The Frontline Club

Randa Habib will be at the Frontline Club to discuss her new book Hussein and Abdullah: Inside the Jordanian Royal Family with Hosam El Sokkari, head of BBC Arabic. With unprecedented access to the Royal Family, it was the Amman-based journalist who broke the story that King Hussein had chosen his son, Abdullah, to succeed him to the throne and not his brother Hassan, the designated Crown Prince. Randa Habib will discuss the insight she gained into the late King Hussein’s rule during twenty-five years of unprecedented access as well as the new King’s campaign to position himself as peace broker in the Middle East. With: Hosam El Sokkari, head of BBC Arabic

Mark Sedwill, Ambassador to Afghanistan since April 2009, will be at the Frontline Club for a special event ahead of the London Conference on Afghanistan which begins on 28 January. A unique opportunity to hear the British Ambassador in Kabul discuss the future of Afghanistan and what can be achieved at the international conference. Tipped to be the Nato Civilian Representative in Afghanistan, Mark Sedwill has been reported saying that the conference would aim to set tentative timetable to switch security duties from foreign troops to local forces and that it is likely to pledge funding for a program aimed at encouraging Taliban fighters to renounce violence and promoting reconciliation with the government. Mark Sedwill will be in conversation with Nick Fielding, journalist and author of two books: Defending the Realm: Inside MI5 and the War on Terrorism and Masterminds of Terror.

In the second of our events to mark the first year of Barack Obama's presidency we will be examining his foreign policy. Barack Obama was elected on a ticket of change but to what extent has the international agenda altered since the 44th President of the United States replaced George Bush in the White House? His address to the Muslim world at Cairo University in June last year was lauded as a masterpiece of oratory and cultural sensitivity but what in practice has Barack Obama delivered when it comes to Iraq, Afghanistan and Iran as well as the War on Terror declared by his predecessor? Discussion with Jim Sciutto, author of Against US, a book that chronicles the rise of anti-Americanism and Islamic extremism in the Arab world. Rest of panel to be announced. Enayat Fani, senior editor and presenter, BBC Persian Television; Zaki Chehab, author and journalist and editor of arabstoday.net; Davis Lewin, head of programmes at the Henry Jackson Society, a foreign policy think tank based in London Moderator: Elizabeth Palmer, CBS News correspondent

Shortly after his inauguartion Barack Obama signed orders to shut the prison facility at Guantanamo Bay by January 2010. That deadline will not be met partly as a result of resistance White House officials encountered from members of Congress opposed to moving prisoners to US soil and from other countries they had hoped would accept detainees. One year after his inauguration how much has been achieved? Clive Stafford Smith, founder and director of Reprieve, will be at the Frontline Club to examine President Barack Obama's record of Guantanamo Bay as well as the detention facilities at Bagram and Abu Ghraib. To what extent has President Barack Obama succeeded in propelling the United States away from the Bush administration's use of torture and extraordinary rendition? Moderated by BBC correspondent Jon Manel who has reported on Guantanamo and this month presented the programme “Closing Guantanamo” Last year he recorded exclusive first broadcast interviews with former detainee, Binyam Mohamed and the U.S. Guantanamo Closure Special Envoy, Daniel Fried.

The leaking of the notorious ‘Climategate’ emails just before the Copenhagen global warming summit, the resignation of Professor David Nutt as chairman of the government’s drugs advisory panel: two events that demonstrate how politicised science has become. With so much confusion about such important and complex issues as the environment, Swine flu, and vaccinations can journalists be looked to to provide objective analysis? Are science and environment journalists equipped to set out the parameters of the debate on global warming and other important issues to allow the public to make up their own minds? Or are they contributing to the distortion of debate, playing into the hands of the powerful lobbies and misrepresenting complex evidence for the sake of a good headline? What impact are English libel laws having on critical discussion of medical practice and scientific evidence as the courts are used more and more to silence critics? With: Michael Hanlon, science editor for the Daily Mail; Mike Hulme, Professor of Climate Change in the School of Environmental Sciences at the University of East Anglia; Beth Taylor, director of communications, Institute of Physics

