The Robert S. Strauss Center for International Security and Law has announced the winners of the 2013 William H. Crook Fellowship awards. Now in its sixth year, the Crook Fellowship program provides summer fellowships to students in the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs working for nonprofit organizations in developing countries. Since 2008, it has enabled forty-three students to work on development projects in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and Eastern Europe.

The Strauss Center had another successful year of its International Security Speakers series with guests from academia, the military, policy and government, and the private sector. Guests spoke on a diverse array of topics from the Vietnam War to religion in US foreign policy, from the rise of China to the Iraq War, from the future of the US military to the effects of the financial crisis on America's international standing, to name a few. This year's impressive list of speakers includes a Pulitzer Prize winning historian, an Officer of the British Empire, and world-renowned scholars.

Strauss Center Distinguished Scholar Michael Webber was recently interviewed by State Impact Texas regarding his upcoming work on "Energy at the Movies," a new television show on Central Texas public television station KLRU. From Back to the Future to The Matrix, energy concerns serve as important plot points, if not the foundation, of many Hollywood blockbusters.

On May 2, 2013, Strauss Center Distinguished Scholar Dr. Alan Kuperman appeared on Fox 7 News to discuss the current situation in Syria, and why the US should be concerned by the conflict.