Weekly Briefing: Reflect, Then Re-Engage

January 16, 2026 | v34i01 | Subscribe

This issue of the Global Atlanta Weekly Briefing is sponsored by Atlanta International School, celebrating its 40th anniversary throughout 2026.

One Last Moment of Reflection

Happy New Year, all, if I can still say that. Hope the holidays treated you well. Before diving back into reporting on the ins and outs of navigating a complex global economy — there’s a lot going on in the world, to make the understatement of this young year — I thought we could start out with one last moment of reflection.

In addition to helping us plan for the inevitable onslaught of stories, events and community engagements that await us in 2026, this also gives our team a sense of satisfaction to look back at all we’ve accomplished, in large part thanks to your attentive readership and support.

Here’s just a taste of what we did, if you’ll allow the indulgence:

Hosted 25 events in 2025 with 1,770 attendees — See our “events wrapped”
Reached 250 Global Atlanta Passport members in 2025. How to join
Visited four countries on reporting/scholarly trips (see below), highlighting Atlanta’s global connections at crucial moments in U.S. relationships with each place. I became an India Foundation Kautilya Fellow, while Michal Jensby is undertaking the Global Leadership Fellows program with the World Affairs Council of Atlanta, which will include a trip to Germany in March.
Neared 14,000 news briefs and reported stories in our 35-year archive. (In a sign that I’m getting older than I want to admit, I’m responsible for about half of that output)

All that said, this isn’t about us. It’s about you: A publication is nothing without an audience who cares. That’s why I hope our little look-back below will ultimately help you plan out your engagement with our city and world this year, generating some ideas on books and articles to read, countries to visit, locally based diplomats to engage, or trends to understand.

I hope you’ll find a bit of yourself in the pieces that follow, both within this briefing and in the year to come.