[inaudible conversations] good afternoon. My name is jerry fowler, and im a senior policy analyst here at the open Society Foundations, so im pleased to welcome you to this event thats hosted by open society and by our friends at politics and prose. To hear about ben rawlences new book, city of thorns. Were very proud, actually, because ben did part of the work for this book while he was an open society fellow, and so were happy to have made that particular contribution to the work. Were also pleased this afternoon to have karen atilla who is an editor at the Washington Post and who is going to be interviewing ben. Shell say a little bit more about bens background, but let me tell you about karen. She, before joining the Washington Post, reported for the Associated Press from cure sow, and her work has appeared in publications across the world including can i have a list here, i wont go through the whole thing but salon, the haitian times, morningside post. Shes also made Television Ap