The NATO summit in Lithuania, Ukraine's summer counter-offensive, and the recent instability between Russia and the Wagner Group have kept Ukraine in the headlines. But what is happening behind closed doors and on the ground that may be influencing the direction of the Ukrainian-Russian war? Mark Temnycky, journalist and nonresident fellow with the Atlantic Council's Eurasia Center, joins Doorstep co-hosts Tatiana Serafin and Nikolas Gvosdev to unpack the latest news and conflicting reports. How strong is Western and global support for the continuing war effort and eventual reconstruction program? What options does President Zelenskyy have? What are ethical trade-offs being made? For more, read Gvosdev's recent article on ethical tensions in Ukraine or go carnegiecouncil.org.   

In this Ethics Article, Senior Fellow Nikolas Gvosdev analyzes new ethical tensions around ongoing U.S. support of Ukraine. To read this articl, please go to: https://www.carnegiecouncil.org/media/article/ethical-tensions-of-track-two-dialogues-and-cluster-munitions

With the proposed merger of the United States' PGA Tour with Saudi Arabia's LIV Golf, and the world's wealthiest athletes according to Forbes funded via Middle East entities, questions about the role of "sportswashing" are on the rise. Sarath Ganji, founding director of the Autocracy and Global Sports Initiative, joins Doorstep co-hosts Tatiana Serafin and Nikolas Gvosdev, to explain what sportswashing entails and why autocratic regimes are betting on the practice to lift their global brands. How does money flow to change sporting industries? What role do sports influencers play? How can ethical questions raised by sportswashing stay at the forefront?

In this Ethics Article, Senior Fellow Nikolas Gvosdev discusses four different approaches for policymakers to consider when grappling with the ethical questions of whether and how to engage with authoritarian or increasingly illiberal states and actors. To read this article, please go to carnegiecoucil.org. 

McKinsey & Company is one of the most prestigious consulting companies in the world, but what does it actually do? In When McKinsey Comes to Town, New York Times investigative journalists Walt Bogdanich and Michael Forsythe have written a portrait of the company sharply at odds with its public image, revealing corrupt and dangerous practices from China to South Africa to Wall Street. In this virtual book talk, Bogdanich and Forsythe joins Doorstep co-hosts Tatiana Serafin and Nikolas Gvosdev for a discussion on one of the world’s most influential consulting firms and the drastic impact of its work on employees and citizens around the world. For more, please go to carnegiecouncil.org. 

In this episode host Hilary Sutcliffe explores . . . accidents from another angle. There is one thing we thought we knew about accidents, that they are accidental, no-one's fault, simply the result of human error. But author and journalist Jessie Singer’s in her compelling book There Are No Accidents shows that whilst one person dies by accident in the United States alone every three minutes these deaths are in fact far from accidental. The majority are not random acts of God but are the predictable and preventable if only money and power were not prioritized at the expense of ordinary people. For more, please go to carnegiecouncil.org. 

This interview was recorded on December 16, 2022. Solar radiation modification may one day be needed to reduce climate risks, but great uncertainties remain, and more research and inclusive governance is needed to assess it, says Maarten Van Aalst, during a  C2GTalk. That requires discussions at all levels with people from a range of political and ethical backgrounds, in ways which respect different perspectives. Van Aalst is director general and chief science officer at the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI), having assumed that role on February 1, 2023. Before that, and at the time of this recording, he was director of the International Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre, the reference center on climate risk management for the international Red Cross Red Crescent movement. Van Aalst is also coordinating lead author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC WGII) and member of the European Advisory Board on Climate Change under the European Climate Law. For more, including translation into 中文, Español, and Français, please go to C2G's website.

Current iterations of AI are increasingly able to encourage subservience to a non-human master, telling potentially systematic untruths with emphatic confidence. Senior Fellow Anja Kaspersen, AIEI Board Advisor Kobi Leins, and Carnegie-Uehiro Fellow Wendell Wallach argue that AI is closing, not opening, many pathways for work, meaning, expression, and human connectivity. To read this article, please go to carnegiecouncil.org.

Governing climate-altering technologies fairly will be very challenging, because of a democratic deficit, a transparency deficit, a coherence deficit, and an accountability deficit in global governance systems, says Kumi Naidoo in a C2GTalk. Nonetheless, it will be crucial to put justice at the heart of these considerations, by ensuring balanced participation of peoples, rooted in science, and in a spirit of redressing past injustice. Kumi Naidoo is a South African human rights and climate justice activist. As a 15-year old, he organized school boycotts against the Apartheid educational system in South Africa. Naidoo was later part of the leadership that sought to establish the African National Congress (ANC) as a political party and he then served as the official spokesperson of the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC), the overseer of the country's first democratic elections in April 1994. He was previously secretary-general of Amnesty International, international executive director of Greenpeace International, and has led several other organizations, including the South African National NGO Coalition (SANGOCO), CIVICUS: World Alliance for Citizen Participation, and Africans Rising for Justice, Peace and Dignity. For more, please go to C2G's website.

In this episode, host Hilary Sutcliffe explores . . . expectation from another angle. Her guest David Robson delves into the science of expectation in his award-winning new book The Expectation Effect. They discuss how changes in our expectations can have dramatic effects on our bodies, minds, actions, and life outcomes. For more, please go to carnegiecouncil.org.