Will Republicans be able to unify behind Donald Trump? What does the nomination of such a divisive figure mean for the future of the party? Can Hilary Clinton defy the approval ratings and garner popular support? Join us as we debate the key issues facing both candidates.

Chaired by Michael Goldfarb, journalist author and broadcaster. He has reported for The Guardian, The New York Times, The Washington Post, NPR and Global Post.

The panel:

Christopher Caldwell is a senior editor at The Weekly Standard. He is a columnist for the Financial Times and the author of Reflections on the Revolution In Europe: Immigration, Islam and the West.

Peter Trubowitz is professor of international relations and director of the US Centre at the London School of Economics and associate fellow at Chatham House. Before joining the LSE, he was professor of government at the University of Texas at Austin.

Ed Schultz is a broadcaster with over 30 years experience. He currently produces and hosts his own international show – News with Ed Schultz – which airs on RT America.

Leslie Vinjamuri is director of the Centre on Conflict, Rights & Justice and senior lecturer in international relations at SOAS, University of London. She is an associate fellow at the US & the Americas Programme, Chatham House.

https://soundcloud.com/frontlineclub/americas-shifting-foreign

As Barack Obama enters the second year of his second and final term in office, he faces considerable foreign policy challenges. The US position on Syria and the controversy over the attack on the US embassy in Benghazi, Libya are weighing on the president. There is a notable attempt by the Obama administration to make a strategic pivot towards Asia and away from the Middle East.

Join us as we dissect Obama’s foreign policy ambitions, exploring the shifts in focus and how they are playing out. Will he achieve his second term goals? Can he successfully pull focus to Asia or will the conflict in Syria direct attention back to the Middle East?

The Obama administration is making considerable efforts to redefine American power, through domestic reforms that the president calls “nation-building at home” and substantial shifts in foreign policy. We will be looking more widely at the attempts to rebuild America’s global strength.

Chaired by author, journalist and broadcaster Michael Goldfarb. He has worked for NPR and the BBC, and has written for Global Post, the Guardian, The New York Times and The Washington Post.

The panel:

Kim Ghattas has been the BBC’s State Department correspondent since 2008, and travels regularly with the Secretary of State. She is author of the recently published The Secretary: A Journey with Hillary Clinton from Beirut to the Heart of American Power. She was previously a Middle East correspondent for the BBC and the Financial Times, based in Beirut. Her work has also appeared in TIME magazine, the Boston Globe, NPR, and The Washington Post.

Professor Michael Cox is founding co-director of LSE IDEAS and professor of International Relations at LSE. He has held appointments at The Queen’s University of Belfast, California State University at San Diego, The College of William and Mary in Virginia, the Department of International Politics, Aberystwyth, The Catholic University of Milan, the University of Melbourne, and the Centre for Defence and Strategic Studies in Canberra, Australia. He is general editor of two successful book series Rethinking World Politics and Cold War History. He is author, editor and co-editor of several books including The Rise and Fall of the American Empire: From Bush to Obama, US Presidents and Democracy Promotion, US Foreign Policy and Soft Power and US Foreign Policy.

Dana Allin, is senior fellow for US foreign policy and transatlantic affairs, and editor of Survival: Global Politics and Strategy at The International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS). He is professorial lecturer at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), of the Johns Hopkins University in Washington D.C., and adjunct professor of European studies at the SAIS Bologna Center. He is author and co-author of five books including, most recently, The Sixth Crisis: Iran, Israel, America, and the Rumors of War and Weary Policeman: American Power in an Age of Austerity.

Nick Schifrin is a foreign correspondent for ABC News based in London. Previously he was the ABC News Afghanistan-Pakistan correspondent and bureau chief based in both Kabul and Islamabad, from 2008 until 2012.

Monday April 22

Foreign Ministers from the European Union, including British Foreign Secretary William Hague, meet in Luxembourg on Monday. Among other things, they are expected to agree to lift remaining sanctions against Myanmar (Burma). The meeting is also a chance to discuss Syria and Mali.

In Milan, a hearing is due to take place in former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s trial for allegedly paying for sex with then 17-year-old Karima el Mahroug, better known as ‘Ruby the Heart Stealer’.

Also Monday, IAEA officials who have been visiting Japan to review the ongoing decommissioning of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant are due to hold a press conference in Tokyo. There have been a number of setbacks at the site recently.

