The World Today w/ Nabila Ramdani, Hassan Abdein and Paul Rogers

Professor Paul Rogers heads up a panel of experts for our annual current affairs event that takes a 360° view of the complex issues affecting the world today.

From the possibility of a new regional war in the Middle East to the challenges and possibilities posed by the upcoming UK and US elections, our guest speakers have their fingers on the international pulse and plenty to say.

Joining Paul Rogers this year is analyst, Hassan Abdein, and journalist, Nabila Ramdani.

About the book

France—the romanticised, revolutionary land of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity for all—is failing. Reform is urgently needed. This book is a powerful indictment of the status quo, and a highly original perspective on the challenges to which the nation must rise.

Nabila Ramdani is not from the establishment elite: she is a marginalised insider, born and raised in a neglected Paris suburb. With unflinching clarity, she probes the fault lines of her struggling country, exposing the Fifth Republic as an archaic system which emerged from Algeria’s cataclysmic War of Independence.

Today, a monarchical President Macron shows little interest in democracy, while a far-right party founded by Nazi collaborators threatens to replace him. Segregation, institutionalised rioting, economic injustice, the debasement of women, a monolithic education system, deep-seated racial and religious discrimination, paramilitary policing, terrorism and extremism, and a duplicitous foreign policy all fuel the growing crisis.

Yet Ramdani offers real hope: the broken French Republic can, and must, be fixed.

About the speakers

Nabila Ramdani is a French author of Algerian descent who works as a journalist, academic and broadcaster. Nabila began her award-winning journalistic career in the BBC Paris Bureau. She has since broadcast for outlets including Sky News, Al Jazeera and CNN, and has written extensively for The Guardian, The Daily Mail, The Washington Post and others. Educated at Paris VII University and the London School of Economics (LSE), Nabila has taught at the University of Oxford and the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

Paul Rogers is Emeritus Professor of Peace Studies at the University of Bradford, and an Honorary Fellow of the UK Defence Academy. He is a biologist by original training, lecturing at Imperial College and also working in tropical crop research in East Africa. From later lecturing in environmental science, he moved to Bradford in 1979 and has worked primarily on the changing causes of international conflict, especially in relation to political violence. A fourth edition of his book, Losing Control: Global Security in the 21st Century, was published by Pluto Press last July.

Hassan A. Abdein, Ph.d is a senior advisor to Unitas Communications. He is also a consultant in mediation and conflict resolution and has extensive experience working with multilateral organisations in the fields of advocacy for refugees, minorities and religious freedom. Hassan held senior roles in the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) and worked on OIC-UN efforts to tackle intolerance, discrimination, incitement to violence against people on the basis of religion or belief.