England’s bread ornament created by the pastry team King George II as the villainous Rat King, as that can be eaten or used as a Christmas tree well as a Victorian version of “A Christmas decoration. Carol” at Ford’s Theatre (through Dec. 31). On Dec. 6 and 13, the hotel will host a ginAlso check out new (and old) musicals gerbread house decorating class for children, playing throughout the city, including Steve and on Dec. 12 and 19, it will offer a sumptuMartin and Edie Brickell’s “Bright Star” at the ous “Chocolate Decadence” buffet, including a candy cane bar and champagne cocktails. Kennedy Center (through Jan. 11); “Oliver!” For even more spirits, try the Holiday Cheer at Arena Stage (through Jan. 6); and “Motown: at the National Theater (through Mixology Class on Dec. 12 in the newly The Musical” WD Jan. 3). opened Quadrant Bar and Lounge with lead mixologist Christopher Mendenhall, who will teach guests how to make his favorite big- Sarah Alaoui (@musingsdiffused) batch cocktails for holiday entertaining while is a contributing writer for The guests sip on holiday-inspired cocktails and Washington Diplomat.

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THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | January 2016 | 27

WD | Hotels & Travel | France

Bright Future Paris Attacks Dim Festival of Lights, But Lyon Still Shines with Potential •

by Anna Gawel

fter the Islamic State rampage that killed 130 people and injured over 350 in Paris on Nov. 13, the famed City of Lights was shrouded in darkness. That darkness also descended over France’s third-largest city, Lyon, which had to cancel its popular Festival of Lights less than a month after the carnage.

Reeling from the worst attack on France’s soil since World War II, Lyon nevertheless represented a microcosm of the country’s resilience as it transformed its annual light show extravaganza into a more subdued but no less poignant tribute to the victims of the Paris massacre. Instead of welcoming an estimated 3 million people to gather in public spaces, which would have been a security nightmare in the wake of the attacks, city officials distributed and sold 200,000 candles that residents lit in windows across Lyon on Dec. 8 as part of an illuminating act of defiance against terrorism. Proceeds from the sales go to the families of the Paris victims as well as to the children’s charity Rêves. Several iconic buildings and the historic Fourvière Hill that overlooks the city were still lit up, and one of the original installations went ahead as planned but was re-imagined as an homage to the terrorist attack victims, whose names were projected along the quay of the Saône River as part of the fresco “Regards” by Daniel Knipper. Officials admitted that the decision to cancel the massive four-day undertaking — one of the oldest and largest light festivals in the world, and a major economic driver — was a “painful” but “wise” one. “To my way of thinking, protecting the people of Lyon does not mean giving in to terrorists,” said Gérard Collomb, mayor of Lyon. “What they want above all is to sow discord and pit us one against another, to create ruptures in our society between groups according to their origin, their religion and the way they choose to live. I am convinced that Dec. 8 will convey this message with a great deal of strength and dignity.” The scaled-down commemoration is, in fact, reminiscent of the festival’s religious roots, which celebrate the Virgin Mary, Lyon’s patron saint. The underpinnings of the festival can be traced back to 1643, when Lyon was struck by the bubonic plague and officials promised to honor Mary if the town was spared. In September 1852, Lyon was preparing to inaugurate a statue of the Virgin Mary that had been erected next to the Four28 | THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | January 2016

Above, the basilica and historic old town sit atop Fourvière Hill and overlook the city of Lyon. Top photo, residents light candles by the Hìtel de Ville to celebrate the city’s annual Festival of Lights, which this year was scaled down to commemorate the victims of the recent terrorist attacks in Paris.

vière Basilica when flooding from the Saône River delayed the statue’s debut. Festivities were pushed back to Dec. 8, but a violent storm that morning again postponed the celebration. As night fell, however, the weather finally cleared and residents took matters into their own hands, spontaneously lighting up candles in their windows and balconies — echoing the modern-day reincarnation that took place this past Dec. 8. Over the last decade, the Fête des Lumières has evolved into a major cultural and commercial attraction — and a showpiece of urban art. The spectacular open-air light show fills every nook and cranny of the city with elaborate, innovative light displays by artists and designers from around the world. In many ways, the festival is em-

blematic of Lyon’s own journey as a city steeped in rich history and traditions but one that also embraces economic dynamism and diversification. With a population of 2 million that includes the surrounding suburbs, Lyon ranks as the second-largest metropolitan area in France (and the third-largest city after Paris and Marseilles). A UNESCO World Heritage Site, Lyon sits at the confluence of the Saône and Rhône rivers in the heart of the Rhône-Alps region. It is home to both ancient Roman ruins and 135,000 businesses. Lyon is perhaps best known as France’s gastronomic hub, having given the world Paul Bocuse, whose luxury restaurant outside of Lyon received the coveted three-star Michelin rating (and whose teaching institute has churned out a number

Photos: (Top) Muriel Chaulet; (Above) FrÇdÇric Guignard-Perre

Photo: Anna Gawel

of other globally renowned chefs). The city boasts a total of 15 Michelinstarred restaurants, along with a smattering of “bouchon” bistros, a type of eatery distinct to Lyon that serves traditional fare such as duck pâté and quenelle de brochet, a pike fish delicately prepared and poached

in cream sauce. Lyon also bills itself as an arts and culture capital — it is the most culturally significant city in France after Paris — and in that regard, it has a unique connection to Washington, D.C. The highly acclaimed National Orchestra of Lyon, considered one of the best orchestras in Europe, is helmed by American conductor and composer Leonard Slatkin, who served as the music director of the D.C.-based National Symphony Orchestra from 1996 to 2008. “Since being here, I have learned to love the lifestyle and combination of big city enterprise with small village values,” the American maestro said in a Lyon press kit. “The fact that the city supports its cultural institutions so well is remarkable. With a world-class orchestra and opera company … it has become a destination for people around the world, who know Lyon for its food, cinema and culture.” In fact, Lyon is considered the birthplace of cinema. In 1895, brothers Louis and Auguste Lumière invented the first movie camera and screened the world’s first motion picture (which depicted workers leaving their family’s factory). This living cultural legacy permeates the city — the building where the Lumière brothers projected their film, for example, was resurrected in 1998 and is now a 270-seat theater. Over a dozen painted murals also punctuate the façades of buildings throughout Lyon, including a playful mural dedicated to celebrated hometown chef Bocuse, complete with an oldfashioned pastry and bread shop. Beyond its artistic achievements, Lyon prides itself on its innovative, entrepreneurial spirit. For over 2,000 years, silk-weaving was the economic mainstay. Today, however, the economic base has expanded to include banking, biotech, pharmaceuticals, video game software and a thriving start-up sector, among myriad other industries. Lyon generates some 15,000 new businesses each year and is home to the international headquarters of Interpol, Euronews and the International Agency for Research on Cancer. It also has the largest network of municipal libraries in France, with 15 libraries serving over 2.5 million people each year. A few years ago, Lyon signed a contract with Google to digitize 500,000 copyright-free works from its expansive holdings. In addition, the city has partnered with Boston for Big Booster, the first nonprofit international accelerator program for startups to promote cutting-edge innovations in the health, digital, environment and sustainable development fields. Sustainability is a core theme of Lyon’s economic revival, as urban planners strive to build a green, eco-friendly city. Among the im-

Photos: Anna Gawel

The Fourvière Basilica in Lyon is a striking example of Romanesque and Byzantine architecture.

Photo: Muriel Chaulet

Above, Daniel Knipper’s illuminated fresco “Regards” along the quay of the Saône River in Lyon paid tribute to the victims of the Paris terrorist attacks. Below, the Justice Palace is one of many floodlit buildings in Lyon, which is famous for its annual Festival of Lights.

provements, officials have restored river embankments, employed a pioneering bike-sharing system and instituted a smart city strategy with the aim of attracting investment and bolstering jobs while better managing scarce resources. Because of this emphasis on economic innovation, Ernst & Young recently rated Lyon as the ninthmost attractive European city in terms of international investment. Meanwhile, Mercer’s quality of life survey, which analyzes over 220 cities around the world, ranked it as the 39th best place to live, ahead of Paris and London. “In terms of quality of life, Lyon clearly stands out in relation to the main European urban areas thanks to its reasonable cost of living and excellent geographical location,” said Florian Kemmerich, director of Olympus Biotech International, in explaining his company’s decision to set up a subsidiary in Lyon. “France’s disadvantages in terms of tax arrangements and employment laws were very quickly balanced out by Lyon’s dynamic profile. The city has a world competitiveness cluster, Lyonbiopôle, which is a center of expertise in vaccines and diagnostics. So the area has a strong economic profile, particularly with regard to the biotechnology sector.” This amalgamation of new and old is embodied by two of the city’s most striking visual elements: Fourvière Hill and the Musée des Confluences. The historic heart of the city, Fourvière Hill rises above the Saône River and features stunning vistas of the city below. Here, meandering cobblestone streets evoke Old World charm; brightly colored Renaissance buildings reflect the Florentine influences of the wealthy Italian traders and bankers who settled in Lyon; and a maze of

“

Since being here, I have learned to love the lifestyle and combination of big city enterprise with small village values…. It has become a destination for people around the world, who know Lyon for its food, cinema and culture. Leonard Slatkin music director of the National Orchestra of Lyon

passageways and shortcuts known as “traboules” gives way to quaint courtyards that offer shelter from the tourist bustle outside. Anchoring the hill is the 19thcentury Fourvière Basilica, a dramatic example of Romanesque and Byzantine architecture that looms over the city and stands in stark contrast to its newest architectural landmark: the Musée des Confluences, which literally sits at the confluence of the Saône and Rhône rivers. Resembling a gleaming crystaland-steel spaceship of sorts, the museum was designed by the Austrian group Coop Himmelblau to mimic the shape of a cloud. Inside,

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an eclectic hodgepodge of exhibits examines the history of humanity and the planet with everything from dinosaur fossils, moon rocks and Egyptian sarcophagi (think a combination between D.C.’s National Museum of Natural History and the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum). The Confluence Museum is the centerpiece of a major revitalization project to transform a onceblighted industrial area into a bold, modern neighborhood that preserves relics of its gritty past. An old sugar factory, for instance, has morphed into a biennial of contemporary art that showcases whimsical pieces such as a set of

drums that play when a cluster of cherry pits are dropped from the ceiling. Creativity forms the backbone of Lyon’s renaissance as the city looks to capitalize on its past with a forward-thinking eye on the future. In addition to hosting the only biennial of contemporary art in France, Lyon also organizes the largest choreographed parade in Europe — more than 4,000 amateurs rehearse for months with professionals to put on a street show watched by 200,000 spectators — along with an experimental laboratory of urban music that regularly welcomes 100,000 participants. With such events, the city hopes to draw in more tourists, investors, inventors and artists from around the world. Of course, the Fête des Lumières was, and continues to be, the city’s signature undertaking. Officials conceded that they’d be taking an economic hit by toning down this year’s Festival of Lights, although they said it was too early to offer precise figures. Despite the cancelation of the public light installations, large crowds had still flocked to Lyon to pay tribute to the victims of the violence in Paris. Camera-toting tourists packed cafés while shoppers strolled the Rue de la République, an elegant pedestrian strip lined with retail stores. The occasional suspicious package — a term with which any Metro rider is all too familiar — frayed a few nerves and security on the streets was present but not suffocating. But otherwise, the Lyonnaise did what they seem to do best: They adapted to the times and made the best of them. WD Anna Gawel is managing editor of The Washington Diplomat. She visited Lyon in early December as part of a press trip organized by OnlyLyon, a city branding campaign.