In Guantanamo, hearings are due to begin (and last all week) in the case of the alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his alleged co-conspirators.

Finally, Monday is the deadline for creditors suing the Argentine government for $1.3bn in outstanding debt to respond to Buenos Aires’ latest, court-ordered, repayment proposal.

Tuesday April 23

On Tuesday, Julius Malema, the firebrand former leader of South Africa’s ANC youth movement, is due back in court on money-laundering charges.

In Brussels, NATO Foreign Ministers are scheduled to meet on Tuesday with Afghanistan and the planned handover next year likely top of the agenda. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov will be in town, for a meeting of the NATO-Russia Council.

In France, the National Assembly is scheduled to vote on the country’s same-sex marriage bill, which has provoked major protests.

Finally in Washington DC, President Barack Obama will host the Emir of Qatar, Hamad bin Khalifa al Thani, for talks at the White House.

Wednesday April 24

On Wednesday, French President Francois Hollande is scheduled to hold a cabinet meeting at which concrete legislative proposals announced in the wake of the Jerome Cahuzac affair are scheduled to be presented.

In Russia, the trial of opposition figure Alexei Navalny on embezzlement charges is scheduled to resume after it was adjourned on 17 April to allow the defence more time to prepare. Critics argue the charges are fabricated.

Wednesday is also the ‘deadline’ for the ESM Board of Governors to sign off on their €9bn share of the €10bn bailout for Cyprus announced by the Eurogroup on March 25.

In Brunei, ASEAN leaders are scheduled to hold the first of two planned summits this year, with tensions in the South China Sea likely high on the agenda.

Finally, former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is due to deliver a public address in Texas. She has made several public appearances recently, leading to frenzied speculation about her potential candidacy in the 2016 presidential election.

Thursday April 25

On Thursday, Spain will release its latest unemployment statistics.

In Russia, President Vladimir Putin is scheduled to hold a live Q&A with members of the public. The catch: the questions are pre-selected.

Meanwhile, US President Barack Obama will be among those attending the dedication of the George W Bush Presidential Center in Dallas, Texas. Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter will also be in attendance.

North Korea will mark the 81st anniversary of the founding of the country’s army. The day actually recognizes the beginning of Kim Il-sung’s guerrilla activities in 1932, since the Korean People’s Army was not founded until 1948.

Also Thursday, the trial of former Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman relating to his selection in 2009 of Ze’ev Ben Aryeh to be Ambassador to Latvia. Lieberman has said he will plead not guilty.

Finally, French President will begin a two-day visit to China where he will meet his counterpart Xi Jinping.

Friday April 26

On Friday, US President Barack Obama is scheduled to host King of Abdullah of Jordan for talks at the White House. Syria is likely to be high on the agenda, with a recent announcement that the US plans to step up its military presence in Jordan in response to the conflict in neighbouring Syria.

Friday will also see the world’s largest economy release its GDP figures for the first quarter of the year. It will be the first GDP data since the automatic budget cuts – or sequestration – went into effect.

Sticking with finance, the Bank of Japan will make its second monetary policy announcement under its radical new Governor Hurihiko Kuroda.

Finally, in Ndjamena, Chad, foreign ministers from the region are due to hold a regularly scheduled meeting. The situation in the Central African Republic is likely to feature significantly.

A round up of world news in the week ahead from journalist resource ForesightNews.

By Jasper Wenban-Smith, international editor of ForesightNews.

Monday 10 December

A bombastic week of international news kicks off Monday with the opening of the window for North Korea’s latest satellite launch attempt. The launch will have important implications, both domestic and international. Domestically, a successful launch would boost the credibility of Kim Jong-un; conversely, a second consecutive failure might have important implications in a country where power is so concentrated among a military elite. Whether successful or not, the launch will add to regional tensions and may even influence the outcome of South Korea’s presidential elections, due on 19th December.

The seemingly endless conflict in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo will be the subject of consultations on Monday when the African Union’s Peace and Security Council meet to discuss the M23 rebel movement at the AU HQ in Addis Ababa.

Meanwhile, in New York, the UN’s Security Council holds what is expected to be one of the highlights of the Moroccan presidency of the SC. The country’s foreign minister Saad-Eddine al Othmani will chair a high-level meeting on security in the Sahel, likely to focus on Islamist militancy in the region, notably in Mali.