The coming year will be a pivotal one in the history of Sudan, with the country’s first multi-party elections for 24 years looming and the expiry date of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement just one year away. Amid claims that the voter registration system is flawed, the Sudan Peoples’ Liberation Movement and other opposition parties are already warning that they may boycott the poll in April. There is also concern that the CPA may be on the brink of collapse, with seven of Sudan’s churches issuing stressing that it must be adhered to if Sudan is to avoid going to war again. The joint statement also called on Western governments to intervene to prevent a return to conflict. To mark the fifth anniversary of the CPA Frontline Club to discuss what lies ahead for Sudan, looking at the prospect for free and fair elections and the possibilities of return to war or for restoration and transformation. Panel: The Most Rev. Daniel Deng, Archbishop of Sudan; Paul Molong Akaro, deputy head of mission for the government of Southern Sudan Liaison office to the UK; Osman Hummaida, human rights activist and executive director of the African Centre for Justice and Peace Studies; Sara Pantuliano, programme leader, Humanitarian Policy Group, Overseas Development instituteWith Richard Cockett, Africa editor of The Economist

With latest reports predicting that we'll reach Peak Oil in the next 3-5 years and with oil prices more volatile than ever, will the oil crisis soon take over from the financial crisis as the world's most pressing concern? And while the jury is still out on whether or not we really are heading for Peak Oil, it seems that the end of the oil wells could indeed be in sight if the latest industry reports are to be believed. Although the world economic crisis has slowed down global oil consumption and sent prices plummeting to an all-time low, 2008 saw oil prices reach their highest-ever at almost $200 a barrel. Even with the recent discoveries of oil fields off Brazil and Cuba, it seems that the search for alternative energy is now more pressing than ever. But what is Britain doing to address this and are we investing enough time and resources in looking for viable alternatives? And if oil prices do shoot up again, and gas-rich Russia, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela and Iran become increasingly powerful, what are the implications for the new world order? Jeremy Leggett is founder and Chairman of Solarcentury, the UK's largest solar solutions company, and SolarAid, a charity set up with Solarcentury profits. He is author of The Carbon War and Half Gone. Dr Manouchehr Takin is a Senior Petroleum Upstream Analyst at the Centre for Global Energy Studies. His activities at the Centre include special studies on the oil and gas scene in the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq and the North Sea and oil and gas services industry in the Middle East. Before joining the Centre in 1990, Dr Takin spent nine years in Vienna as Senior Research Officer at the OPEC Secretariat analysing global energy and oil markets. Prior to OPEC, he acquired sixteen years of experience in the oil industry and has worked as geologist, geophysicist and reservoir engineer for companies including Amoco International, The Iranian Oil Consortium,  and the Geological Survey of Iran. Simon Taylor is Director of Global Witness, a London-based NGO. Simon started Global Witness' oil transparency campaign in 1999, co-launching the Publish What You Pay (PWYP) campaign in 2002, together with George Soros and a number of other NGO's.  The PWYP launch directly precipitated the UK Government's own launch of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) later that year. Simon is now focused on the nexus of climate and energy security. Ed Crooks is the energy editor of the Financial Times. He has worked for the FT for nine years, previously as economics editor and UK news editor. Before that he worked for BBC radio and television news as an economics correspondent. He is a former member of the government's Sustainable Development Commission.

As Obama prepares to take office as the 44th US president, he is set to face huge challenges in the Middle East. Will the renewed emphasis on diplomacy that he is proposing with the region pave the way for improved relations with Iran and prevent them from developing their nuclear programme? Will he be able to broker an Israeli-Palestinian peace process where every US president before him has failed and how will he balance his commitment to Israel with his desire to build peace with the Palestinians? Who are his new panel of advisors and special envoys to the Middle East and what will they mean for the region? And will the man famed for his rhetoric be able to make his vision a reality? Lawrence Freedman has been Professor of War Studies at King's College, London since 1982. He has written extensively on nuclear strategy and the cold war, as well as commentating regularly on contemporary security issues. His most recent book, A Choice of Enemies: America confronts the Middle East, came out in May in the United States and was published in the UK in July. Dr Emanuele Ottolenghi is the executive director of the Transatlantic Institute. A political scientist by training, he came to Brussels in 2006 after having previously taught Israel Studies at the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies and at the Middle East Centre of St. Antony's College, Oxford University. He is a frequent commentator on Israeli domestic politics, the Arab-Israeli conflict, and Europe's Middle East policy. His columns have appeared on Newsday, the National Review Online, The Middle East Quarterly, the Jewish Chronicle, The Guardian, The Daily Mirror; and blogs on Contentions. Sadeq Saba is the BBC's Iranian affairs analyst. Zaki Chehab is the political editor for the London-based broadsheet Al Hayat and a Senior Editor for the Arabic TV channel LBC. He has covered the Middle East for a variety of newsmedia and has covered numerous Middle Eastern conflicts, including the Lebanese Civil War, the 1982 Lebanon War and the First Intifada. Chehab was born in Tyre, South Lebanon and grew up in the Palestinian refugee camp Burj El Shamali. He is the author of the 2005 book Iraq Ablaze: Inside the Insurgency and the 2007 book Inside Hamas: The Untold Story of the Militant Islamic Movement. Dr Rosemary Hollis is director of City University London's Olive Tree Israeli-Palestinian scholarship programme. Dr Hollis was previously at Chatham House with three years as director of research and ten years before that as head of its Middle East Programme. Dr Hollis has carved out a career as a leading specialist on regional political and security issues in the Middle East, and was for several years an Assistant Professor in Political Science at George Washington University in the US.