Culture arts & entertainment

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DIPLOMATIC SPOUSES

Political Power Couple

ART

Geir H. Haarde, Iceland’s former prime minister, understands the ups and downs of politics better than most — as does his wife, Inga Jona Thordardottir, who was elected twice to the Reykjavik City Council. / PAGE 33

THEATER

Spunky ‘Oliver!’ The “Oliver!” currently at Arena Stage is unlike any “Oliver!” you’ve seen. The reason: Charles Dickens’s classic tale is brilliantly transformed into a modern-day retelling that is doused with startling talent. / PAGE 34

“Vivianna Bangle Watch” by Vivianna Torun Bülow-Hübe PHOTO: COURTESY GEORG JENSEN

CARVING A

DINING

Holiday Cleanse A healthy batch of local D.C. eateries offer diners the chance to cleanse their bodies of the excess calories consumed during the holiday season. / PAGE 35

PATH

In the “Mad Men” era of the 1950s and ’60s, painting, sculpture and architecture were dominated by men. So women turned to alternative avenues and materials like furniture, textiles, ceramics and metals to leave their artistic mark on midcentury modernism, as seen in the new “Pathmakers” exhibition at the National Museum of Women in the Arts. / PAGE 32

FILM REVIEWS

EVENTS

DIPLOMATIC SPOTLIGHT

Five Turkish sisters find themselves trapped by society’s rigid rules. / PAGE 37

Art / Festivals Music / Theater / PAGE 40

Christmas on Embassy Row / American Abroad Media International Student House / PAGE 42 THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | JANUARY 2016 | 31

WD | Culture | Art

Crafty ‘Pathmakers’ Women Found Alternative Ways to Leave Mark on Midcentury Modernism •

BY KATE OCZYPOK

Pathmakers: Women in Art, Craft, and Design, Midcentury and Today THROUGH FEB. 28 NATIONAL MUSEUM OF WOMEN IN THE ARTS 1250 NEW YORK AVE., NW

(202) 783-5000 | WWW.NMWA.ORG

n the “Mad Men” era of the 1950s and ’60s, painting, sculpture and architecture were dominated by men. So women turned to alternative avenues and materials like furniture, textiles, ceramics and metals to leave their artistic stamp. “Pathmakers: Women in Art, Craft, and Design, Midcentury and Today” at the National Museum of Women in the Arts (NMWA) examines the impact these women artists and designers had on midcentury modernism. “For these mid-20th-century women, architecture and industrial design were essentially closed male societies,” said NMWA Director Susan Fisher Sterling. “So they had to create their own professional pathways through ceramics, textiles and metals. They also found freedoms in academia, where their ideas helped inspire the next generation. The resulting serious, conceptually crafted objects helped define midcentury modernism in the U.S.” Alongside furniture and industrial design, the show presents a diverse range of 80 objects by jewelers, ceramicists and textile designers, as well as contemporary work by a newer generation influenced by their PHOTO: MUSEUM OF ARTS AND DESIGN / BY EVA HEYD earlier peers, to demonstrate Over 80 objects demonstrate how women forged a how women carved a niche distinct path in midcentury modernism, including, in a male-dominated era. from clockwise top: Mariska Karasz’s “Transcendence”; The exhibit also focuses Vivian Beer’s “Anchored Candy No. 7”; Eva Zeisel’s specifically on Scandina“Belly Button Room Divider, Prototype”; and Rut Bryk’s untitled ceramic. vian artists such as Rut Bryk, Vuokko Nurmesniemi and Vivianna Torun BülowPHOTO: COLLECTION KAKKONEN / BY NICLAS WARIUS Hübe to highlight the parallels between women designers in the United States and their Nordic counterparts. “It’s important to acknowledge the great contributions women made to midcentury design,” said Virginia Treanor, NMWA associate curator. Treanor noted that while earlier women artists such as Hungarian-born Eva Zeisel and JapaneseAmerican Alice Kagawa Parrott made their marks with materials historically associated with “women’s work,” i.e. home goods, ceramics and textiles, women designers today are embracing and chalPHOTO: ARTIST / WEXLER GALLERY / BY ALISON SWIATOCHA lenging gender norms. As an example, she pointed to “Anchored Can1957 prototype that never went into production, is a simdy No. 7,” a recent work by furniture designer ple, colorful room divider that illustrates both her interest Vivian Beer that boasts a distinctly feminine edge in the organic form as well as her playful sense of humor. achieved by referencing automotive machinery — Other highlights include Marianne Strengell’s “Forecast PHOTO: EVA ZEISEL ARCHIVE / BY BRENT BROLIN usually the purview of men. The resulting piece, Rug,” an aluminum textile that blended the softness and which resembles a cross between a stiletto-heeled shoe and a shiny sports warmth of hand-woven material and helped introduce the industrial matecar, deftly blends masculine and feminine elements. rial into the home market. It was the pioneering work of “pathmakers” like designer Eva Zeisel who The show hop-scotches time periods and materials, at times eschewpaved the way for Beer’s sleek innovations. Zeisel was known for dinner- ing a cohesive narrative, but the eclectic works reinforce the importance ware, tea sets, porcelain china, glasses, lamps, chairs and other items that of women artists to midcentury modernism while doing what the NMWA served both a practical purpose but were also widely recognized for their does best: dispelling gender stereotypes. WD abstract, clean lines and artistic merit. One of the rarest works from Zeisel’s prolific and long career — spanning Kate Oczypok (@OczyKate) is a contributing writer 87 years — is on display in the exhibit. The “Belly Button Room Divide,” a for The Washington Diplomat. 32 | THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | JANUARY 2016

WD | Culture | Diplomatic Spouses

Power Couple Icelanders Navigate Ups and Downs of Politics •

BY GAIL SCOTT

eir H. Haarde is an Icelandic political veteran who has been through electoral success and bruising battles. A former prime minister, foreign affairs minister and finance minister, Haarde was appointed to serve as Iceland’s ambassador to the U.S. a little less than a year ago. His wife, Inga Jona Thordardottir, intimately understands the trials and tribulations of a career in politics, having had one herself. From 1994 to 2002, she was a member of the City Council of Reykjavik, Iceland’s capital and biggest city, where she won two four-year terms. She’s also been a member of her husband’s Independent Party since she was a student at the University of Iceland. “I’ve always had my own career,” she told us. “We have very independent ladies back in Iceland. It was always a balance between family and work. In between when I had young children, I was a housewife.” And a busy one at that. “We have five children, two together and three we brought into the marriage,” Thordardottir said, proudly rattling off details about her brood. “Our oldest Borgar is a 40-year-old attorney; 38-year-old Ilia is finishing her master’s and works in human resources; 34-year-old SylPHOTO: GAIL SCOTT via is a nurse’s assistant; 31-year-old Helga is a psychologist; and our youngest, 26-year-old Hildur, just got her BA in Ambassador of Iceland Geir H. Haarde, pictured with his wife Inga Jona ThordardotEnglish and marketing. We have 11 grandchildren with another one on tir, was recently honored with the Distinguished Alumni Award from the International Student House, where he roomed while attending Johns Hopkins University. the way in January. “Some people like to do only one thing,” said this versatile wife. “I like to have a variety of things in my life.” That philosophy applies to her professional life as well. An economics his U.S. posting last February. Since then, Thordardottir has taken advantage of her break from major, Thordardottir has worked in and out of Iceland’s government. both motherhood and politics to learn more about She was a political assistant to the minister of educaWashington and enjoy some free time. tion and culture, as well as to the minister of health. “I enjoy being on my own. Here, I go alone to the She also worked for several local businesses and was golf course, think tank lectures and area museums,” chairwoman of the Women’s Rights Association of Iceshe said. “I liked doing all sorts of sports when I land and of the Reykjavik City Theatre. was young. With the children, there was no time. At the University of Iceland, Thordardottir served Now that I have time, I’ve taken up golf. In fact, I as vice chair of Independent Party’s Youth Movement. was excited when I heard we were coming to Wash“Years later, that’s how we met — through politics,” she ington because there are good courses here and I’d said of her husband. “I had always known his name. have time. We’ve played in Florida, Virginia and at He went to the United States for his education while Haines Point. In Ireland, it’s an everyman’s sport and I stayed home. He went to Brandeis and then to [the very popular. In Iceland, we have lots of golf courses Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studat home but you have to be ready to go over rocks ies] for a master’s. That’s when he lived at the Internaand over and around water.” tional Student House on R Street, NW. He got another Born and raised in the port town of Akranes, master’s degree from the University of Minnesota.” Thordardottir was an hour away from Reykjavik by Haarde was recently honored, in fact, by the Interboat and two hours away by car. She especially apnational Student House, a nonprofit that houses forpreciates the countryside and the ocean, which is eign students studying in D.C. not surprising considering that as a child, she used The ambassador and his wife are settling into Washto go fishing with her father, the captain of a large ington after a tumultuous period back home. The tail commercial fishing boat. end of Haarde’s term as prime minister, which lasted INGA JONA Today, Thordardottir still goes salmon fly-fishing. from 2006 to 2009, was marked by the financial criTHORDARDOTTIR “I was brought up with this. The season lasts from sis that crippled Iceland’s banking sector, wiping out June to September,” she said, noting that she wears wife of Icelandic Ambassador billions of dollars in savings. His party’s coalition rethe iconic rubber boots and large rubber bib overGeir H. Haarde signed from power amid widespread protests. Haarde alls. “You have to buy a license. That costs $100 and become a prominent casualty of the country’s ecoup, according to how popular and famous the river is.” Her biggest catch nomic collapse, becoming the first Icelandic minister to be indicted for misconduct in office related to the banking meltdown. Although he was weighed nearly 12 pounds. “I knew about ships and sailing — not the usual upbringing for a convicted on one of the charges, he was cleared of the more serious girl, ” she joked. charges and faced no punishment. Today, Thordardottir also enjoys hiking and going for long walks. Haarde acknowledged some mistakes in the financial meltdown but said he was not solely responsible for a complex economic downturn. SEE DIPLOMATIC SPOUSES • PAGE 41 After serving for several years as an independent consultant, he took up

“

I’ve always had my own career…. We have very independent ladies back in Iceland. It was always a balance between family and work.