In the United States, as the fiscal cliff deadline draws ever closer, President Barack Obama – who has focused almost exclusively on this issue since his re-election in November – is due to travel on Monday to the Detroit area to deliver a speech pressing the case for an agreement to avert the crisis.

Lastly on Monday, key EU figures travel to Oslo to pick up their Nobel Peace Prize.

Tuesday 11 December

Tuesday is a bit quieter, former President of Cote D’Ivoire Laurent Gbagbo is due back in the International Criminal Court for a status hearing; Canada’s Central Bank Governor Mark Carney, who will head up the Bank of England from next July, delivers a speech in Toronto; and Russia and Georgia return to the negotiating table in Geneva for the latest round of UN-mediated talks.

Wednesday 12 December

On Wednesday, Morocco hosts a Friends of Syria meeting in Marrakech. Hillary Clinton has confirmed her attendance, making it likely a slew of other foreign ministers including Foreign Secretary William Hague and French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius will attend too.

Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin will deliver his first State of the Union address since returning to the Presidency. There will be significant interest in how the former KGB man chooses to address the increased civil unrest in Russia.

IAEA officials are due in Tehran for their latest round of talks with Iranian officials on ‘outstanding issues’ related to the country’s nuclear programme. The visit follows an announcement by Robert Wood, US Ambassador to the UN nuclear watchdog, of a March 2013 ‘deadline’ for Iran to alter its approach to negotiations or face action at the UN Security Council.

In European affairs, following their failure to reach an agreement on a long-term budget, EU leaders reconvene in Brussels on Wednesday for a two-day summit. Eurogroup finance ministers are due to meet on the sidelines to make a final determination on whether to release funds to Greece. One potential spanner in the works is that the IMF has insisted that Greece complete its debt buyback operation before funds are released. However, the schedule for the buyback operation, announced by Greece’s debt management agency on 3 December, does not foresee completion until 17 December.

Thursday 13 December

On Thursday, Tunisia’s main union the UGTT plans to hold a general strike. It coincides with a visit by Hillary Clinton to attend the final day of the Forum for the Future taking place in the country’s capital. All of this comes ahead of the second anniversary on Monday 17 December of Mohamed Bouaziz’s self-immolation.

Friday 14 December

Clinton travels on to Abu Dhabi, which on Friday hosts the third ministerial meeting of the Global Counterterrorism Forum.

Saturday 15 December

On Saturday, Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi has vowed to press ahead with controversial plans to hold a constitutional referendum, which is likely to result in further unrest.

A three-day conference on nuclear safety kicks off in Fukushima prefecture in Japan. Ministers are due to attend the opening day.

Sunday 16 December

Japan holds parliamentary elections on Sunday, in which Shinzo Abe and his right-leaning LDP are all but certain to regain control of the Shugiin, or lower house. They already control the upper house.

Following presidential elections earlier in the year, Venezuela holds gubernatorial elections on Sunday, with attention focused on whether defeated opposition candidate Henrique Capriles secures re-election as governor of Miranda province.

Finally, on Sunday, South Africa’s ANC opens its five-yearly policy conference. At which, despite widespread labour unrest following the Marikana mine massacre and a very public challenge from former ANC Youth League leader Julius Malema, Jacob Zuma is expected to be re-elected the party’s leader.

Some images courtesy of fotostory / Shutterstock.com.

By Nicole Hunt 

The week starts off with a bang as humankind hits a big milestone on Monday – the UN is marking the day as the moment the world’s population surpasses seven billion people.

A deadline set by the Arab League two weeks ago for Syrian President Bashar al Assad to open dialogue with the Syrian opposition council expires. Syria risks expulsion from the regional bloc over concerns at the rising death toll from nine months of action against anti-government protesters, which has already topped 3,000.

With Cannes off-limits to all but world leaders, the traditional anti-G20 rally is being held in Nice on Tuesday. The demonstration kicks off a four-day ‘alternative summit’, with many of the world’s biggest NGOs expected to be in attendance.

The two-day London Conference on Cybersecurity begins in London, with Foreign Secretary William Hague, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales all scheduled to speak.

Turkey hosts the Istanbul Conference for Afghanistan on Wednesday, focusing on security and cooperation in the heart of Asia; Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari and Afghan President Hamid Karzai are among those attending. While the Conference could have been lost in the build up to the G20, Karzai’s expected announcement of the next areas where Afghan security forces will take control from NATO is bound to keep it in the headlines.