Nearly one year on since Raul Castro officially took power from his brother, Fidel, and with a new US president about to take office, the change that has inevitably been creeping up on Cuba looks set to continue into 2009. Amid celebrations of the Cuban Revolution's 50th anniversary, we remember its achievements and  legacy, while assessing the implications of Obama's Presidency for the island. How have Cubans and the exiled community received the news of Obama's election and what are the expectations on his promises to open dialogue with Cuba and lift the embargo? Has the inevitable "opening up" of the economy and wider access to the internet and communications changed the nature of Cuban society? And are the glory days of the Cuban Revolution now firmly in the past? Richard Gott is a British journalist and historian with forty years experience of Latin America. He was for many years on the staff of The Guardian newspaper in London. He is currently an honorary research fellow at the Institute for the Study of the Americas at the University of London. He has recently published Cuba: A New History (Yale University Press), and Hugo Chávez and the Bolivarian Revolution (Verso). Pedro Pérez-Sarduy is a poet, writer, journalist and broadcaster living in London. He is the author of Surrealidad (Havana 1967), Cumbite and Other Poems (Havana 1987 and New York 1990), and a new novel, Las Criadas de La Habana, The Maids of Havana. He has been a radio journalist since 1965, beginning with Cuban national radio as a current affairs journalist and with Cuban television on the first African and Caribbean music show. He was then with the BBC Latin American Service from 1981 to 1994. His latest book of poetry Malecón Sigloveinte (2005), has just been published in Cuba. Stephen Wilkinson first visited Cuba in 1986 and has been travelling to and writing about the island ever since. Now assistant director at the International Institute for the Study of Cuba, Stephen has a PhD on the subject of Cuban literature. He has written numerous articles on such questions as the history of US-Cuba relations, Cuban attitudes and policy towards homosexuals and the nature of the Cuban state. Stephen's book: Detective Fiction in Cuban Society and Culture was published in 2006 by Peter Lang. He frequently comments on Cuba issues on The Guardian newspaper's Comment is Free website. Emilio San Pedro has been the BBC World Service's Americas Editor for the last three years, and worked as a journalist for two decades, mostly in radio. He is currently based in Miami. Nick Caistor is a former BBC Latin American analyst and is now a freelance writer on the region for various publications. He has been an expert on Haiti since 1990, when Aristide first came to power.

Dubbed as India's 9/11, the recent attacks in Mumbai left almost 200 dead and the world reeling. While criticism has been levelled at India's government for their slow response to the attacks as well as their failure to act on intelligence, Lashkar-e-Toiba - a Kashmiri extremist group based in Pakistan - are being blamed for carrying them out. What will these attacks mean for the ongoing "war on terror" and will India now be seen as a soft target? Will deteriorating relations between Pakistan and India be brought closer by a new co-operation to work together in the aftermath of the attacks and a joint desire to bring the perpetrators to justice? Or will these attacks simply fuel the existing tensions between these two nuclear powers? David Loyn is the BBC's International Development correspondent, and formerly their Delhi correspondent. Vikram Dodd writes for The Guardian and was in Mumbai shortly before the attacks took place, and returned there the following day to report on them. Edna Fernandes is a British Indian journalist who was born in Nairobi and grew up in London. She is a former foreign correspondent for the Financial Times in New Delhi as well as political and international business correspondent for Reuters and Dow Jones in London. Her first book Holy Warriors: A Journey into the Heart of Indian Fundamentalism was shortlisted for the UK's Index on Censorship TR Fyvel prize and nominated for India's Ramnath Goenka Excellence in Journalism Best Book Award. Most recently, Edna has written about the fallout from India's 9/11 on her website. Owen Bennett-Jones is presenter and correspondent for the BBC and former Islamabad correspondent. Owen's coverage of the events in Pakistan in 2007 and 2008 included interviews with Benazir Bhutto, Nawaz Sharif and President Musharraf, reporting on the country's corruption, Benazir Bhutto's return and on the aftermath of her assassination. In 2003 he wrote Pakistan: Eye Of The Storm, a modern history of the country, and he is currently working on a second edition.

