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Since the onset of the pandemic, much of life, school, office, shopping, entertainment, dating and even exercise has shifted from the real world to the virtual world. For many, it has been a painful, frustrating experience. For others, it has been liberating and highly productive. For all, we will inevitably emerge changed by the experience. In this episode of New Thinking for a New World we explore living online with a woman whose job it is to make the experience as productive and pleasant as possible. Jaime Teevan is Microsoft’s Chief Scientist for Experiences and Devices, where she is helping to create the future of productivity.

Pascal Lamy, former Director General of the World Trade Organization, is arguably one of the most prominent, thoughtful and enthusiastic supporters of a global leadership role for Europe. He deeply believes that the world needs Europe’s brand of “civilized globalization” which he describes as dramatically different from the American or Chinese version—more human, more equitable and more sustainable.   But is the Europe that seems more divided—north versus south, east versus west—than united really ready to lead?  If so, how?  If so, who?  In this episode of New Thinking for a New World, Lamy offers some intriguing answers, further developed in his Strange New World: Geoeconomics vs. Geopolitics

2020 will probably be remembered as the year of COVID. But perhaps more importantly, to our collective futures, it's the year that saw the emergence of the scientist as an accepted, necessary player in public policymaking. Probably not since Sputnik and the space race have scientists and science been so visible in the halls of power. Our guest in this week's New Thinking for a New World podcast, has long worked at the intersection of science, politics, and policy. Dr. Ali Nouri, a molecular biologist, is the President of the Federation of American Scientists.

2020 will be remembered as the Pandemic Year, when a deadly pathogen somehow moved from bat to human—and the rest is history still being written. Six out of 10 infectious diseases are zoonotic: everything from COVID and the other coronaviruses to rabies, West Nile, even the plague. In a Croesus-like effort to break the cycle, Denmark recently killed 17 million farmed mink to try to prevent further human infection—but that seems immoral as well as stupid.   Dr. Gladys Kalema-Zikusoka has a better idea. Dr Gladys, as she is known, believes that zoonotic disease is controllable by simultaneously working to improve the health of humans and animals, at the points where they meet. Her work, primarily with the mountain gorillas of Uganda's Bwindi Impenetrable National Park, has contributed not only to resurgence in the gorilla population, but also to an improvement in the health and welfare of the human communities that live around the Park.  She explains he approach in this episode of New Thinking for a New World.

The U.S. election has come, but not quite gone as President Trump continues to resist the otherwise apparent victory of Joe Biden. Notwithstanding that drama, what did the voting tell us about America, Americans, and democracy? Scott Miller, political and business consultant, and Josh Steiner, investor and adviser to Bloomberg LP, are deeply immersed in U.S. politics, from significantly different perspectives. In this episode of New Thinking for a New World, they dissect the voting and the candidates. Six months ago, in our “The American Condition” episode they were optimistic that the U.S. would cope with the stresses of a difficult, partisan year. Are they still?

Once again, the Amazon is burning—and deforestation may be approaching a tipping point that could turn the world’s largest rain forest into dry savanna or even dessert.  What are the potential consequences?  Why aren’t we terrified?  Who should be doing what?   André Guimarães, executive director of IPAM Amazonia, one of the premier research organizations studying the Amazon, has answers in this episode of New Thinking for a New World.

The competition between China and the United States is the defining geopolitical reality of the 21st century. The evolution of its new Great Game will determine whether our collective future will be one of prosperity or disaster.   In this episode of New Thinking for a New World, Alan Stoga talks to Kishore Mahbubani, the renowned Singaporean global strategist.  He knows both super powers, understand the risks of a potential collision and has ideas about how to avoid one.  His most recent book—as well as this conversation—asks, Has China Won?    

The United Nations turned 75 this year—but the pandemic overwhelmed its birthday party. The UN, built in a different world, has succeeded in its core mission: preventing World War III. But is the UN, as it is now constructed, relevant to the problems of the 21st century? In this episode Alan Stoga talks to Jan Eliasson, a Swedish and global diplomat who served as Deputy Secretary-General as well as President of the UN General Assembly, about a world that seems unwilling to embrace global solutions for global problems.

Do you think we live in a world that is increasingly dangerous, full of not just Great Power competitors, but potential enemies? A world of winners and losers, where conflict and even war are possible?   Such a world is described by General H.R. McMaster, a highly decorated U.S. military officer, former national security advisor and historian in his most recent book, Battlegrounds. In this episode of New Thinking for a New World he discusses with host Alan Stoga how he believes the United States and like-minded countries can maneuver through today’s complicated global realities to produce peace and prosperity for their citizens.

Like a great magician, the pandemic has drawn our attention away from things that are hiding in plain sight. One of those has been the plight of millions of refugees and migrants who are in refugee camps or trying to escape from war, violence, poverty or other scourges. In this episode, Myrto Xanthopoulou a consultant on migration issues who recently was on Lesbos, Greece, on a fact finding mission, Mike Niconchuk, neuroscientist and conflict researcher based in the Za'atari refugee camp in Jordan, and Megan Lopéz who heads the International Rescue Committee's work in Latin America describe the realities on the ground. It’s not pretty.