Of course the G20 itself kicks off on Thursday, though it wouldn’t be surprising if many of the European leaders involved are quite sick of seeing each other – for some, this will be their third meeting in 12 days.

While the G20 leaders are discussing the world’s financial problems, the European Central Bank’s Governing Council will be holding the first of its two meetings this month. The meeting is the first chaired by former Italian Central Bank Governor Mario Draghi, who replaces Jean-Claude Trichet as ECB President on 1 November.

The Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca begins on Friday. The five-day festival has in recent years attracted nearly two million foreign pilgrims, making it the largest pilgrimage in the world. Muslims who have the means to make the journey are required to do so at least once during their lifetime.

The Mars500 simulated mission to Mars ‘returns’ to Earth at the Institute of Biomedical Problems in Moscow. The crew members have been in an isolation chamber for 17 months, even performing several simulated spacewalks during their journey.

Italy’s Partido Democratico holds a pro-democracy, anti-Berlusconi rally in Rome on Saturday. The opposition party is using the occasion to launch its proposals for the reconstruction of the world’s economy and an alternative to Silvio Berlusconi’s embattled government.

In Cape Town, the Russell Tribunal on Palestine, an international tribunal investigating Israeli complicity in human rights abuses against Palestinians, opens its South African evidence session, with opening remarks from Archbishop Desmond Tutu and an address from Winnie Madikizela-Mandela.

The week closes with two Central American elections. In Guatemala, Otto Perez Molino of the Partido Patriota faces off against Manuel Baldizon of the Libertad Democratica Renovada party in a presidential run-off. Molina won 13 per cent more of the vote in the 11 September first round election.

Meanwhile, in Nicaragua, incumbent President Daniel Ortega is eligible for a second term following an October 2009 decision by the country’s Supreme Court that removed constitutional obstacles that would have prevented him from standing again. Voters also elect members to the country’s parliament.

Monday marks the 16th anniversary of the Srebrenica massacre, which has returned to the forefront again recently with Ratko Mladic’s arrest and last week’s Dutch court verdict assigning responsibility to the Dutch state for the deaths of three men who were handed over to Bosnian Serb forces.

In Washington, Hillary Clinton is set to host the latest meeting of the Middle East Quartet, which is hoping to break a deadlock and re-start peace talks ahead of the September UN General Assembly meeting.

In Brussels on Tuesday, the OECD and the European Commission launch the OECD International Migration Outlook for 2011, which is expected to feature details on recent and future migration to the EU from North Africa.

Meanwhile, the Julian Assange saga is revived as his two-day extradition appeal opens in London. Assange is fighting a 24 February ruling that would extradite him to Sweden to face questioning for alleged sexual assaults.

Hours before the Assange hearing closes on Wednesday, the long-running sodomy trial for Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim resumes following his fourth unsuccessful attempt to have the trial judge dismissed. The oft-delayed trial has been going on for over two and a half years.

The UN Security Council is also scheduled to meet in New York on Wednesday to discuss South Sudan, and, according to current UN Security Council President Peter Wittig, the UN General Assembly may formally approve the new country’s UN membership on Thursday following independence on 9 July.

A Utah court hears an American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) constitutional challenge to the Utah Illegal Immigration Enforcement Act (Bill HB497) on the day that a restraining order against the enforcement of the bill expires. The law requires police officers to verify the immigration status of anyone stopped for felonies or certain misdemeanours.

Friday is the big deadline in Greece, when the government is due to repay some €2.4bn in sovereign debt bonds, a payment only possible if it receives the next tranche of its IMF/EU loan in time. Another €2bn payment is due on 22 July.

In nearby Istanbul, the fourth meeting of the Libya Contact Group gets underway, with EU diplomats publicly hoping for an increased presence from African Union members.

The role of social media in the Arab Spring is also likely to be a hot topic today, as Twitter celebrates the fifth anniversary of its public launch.

On Saturday, thousands of Shia Muslims converge on Iraq’s holy city of Karbala to celebrate the ninth century birth of Imam Muhammad al Mahdi in a pilgrimage known as Shabaniyah.

Presidential elections are held in the island nation of São Tomé and Príncipe on Sunday, with incumbent Fradique de Menezes ineligible for a third term and the country’s first President Manuel Pinto da Costa hoping to return to power.

Sunday also marks the 75th anniversary of the beginning of the Spanish Civil War.

