Just returned from several months in Iraq, Franklin Fellow Dr. Karim Altaii (James Madison University) led a seminar on Iraqi higher education with officers from various State Department offices. While in Iraq, Dr. Altaii had met with Iraqi university professors about forming partnerships with faculty members at U.S. universities. Iraqi academics told Altaii about their strong desire to restore high academic standards at Iraq’s universities. To advance that goal, Dr. Altaii advocates partnerships between some of Iraq’s 28,000 professors and the 8-12,000 professors who left Iraq and now live in the diaspora. The US Government's growing Fulbright program in Iraq will extend Dr. Altaii's inter-faculty contacts with additional opportunities for Iraqi academics to re-connect with the wider academic world.

Franklin Fellow David Carbajal (USUN/ECOSOC) has been representing the United States Mission at the Second (Economic and Financial) Committee of the United Nations General Assembly. Carbajal advised the Economic Committee to increase aid to the poorest nations of the world and reported that the United States is committed to improving how it assists developing countries while also increasing its engagement with them.

Carbajal also reported that the U.S. global health initiative will grant $63 billion to fight global health threats, like HIV/AIDS and malaria in developing countries. Carbajal has also been serving as the USUN's lead negotiator on various issues, such as the "International Financial System" and on "Development and External Debt and Development: towards a durable solution to the debt problems of developing countries."

Franklin Fellow Anna Cave started on Wednesday, October 21st as the first Fellow to serve in the Office of War Crimes Issues (S/WCI). Cave received a Bachelor of Arts in English from Duke University and a Juris Doctor from Columbia University School of Law. While studying for her Juris Doctor, Cave worked at Columbia's Human Rights Clinic. She researched potential human rights abuse cases from the Democratic Republic of the Congo to be brought before the International Criminal Court.

Cave worked as a Litigation Associate at Davis Polk & Wardwell in New York. At Fordham's Walter Leitner International Human Rights Clinic, her fieldwork developed an anti-Female Genital Mutilation pilot project for Timap for Justice, an NGO providing legal services in rural areas. In Cambodia, Cave's fieldwork for the NGO Salvation Center Cambodia developed a strategy report on land rights. Cave also has experience working with the Public International Law and Policy Group and the Political Asylum Clinic at Columbia University School of Law.

Franklin Fellow Dr. P.E. Karim Altaii is currently working in the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs in the Office of Iraq Provincial Reconstruction, Transition and Stabilization Staff as Foreign Affairs Officer-Expert. Dr. Karim Altaii is now in Iraq on a TDY, where he is focusing on capacity building, especially in higher education. He is also working with interagency working groups on a variety of issues to support Bureau interactions with other stakeholders in soliciting input and formulating recommendations. Dr. Altaii comes to the Franklin Fellows Program from James Madison University's Energy Academic Team in Integrated Science and Technology (ISAT) department.