“I dream of writing a dual language poem,” Maged Zaher says. “But it needs to be for a reason – it can’t be just a gimmick.” The Egyptian poet, who published his first collection just a few years ago, has been attracting wider attention in English-language circles since the release of his third book, Thank You for the Window Office (2012). The collection, which was warmly reviewed in the L.A. Times, investigates cross-sections of place, time, and identity. It follows Zaher’s debut, Portrait of the Poet as an Engineer (2009) and his postcard-shaped The Revolution Happened and You Didn’t Call Me (2012), written mostly in Cairo in 2011.

At twenty-two, Amr El Salanekly has won the 2012 Clinton Global Initiative fellowship, co-founded a social incubator and an educational platform for underprivileged kids, turned down a job with Bangladeshi Nobel Laureate Mohammad Yunus’ Grameen Bank, and raised hundreds of thousands of Egyptian pounds for community projects in Egypt, while completing his bachelor’s degree at the German University in Cairo.

Professor Heidi Lane of the Naval War College suggests that prudence not intervention is the best course of action in Syria in a conversation with Sarwar Kashmeri,  senior fellow at the Atlantic Council. (8 minute audio interview)

"Assad must go" seems to be the only refrain in Washington and Brussels. However, America’s national interests may lie in a different direction. Kurt Volker, former US Ambassador to NATO, joins in conversation with Sarwar Kashmeri, senior fellow at the Atlantic Council. (8 minute audio podcast)

The euro is in danger. Greece’s exit is imminent. Are Portugal and Spain next? That’s what the media headlines tell us. Brown Brothers Harriman’s Marc Chandler begs to differ. He tells Sarwar Kashmeri, senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, that the glue that holds the eurozone together is stronger than the media reports. (8.5 minutes)

Some six months after the end of the war in Libya the situation on the ground appears unstable and chaotic. Is what one sees in Libya simply the normal chaos that precedes a new state? Sarwar Kashmeri, senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, speaks with Dartmouth Professor Dirk Vandewalle, a noted expert on Libya. (8.5 minutes)

The US and the Netherlands have long enjoyed strong economic ties. American exports to the Netherlands exceed $35 billion a year, the Dutch have invested over $238 billion in the United States, and some 1600 U.S. companies have offices in the Netherlands. Sarwar Kashmeri, senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, explores the impact of the Dutch Government’s collapse with Juurs Eijsvoogel, International Affairs Correspondent, NRC Handelsblatt.

When Damon Wilson, US security expert and executive vice president of the Atlantic Council, visited Bratislava in 2005, he was working to prepare the Bush-Putin summit that the Slovak capital hosted that year. Seven years on Wilson returned to discuss security challenges at the Bratislava Global Security Forum held in mid April.