Dear friends of My Country Talks,

Hello and happy new year! We are excited to be back sending our newsletter in 2023. Over the last two months we have been busy launching The World Talks, and we’re excited to share some updates with you below. We have a recap of our latest media partner workshop, and profiles of just some of the organizations that are helping us create this global dialogue experiment.

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The World Talks takes shape

In case you missed the news last year, we are very excited to announce The World Talks coming this spring. Just like it sounds, we will connect thousands of people from around the world for a one-on-one conversation. Participants will meet a total stranger from a different country, context and mindset to discuss global issues. 

This global day of dialogue is a huge experiment. That’s why we are bringing together 20 different media organizations from around the world to help us shape this unique program. We're currently reaching out to international media brands such as the New York Times, The Economist, the Guardian, BBC and others. On January 30th, we had a call with our media partner network to decide how to match participants and set the discussion questions. 

Participants who sign up for The World Talks will be matched on discussion questions about social inequality, climate change, cost of living and social values. We will also ask them to share information about their life, their hobbies and their job, so each pair will be sure to find many similarities even across cultures. 

Stay tuned for more updates about the program! We always send information in our newsletter, and you can also follow us on Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn.

Meet the media network shaping The World Talks

Who are the media partners for The World Talks? We’d like to introduce you to just a few:

• El Tiempo is one of Colombia’s biggest and oldest news outlets, with more than 100 years of reporting. The daily print newspaper and online site serve nearly two million readers every day.
• workpointTODAY is a daily online news site and television program in Thailand. Beyond the news, TODAY also creates innovative formats, such as interactive formats and policy lab for the future. 
• Pulse is “Africa's leading innovative media company”, with outlets around the continent and an international media network. For The World Talks, we are partnering with Pulse Ghana.
• Meduza is a “Russian media in exile”. Based in Latvia, Meduza provides verified, unbiased news in English and Russian to audiences in Russia, across the former Soviet Union, and around the world.

Do you work for a media outlet? Would you like to learn more about how you can join the network? Email Hanna Israel at hanna.israel@mycountrytalks.org

What we're reading

How to talk peace while waging war

Gabrielle Rifkind is a specialist in conflict resolution and the director of Oxford Process, an independent organization focusing on peacemaking efforts at the leadership level. In her article for Prospect Magazine, she outlines one way to enable peace talks between Russia and Ukraine. “An agreement could be made to limit the current destruction, such as no missile and artillery attacks by Russia on specified critical civilian infrastructure in Ukraine. In return for such an agreement, Ukraine could agree to no attacks on Crimea.”

Father and daughter: what it means to serve in the military

The war in Ukraine is causing deep divisions across Europe, especially between generations. In the last Germany Talks, we saw large differences on questions such as whether Germany needs to bolster its defences, and whether mandatory military service should be reinstated. In this recent piece in ZEIT ONLINE (in German), MCT project lead Hanna Israel takes that debate to one family. Luise comes from a family with a long military history. She just started her own training in the German army. She sat down with her father, who served in Afghanistan, to talk about the war and discuss their different ideas about the military today.