Samantha Power

An op-ed by Samantha Power. When I met Ibraheem in 2014, he had already endured more as a 12-year-old than most of us could ever imagine: the terror of Assad’s barrel bombs, the loss of his mother and four siblings, and the trauma of being carried in his father’s arms on a desperate, eight-month search for medical help, which brought him to the refugee center in Jordan where we sat together one afternoon. Four years later, after the filmmakers of this short documentary shared it with me, I am struck not just by the confident young man he has become — walking the halls of his new high school, calling out answers in class — but also by the clarity and determination in his heart: “We went out against our will, and we shall return with our hope.”

A book review by Samantha Power. When avid fans describe their love of baseball — and here I include myself, as well as Susan Jacoby, the author of “Why Baseball Matters” — we do so with a kind of reverence that, while wholly sincere, can often sound ridiculous. I associate my deep attachment with immigrating to the United States from Dublin in 1979 and landing in Pittsburgh on the eve of the Willie Stargell-led Pirates’ glorious playoff run. As I practiced an American accent in the mirror, I quickly understood the currency I would acquire if I could rattle off RBI, ERA and batting average statistics with the speed of the boys who lived on our block. Play ball!

An op-ed by Samantha Power. Two days after the 2016 presidential election, I held a town hall at the United States Mission to the United Nations. American diplomats were in shock; the president-elect had pledged to undo much of what we had helped achieve internationally...Many of them, along with some of our most capable diplomats, have since left government. Ridiculed as “Obama holdovers” and unable to defend policies that depart so markedly from American interests, our diplomatic corps has been hollowed out. If Mike Pompeo, the director of the C.I.A., wins confirmation as Rex Tillerson’s replacement as secretary of state, fixing this would become his responsibility.

Author F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote that there are no second acts in American lives. But clearly, he never met Samantha Power. Part jet-setting diplomat, part sneaker-clad advocate, the Harvard human-rights champion and scholar first shot to fame in 2003, when she won a Pulitzer Prize for her book on genocide, “A Problem from Hell.”...More than eight years later, Power has returned to Harvard as the Anna Lindh Professor of the Practice of Global Leadership and Public Policy at HKS and professor of practice at Harvard Law School.

Filmmaker Greg Barker was granted access to President Obama's White House for a new documentary "The Final Year." Chuck sits down with Barker, Ambassador Samantha Power and former Dep. National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes.

Barker was speaking at an advance screening of his documentary “The Final Year"—which chronicles foreign policy initiatives in the last year of Barack Obama’s presidential administration—at the Harvard Art Museums on Wednesday night. The screening was followed by a question-and-answer session with Barker and former United Nations ambassador Samantha J. Power. The documentary, set to be released on Jan. 19, 2018, follows Obama and several of his senior officials, including Power, who is currently a professor of global leadership and public policy at the Harvard Kennedy School and professor of practice at the Harvard Law School...“We need to draw people into public service and government,” Power said. She also encouraged young people and Harvard students to consider entering the foreign service.

Several justices on the nation's highest court are heading to Massachusetts to celebrate the bicentennial of Harvard Law School. Chief Justice John Roberts will be joined by Justices Anthony Kennedy, Stephen Breyer, Elena Kagan, Neil Gorsuch and retired Justice David Souter at Thursday's event on campus...Roberts is expected to give remarks. Harvard Law School Dean John Manning will then lead a conversation with the justices...Other speakers on Friday include former U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch and former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power.

...In a panel discussion Monday evening at Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) moderated by MSNBC host Rachel Maddow, former members of President Obama’s cabinet, including onetime Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter, Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson, Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz, and Samantha Power, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, described what they see as a fraying of alliances, a loss of credibility with allies and enemies, a stepping back as a leader on human rights and democracy, and a relinquishment of diplomacy as a critical component of national security...“Is President Trump a person who gets haunted, who can think about other people, even in this country, as deserving of empathy and respect, or can he put himself in the shoes of others?” said Power, the Anna Lindh Professor of the Practice of Global Leadership and Public Policy at the Kennedy School and professor of practice at Harvard Law School.

Four former Obama-era national security officials criticized the Trump administration’s approach foreign policy at the Institute of Politics Monday night...[Samantha] Power likewise lambasted the Trump administration for what she perceived as a failure to carry out a foreign policy that supported American values. She argued that China might be able to supplant the United States on the world stage without proper American leadership. “We have a State Department that’s rewriting its mission statement to cut democracy promotion from even its stated purpose,” she said. “That’s a fundamental misunderstanding of the political capital we have around the world, and it allows China to step right in.”

...For decades, many logical, rational people ignored the crusade against elites because it was built on such an obviously illogical, irrational premise. Instead of engaging political opponents in an honest debate about issues troubling the nation, it sought to silence those opponents simply by presenting them as members of an effete, out-of-touch, know-it-all elite...Before she was a Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Harvard professor, and ambassador to the UN, Samantha Power was an immigrant kid from Ireland growing up in Georgia. “If I had stayed in Georgia and not gone off to Yale and Harvard Law School and been blessed to have this amazing but, in its way, removed education, maybe I would be better at selling our climate change policies to the skeptics I grew up with,” she tells me. “We’ve got to find a way to translate these important issues into terms that can build public support in red and blue communities.”

An op-ed by Samantha Power. When George Washington gave his Farewell Address in 1796, he urged the American people “to be constantly awake” to the risk of foreign influence. In the wake of Russia’s meddling in the 2016 United States election, the president’s warning has a fresh, chilling resonance. The debate in the United States about foreign interference concentrates on who did what to influence last year’s election and the need for democracies to strengthen their cybersecurity for emails, critical infrastructure and voting platforms. But we need to pay far more attention to another vulnerability: our adversaries’ attempts to subvert our democratic processes by aiming falsehoods at ripe subsets of our population — and not only during elections.

The Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University has selected Harvard Law School Dean Martha Minow and Harvard Law School Professors Samantha Power ’99, Adriaan Lanni and Intisar Rabb as Radcliffe Institute fellows for the 2017-2018 academic year.

Former U.S. Ambassador Samantha Power is writing a memoir about her transition from writing a Pulitzer Prize-winning condemnation of foreign policy to becoming a leading public advocate for the government. Dey Street Books, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishing, told The Associated Press on Tuesday that it had acquired Power's "The Education of an Idealist." A release date has not yet been determined..."Making the transition from critic of U.S. foreign policy to U.S. government official was not easy, but public service proved the most gratifying experience of my life," Power, now a professor at Harvard Law School and Harvard Kennedy School, said in a statement. "I am looking forward to stepping back to explore the highs and lows, and to share ideas for how, even in troubled times, we can each do our part to shape a more humane future."

Samantha Power, who served as the 28th U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations from 2013 until 2017, has been named to a joint faculty appointment at Harvard Law School (HLS) and Harvard Kennedy School (HKS), the deans of the two Schools announced Thursday. The appointment begins immediately...“I am very excited to return to Harvard, as I believe it is essential that we do all we can to ensure that graduates have the skills they need to succeed in messy geopolitical and multilateral environments,” said Power. “Given the daunting challenges we confront — whether from terrorism, rising nationalism, climate change, or mass atrocities — it is essential that we in academia draw lessons from experience, devise practical approaches, and prepare the next generation to improve their communities, their countries, and the world.”