Highlights: Srebrenica anniversary and Quartet meeting (11 July); OECD migration report and Julian Assange hearing (12 July); Assange and Anwar Ibrahim hearings and UN Security Council meeting (13 July); South Sudan UN membership and Utah immigration challenge (14 July); Greek bond payment, Libya Contact Group meeting and Twitter anniversary (15 July); Shabaniyah pilgrimage (16 July); Sao Tome and Principe elections and Spanish Civil War anniversary (17 July).

The resurrection of Hillary Clinton from embattled First Lady, loathed by many of her compatriots, to the favourite to recapture the White House next year, this time as the prime occupant of the Oval Office, is remarkable.

It began with her election as senator for New York in 2000, even as the rancour from the failed bid to impeach her husband for obstructing justice in the Monica Lewinsky affair lingered heavily over Washington.

She won well in a state she had barely visited before. Her critics expected her to be complacent on the campaign trail but she worked hard, travelling extensively and talking to voters. In the senate, she made friends of Republicans who expected to be her enemy. She listened, avoided confrontation and devoured her work.

In preparation for a presidential bid, she joined the Senate Armed Services Committee in order to burnish her image as a potential commander-in-chief. In January 2007 she announced she was running for president, and campaign funds began rolling in from admirers in Hollywood, Washington and Wall Street.

Early on, she was perturbed by the unexpectedly strong challenge of Barack Obama, the young pretender aiming to become the first black president. But by now his challenge for the Democratic Party’s nomination has probably been seen off. By mid-February we will likely know that Mrs Clinton has been chosen as the nominee.

By then half of the states will have held their primaries or caucuses where party members (and in some cases registered independents) choose their candidate. That part of the job done, how will she win the White House in November 2008, when George W Bush, to almost universal relief, stands down after two terms?

Her probable opponent will be Rudy Giuliani, the former mayor of New York who became a national figure with his emotive defiance after the 9/11 attacks, or possibly Mitt Romney, a former Massachusetts governor attempting a breakthrough of his own – to be the first Mormon president. Whoever she faces, Clinton’s biggest problem will be that a lot of people simply don’t like her. For the right wing, she remains the figure of hate she became during her husband’s presidency.

Rabid radio talk-show hosts, Fox News pundits and various columnists have practically built their careers around Hillary-hatred. When she advocates middle-of-the-road policies, they accuse her of deception. As First Lady, Mrs Clinton tried to introduce a form of “socialised medicine”, as it is called by its detractors, and failed because of her inability to compromise.

The presumption that she should be given an important job simply because she was the president’s wife explains some of the animosity towards her, as does her intense secrecy and deep-seated suspicion of the press. There can also be a condescending, ‘trust-me-I’m-right’ quality to her tone that makes some people’s blood boil. But much of the hostility is plain old chauvinism.

Mrs Clinton’s campaign is a model of discipline and focus. She has held just one press conference in nearly a year, and given very few interviews – all with carefully selected American news organisations. This is a perennial frustration for British and other foreign media in Washington. In Washington foreign hacks are placed at the back of the crowd craning their necks to see the action.

I moved here several months ago and the aggravations of the job were soon plain – the deadline (1pm on average) is horribly early. There is a fair amount of chasing up stories in the Washington Post or New York Times. But so were the rewards. Americans love to talk. Open a notebook or pick up the phone and they will give you an opinion, and normally in highly cogent, quotable form.

There is a belief that the fourth estate is a worthwhile institution, and there is much less of the suspicion widespread in Britain that journalists are merely waiting for an opportunity to turn over a source. For a newcomer in need of enlightenment and analysis, there are endless think-tank types who answer calls, and, what is more, often have experience of government.

Shortly after arriving I saw Hillary Clinton trounce her Democrat rivals at their first nationally televised debate in South Carolina. The following night she and her fellow candidates crammed onto a stage on the ground floor of a multi-storey car park to address an almost completely black crowd of party activists.

All the excitement then was about the new man, Obama, who had shocked the Clinton campaign by raising equal sums of money. The crowd gave him a deafening welcome, but when he had finished his speech the acclaim was not as loud.

Hillary, on the other hand, received a lesser reception, but when she had finished telling the crowd how they could join her in transforming America, they raised the roof. I had this gut feeling then that she would become president.

As a naive new arrival, I thought I might grab her or Obama for a quick word after the speech. A phalanx of minders put paid to that idea. But as ringside seats go it wasn’t bad, and I expect to have one at her inauguration as the United States’ 44th president.