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THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | JANUARY 2016 | 33

WD | Culture | Theater

Some More Please Arena’s Scrappy ‘Oliver!’ Wows its Way Into 21st Century •

BY LISA TROSHINSKY

Oliver! THROUGH JAN. 3 ARENA STAGE 1101 6TH ST., SW (202) 488-3300 | WWW.ARENASTAGE.ORG

he “Oliver!” currently at Arena Stage is unlike any “Oliver!” you’ve seen. The reason: It’s brilliantly transformed into a modern-day retelling that is doused with startling talent. The script, re-imagined by director Molly Smith, keeps the Tony Award-winning play’s inherent sweetness, sentimentality, humor and powerful musical score. But around every corner lurks a dark, cutting edge made more formidable than usual in this play by her handiwork. Smith has had great success producing musicals at Arena — remember “Oklahoma!” and “Fiddler on the Roof?” So it’s no surprise that she’s raised the bar with this theatrical rendition of the Charles Dickens classic about an orphan boy trying to survive the mean streets of 19th-century Victorian London, which are beset by opportunistic conmen, crafty gangs and double-dealing thieves. This “Oliver!” is set in present-day London because, as Smith points out, there is just as much poverty and homelessness today as there was in the play’s original Dickensian time. And because of this update, the hard-hitting, woeful tale of a destitute society, which has the disadvantage of becoming almost cliché with time, can’t be shied away from in this version made anew. “What does a story written in the last century tell us about our world today?” pondered Smith, who is also the theater’s artistic director. “One in 25 children are living on the streets of London today. The disparity between the rich and the poor is at its highest level since Dickens’s time.” Reinforcing that inequality is Todd Rosenthal’s massive set in the Fichandler’s theater-in-the-round. The set is a visual representation of two contrasting worlds: the haves and the have-nots, a theme well explored by Dickens. Most of the action takes place under a bridge, “which reminds us what it is to live as the underclass,” said Smith. With the exception of the home of Mr. Brownlow (Oliver’s savior), the bridge is where the rest of society lives, i.e. those fortunate enough to not live in an orphanage or be part of a street gang. The bridge itself rises an impressive 14 feet above the stage and seating and runs in two directions, allowing the actors to use the multidimensional space. Other aspects of the setting also powerfully translate to the present. It’s amazing what changing the fashion, gestures and technology does to the time-honored plot. The orphans have spiked, dyed hair; Nancy, Bill Sikes’s abused lover, wears tight-fitting leggings, a leather vest and sports a softened red Mohawk; and Sikes is more Guido than 19th-century British crook, with a gold chain and greased hair. Townspeople take selfies, Fagin presses his coffee and Oliver Twist and Artful Dodger share slick “street” handshakes in the London Underground. Even the orchestration and brilliant choreography are contemporized while combining Victorian-era flair. The opening number, “Food Glorious Food,” features metal plates that the urchins use as percussion instruments. Nancy’s “It’s a Fine Life” is inspired by a funky, rhythm-and-blues pulse, and “Oom-Pah-Pah” leads Act II with couples paired in modern dances. Arena Stage does the ballads justice by preserving their original, pure interpretations.

34 | THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | JANUARY 2016

PHOTOS: MARGOT SCHULMAN

Nine-year-old Jake Heston Miller gives a rousing performance of Charles Dickens’s iconic orphan in “Oliver!” at Arena Stage.

Cherub-like Jake Heston Miller, who plays Oliver, is truly a star in the making. At just 9 years old, he has a crystal-clear, vulnerable voice that will moisten your eyes with classics like “Where is Love?” and “Who Will Buy?” Meanwhile, Eleasha Gamble, as Nancy, belts out an alarming “As Long as He Needs Me” that will give you chills. Gamble’s brilliant portrayal exposes Nancy’s dichotomy — powerful and determined, yet defenseless and exposed. But it is Kyle Coffman as the Artful Dodger who steals the show. It seems the Dodger is artful at more than just picking pockets. First off, Coffman can dance, and choreographer Parker Esse makes him shine. He teases during “Consider Yourself ” with some on-point pencil turns and then breaks loose, dancing on the railings, throwing in some tap moves and leaps, and essentially taking over the stage with limitless exuberance. Coffman is as endearing in his relationships with Oliver and Nancy as he is quick and sprightly on the dance floor. Jeff McCarthy makes a compelling Fagin who doesn’t smack of the anti-Semitism infused into his character in the infamous 1968 film and in Dickens’s novel. He’s also more likable — greedy rather than evil, and more humorous than most Fagins, especially with some creative directing at play’s end. Even his imploring the boys to withstand gunfire for him in “I’d Do Anything” is played off as satire. The other characters who round out the story are just as entertaining. The romance between ghastly Mr. Bumble, played by a larger-than-life Paul Vogt, and powerhouse singer Rayanne Gonzales as Widow Corney is comical. What comes as more of a surprise is the treatment given to funeral takers Mr. and Mrs. Sowerberry, played by the talented Tom Story and Dorea Schmidt. “That’s your Funeral,” a song that didn’t make it into the movie, lends much-needed giggles in a story that is riddled with pathos. This “Oliver!” is still a feel-good musical melodrama: It has a happy ending after all, at least for its main character (spoiler alert). But in this gutsy, honest portrayal that adds 21st-century heft to the original, you’ll liable to feel the highs and lows more intensely. WD Lisa Troshinsky is the theater reviewer for The Washington Diplomat.

WD | Culture | Dining

Post-Holiday Health Eateries Offer Nutritious, Calorie-Conscious Alternatives •

BY MICHAEL COLEMAN

h, January — the first month of the year, and for many of us, a hopeful chance to cleanse the body of excess calories enjoyed during the holiday season. We won’t mention any resolutions, but since it is January, The Diplomat is suggesting a few dining establishments in the Washington area that are attuned to healthy diets. It’s not hard to find nutritious, calorie-conscious eating options in and around the nation’s capital, but you do have to look for them. Since discovery is one of the best parts of eating out, we hope you’ll use this month to get out of your culinary comfort zone and try some places that not only please the palate but respect your health.

HÄLSA The word hälsa is Swedish for health and you’ll find plenty of well-prepared, affordable and healthy options at this bright and efficient eatery on the Catholic University campus in Brookland, a rapidly gentrifying neighborhood in Northeast Washington. In reality, Hälsa is pretty much fast food with a setup that is reminiscent of a Chipotle. But thanks to a Nordic design aesthetic and the bright-eyed cast of college kids working the counter, it has a more pleasant and relaxing vibe. The eatery — owned by the proprietors of Bidwell, an upscale Southern restaurant in Union Market — serves breakfast, as well as lunch and dinner. It describes itself as “globally inspired and sustainably sourced.” We started with soups: a pumpkin butternut squash and a bowl of pho. The squash soup arrived steaming hot and fragrant. Upon the first taste, it was clear this was a broth-based — not cream-based soup, which diminishes your calorie intake significantly. While it lacked the typically creamy texture, the flavor was strong and slightly peppery, with little flecks of fried sage adding a bit of earthy, autumn flavor. The more plentiful bowl of pho was also appealing, Hälsa with daikon, shaved carrots, cilantro, basil and bean sprouts 655 MICHIGAN AVE., NE and flecked with chunks of grilled chicken sausage. Hälsa’s (202) 957-1946 pho is a satisfying bowl of warm deliciousness, especially for $6.50. WWW.EATHALSA.COM The menu’s mainstay, dubbed the “market plate,” allows you to choose one protein — such as chicken breast, miso-glazed tofu or pan-seared salmon — and two sides. For our main course, we tried the salmon and the pulled pork. Tender and smoky-sweet, the pork seemed to lack any fatty skin — again shaving calories off of more traditional versions. We had a root vegetable puree on the side and were pleased with the choice. A combination of celery root, butternut squash and parsnip made for an appealing and hearty starch. The sharp-flavored celery root tasted especially fresh and gave the side an intriguing dimension. The salmon — not quite the size of a full filet — was well-seared with a nearperfect consistency and vibrant color and smoky flavor. A fellow diner told us she ordered it regularly. We added grilled Brussels sprouts and braised red cabbage. The sprouts were well-seasoned if slightly oily, while the braised cabbage added an attractive shade of amethyst and a sweetness that offset the grilled, faintly salty flavor of the cabbage. One other element of the Hälsa dining experience that sets it apart from oth-

PHOTO: GORAN FOTO

Above, Ambar recently debuted 15 open-face sandwiches served “European-style with a Balkan twist.” At left, Hälsa, which is the Swedish word for health, serves calorie-conscious fare in a casual setting.

er upscale, fast-casual restaurants: It serves several quality and fairly priced glasses of wine and offers craft beers on tap.

JRINK If you’d like to do more than just eat healthier in January, you might consider drinking to your health instead. Juicing, PHOTO: HÄLSA that is. JRINK, launched by former World Bank financial analysts Jennifer Ngai and Shizu Okusa last year, bills itself as “the fresh-pressed solution for life-pressed people.” The idea is that Washington’s busy professionals can drink their meals — or at least some of their meals — on the go, cutting time and calories without sacrificing the things that give us energy and vitality. “It’s a very efficient way to get your nutrients,” Ngai said during a recent tasting at the small chain’s Foggy Bottom location. For example, if you want green leafy vegetables, JRINK allows you to skip the big, cumbersome salad. A 16-ounce bottle of Fuel Me Up No. 2 — filled with spinach, parsley, cucumber, broccoli, JRINK green apple and ginger — contains several salads worth of vegetables. 1323 CONNECTICUT AVE., NW Or, if you’re feeling a bit toxic after a few too many li(202) 957-1946 bations, you might opt for Black Magic, which contains WWW.JRINKJUICERY.COM something called “activated charcoal,” as well as aloe vera water, grape and lemon. The end result tastes something like grape lemonade without a trace of charcoal flavor, thankfully. For what it’s worth, activated charcoal is already in a lot of water and air filters, and it works to draw out toxins by trapping chemicals. JRINK grounds it up so fine that it adds a tasteless yet detoxifying property to the juice. JRINK’s juices and raw nut milks are $9 to $11 apiece. For those who want to go beyond the occasional healthy meal in a bottle, JRINK also offers threeand five-day cleansing plans, or “reboots,” priced from $165 to $265, including SEE DINING • PAGE 36 THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | JANUARY 2016 | 35

WD | Culture | Dining

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Dining CONTINUED • PAGE 35

home delivery. Patrons can customize a three- or five-day plan in which they will ingest nothing except JRINK. Health experts say such a regimen can help us refocus on what we put in our bodies and correct poor nutritional choices. If you’re looking to make a major dietary correction this month, JRINK could be a good place to start.

AMBAR Finally, with more restaurants focusing on healthy options and even calorie counts for Washington’s hyper-driven and motivated fitness types, we want to mention a local favorite that is jumping headlong into the trend. Ambar, a hip and tasty Balkan restaurant on Capitol Hill, has added calorie counts to

its healthy new lunch menu, which debuted in late October. The menu features an array of soups and salads, as well as 15 open-face sandwiches served “European-style with a Balkan twist.” Examples off the new gluten-free sandwich menu include the Vienna schnitzel with crispy veal, ajvar emulsion, frisee salad, tartar sauce and sundried tomatoes (at only $8 and 309 calories); fried chicken with almond, walnut, apple wasabi slaw, mescaline mix, lemon vinaigrette and celery ($6 and 341 calories); and smoked salmon with aged kajmak spread, cucumber, capers, olive tapenade, red onion and dill ($8 and 258 calories). A crispy cheese of smoked gouda, organic slaw, tartar sauce and ajvar emulsion ($7 and 278 calories) also sounds appealing. Hälsa, JRINK and Ambar are just a few of many Washington restaurants that prove eating out does not have to be a nutritional disaster. Our waistlines salute them for it. WD Michael Coleman is a contributing writer for The Washington Diplomat.

