The Robert S. Strauss Center for International Security and Law has announced the winners of the 2012 William H. Crook Fellowship awards. Now in its fifth year, the Crook Fellowship program provides summer fellowships to students in the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs working for nonprofit organizations in developing countries. Since 2008, it has enabled student work on twenty-eight development projects in Africa, Asia and Latin America.

John Lewis Gaddis, who spoke at a Strauss Center event last month, won a 2012 Pulitzer Prize for his biography of George Kennan.

Strauss Center Distinguished Scholar Alan Kuperman wrote an Op-ed for the Los Angeles Times on the risks of a nuclear Iran. Kuperman writes that those not in favor of taking military action against Iran rely on the idea that the Iranian government is a rational actor and as such would never use nuclear weapons offensively or risk provoking retaliation.

The CCAPS program’s new mapping tool that links areas vulnerable to climate change and violent conflict throughout Africa is featured in this Scientific American article. The article notes that CCAPS developed this mapping tool in order to visually demonstrate the intersection between climate change vulnerabilities, conflict, and aid in Africa. Some of the goals of this project are to improve policymakers’ understanding of the vulnerabilities and to potentially direct the use of future resources to enhance regional stability.