This week, Columbians came together to address the recent crises in North Africa and Japan. Both the Graduate Business School and the School of International Affairs hosted informed and passionate debates, bringing the experts and the answers to Columbia. First, Lisa Anderson, President of the American University in Cairo, came to speak at SIPA. The event was titled: "The Arab Uprisings: A View From the University on Tahir Square."

Anderson just lived through the national revolution. To the large crowd of political scientists, professors and students, she related the historical moment: "We started getting cell phone videos of the building with snipers on the roof. The security people who had snipers that night on much of the buildings in Tahir Square actually did get into the campus, go on the roof, started taking stones and stuff, throwing them into the protest. And you can see from the video that there were shots fired...you have to presume they were firing into the crowd"

But when it came time for Q & A, the SIPA crowd was most eager to question the President about the next potential revolution - in Libya. Columbia College senior Adam Seiff asked "Should we read your comments to imply that there is a human right to democracy, and that this human right should be enforceable by the international community?" Seiff was referring to Anderson's recent Bloomberg article entitled, "Obama’s Libya Inaction Risks Missing Opening for Democracy." Anderson is now well known for her support of multilateral intervention in Libya.  

SIPA student Todd Levinson kicked off the discussion of Libya's future asking: "Do you see there being an ability, in Libya, do you see there being a possibility for talks? It sounds like the rebels want Gaddafi gone, and Gaddafi isn't gonna go." Anderson emphatically answered no, not while Gaddafi is in power. Her future predictions on Libya "are predicated on Gaddafi's departure." She continued, by predicting: "Ghaddafi is very likely to die, rather than be either permitted to leave the country or to enjoy internal exile...That's how angry people are."

While SIPA debated Libya's future, three experts from the Columbia community gathered at the business school to debate the consequences of Japan's Earthquake. 

Speaker David Brenner, Professor of Radiation Biophysics at Columbia is an expert on radiation. He discussed the health consequences of Japan's reactor meltdown. 

Assessing the damage, Brenner expects fatalities among the workers in the nuclear power plant, but very minimal cancer risks for the surrounding population. He responded to popular questions, including whether to expect health consequences in the US. "Well, the short answer is absolutely not. It is inconceivable that the plume could possibly travel the Pacific Ocean without being completely dispersed. The answer has to be no."

Professor of the Japanese Economy at the Columbia Business School, David Weinstein, explained the economic impact of the disaster: "Over the next month or so, you'll see part shortages and supply chain disruptions, but I think the conclusion is that while the human toll is truly horrible, fortunately the aggregate economic impacts are likely to be much less severe."

While the speakers each expressed a positive outlook for Japan's future, it was Professor of Political Science Gerald Curtis who filled the crowd with a sense of optimism. Curtis said, "The opportunity in this crisis is that there is a potential to mobilize the extraordinary strengths of the Japanese, to not only rebuild Tohoku, but somehow to get Japan moving again."

If there was consensus among the speakers, it was scathing criticism of the Tokyo Electric power company. Curtis warned, "The American Press Conflates the Government and the Tokyo Electric Power Company. That is a big mistake. Because TEPCO - their behavior throughout this crisis has really been outrageous...TEPCO is a big problem." Yet each expert conceded that a solution to the TEPCO problem remains to be solved.

Columbia certainly rose to the occasion this week when SIPA and the Business school did their part to bring the debate and analysis of historic political revolution and natural disaster right here to campus.