36 | THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | JANUARY 2016

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WD | Culture | Film

Film Reviews

by Ky N. Nguyen

•

Film Reviewer for the washington diplomat

Caged ‘Mustang’

Coming of Age in ‘Brooklyn’

Mustang

Brooklyn

(Turkish with subtitles; 94 min.; scope)

(English; 118 min.; scope)

Landmark’s Bethesda Row

AFI Silver Theatre • Angelika Mosaic

Opens Fri., Dec. 25

The Avalon Theatre

★★★★✩

Landmark’s Atlantic Plumbing Landmark’s E Street Cinema

★★★★✩

urkish-born writer-director Deniz Gamze Ergüven’s remarkable feature film debut, “Mustang,” leaves an unforgettable impression. “Mustang” is built on an intelligent screenplay that Ergüven co-wrote with Alice Winocour that combines drama, tragedy and humor. Orphaned for a decade after their parents passed away, five beautiful sisters have been raised by their grandmother. After the last day of school, the sisters play on the beach and swim in the Black Sea with some boys from school. When they come home, their grandmother (Nihal G. Koldas) beats each of them, one at a time. It turns out that an older neighbor spotted them, misinterpreted their innocent frolicking and reported it as a cardinal sin. Suddenly, youngest sister Lale (Günes Sensoy), Nur (Doga Zeynep Doguslu), Ece (Elit Iscan), Selma (Tugba Sunguroglu) and Sonay (Ilayda Akdogan) are locked down in their residence, effectively under house arrest. Their old-school Uncle Erol (Ayberk Pekcan) clears the place of bad influences such as computers, phones and print media. At times, the girls manage to escape to catch a soccer game or see boys, but otherwise their existence is bleak. Bars are installed on the windows — like burglar bars, but designed to keep the girls inside — while the older girls become subject to humiliating virginity inspections by male doctors who check to see if their hymens are intact. The grandmother adorns the sisters in baggy dresses. The village elders teach them domestic chores like cooking, serving tea, sewing,

A Photo: Cohen Media Group

Five sisters in a coastal Turkish village lead a bleak existence after their conservative relatives effectively put them under house arrest in “Mustang.” etc. Neighboring families even begin to come over to go wife shopping, presenting their sons for marriage. Yet the sisters maintain their close-knit bond, resist their repressive environment as they can and strive to define their own identity. The nonprofessional ensemble cast’s heartfelt performances reinforce the sense of hyperrealism. Striking cinematography astutely captures the imagery that creates the unique, insular world inhabited by the film’s protagonists, while a stirring score amplifies the haunting, otherworldly atmosphere of a coastal village in northern Turkey. “Mustang” held its world premiere at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival, where it received standing ovations and won the Europa Cinemas Prize. “Mustang” is France’s official submission for the Best Foreign Language Film Academy Award.

‘Youth’: A State of Mind Youth (English; 118 min.; scope) Landmark’s Bethesda Row Opens Fri., Dec. 11

★★★★✩

t the 2015 Austin Film Festival, “Brooklyn” proved to be a big crowd-pleaser for film festival audiences. That had been the case all year since the warm welcome for its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival. “Brooklyn” is actually a good old-fashioned classic movie dressed up in the fancy duds of an art house film. The mainstream appeal makes “Brooklyn” a safe holiday pick for an outing at the movies. “Brooklyn” is by no means edgy or adventurous filmmaking. But it is really good at what it does, a credit to helmer John Crowley’s steady direction as well as screenwriter Nick Hornby’s thoughtful script adapted from Colm Tóibín’s popular 2009 novel. Young Irish rising star Saoirse Ronan also shines as Eilis Lacey, a mousy Irish immigrant who transforms into a swan in the heartfelt coming-of-age tale and romance drama. Facing dim prospects in her native village in 1950s Ireland, Eilis reluctantly leaves her widowed mother and successful, pretty sister Rose (Fiona Glascott). In search of a better life, Eilis sets sail to America, an especially scary journey by herself. She’s sent to Brooklyn into the care of a kindly Irish priest (Jim Broadbent), who sets her up with a sales job in a posh department store. He also places her in a boarding house where she joins other Irish girls, under the oversight of Ma Kehoe (Julie Walters), the wisecracking lady of the house. Even though she’s the lucky recipient of a soft landing, Eilis is terribly lonely and homesick at first. She eventually develops some confidence from learning accounting in night school at Brooklyn College. Her fortunes pick up further when Tony (Emory Cohen), a kind Italian-American young man, meets her at a dance and asks her out. He becomes her boyfriend, providing her with warm love and support. However, a tragic turn of events takes Eilis on an unexpected trip back to Ireland, where she seeks closure. Her village turns out to offer new possibilities that did not previously exist, including a respectable accounting position and a highly eligible suitor, Jim (Domhnall Gleeson). In actuality, the opportunities were probably never possible if she had not gone to America. Eilis now finds herself with the luxury — and conundrum — of having the option to shape her life.

elebrated Italian writer-director Paolo Sorrentino (“The Great Beauty,”“Il Divo”) takes another stab at making an English-language feature with “Youth.” The second time’s the charm, with markedly better overall results than “This Must Be the Place.” Often compared to Federico Fellini, Sorrentino continues to provide his audience with sweeping viewpoints full of extravagant sights and sounds. “Youth” is a cinematic pleasure from the start, with a stunning opening sequence that showcases a singing performance. The linguistic switch to English provides the director with a unique opportunity to work with two legendary English-speaking actors, Brit Michael Caine and American Harvey Keitel, who as usual do far more than earn their keep. In fact, the leading duo’s tour-de-force performances approach the best of their careers. They are assisted by sparkling turns from a star-studded supporting cast, including British actress Rachel Weisz, American actor Paul Dano and a whopper of an appearance by classic Hollywood movie star Jane Fonda. Retired composer-conductor Fred Ballinger (Caine) and filmmaker Mick Boyle (Keitel) have been friends for a long time. On holiday at a spa in the Swiss Alps, where Fred has vacationed for over two decades, both are contemplating the approaching

Photo: Gianni Fiorito / Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation

Michael Caine, left, and Harvey Keitel give tour-de-force performances as two men approaching the twilight of their artistic careers in “Youth.”

twilight of their artistic careers, but they have different endgames in mind. Mick has tapped a bunch of young screenwriters to complete the script for “Life’s Last Day,” his next film and undefined “testament.” Meanwhile, 80-year-old Fred resists his spirited daughter and assistant Lena’s (Weisz) pleas to come out of retirement. He declines the queen’s emissary (an exquisite Alex Macqueen), who offers knighthood as a reward for one final turn conducting his most well-known composition, citing “personal reasons.” The old pals fondly reminisce about their careers and lives, but “Youth” is much more than a lot of chatter from veteran artists. In Sorrentino’s hands, the screen overflows with ravishing imagery, a stirring soundscape full of emotion and larger-thanlife characters. Fonda takes the cake by summoning her inner diva to play Brenda, an over-the-top movie star who is Mick’s fiery, long-time muse.

Photo: Kerry Brown / Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation

Emory Cohen, left, and Saoirse Ronan find love in “Brooklyn.” THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | January 2016 | 37

WD | Culture | Film

Cinema Listings *Unless specific times are listed, please check the theater for times. Theater locations are subject to change.

Arabic Theeb Directed by Naji Abu Nowar (UAE/Qatar/Jordan/U.K., 2015, 100 min.) While war rages in the Ottoman Empire, Hussein raises his younger brother Theeb (“Wolf”) in a traditional Bedouin community that is isolated by the vast, unforgiving desert. The brothers’ quiet existence is suddenly interrupted when a British Army officer and his guide ask Hussein to escort them to a water well located along the old pilgrimage route to Mecca. Landmark’s E Street Cinema

Quar des Orfevres Directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot (France, 1947, 106 min.) When a lecherous old moneybags turns up dead, the showgirl he was pursuing, Jenny Lamour, becomes the prime suspect. But crafty Inspector Antoine wants to take a closer look at Jenny’s associates in and out of showbiz, including jealous husband Maurice and her photographer gal pal Dora. AFI Silver Theatre Sun., Dec. 20, 11:30 a.m.

The Lady in the Van Directed by Nicholas Hytner (U.K., 2016, 104 min.) In 1973, the residents of the leafy London enclave of Camden Town found their liberal pieties tested by the arrival of an eccentric, elderly vagrant who lived out of her van and upset the neighborhood’s prevailing pretensions of charity and inclusiveness. Angelika Mosaic Opens Fri., Jan. 22

Macbeth

Brooklyn Directed by John Crowley (Ireland/U.K./Canada, 2015, 111 min.) An Irish immigrant lands in 1950s Brooklyn, where she quickly falls into a new romance. When her past catches up with her, however, she must choose between two countries and the lives that exist within. Angelika Mosaic

Directed by Justin Kurzel (U.K./France/U.S., 110 min.) Macbeth, a Thane of Scotland, receives a prophecy from a trio of witches that one day he will become King of Scotland. Consumed by ambition and spurred to action by his wife, Macbeth murders his king and takes the throne for himself. Angelika Mosaic Landmark’s E Street Cinema

Carol

The Revenant

Directed by Todd Haynes (U.K./U.S./France, 2015, 118 min.) Set in 1950s New York, a departmentstore clerk who dreams of a better life falls for an older, married woman. Angelika Mosaic Opens Fri., Dec. 25

Directed by Alejandro Gonzalez Iñárritu (U.S., 2015, 156 min.) In the 1820s, a frontiersman, Hugh Glass, sets out on a path of vengeance against those who left him for dead after a bear mauling. Angelika Mosaic Opens Fri., Jan. 8

Directed by Tom Hooper (U.K./Germany/U.S., 2015, 120 min.) In early 1920s Copenhagen, Danish artist, Gerda Wegener painted her own husband, Einar Wegener, as a lady in her painting. When the painting gained popularity, Einar started to adopt a female persona and named himself Lili Elbe. With his feminism passion and Gerda’s support, Elbe attempted first-ever male to female sex reassignment surgery. Angelika Mosaic Landmark’s E Street Cinema

orphaned grandson, he struggles to go on with his lifelong acting career like he’s used to (French and English). National Gallery of Art Sat., Dec. 26, 4 p.m.

