I-BRIDGE's blog (Link Campus University's Research Centre on Global Affairs) - editor, Marco Emanuele - Critical thinking, complexity, international relations (Twitter, @Glob_Eye - Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/marco.emanuele.50)
Showing posts with label CFR. Show all posts
Showing posts with label CFR. Show all posts
Thursday, 17 November 2016
Tuesday, 18 October 2016
Thursday, 13 October 2016
Mexico’s Corrupt Governors (Shannon K. O'Neil, CFR)
Last June, Mexico elected new governors in twelve of its thirty-one states. As millions of voters went to the urns, corruption was a top concern (along with insecurity). Eight states saw the incumbent party kicked out; in four—Veracruz, Quintana Roo, Chihuahua, and Durango—the PRI lost for the first time in the party’s history.
Time to Get Real About Russia Cyber War (Max Boot, Jeane J. Kirkpatrick, CFR)
Our democracy is under attack by Russia, but almost no one is treating the situation with the gravity it deserves. President Obama is loathe to retaliate. Would-be president Donald Trump denies that any attack is happening. And the media are acting as enablers for the attackers.
Thursday, 6 October 2016
Podcast: Young Lives in New China (Elizabeth C. Economy, CFR)
On this week’s Asia Unbound podcast, Alec Ash, author of Wish Lanterns: Young Lives in New China, gives of glimpse of today’s China through the varied stories of its young adults. Ash beautifully profiles six of his Chinese peers born in the late 1980s and 90s—such as Fred, the patriotic daughter of an official, and Lucifer, an aspiring superstar—who are only children with no memories of Mao or Tiananmen. Ash describes a generation with lofty ambitions and the energy and confidence to shape their own destinies. Yet at the same time he finds their lives are also constrained by a kind of powerlessness. Their lives are circumscribed by what Ash calls China’s “brick wall”: the reality that they can only change their own futures as much as the system around them will allow. Though his subjects are not activists, they are not all apathetic; some remain deeply patriotic even as they are critical of the Chinese state, hoping for greater accountability and rule of law. Listen below to hear more about the lives of Ash’s characters, and find out why Chinese youths today are not simply optimistic, but feel entitled to a better future than any generation before them. At the end of the day, Ash’s subjects are just like any other twenty-year-olds, venturing forth into an uncertain world to realize and discover who they really are.
Emergency Food Aid Needed in Northeast Nigeria (John Campbell, CFR)
A September 28, 2016, press release from Medecins Sans Frontieres/Doctors Without Borders (MSF) characterized the humanitarian emergency in northeastern Nigeria as having reached “catastrophic levels.”
Five Questions About the Historic UN Summits on Refugees and Migrants (Jamille Bigio, CFR)
The number of people displaced from their homes by conflict and persecution in 2015 was a record high at 63.5 million people—that’s one person in every 113. What are some of the unique challenges faced by displaced women and girls around the world?
The Scale of Korea’s Intervention in August (Brad Setser, CFR)
Folks in the market like to talk about what is happening to China’s forward book. Some think that China (or its state banks) sold dollars forward last fall, and, well, to many the (modest) disclosed short position that China reports in the IMF’s SDDS reserves template isn’t all that convincing. In part because the disclosed forward book never changes much.
Wednesday, 5 October 2016
South and Southeast Asia—The Islamic State’s New Front? (Joshua Kurlantzick, CFR)
Over the past year, as the Islamic State (ISIS) has suffered multiple losses in Syria and Iraq, the group has clearly been looking to widen its impact, taking the fight to countries outside of the Middle East. Increasingly, ISIS leaders have used social media to call on Islamic radicals to stage attacks in countries in the West like France and the United States, where the Orlando gunman, the San Bernardino gunmen, and the Nice attacker, among others, have publicly identified themselves with ISIS. In most of these cases, the attackers were lone wolves (or duos) who had not received any training or funding from ISIS, and often had not even traveled to Islamic State-controlled territory to train and fight. (To be sure, some recent attackers in Western nations had traveled to ISIS-controlled territory and fought with the group.)
Nigeria’s War Against Indiscipline (John Campbell, CFR)
In 2016, President Muhammadu Buhari said “The long-cherished and time honored, time-tested virtues of honesty, integrity, hard work, punctuality, good neighborliness, abhorrence of corruption and patriotism, have given way in the main to dishonesty, indolence, unbridled corruption and widespread impunity.” He said much the same thing when he was military chief of state from 1983 to 1985.
Restoring Support for International Trade (John Veroneau, CFR)
The politics of international trade have always been complicated. The bashing of trade agreements in last week’s Presidential debate may not fully reflect the views of most Americans, but clearly the political environment for trade is deteriorating. While open markets have been and will continue to be hugely beneficial to the United States, maintaining political support for such markets will require three steps: reframe the case for trade through the eyes of the consumer, refocus trade enforcement through the eyes of companies and workers, and renew the social safety net through the eyes of responsible dislocated workers.