In recent weeks, increasing criticism has been leveled at the media over failure to provide adequate warning of the impending economic turmoil, as well as accusations of sensationalist coverage. Did the media fail in its scrutiny? Or are the workings of international finance now so complex and secretive that the media can no longer provide effective oversight? We ask some of the journalists and commentators who have been credited with providing early warning of the collapse of the markets for their assessment of where the global economy will be in twelve months as well as asking them to reflect on the media's role in the crisis. Paul Lashmar is an investigative journalist and is currently undertaking a research project into the reporting in the UK of the sub-prime market prior to August 2007 for publication in Journalism Practice. He writes for various newspapers including the Independent on Sunday, The Guardian and The Evening Standard, and his specialist areas include terrorism, intelligence, organised crime, offshore crime, business fraud and the Cold War. Gillian Tett is an assistant editor of the Financial Times and oversees the global coverage of the financial markets. In 2007 she was awarded the Wincott prize, the premier British award for financial journalism, for her capital markets coverage. She was named British Business Journalist of the Year in 2008. Ann Pettifor Ann Pettifor is a political economist and author of The Coming First World Debt Crisis (Palgrave, 2006) and editor of The Real World Economic Outlook (Palgrave, 2003). She is a fellow of the new economics foundation (nef) in London and director of Advocacy International. Michael Blastland is a freelance writer and broadcaster and co-author of The Numbers Game: The Commonsense Guide to Understanding Numbers in the News, in Politics, and In Life. A journalist all his professional life, he started on weekly newspapers before moving to the BBC where he made current affairs programmes for Radio 4, such as Analysis and More or Less. Paul Mason is Newsnight's Economics Editor with a brief to cover an agenda that he sums up as: "profit, people and planet". He is also the author of Meltdown - The End of the Age of Greed which will be published in Spring 2009 by Verso.

MI5 says that some 4000 British Muslim extremists are a threat to national security and that another major terrorist attack is not a question of 'if' but 'when'. The investigative journalist Richard Watson, who has been at the forefront of reporting terrorism and extremism for BBC Newsnight, presents the results of his major investigation into the rise of extremism in Britain, which has just been published by Granta. David Henshaw is the executive producer of Channel 4's Dispatches Undercover Mosque films. Sheikh Musa Admani was the first imam to be appointed to a British university in 2001. He has grass roots experience of countering radicalisation among the Muslim youth and has developed counter radicaliation programmes abroad. Sheikh Musa has participated in Madrid Seminar (2006 - building successful communities), Paris Three Faiths Forum (2005), Peace Research Institute (Oslo 2005) and the Forum Barcelona (2004) to name a few. His contribution at the international level has been towards promoting durable peace and encouraging Muslims to work in partnerships with international Institutions. All those concerned have come to learn the need for people of different faiths and no faith to come together and tackle international concerns that are paramount to the wellbeing of society at large. Iftikhar Ahmed is head of the London School of Islamics. He is a retired teacher and is originally from Pakistan. He arrived in the UK on a work permit as a teacher in 1967 and worked for the ILEA as a teacher in the 60s and 70s. He founded the first Muslim school in 1981 in the London Borough of Newham and for the last 35 years has been campaigning for state funded Muslim schools. In the 1970s, he took the ILEA to the HIgh Court and the House of Lords for discrimination and racism for refusing to give him time off to attend the obligatory Friday prayer in the Masjid. He also took the British Government to the European Commission of Human Rights for the same reason. Usman Raja is recognized internationally as one of the most accomplished trainers in the sports of Muay Thai and Mixed Martial Arts. Using this platform he has been working actively to aid social integration of Muslim youth through the understanding of Islamic principles. Experience as a Jihadist in his teenage years motivated him to become a passionate spokesman fully committed to furthering the cause of tolerance and understanding both outside and within the Muslim community. Richard Watson is the BBC's Newsnight correspondent.