In 1962, Alfred Hitchcock and a 30-year-old François Truffaut sequestered themselves in a windowless Hollywood office for a weeklong conversation. The result: the seminal book “Hitchcock/Truffaut,” published a half century ago, dissecting every film Hitchcock had made until then (English, French and Japanese). Landmark’s E Street Cinema

English

The Danish Girl

Youth Directed by Paolo Sorrentino (Italy/France/Switzerland/U.K.,

Georgian The President Photo: Sony Classics

Géza Röhrig stars as a Jewish prisoner who is forced to assist the Nazis in the machinery of large-scale extermination in “Son of Saul.”

2015, 118 min.) A retired orchestra conductor is on holiday with his daughter and his film director best friend in the Alps when he receives an invitation from Queen Elizabeth II to perform for Prince Philip’s birthday (English, Spanish and Swiss German). Landmark’s E Street Cinema

Farsi Avalanche Directed by Morteza Farshbaf (Iran, 2015, 90 min.) In celebration of the Iranian Film Festival’s 20th anniversary, acclaimed actress Fatemeh Motamed-Arya appears in person to present her latest film and discuss her illustrious career. In “Avalanche,” she plays a veteran nurse hired to care for a critically ill woman during a snowstorm.

National Gallery of Art Sun., Jan. 31, 4 p.m.

The Cow Directed by Dariush Mehrjui (Iran, 1969, 104 min.) There are other films about men and cows, but they can hardly be called love stories, nor do they powerfully explore madness, solitude, and obsession as this film does. This milestone of Iranian New Wave cinema tells the story of a poor villager whose only source of joy and livelihood is his cow, which provides milk for the village. One night the cow is mysteriously killed, and that’s when the madness, or transformation, begins. National Gallery of Art Sat., Jan. 9, 1 p.m.

Jafar Panahi’s Taxi Directed by Jafar Panahi (Iran, 2015, 82 min.) The affable director crisscrosses Tehran behind the wheel of a taxi, giving rides to a variety of denizens, ranging from a pirated DVD dealer to his charmingly chatty young niece, to the human rights lawyer who worked with him when he was in prison. National Gallery of Art Sat., Jan. 23, 2 p.m.

In the Heart of the Sea

The Night it Rained, or the Epic of the Gorgan Village Boy

Directed by Ron Howard (U.S., 2015, 121 min.) Based on the 1820 event, a whaling ship is preyed upon by a giant whale, stranding its crew at sea for 90 days, thousands of miles from home. Angelika Mosaic

Hitchcock/Truffaut Directed by Kent Jones (France/U.S., 2015, 82 min.)

THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | January 2016

Photo: Philippe Halsman / Cohen Media Group

Iconic directors François Truffaut and Alfred Hitchcock brainstorm together in “Hitchcock/Truffaut.”

38 | THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | January 2016

Directed by Kamran Shirdel (Iran, 1967, 40 min.) This satirical documentary offers a crash course on 1960s Iran. A story about a heroic village boy who prevented a train disaster appears in a newspaper and spreads quickly. The incident, reported on and challenged by local officials and journalists, leads to confusion, with nobody knowing

exactly who saved whom. National Gallery of Art Sat., Jan. 2, 4 p.m.

Risk of Acid Rain Directed by Behtash Sanaeeha (Iran, 2015, 105 min.) Contemporary Iranian poet Shams Langeroodi plays recently retired worker Manoochehr. Left with few friends and an ailing mother, Manoochehr feels aimless and out of balance, so he resumes his former routine. Then, one day, he decides to try to find an old friend in Tehran. National Gallery of Art Sun., Jan. 3, 4 p.m.

Tales Directed by Rakhshan Bani-E’temad (Iran, 2014, 88 min.) Retrospective in scope, “Tales” weaves together a series of short films (which are subject to less scrutiny from Iranian authorities than their full-length counterparts are) featuring a number of characters from Rakhshan BaniE’temad’s previous work. The stories offer a surprisingly candid look at problems ranging from Iran’s corrupt bureaucracy to single motherhood to drug addiction and the AIDS crisis. National Gallery of Art Sat., Jan. 2, 2 p.m.

French I’m Going Home (Je rentre a la maison) Directed by Manoel de Oliveira (France/Portugal, 2001, 90 min.) The comfortable daily routines of aging Parisian actor Gilbert Valence, 76, are suddenly shaken when he learns that his wife, daughter and son-in-law have been killed in a car crash. Having to take care of his now-

Directed by Mohsen Makhmalbaf (Georgia/France/U.K./Germany, 2014, 115 min.) Inspired by the Arab Spring, this satirical, suspenseful contemporary allegory is set in an unnamed country. When a rebellion topples his administration, the cruel titular leader goes on the run in disguise with his young grandson. Forced to beg for food and shelter, the undercover despot learns just how loathed he is. National Gallery of Art Sun., Jan. 17, 4 p.m.

Hungarian Son of Saul (Saul fia) Directed by László Nemes (Hungary, 2015, 107 min.) In the horror of 1944 Auschwitz, a prisoner forced to burn the corpses of his own people finds moral survival upon trying to salvage from the flames the body of a boy he takes for his son (Hungarian, Yiddish, German and Polish). Area theaters Opens Fri., Jan. 15

Italian The Wonders (Le meraviglie) Directed by Alice Rohrwacher (Italy/Switzerland/Germany, 2015, 112 min.) A family of beekeepers living in stark isolation in the Tuscan countryside finds the dynamic of their overcrowded household disrupted by the simultaneous arrival of a silently troubled German teenaged boy taken in as a farmhand and a reality TV show intent on showcasing the family (Italian, French and German). Landmark’s E Street Cinema

. 1 / THE

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WD | Culture | Events

Events Listings

THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | January 2016 a multiplicity of ideas and identities emerging within contemporary Latin American art. Featuring 22 artists from 12 countries across the Americas, this exhibition explores the permeable boundaries and dimensions of life through interrelated themes of scale and place, human and animal bodies. Throughout four intersecting “streams” — Bestiary, Cosmos, Topologies and Bodies in Exile — the display stages movement and displacement, dwelling on crossings both serendipitous and transgressive. OAS Art Museum of the Americas

**Admission is free unless otherwise noted. All information on event venues can be found on our site at www.washdiplomat.com. Times and locations are subject to change. Unless listed, please call venue for specific event times and hours of operation.

ART Opening Dec. 3

Indian Ocean Experience This installation of 20 works is part of the museum’s “Connecting the Gems of the Indian Ocean: From Oman to East Africa” project made possible through the Sultan Qaboos Cultural Center in Washington, D.C. The selection of works gives a hint of the diverse artistic materials and techniques found throughout the Indian Ocean region, from the skill of Omani smiths to the beauty of Indian patterns, the ingenuity of Swahili coast artisans and the creativity that emerged through commercial and cultural trade among these and other groups. National Museum of African Art Through Jan. 2

Peacock Room Remix: Darren Waterston’s Filthy Lucre “Peacock Room REMIX” centers on “Filthy Lucre,” an immersive interior by painter Darren Waterston who reinterprets James McNeill Whistler’s famed Peacock Room as a resplendent ruin, an aesthetic space that is literally overburdened by its own excesses — of materials, history, and creativity. Like “Filthy Lucre” and the original Peacock Room, this exhibition invites viewers to consider the complex relationships among art, money and the passage of time. Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Through Jan. 3

Age of Lawyers: The Roots of American Law in Shakespeare’s Britain In the 800th anniversary year of the Magna Carta, “Age of Lawyers” offers a close-up look at the rapid increase of lawyers and legal actions in Shakespeare’s Britain, from the law’s impact on daily life to major political and legal disputes — some invoking the Magna Carta — that still influence American politics and government. Folger Shakespeare Library Through Jan. 3

Bold and Beautiful: Rinpa in Japanese Art The modern term Rinpa (Rimpa) describes a remarkable group of Japanese artists who created striking images for paintings, ceramics, textiles and lacquerware. Freer Gallery of Art Through Jan. 3

Enigmas: The Art of Bada Shanren (1626-1705) Born a prince of the Ming imperial

Through Feb. 3

Hidden Identities: Paintings and Drawings by Jorge Tacla Photo: Chris Lee / Bucklesweet Media

“Salute to Vienna” at the Music Center at Strathmore on Jan. 3 rings in the New Year with traditional Viennese music and dance.

house, Bada Shanren (1626–1705) lived a storied life, remaking himself as a secluded Buddhist monk and, later, as a professional painter and calligrapher. Featured in this exhibition are examples of his most daring and idiosyncratic works, demonstrating his unique visual vocabulary. Freer Gallery of Art Through Jan. 3

Le Onde: Waves of Italian Influence (1914-1971) This exhibition of nearly 20 works from the museum’s collection follows Italian contributions to the transnational evolution of abstraction, through movements and tendencies such as futurism, spatialism, op art and kinetic art. Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden Through Jan. 10

Gauguin to Picasso: Masterworks from Switzerland, The Staechelin and Im Obersteg Collections This exhibition pays tribute to two pioneering supporters of the arts, Rudolf Staechelin (1881-1946) and Karl Im Obersteg (1883-1969), both from Basel, who championed the work of impressionist, post-impressionist and School of Paris artists, providing a platform to distinguish collecting philosophies and situate them within the history and reception of modern art. The exhibition features more than 60 celebrated paintings — masterpieces created during the mid-19th and 20th centuries by 22 worldfamous artists. The Phillips Collection Jan. 16 to May 30

The Lost Symphony: Whistler and the Perfection of Art As part of “Peacock Room REMIX,” this exhibition reconstructs how Whistler’s unrealized quest for “the perfection of art” intersected with less-rarified

40 | THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | January 2016

concerns about patronage, payment, and professional reputation. Freer Gallery of Art Through Jan. 17

Esther Bubley Up Front Esther Bubley (1921-98) was a photojournalist renowned for her revealing profiles of the United States and its people in the 1940s, ’50s, and ’60s. Bubley’s talent for creating probing and gently humorous images of Americans contributed to her success in photojournalism. National Museum of Women in the Arts Jan. 20 to March 27

Shakespeare, Life of an Icon We will never have a photograph of William Shakespeare or a recording of his voice, but we can catch glimpses of the man in this stunning array of documents from his own lifetime. “Shakespeare, Life of an Icon” brings together some of the most important manuscripts and printed books related to Shakespeare’s life and career, giving us a firsthand look at the most famous author in the world. Folger Shakespeare Library

Through Jan. 31

Sōtatsu: Making Waves Tawaraya Sōtatsu (act. ca. 1600–40), a fountainhead of Japanese painting and design, is one of the most influential yet elusive figures in Japanese culture. Sōtatsu’s work is instantly recognized by its bold, abstracted style, lavish swaths of gold and silver and rich jewel tones. Much of the artist’s life, however, remains a mystery. How a working-class owner of a Kyoto fan shop transformed into a sophisticated designer with a network of aristocratic collaborators is still an enigma — and the focus of this in-depth examination of masterpieces. Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Through Jan. 31

Streams of Being Drawn from the permanent collection of the Art Museum of the Americas, “Streams of Beings” brings to light

