On 28 November 2025, Katja Mielke will give a short and accessible German-language talk about the BRI in Afghanistan. From noon CET, anyone interested can listen to the 20-minute presentation and ask questions afterwards.
To kick off our new series of lunchtime talks, Dr Dawud Al-Ansari explored the geopolitical shifts occuring in the Gulf, using the pertinent example of the Port of Sohar in Oman.
On 22 May 2025, Jana Hönke, professor and chair for Sociology in Africa at the University of Bayreuth, gave a fascinating talk based on the edited volume “Africa’s Global Infrastructures: South–South Transformations in Practice”.
As the second phase of De:link//Re:link explores on the implications of the BRI in Southeast Asia, various members of our network took part in the HU’s Indonesian Studies Day on 9 May 2025 – an event heavily focused on the arts.
Our PI John Njenga Karugia (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin) will give the next Silk Road Talk on 22 November from 4.15 to 5.45 p.m. The lecture will take place in the Department of Asian and African Studies at Invalidenstraße 118, Room 410. China and the European Union’s interests and competition across Africa are perceptible through various
We are delighted to anounce that Dr. Ibrahima Niang (Université Cheikh Anta Diop, Dakar/ZMO, Berlin) will give the next Silk Road Talk on 25 October from 4.15 to 5.45 p.m. The lecture will take place in the Department of Asian and African Studies at Invalidenstraße 118, Room 410. The New Silk Roads celebrate their tenth
The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is one of the biggest projects in transportation, freight, road, rail, air, and maritime linkage in the history of the world, but it concerns itself inadequately with road safety. Out of 1.2 to 1.3 trillion US$, the transport investment is 144 billion to 304 billion. BRI transport projects are estimated to increase trade by between 2.8 and 9.7% for corridor economies (Pakistan, Indonesia and African continent) and between 1.7 and 6.2% for the world (ibid). With this huge volume of trade, one may ask: are road safety, carbon emission, environmental degradation and smog mitigating measures adopted in this mega initiative? BRI transport projects will contribute to lifting 7.6 million people from extreme poverty and 32 million people from moderate poverty (Ibid) but will security and safety of the road users be considered adequately?
Our research fellow Prof. Dr. Aldin Mutembei will give the next in our Silk Road series of talks on 15 June from 6 to 8 p.m. It will take place online and in Room 410, Invalidenstraße 118.
In this talk Tamás Peragovics provides a general assessment of reactions to and effects of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in Eastern Europe. It starts by sketching the key BRI-associated projects in the region, and the mixed responses to them in the host countries. Hungary will serve as an example to discuss the difficulties
The second lecture in the Silk Road Lecture series will be held by Prof. Dr. Adams Bodomo and explores the subject of the Belt and Road Initiative in Africa–China–Europe relations. Adams Bodomo is Professor of African Studies (Chair of African Linguistics and Literatures) at the University of Vienna with the following research expertise: – African
