As I soaked in the news of Nelson Mandela’s passing last night, I was reminded of my visit to Johannesburg in September. While every minute of my visit to that beautiful country was memorable, there is one experience that I will never forget – my visit to Nelson Mandela’s home on Vilakazi Street, Orlando West in Soweto. Continue
On December 5, 2013, the President, Board of Trustees, and Staff of Meridian International Center honored iconic global leader, His Excellency Nelson Mandela, (1918 – 2013), the first black President of South Africa. Continue
As a rather young intern at Meridian International Center I would like to be able to summarize my little trip into the world of exchanging and connecting both people and ideas in 3 words: Hope, gratefulness and fun.
As the year 2013 comes to an end, we do not only face the difficulties we haven’t been able to solve in the past, we must now face the situation where it seems that the so intended saviors themselves need to be saved. More important it is therefore, in times when both the European and the American economies are yet to get out of their debts, that we do not forget who is really struggling. It seems that we forget how both interdependent and interrelated the world is and that every country is a part of the world, so is its effect on the world and its effect on others. Continue
Recently, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry warmly referred to France as America’s oldest ally. Our friends in Britain may have taken umbrage, but this is – technically and historically, at least – true, going back to Lafayette and Washington in the War of Independence that created the United States in the first place.