With the earliest works in the series dating to 2005, “Hidden Identities” by Chilean artist Jorge Tacla is composed of a rich series of paintings and drawings that explore central themes of mutability of identity, collective memory, the physical and psychological fallout of trauma, and the omnipresent yet latent potential for change. The inspiration for this body of work comes from the social, political and historical events of the artist’s life during the chaos of the Chilean coup d’état. OAS Art Museum of the Americas Through Feb. 28

Designing America: Spain’s Imprint in the U.S. Through a mix of historic documents, text narration, images and audiovisual elements, this exhibit examines the important contributions that Spain made to the construction of U.S. territory, landscape and cities, starting with the first settlements to the present day. This cross-sectional survey enlightens the historical, political and cultural events that have marked the course of 500 years of common history between the United

States and Spain. Former Spanish Residence Through Feb. 28

Pathmakers: Women in Art, Craft, and Design, Midcentury and Today This exhibition presents dynamic women designers and artists from the mid-20th century and today making groundbreaking commercial and industrial designs, maintaining craft traditions and incorporating new aesthetics into fine art. National Museum of Women in the Arts Through March 13

Celebrating Photography at the National Gallery of Art: Recent Gifts Marking the culmination of a yearlong celebration of photography at the museum, this installation brings together an exquisite group of gifts, ranging from innovative photographs made in the earliest years of the medium’s history to key works by important 20th-century artists and contemporary pieces that examine the ways in which photography continues to shape our experience of the modern world. National Gallery of Art Through March 20

Power and Pathos: Bronze Sculpture of the Hellenistic World Some 50 bronze sculptures and related works survey the development of Hellenistic art as it spread from Greece throughout the Mediterranean between the fourth and first centuries B.C. Through the medium of bronze, artists were able to capture the dynamic realism, expression, and detail that characterized the new artistic goals of the period. National Gallery of Art

Jan. 29 to May 22

Salon Style: French Portraits from the Collection Presenting works at the salon — an exhibition sponsored by the Royal Academy of Art in Paris — marked success for artists in 18th-century France. The famed artist Élisabeth Louise Vigée-LeBrun was among the first women to exhibit at the event, yet she was by no means the only one. Drawn from the museum’s rich collection, this focus exhibition visualizes the world of the art salon and reveals how French women artists inspired each other as well as male artists who noted their great success. National Museum of Women in the Arts

“As You Like It” marks Synetic Theater’s 12th silent Shakespeare adaptation.

Photo: Johnny Shryock

WD | Culture | Events

Through April 24

Postwar Germanic Expressions: Gifts from Michael Werner The Phillips presents recently acquired gifts of German and Danish art to the museum’s permanent collection, generously given by art collector Michael Werner. A selection from the 46 works are on view, painting, sculpture and works on paper by Georg Baselitz, Jörg Immendorff, Per Kirkeby, Markus Lüpertz and A. R. Penck. The Phillips Collection Through May 15

Louise Bourgeois: No Exit Louise Bourgeois’s ties to surrealism and existentialism will be explored through 17 works on paper and four sculptures. National Gallery of Art Through June 5

Perspectives: Lara Baladi Egyptian-Lebanese artist Lara Baladi experiments with the photographic medium, investigating its history and its role in shaping perceptions of the Middle East, particularly Egypt, where she is based. Arthur M. Sackler Gallery

DANCE Jan. 19 to 24

The National Ballet of Canada: Wheeldon’s The Winter’s Tale The National Ballet of Canada brings another fabulous international success story from British choreographer Christopher Wheeldon and his acclaimed creative team: the U.S. premiere of a dazzling new ballet based on Shakespeare’s classic play. Tickets are $39 to $125. Kennedy Center Opera House Jan. 27 to 31

American Ballet Theatre: Ratmansky’s The Sleeping Beauty The beloved story of the princess Aurora — cursed to sleep for 100 years by an evil sorceress until awakened by a prince’s kiss — is certain to cast a spell with the D.C. premiere of Alexei Ratmansky’s monumental new staging. Tickets are $49 to $195. Kennedy Center Opera House

MUSIC Sun., Jan. 3, 3 p.m.

Salute to Vienna When great singers, ballet and ballroom dancers join 50 orchestral musicians to celebrate the New Year, the result is nothing short of magic. Praised by the Chicago Tribune as being “like whipped cream in a cup of good Viennese coffee,” the Salute to Vienna New Year’s Concert has been bringing the very best of Viennese culture to cities across the United States and Canada for over 20 years. Viennese conductor Matthias Fletzberger conducts the Strauss Symphony of America, with Viennese soprano Natalia Ushakova and New

York-based tenor Brian Cheney joining for heartfelt renditions of operetta melodies. Meanwhile, the gorgeously costumed members of the Europaballett St.Pölten and the International Champion Ballroom dancers twirl through the Strauss waltzes that Vienna is known for. Tickets start at $49. Music Center at Strathmore Jan. 14 to 16

National Symphony Orchestra: Neeme Järvi, Conductor Neeme Järvi conducts Prokofiev’s “Violin Concerto No. 1,” featuring the National Symphony Orchestra debut of violinist Baiba Skride. The program also includes Sibelius’s “Symphony No. 2” and the first NSO performances of Eller’s “Five Pieces for String Orchestra.” Tickets are $15 to $89. Kennedy Center Concert Hall Fri., Jan. 15, 8 p.m.

Falu’s Bollywood Orchestra Fronted by one of India’s most influential musicians — who’s collaborated with masterminds including Yo-Yo Ma and A.R. Rahman — this ethereal ensemble combines the timeless elegance of Bollywood’s musical golden age with an inventive modern style. Tickets are $22 to $27 Wolf Trap Sat., Jan. 23, 2 and 8 p.m.

The Band of the Royal Marines: Featuring the Pipes, Drums, and Highland Dancers of the Scots Guards Two of Great Britain’s most respected military musical institutions take the stage in full regalia, bringing to life the magnificent pageantry of British tradition and history. Tickets are $31 to $52. George Mason University Center for the Arts Sat., Jan. 30, 2 p.m.

Washington Performing Arts Presents Behzod Abduraimov, Piano The grand prize winner of the 2009 London International Piano Competition, Behzod Abduraimov has awed listeners worldwide in concert and on two acclaimed Decca releases, balancing youthful fireworks with shimmering lyricism. In his Washington Performing Arts debut, he presents Chopin’s bravura “Four Ballades” and Mussorgsky’s masterwork, “Pictures at an Exhibition.” Tickets are $60. Kennedy Center Terrace Theater

THEATER Through Jan. 3

Kiss Me, Kate As they try to stage a musical version of Shakespeare’s “The Taming of the Shrew,” sparks fly on and off stage between the show’s director and his leading lady — and ex-wife. Add to the mix passionate young lovers, plus a few musically inclined gangsters’ heavies, and the result is a sharp and witty night with some of Cole Porter’s most immortal songs. Tickets are $20 to $118.

Shakespeare Theatre Company Sidney Harman Hall Through Jan. 3

Oliver! Charles Dickens’s unforgettable characters burst to life in the Tony Award-winning musical that blends the chaotic worlds of Victorian London with 2015 London to infuse a modern edge to the classic story about an innocent orphan living amongst double-dealing thieves and conmen. Please call for ticket information. Arena Stage Through Jan. 3

Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind Returning to the Woolly stage, the Neo-Futurists race against the clock to perform 30 miniature plays in just 60 minutes — with new plays added every night. Audiences choose the order, so every performance is a unique experience in this eccentric mini-play showcase that’s become a staple of Chicago’s underground theater scene for more than 25 years. Tickets start at $35. Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company

tells the uproarious story of Monty Navarro, a distant heir to a family fortune who sets out to jump the line of succession by — you guessed it — eliminating the eight pesky relatives who stand in his way. Tickets are $64 to $199. Kennedy Center Eisenhower Theater Jan. 15 to Feb. 21

Sweat A group of close friends shares everything: drinks, secrets and laughs. But when rumors of layoffs shake up the local steel mill, the fragile bonds of their community begin to fray and a horrific crime sends shock waves across two generations in this play based on America’s industrial decline at the turn of the millennium. Tickets are $40 to $90. Arena Stage Through Jan. 17

As You Like It All the world’s a stage for Synetic’s 12th silent Shakespeare adaptation. The witty and resourceful Rosalind,

along with her devoted cousin Celia, are forced to flee their lives of luxury for an unfamiliar world: the bleak streets of a rusted urban wasteland. Their grim exile is transformed once Rosalind encounters the lovelorn Orlando, who fails to recognize the object of his affections in disguise. Synetic’s purely physical interpretation promises to be a thoughtprovoking exploration of the nature of traditional gender roles, societal class and love with visual imagery and original music that speaks for itself. Tickets start at $35. Synetic Theater Jan. 26 to March 6

A Midsummer Night’s Dream It is easy to lose yourself in the enchanted woods of Shakespeare’s timeless romantic tale. This magical comedy of tangled lovers, mischievous fairies — and a band of players to boot — is given a fresh, new staging by Aaron Posner, with D.C. favorites Holly Twyford as Bottom and Erin Weaver as Puck. Tickets are $35 to $75.

Folger Theatre Jan. 29 to March 6

The City of Conversation Georgetown hostess Hester Ferris runs in an elite circle, opening her home for political foes to lay down arms and raise a glass. When her son’s formidable, conservative wife comes on the scene, the parlor pleasantries of D.C.’s past descend into entrenched posturing and an ultimatum that could implode the family. Please call for ticket information. Arena Stage Jan. 30 to Feb. 21

OLIVERio: A Brazilian Twist A spunky girl on the streets of Rio masquerades as a boy to look for her mother, only to discover a new kind of family, in this world premiere musical inspired by Charles Dickens’s classic novel and featuring original songs and music. Tickets are $20. Kennedy Center Family Theater

Jan. 5 to Feb. 14

The Critic & The Real Inspector Hound Experience a madcap night of life in the theater with two classic behindthe-scenes comedies, “The Critic” and “The Real Inspector Hound.” First, playwright and adaptor Jeffrey Hatcher returns with a fresh take on Richard Brinsley Sheridan’s 18thcentury romp “The Critic,” a whirlwind comedy about bad theater, worse playwrights and, worst of all, the critics. The laughs continue with Tom Stoppard’s absurdist tour-de-farce “The Real Inspector Hound,” an ingenious play-within-a-play in which two critics find themselves caught up as unsuspecting suspects while they watch a classic 1950s-style whodunit in the style of Agatha Christie. Please call for ticket information. The Shakespeare Theatre Through Jan. 10

Bright Star From Grammy and Emmy winner Steve Martin and Grammy-winning singer-songwriter Edie Brickell comes a sweeping tale of love and redemption set against the rich backdrop of the American South in the 1920s and ’40s. Tickets are $45 to $175. Kennedy Center Eisenhower Theater Through Jan. 10

Matilda The Musical Based on the beloved novel by Roald Dahl, “Matilda The Musical” is the story of an extraordinary girl who, armed with a vivid imagination and a sharp mind, dares to take a stand and change her own destiny. Tickets are $30 to $204. Kennedy Center Opera House Jan. 13 to 30

A Gentleman’s Guide to Love & Murder This Tony-winning musical comedy

Photo: Gail Scott

From left, producer of the Food and Fun Reykjavik Food Festival Baldvin Jónsson, Ambassador of Iceland Geir H. Haarde, his wife Inga Jona Thordardottir and chef Siggi Hall celebrate the festival’s 15th anniversary at a reception held at the Icelandic Residence in D.C.

