A briefing on recent developments in Swaziland. Panelists will discuss a wide range of social and economic challenges currently facing Swaziland, namely its economic growth, the prevalence of HIV/AIDS, and the government's handling of opposition parties.

Launching the fifth edition of the biennial report The World's Water, Peter Gleick provides an updated analysis on water, and the political, economic, technological, and scientific issues associated with it.

Foreign Policy magazine recently designated the Strait of Malacca as one of the world's five top global chokepoints. This narrow waterway, which divides Indonesia's Sumatra Island and western Malaysia, is a hub of global trade, including large percentages of Northeast Asia's oil and liquid natural gas. There is concern, however, that piracy and terrorism may jeopardize the safe transport of these energy needs.

According to Thomas Homer-Dixon, society is more likely to break down when multiple stresses occur simultaneously. Like an earthquake, societal pressures—or "tectonic stresses"—build up beneath the surface and are released by factors that are difficult to anticipate, sometimes with catastrophic results.