Recent events in the Caucasus have highlighted the growing self-confidence of a newly resurgent Russia, that appears to be seeking to revive much of the old Soviet influence at home and abroad. In recent months, Russia - backed by increasing oil and gas revenues - has paid off debts to international banks and organisations; announced that it is seeking to modernise its military and resumed its long-range projection of military force; intervened militarily in support of separatist movements in the Caucasus; and made clear its objections to Nato expansion and the US missile defense plans. Should the West accept that Russia will continue to dominate in its sphere of influence or does it pose a renewed threat to Nato and its allies? And does the West have double-standards when it comes to dealing with Russia? Join us as we debate all these issues and more with Edward Lucas - author of The New Cold War and Alexei Pankin, a respected Russian journalist. Edward Lucas is the Central and Eastern Europe correspondent for The Economist and has been covering the region for more than 20 years. He's witnessed the final years of the Cold War, the fall of the Iron Curtain and the collapse of the Soviet empire as well as Boris Yeltsin's downfall and Vladimir Putin's rise to power. From 1992 to 1994, he was the managing editor of The Baltic Independent, a weekly English-language newspaper published in Tallinn. He is the author of The New Cold War. Alexei Pankin is a Russian political and media analyst. Currently he is Editor-in-Chief of the IFRA-GIPP Magazine, an ePaper monthly for publishing business professionals, and columnist for a number of news outlets including Novosti - a Russian News and Information agency, and The Moscow Times. Between 1992 and 1996 he organised national elections media coverage, monitoring missions in post-Communist countries ranging from Estonia to former Yugoslavia, and from Russia to South Caucasus. He was founding editor of the Op-Ed page at the leading Russian national daily Izvestia. Bridget Kendall has been the BBC's Defence and Diplomatic Correspondent since 1998. She has made several documentaries for BBC television including profiles of Vladimir Putin, Boris Yeltsin and Mikhail Gorbachev, as well as a documentary on the rise of Russian nationalism. During 2006, she travelled to Russia to chair and present three hour-long debates on Russia's future, as well as conduct a two-and-a-quarter hour interactive interview with President Putin, live from inside the Kremlin, which was broadcast worldwide - her second interview with the Russian leader.

Richard Bourne's Lula of Brazil is an objective study of one man set against the contemporary history of a major emerging power. From climate change to inequality, Lula and his country are grappling with the greatest challenges facing the modern world. President Lula of Brazil has a life that reads like a film script. The child of a dysfunctional family, his early life was one of poverty and chaos. In the 1970s, at a time when his country and continent were ruled by right-wing dictators, he switched from football-mad metalworker to militant trade union leader. Dissatisfied with the power of existing parties to bring about change, he founded the Partido dos Trabalhadores, the Workers Party. He was elected as president in 2002 and again in 2006. As a progressive leader in a globalizing world, he has walked a difficult tightrope in international relations with the US, Africa and the Middle East; and in trying to improve the lot of poor and black Brazilians at home. Richard Bourne is the author of numerous other books on Latin America and first visited Brazil in 1965 as a journalist. He later founded the Commonwealth Policy Studies Unit at London University's Institute of Commonwealth Studies. Rogerio Simoes is head of the BBC Brazilian Service

In this revealing memoir, newspaper editor Abdul Bari Atwan recounts with humour and honesty his journey from Palestinian refugee camps to the front page. He depicts both the horror of camp massacres and the unexpected consequences of Britain's involvement in the region. Atwan shares his many extraordinary encounters, including tea with Margaret Thatcher, a weekend with Osama bin Laden, intimate meetings with Yasser Arafat, and the row between Colonel Gaddafi and the Shah of Iran that earned him his first journalistic break. Abdul Bari Atwan was born in Gaza in 1950, left aged seventeen and has since become one of the world's foremost commentators on the Middle East, for the last twenty years editing the independent Arabic daily, London-based al-Quds al-Arabi. Ian Black is the Middle Eastern editor for The Guardian.