Diplomatic Spouses Continued • page 33

“I love to be inside too. I like reading about history and contemporary issues. And I like to knit and needlepoint.” Traveling is one of her favorite pastimes. She has visited almost 30 U.S. states, more than 50 countries and five continents. “When I was young, I traveled with a friend; our first trip was to the United States. I remember going to New York for 10 days. We came to Washington when I was 16 and saw all the memorials. I’ve been traveling all my life. I think islanders go abroad and see other places. We like it. Almost all Icelanders have a passport.” “Washington has changed a lot in 48 years,” she said, recalling her first trip here as a teenager. “I have fond memories of seeing the Washington and Lincoln Memorials,

Arlington National Cemetery and the cherry blossoms. I really enjoy Washington as a city. It is full of history and art. It’s nice to walk around in. It’s a dynamic city — bright and beautiful. It was my first experience overseas. I have traveled here many times since. It is so clean and beautiful and, now, safer.” The experience is, of course, vastly different being a teenager and a diplomatic spouse. “Here, I am the wife of an ambassador. I am meeting people from all over and learn different cultures. Washington is embracing the diplomats who are coming here to serve. The [State Department] Protocol Office really makes you feel at home.” Musing on the differences between politics and diplomacy, the former city council member noted that, “In politics, you speak for yourself or your constituents. In diplomacy, you are a spokesperson for your country and the government.” WD Gail Scott is a contributing writer for The Washington Diplomat.

THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | January 2016 | 41

WD | Culture | Spotlight

Diplomatic Spotlight

January 2016

Ambassador Insider Series with Iraq The Washington Diplomat hosted its second Ambassador Insider Series with Iraqi Ambassador Lukman Faily at the Westin Georgetown Washington DC hotel on Dec. 3. Over 100 people came out to hear the ambassador talk about Iraqi politics, its fight against the Islamic State, Syria’s civil war, U.S. relations and Iran’s nuclear program. The networking event, which features a discussion followed by reception, follows the Oct. 6 Ambassador Insider Series featuring Azerbaijani Ambassador Elin Suleymanov. Kristin Roach of the World Affairs Council, Lameis Mohammed Dawood Al Ameeri, Ambassador of Iraq Lukman Faily and Don Pruett of Quinn Evans Architects

David Hamod, president and CEO of the National U.S.-Arab Chamber of Commerce; Ambassador of Monaco Maguy Maccario Doyle; Ambassador of Georgia Archil Gegeshidze; Victor Shiblie, publisher and editor in chief of The Washington Diplomat; Ambassador of Iraq Lukman Faily; his wife Lameis Mohammed Dawood Al Ameeri; Ambassador of Tunisia Fayçal Gouia; and The Washington Diplomat news editor Larry Luxner

Head of Press and Public Diplomacy Section at the European Union Delegation James Barbour; Senior Press Officer at the EU Delegation Kasper Zeuthen; and Paul Hamill of Logan International Relations

Edona Dervisholli, Gabriel Laizer of the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, Valerie Poirier of the Foreign Service Institute and Robert Marciniszyn of Montblanc

Rob Smart and Michael Albin

Julia Quinn of the Westin Georgetown, Michael Hellmann of the Westin Georgetown and Nicole Majorczyk of the Fairmont Washington, D.C.

Ambassador of Iraq Lukman Faily is interviewed by The Washington Diplomat news editor Larry Luxner.

Soraia Angiuoli of Johns Hopkins Medicine International, Rachel Shackelford and Heidi Kirby of the Trump International Hotel in D.C.

Matthew Mitchell, Danny Dubbaneh and Laura Lombard

Rajaa Elalami of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and Billy Mellon

42 | THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | January 2016

Former spokesman at the U.S. Embassy in China Nolan Barkhouse, Stefan Gudjohnsen of Globescope and Mike Shea of Globescope

Iman Awad of the Maryland Governor’s Office of Community Initiatives and Alberto Alvarez

Ambassador of Iraq Lukman Faily greets Ambassador of Tunisia Fayçal Gouia.

Sophie Kupradze and Ambassador of Georgia Archil Gegeshidze

David Hamod, president and CEO of the National U.S.-Arab Chamber of Commerce, and Ambassador of Monaco Maguy Maccario Doyle

Jaclyn McKenney of Interstate Hotels & Resorts, Faez Yahya and Azza Bell

Ambassador of Iraq Lukman Faily

Arthur Murphy and Carol Thompson

An audience member asks a question.

WD | Culture | Spotlight

America Abroad Media ‘Power of Film’ Awards Journalists and filmmakers rubbed shoulders with ambassadors, lawmakers, State Department officials and movie stars at America Abroad Media’s third annual “Power of Film” awards dinner, held Oct. 28 at Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium. This year’s winners included two films: 2013 Academy Award winner “Argo,” about the U.S. hostage crisis in Tehran 36 years ago, and “Difret,” an Ethiopian docudrama that chronicles a crusading lawyer’s defense of a teenage girl accused of murdering the man who raped her.

Honoree Noura Al Kaabi, CEO of twofour54 Abu Dhabi, and Ambassador of the UAE Yousef Al Otaiba Former CIA and NSA Director Gen. Michael Hayden and Dina Powell of Goldman Sachs

Mark Dubowitz of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies; Rep. Ed Royce (R-Calif.), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee; and Peter Freeman

Ben Affleck, director of “Argo,” appears on screen

Pat Taylor, wife of the late Canadian Ambassador Ken Taylor

America Abroad Media founder and President Aaron Lobel and Ambassador of Canada Gary Doer

Honoree Mithat Bereket, a Turkish journalist and broadcaster; America Abroad Media President Aaron Lobel; and “Difret” honorees director Zeresenay Mehari; producer Mehret Mandefro; Noura Al Kaabi; Meaza Ashenafi; and Aberash Bekele Photos: Joy Asico

Ambassador of Bahrain Shaikh Abdullah bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Khalifa, right, and a guest

Ambassador of Azerbaijan Elin Suleymanov and his wife Lala Abdurahimova

Jonna and former CIA officer Tony Mendez, who was portrayed in “Argo”

Pakistani actress Reema Khan

Latvian Tree Lighting The Embassy of Latvia hosted a Christmas tree lighting ceremony and holiday concert featuring Latvian saxophonist Artis Gaga on Dec. 7. Among the treats: traditional Latvian cocktails and savory buns stuffed with bacon and ham. Photos: Kate Oczypok

Ambassador of Latvia Andris Razans and Gunta Razane

Photographer and filmmaker Gaston Lacombe and Lars Grava of the World Bank

Svetlana Mogilnijsaja and Latvian Embassy Defense, Military, Air and Naval Attaché Ivo Mogilnijs

Marina Oberlander of the Victims of Communism Memorial samples a traditional Latvian cocktail served by Peter Bicevskis.

David Pursley and Liva Lejniece of Liv In Real Estate

Jazz historian Katja von Schuttenbach and Liana Eglite of the Latvian Embassy

Anita Brikman of the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization and Scott Spear

The International Patient Program at the George Washington University Hospital A boutique concierge program offering care for our diplomats and international community:

• Language interpretation • Appointment scheduling

• Medical cost estimates • Insurance settlements

For more information, call 202-715-5100 or email helen.salazar@gwu-hospital.com

www.gwhospital.com/international

Photo: Shiv Vachhani Physicians are not employees or agents of this hospital. 150079

THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | January 2016 | 43

WD | Culture | Spotlight

Diplomatic Spotlight

January 2016

International Student House

United Nations Day at Oneness School

The International Student House (ISH-DC), a nonprofit housing center on R Street, NW, held its annual Global Leadership Awards Dinner Oct. 22. The event was attended by members of Congress, business executives and diplomats from 18 countries. Former National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft received the Global Leadership Award; Anne-Marie Slaughter, head of the New America Foundation, received the Global Educator Award; and Icelandic Ambassador Geir H. Haarde, who was a resident of ISH while he attended Johns Hopkins University, was given the Distinguished Alumni Award. Established in 1936, ISH-DC was originally located at 1708 New Hampshire Ave., NW and accommodated 18 students. It is now home to 93 students.

Representatives from 73 embassies gathered Oct. 23 at the Oneness-Family School in Chevy Chase to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the United Nations. Proudly carrying their national flags, ambassadors from Senegal, Serbia, Congo and elsewhere participated in a procession of nations after watching student performances from around the world.

Photo: Gail Scott

Ambassador of Japan Kenichiro Sasae and Nobuko Sasae, the evening’s diplomatic chairs

First row from left, Ambassador of Cameroon Joseph Foe-Atangana; Ambassador of Senegal Babacar Diagne; Ambassador of Micronesia Asterio Takesy; Ryan Kehmna of the United Nations Foundation; second row from left, Ambassador of Serbia Derd Matkovic; Chargé d’Affaires of the Marshall Islands Embassy Junior Aini; and Ambassador of the Democratic Republic of Congo Francois Balumuene

Photo: Derek Parks / Skewed Patella Photography

Ambassador of Iceland Geir H. Haarde

Photo: Gail Scott

Rear Adm. Susan Blumenthal and Anne-Marie Slaughter Photo: Gail Scott

Ambassador of Egypt Yasser Reda and Nahla Reda

Ambassador of Nicaragua Francisco Obadiah Campbell Hooker and Miriam Hooker Photo: Derek Parks / Skewed Patella Photography

Photo: Derek Parks / Skewed Patella Photography

Ambassador of Italy Claudio Bisogniero, Executive Director of the International Student House in D.C. Tom O’Coin and Laura Denise Bisogniero

Ambassador of the Democratic Republic of Congo Francois Balumuene

Photo: Gail Scott

Robert Eklund, an ISH-DC resident scholar from Finland, and Lt. Gen. Brent Scowcroft

Photo: Derek Parks / Skewed Patella Photography Photo: Gail Scott

Retired U.S. Ambassador Walter Cutler and Didi Cutler

Ambassador of Cameroon Joseph Foe-Atangana and Ambassador of Serbia Derd Matkovic talk with a student.

