George Soros opens the Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET) Paradigm Lost Conference at the Foreign Ministry in Berlin April 2012. Perry Mehrling and Axel Leijonhufvud respond.

Robert A. Johnson, Executive Director, Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET) delivers keynote address at the opening lunch of the INET Conference "Paradigm Lost: Rethinking Economics + Politics" at the Axica Center in Berlin April 2012. "A more relevant economics would reintroduce history, context, and humility instead of clinging to mathematical formalism and would reintegrate itself with the realities of human life."

The first session of the 2012 Japan Futures Initiative Spring Symposium examined energy security challenges for Japan and the world in the wake of the 3/11 earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear disaster. The discussant was Julia Kulik, University of Toronto. Panellists were as follows: Akira Igata (Doctoral Student in the Graduate School of Law, Keio University, Tokyo, Japan, and Working Group Member, Independent Investigation Commission on the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Accident); John Kirton (Associate Professor of Political Science, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON; Director of the G8 Research Group, and Co-Director of the G20 Research Group at the Munk School of Global Affairs); James Manicom (SSHRC postdoctoral fellow at the Balsillie School of International Affairs, Waterloo, ON).

On April 11, former ambassadors Thomas Pickering and Hossein Mousavian discussed how to bring Iran in from the cold of its isolation and how to deal constructively and realistically with Iran’s evident determination to achieve a nuclear weapons capability. The discussion was moderated by James Blight and janet Lang of the Balsillie School of International Affairs.

With China's emergence as a world economic superpower, its role in global governance is also seen as an area of potential growth for the Middle Kingdom. But despite the country's growing clout, Hongying Wang, visiting associate professor at the University of Waterloo, says that China is an "under-participant" in global governance, given its size and strategic importance in world politics.