FP’s Global Thinkers in the news

It’s been almost two weeks since Foreign Policy released its Top 100 Global Thinkers of 2011, and while the year is nearly up, many members of the list are continuing to make headlines.

Russian anti-corruption blogger Alexey Navalny was arrested on Monday, the day after Vladimir Putin’s United Russia — which Navalny has famously dubbed "the party of crooks and thieves" — saw losses in an election widely thought to have been less than free and fair.

In a historic trip to Myanmar last week, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met with Aung San Suu Kyi, whose opposition movement recently announced it will reenter the political system, paving the way for her possible candidacy for parliament.

Pakistan lawmaker Sherry Rehman has been selected as her country’s new ambassador to the United States. The move followed the controversial departure of Husain Haqqani, who resigned in connection with a memo sent to former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen.

Meanwhile, Luis Moreno-Ocampo is preparing for the end of his term as International Criminal Court prosecutor; his successor, Gambian judge Fatou Bensouda, was chosen last week.

Syrian political cartoonist Ali Ferzat, who was seized and attacked by security forces in August, has been named one of two recipients of the 2011 Press Freedom Prize, awarded by Reporters Without Borders and Le Monde. Fellow Syrian activist Razan Zaitouneh recorded a video message for Foreign Policy, speaking from hiding in Damascus.

Democracy activist Mohamed ElBaradei has expressed concern about religious extremism in Egypt, following the results of the country’s November parliamentary elections. ElBaradei is scheduled to give a speech about Egypt and the Arab Spring on Saturday, Dec. 10, at the Cisco Public Services Summit in Oslo.

In other media coverage, Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff and Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker both recently got the big profile treatment, in the New Yorker and the New York Times, respectively. Reuters has also filmed video interviews with several Global Thinkers, including economist Esther Duflo, former Al Jazeera director-general Wadah Khanfar, and social media guru Clay Shirky.