Photo: Gail Scott

Japanese Embassy Social Secretary Kiyomi Buker, former U.S. Deputy Chief of Protocol Lawrence Dunham and Deborah Dunham

Debbie Meadows, wife of Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), and Laura Denise Bisogniero, wife of the Italian ambassador

Ambassador of Micronesia Asterio Takesy

Ambassador of Senegal Babacar Diagne

Ambassadors and Representatives from Serbia, Cameroon, Senegal, Ghana, Oneness Head of School Andrew Kutt, Bangladesh, Colombia, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Algeria, the United Nations Foundation and Armenia

Chargé d’Affaires of the Marshall Islands Embassy Junior Aini Photos: Onenes-Family School

Norwegian Christmas Tree at Union Station A Christmas tree decorated with shiny CDs? That’s how the Royal Norwegian Embassy drew attention to Norwegian popular music when presenting its traditional 32-foot Christmas tree at Union Station on Dec 1. For the 19th year in a row, Norway gave the tree to the people of Washington in recognition of the strong friendship between the two nations and of Norway’s gratitude for assistance during and after World War II. The tree was lit by Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) in the presence of Santa Claus and other dignitaries. Local students from Leckie Elementary School also listened to Ida Jenshus, a two-time recipient of Norway’s equivalent to the Grammy Awards. 44 | THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | January 2016

Photos: Kate Oczypok

Ida Jenshus performs for students

WD | January 2016

Around the World holidays ALBANIA

BOTSWANA

CROATIA

Jan. 1: New Year’s Day

Jan. 1: New Year’s Day Jan. 2: Public Holiday

Jan. 1: New Year’s Day

BRAZIL

Jan. 1: Liberation Day

ALGERIA Jan. 1: New Year’s Day

ANDORRA Jan. 1: New Year’s Day Jan. 6: Three Kings’ Day

ANGOLA Jan. 1: New Year’s Day Jan. 4: Martyrs of the Colonial Repression Day

ANTIGUA and BARBUDA Jan. 1: New Year’s Day

ARGENTINA Jan. 1: New Year’s Day

ARMENIA Jan. 1-2: New Year’s Holiday Jan. 6: Armenian Christmas

AUSTRALIA Jan. 1: New Year’s Day Jan. 26: Australia Day

AUSTRIA Jan. 1: New Year’s Day Jan. 6: Epiphany

AZERBAIJAN Jan. 1: New Year’s Day Jan. 20: Martyrs’ Memorial Day

BAHAMAS Jan. 1: New Year’s Day

BAHRAIN Jan. 1: New Year’s Day

BANGLADESH Jan. 1: New Year’s Day

BARBADOS Jan. 1: New Year’s Day Jan. 21: Errol Barrow Day

BELARUS

Jan. 1: New Year’s Day

BRUNEI Jan. 1: New Year’s Day

CUBA CYPRUS

BOSNIAHERZEGOVINA Jan. 1-2: New Year’s Holiday

Jan. 1: New Year’s Day

MAURITIUS

PORTUGAL

Jan. 1: New Year’s Day

MEXICO

RUSSIA

Jan. 1: New Year’s Day

Jan. 1: New Year’s Day Jan. 7: Russian Orthodox Christmas

KAZAKHSTAN

MICRONESIA

Jan. 1: New Year’s Day Jan. 3: Anniversary of the 1966 Uprising

Jan. 1: New Year’s Day

DENMARK

GHANA

Jan. 1-2: New Year’s Holiday

KENYA

MOLDOVA

Jan. 1: New Year’s Day

BURMA (MYANMAR)

DJIBOUTI

Jan. 1: New Year’s Day

Jan. 1: New Year’s Day Jan. 7-8: Christmas Holiday

ST. KITTS and NEVIS

Jan. 4: Independence Day

Jan. 1: New Year’s Day

Jan. 1: New Year’s Day Jan. 6: Epiphany

KUWAIT

MONGOLIA

Jan. 1: New Year’s Day

BURUNDI

Jan. 1: New Year’s Day

GRENADA

KYRGYZSTAN

MOROCCO

Jan. 1-2: New Year’s Holiday

Jan. 1: New Year’s Day

Jan. 1: New Year’s Day Jan. 7: Orthodox Christmas

Jan. 1: New Year’s Day Jan. 11: Independence Manifesto Day

ST. VINCENT and THE GRENADINES

BURKINA FASO

Jan. 1: New Year’s Day

CAMBODIA

Jan. 1: New Year’s Day

DOMINICA DOMINICAN REPUBLIC

Jan. 1: New Year’s Day

GREECE

GUATEMALA

LAOS

Jan. 1: New Year’s Day

Jan. 1: New Year’s Day Jan. 6: Epiphany Jan. 21: Day of the Virgin of Altagracia Jan. 26: Birthday of Juan Pablo Duarte

CANADA

EAST TIMOR

Jan. 1: New Year’s Day

HAITI

CAPE VERDE

ECUADOR

Jan. 1: Independence Day

Jan. 1: New Year’s Day

HONDURAS

EL SALVADOR

Jan. 1: New Year’s Day

HUNGARY

EQUATORIAL GUINEA

Jan. 1: New Year’s Day

LIECHTENSTEIN

Jan. 1: New Year’s Day

ICELAND Jan. 1: New Year’s Day

Jan. 1: New Year’s Day Jan. 2: St. Berchtold’s Day Jan. 6: Epiphany

Jan. 1: New Year’s Day Jan. 7: Victory Over Genocide Regime

CAMEROON

Jan. 1: New Year’s Day Jan. 20: National Heroes’ Day

CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC Jan. 1: New Year’s Day

CHAD Jan. 1: New Year’s Day

CHILE Jan. 1: New Year’s Day

CHINA

ERITREA Jan. 1: New Year’s Day

ESTONIA Jan. 1: New Year’s Day Jan. 6: Epiphany

FINLAND

Jan. 1: New Year’s Day

POLAND

Jan. 1: New Year’s Day

GERMANY

Jan. 1: New Year’s Day Jan. 6: Epiphany

BOLIVIA

Jan. 30: King Abdullah’s Birthday

MAURITANIA

Jan. 1: New Year’s Day Jan. 2: St. Berchtold’s Day

Jan. 1: New Year’s Day Jan. 1: Day of Restoration of Czech Independence

BELGIUM

Jan. 1: New Year’s Day Jan. 10: Traditional Day

Jan. 7: Christmas Day Jan. 19: Epiphany

SWITZERLAND

Jan. 1: New Year’s Day

BENIN

Mail to: p.o. box 1345, silver spring, mD 20915-1345

PHILIPPINES

Jan. 1: New Year’s Day

CZECH REPUBLIC

COLOMBIA

Jan. 1: New Year’s Day

E-mail to: news@washdiplomat.com

MARSHALL ISLANDS

BULGARIA

Jan. 1: New Year’s Day

BELIZE

Fax to: The washington Diplomat at: (301) 949-0065

Jan. 1: New Year’s Day Jan. 6: Epiphany

Jan. 1: New Year’s Day Jan. 7: Orthodox Christmas Jan. 1: New Year’s Day

send us Your holidays & Appointments

CONGO, DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF Jan. 1: New Year’s Day

CONGO, REPUBLIC OF Jan. 1: New Year’s Day

FIJI

Jan. 1: New Year’s Day Jan. 6: Epiphany

FRANCE Jan. 1: New Year’s Day

GABON Jan. 1: New Year’s Day

Jan. 1: New Year’s Day

GUINEA-BISSAU Jan. 1: New Year’s Day

GUYANA

Jan. 1: New Year’s Day

LATVIA Jan. 1: New Year’s Day

LEBANON Jan. 1: New Year’s Day

LESOTHO Jan. 1: New Year’s Day

LIBERIA Jan. 1: New Year’s Day

INDIA

LITHUANIA

Jan. 26: Republic Day

Jan. 1: New Year’s Day

INDONESIA

LUXEMBOURG

Jan. 1: New Year’s Day

IRELAND

MACEDONIA

Jan. 1: New Year’s Day Jan. 25: Tu B’Shevat

Jan. 1-2: New Year’s Holiday Jan. 7: Orthodox Christmas

ITALY

MADAGASCAR

Jan. 1: New Year’s Day Jan. 6: Epiphany

Jan. 1: New Year’s Day

JAMAICA

Jan. 1: New Year’s Day Jan. 15: John Chilembwe Day

ISRAEL

Jan. 1: New Year’s Day

JAPAN

MALAWI

RWANDA

Jan. 1: New Year’s Day

ST. LUCIA

Jan. 1: New Year’s Day

MOZAMBIQUE

SENEGAL

Jan. 1: New Year’s Day

NAMIBIA

SERBIA

Jan. 1: New Year’s Day Jan. 1: New Year’s Day

Jan. 1-2: New Year’s Holiday Jan. 7: Orthodox Christmas

NEW ZEALAND

SEYCHELLES

NETHERLANDS

Jan. 1-2: New Year’s Holiday

NICARAGUA Jan. 1: New Year’s Day

NIGER Jan. 1: New Year’s Day

NIGERIA Jan. 1: New Year’s Day

NORWAY Jan. 1: New Year’s Day

OMAN

Jan. 1-2: New Year’s Holiday

SIERRA LEONE Jan. 1: New Year’s Day

SINGAPORE

TANZANIA Jan. 1: New Year’s Day Jan. 12: Zanzibar Revolution Day

THAILAND Jan. 1: New Year’s Day

TOGO Jan. 1: New Year’s Day Jan. 13: National Day Jan. 24: Economic Liberation Day

TONGA Jan. 1: New Year’s Day

TRINIDAD and TOBAGO Jan. 1: New Year’s Day

TUNISIA Jan. 1: New Year’s Day

TURKEY Jan. 1: New Year’s Day

TURKMENISTAN Jan. 1: New Year’s Day

UGANDA Jan. 1: New Year’s Day Jan. 26: NRM Anniversary Day Jan. 1: New Year’s Day Jan. 7: Orthodox Christmas Day

Jan. 1: Establishment of the Slovak Republic Jan. 6: Epiphany

SLOVENIA

SOLOMON ISLANDS

PAPUA NEW GUINEA

Jan. 1: New Year’s Day

SLOVAKIA

PALAU

Jan. 1: New Year’s Day Jan. 9: Martyr’s Day

TAJIKISTAN

UKRAINE

Jan. 1: New Year’s Day

PANAMA

Jan. 1: New Year’s Day

Jan. 1-2: New Year’s Holiday

Jan. 1: New Year’s Day

SYRIA

UNITED ARAB EMIRATES Jan. 1: New Year’s Day

UNITED KINGDOM Jan. 1: New Year’s Day

Jan. 1: New Year’s Day

URUGUAY

SOUTH AFRICA

Jan. 1: New Year’s Day Jan. 6: Children’s Day

Jan. 1: New Year’s Day

SOUTH KOREA Jan. 1: New Year’s Day

UZBEKISTAN Jan. 1: New Year’s Day

VENEZUELA

Jan. 1: New Year’s Day

SPAIN

Jan. 1: New Year’s Day

PARAGUAY

Jan. 1: New Year’s Day Jan. 6: Epiphany

ZAMBIA

COSTA RICA

GAMBIA Jan. 1: New Year’s Day

Jan. 1: New Year’s Day Jan. 14: Coming of Age Day

MALAYSIA

Jan. 1: New Year’s Day

CÔTE D’IVOIRE

GEORGIA

JORDAN

MALTA

PERU

Jan. 1: New Year’s Day

SWEDEN Jan. 1: New Year’s Day Jan. 6: Epiphany

Jan. 1: New Year’s Day

ZIMBABWE Jan. 1: New Year’s Day

THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | JANuAry 2016 | 45

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