The world's a mess.  The great powers today, the Chinese and the Americans, seem to disagree on most things. The UK has left the EU and the Europeans are split North against South, East against West. China's pushing its neighbors. Russia's pecking at Europe's borders. Although each of those has its own story, is there something more fundamental going on? Are the geopolitical tectonic plates shifting? In this episode of New Thinking for a New World Alan Stoga looks for answers from Robin Niblett, who has led Chatham House, one of the world’s premier think tanks, since 2007 and is an expert on British, European and American foreign policies.  

South Sudan celebrated its hard-won independence in 2011, but today is considered one of the most fragile, even failed states in the world.  What went wrong?  Why are democratic governance and prosperity so elusive for the people of Sudan and much of the rest of the Horn of Africa? Peter Biar Ajak has answers and ideas for a better future. Ajak—a South Sudanese political activist, economist and former political prisoner—recently fled to asylum in the United States. He spoke with Alan Stoga in this episode of New Thinking for a New World.

Closed borders, hoarded medical equipment, confused policies. By any measures, the pandemic has not been EU's finest hour. But could it been bad enough that Europe's leaders now know that they must do better? Might the failures of the last months produce a more successful future for Europe? Ana Palacio, former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Spain and a leading European and Foreign affairs scholar, Magnus Schöldtz, former Ambassador at the Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs and Advisor at the Wallenberg Foundations, talk about Europes challenges with Alan Stoga in this week's “New Thinking for a New World” podcast.

Turkey and Greece are locked in a struggle in the Eastern Mediterranean that feels like it belongs more in 1920 than in 2020.  Is war possible?  Will Greece’s European allies come to its rescue?  What happens if Turkey’s aggressive president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan miscalculates how far he can push the Greeks? In this New Thinking for a New World podcast, Alan Stoga looks for answers from Constantinos Filis, Executive Director at the Institute of International Relations of Panteion University in Athens.

One hundred years ago to the month, the collapsing Ottoman Empire was finally out of its misery in the Treaty of Sevre. However, in an echo of American author Mark Twain’s dictum that history never repeats, but sometimes rhymes, President Erdogan of Turkey today seems set on creating a new Ottoman power with reach from North Africa through the Eastern Mediterranean to the Levant and into the Caucuses as well as the Horn of Africa.  He is playing a high stakes game that some think could even lead to war between Turkey and Greece or Egypt. Former Foreign Minister of Egypt, Nabil Fahmy and Special Advisor to Turkish President Turgut Özal on foreign policy, Cengiz Çandar, discuss what Erdogan wants in this episode of “New Thinking for a New World'' with Alan Stoga.

Why do we seem unable to work together to manage our common home? Is the Covid pandemic considered  “global” while Ebola was not, because Covid has laid waste to rich countries, while Ebola did not? Is the failure of governments that we see almost everywhere actually the failure of citizens for not demanding more of their leaders?   Cardinal Michael Czerny, who heads the Vatican’s work on refugees and migrants, offers uncomfortable answers in this “New Thinking for a New World” conversation with Alan Stoga. 

At least so far, what plagues Africa is less Covid-19, than its consequences: collapsed economies, an industrial world that is closing to Africa, a deceleration (if not reversal) in globalization, a new “Cold War” (this time between China and the West), severe climate change, and the urgent need to grow and develop faster to serve its young, demanding population. How can Africa cope? Are solutions—or, at least, possibilities—to be found at the local, national or regional level?  Where is the needed capital? Looking for answers, Alan Stoga talks to Yvonne Aki-Sawyerr, mayor of Sierra Leone’s capital Freetown, and Carole Wainaina, a leader of Africa50, a public, pan-African infrastructure bank.  

Why do nations, rich and poor, tolerate widespread slavery, human trafficking and even the buying and selling of young children in the 21st century?  These abominations exist everywhere and at a scale that makes them one of the largest global criminal enterprises.  How is that possible? In this episode of New Thinking for a New World, Alan Stoga explores the darkness of slavery—which consumes even very young children—with India’s Sunitha Krishnan.  Sunitha, a past winner of the Tällberg Foundation’s Eliasson Global Leadership Prize, leads a dangerous, discouraging fight to rescue the enslaved and stop the crimes.

Like everything in life, Covid is producing losers and winners, not the least from the tsunami-like global recession it has spawned.  It’s even possible that the pernicious economic effects will linger long after the pandemic has faded—and that the winners will still be winners.  That’s one of the issues explored in the latest episode of the Tällberg Foundation’s New Thinking for a New World conversation with German business leader Kurt Lauk and long-time top American central banker Terry Checki.  Alan Stoga, Tällberg’s chairman, asks them what happens when the global economy collapses, but global financial markets boom.  

Why has America stopped investing in itself?  Why do things—from cell phones to highways to schools to trains—work so much better in so many countries that used to look to the United States as their model?  Tällberg’s New Thinking for a New World podcast explores those questions and others with Christine Loh who is a Hong Kong-based academic, environmentalist, and former government official with deep ties to—and deep affection for--the United States.  Her conversation with Alan Stoga raises questions about whether, how and if the country can recover its dynamism.   Not to be trite or political, but can America be great again?