Risky Business: When Governments Do Not Attribute State-Sponsored Cyberattacks (Kristen Eichensehr, CFR)
In the presidential debate last week, Hillary Clinton cited Russia’s responsibility for the hack of the Democratic National Committee (DNC). Two weeks ago, Senator Diane Feinstein and Congressman Adam Schiff released a statement explaining, “Based on briefings we have received, we have concluded that the Russian intelligence agencies are making a serious and concerted effort to influence the U.S. election.” Despite these statements and Crowdstrike’s accusations against Russia, the executive branch has not officially attributed the DNC intrusions to Russia.
Tuesday, 4 October 2016
Despite ‘No’ Referendum, Colombia Peace Process Remains a Model for Women’s Participation (Mayesha Alam, CFR)
After more than half a century of civil war, Colombians voted in a referendum to reject a peace agreement between the government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (known commonly as FARC). This vote came after years of intense negotiations in Havana mediated by an array of international actors. The result is a major blow to Jose Manuel Santos’ administration. What went wrong with the plebiscite will surely be the topic of many autopsies by external observers and soul-searching by those who shepherded the peace process.
Duterte Shakes Up Philippine Foreign Policy (Richard Javad Heydarian, CFR)
The Philippines’ controversial president, Rodrigo Duterte, has once again grabbed global headlines with his inflammatory statements. This time, he reportedly invoked Hitler to underscore his commitment to continuing a‘shock and awe’ campaign against illegal drugs, which has provoked global outcry. In response to a chorus of international condemnation, senior Philippine officials were quick to dismiss Duterte’s latest off-the-cuff remarks as a joke that should not be taken literally. Recognizing his mistake, the president himself apologized “profoundly and deeply” and clarified that there “was never an intention to derogate” the Holocaust.
Nigeria Security Tracker Weekly Update: September 24 – September 30 (John Campbell, CFR)
Below is a visualization and description of some of the most significant incidents of political violence in Nigeria from September 24, 2016 to September 30, 2016. This update also represents violence related to Boko Haram in Cameroon, Chad, and Niger. These incidents will be included in the Nigeria Security Tracker.
Five Questions After Colombia’s Surprising Vote Against Peace (Matthew Taylor, CFR)
Pollsters’ best bets were radically overturned in Colombia Sunday, as widespread apathy and torrential rains dampened turnout in the referendum on the peace deal. Opponents of the deal appeared as surprised as anyone at their own victory, triumphing by fewer than 55,000 votes in a country of 33 million voters. Abstention topped 60 percent, and the “No” side won with the support of less than one-fifth of total voters, by a margin of 0.16 percent of those eligible to vote.
Monday, 3 October 2016
Prince Charles and Israeli Funerals (Elliott Abrams, CFR)
Prince Charles attended the funeral of Shimon Peres last week, in Jerusalem. This was not his first visit: he also attended the Yitzhak Rabin funeral in 1995.
Friday, 30 September 2016
The ECB on the Slowdown in Global Trade (Brad Setser, CFR)
I really liked the ECB’s recent report on the slowdown in global trade (summarized here), for five reasons.
Global Order and the New Regionalism (Stewart M. Patrick, Miles Kahler, CFR)
Regional institutions and initiatives have proliferated in the twenty-first century. This latest wave of regional innovation raises, in new guise, a long-standing conundrum for global order and U.S. foreign policy: When is regional organization a useful, even essential, complement to the ends of global governance—financial stability, an open trading system, sustainable development, robust protection of human rights, or the end of civil wars—and when does it threaten or undermine the achievement of those goals? The new regionalism presents the prospect for new benefits for global order as well as new risks. How those challenges and risks are addressed, by the United States and by other member states, will determine whether a fragmented global order or more effective global and regional governance emerge over the next decade.
Podcast: India and China’s Brave New World (Elizabeth C. Economy, CFR)
On this week’s Asia Unbound podcast, Anja Manuel, cofounder and partner at RiceHadleyGates and author of This Brave New World: India, China and the United States, offers her prescription for how the United States can understand and engage with Asia’s two largest rising powers. Manuel compares and contrasts Indian and Chinese history, leaders, and trajectories, ultimately arriving at a pair of distinct national ambitions: China aims to regain its long-lost place on center stage, and India wishes to re-engage with the world after being relatively isolated since independence.She is sanguine about troubling headlines, such as China’s faltering economy and India’s violent outbursts of Hindu nationalism, which she believes will not hold the two countries back from achieving their greater goals, but acknowledges continuing challenges in both countries’ relations with the outside world, such as unfair business practices or Chinese cyber policies. For Manuel’s recommendations as to what role the United States should play, listen to our conversation below. By her assessment, we are on the right track by bolstering ties with India and—especially in the face of occasional adversity—continuing to seek areas of cooperation with China.
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