In The News

Blood Spilled on China-India Border: Diplomat

Sudha Ramachandran June 17, 2020
A standoff punctuated with frequent clashes in recent weeks along the Line of Actual Control turned violent with the death of 20 Indian soldiers in Galwan Valley in Ladakh. China did not release casualty figures. Indian sources suggested as many as 40 Chinese died in brutal hand-to-hand combat that did not involve firearms. Both India and China claim the area. The battle occurred with border...

UNHRC to Debate Systemic Racism: AFP

June 15, 2020
Burkina Faso’s ambassador to the UN, Dieudonné Desiré Sougouri, wrote a letter for 54 African countries calling for “urgent debate” from the UN Human Rights Council on systemic racism, police brutality, human rights violations against people of African descent and the attacks against peaceful protesters. The UNHRC, after a disruption due to Covid-19, resumes its 43rd session today. “The call came...

Uncertainty for Middle East: Syndication Bureau

Dnyanesh Kamat June 11, 2020
Rising Chinese-US tensions create strategic uncertainty around economic-development, foreign policy and even internal politics in the Middle East. US plans to relocate strategic industries, including healthcare and technology, away from China may benefit economies like Egypt or Morocco. “On the other hand, the increasingly zero-sum nature of economic competition between China and the US means...

Cybersecurity for Infrastructure: Project Syndicate

Marietje Schaake and Stéphane Duguin June 9, 2020
The Covid-19 pandemic underscores society’s reliance on infrastructure, including the internet for communication and data exchanges as well as health-care systems. Malevolent forces target social media with disinformation and hospitals and laboratories with ransomware, phishing and other malicious programs. Over the past two months, such attacks have occurred every three days, yet governments...

How the World Sees the US Protests: Guardian

Uki Goñi, Lily Kuo , Jason Burke, Tom Phillips, Sam Jones and Julian Borger June 8, 2020
The US presidential election is less than five months away, and the decision about who leads the world’s largest economy and military impacts the rest of the world. More than 10 straight days of US protests demonstrate a deep divide. Protests began after police killed a handcuffed black man, despite pleas from horrified witnesses videotaping the death – just one among many such videos in recent...

UK Collision Course With China: Bloomberg

Alan Crawford June 4, 2020
The United Kingdom stands up to China on multiple fronts even while negotiating Brexit. “Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government has criticized Beijing’s planned imposition of a security law on the former British territory of Hong Kong, and is taking steps to exclude Huawei from its fifth-generation mobile networks by lining up potential replacements,” reports Alan Crawford for Bloomberg. The...

Pentagon Sends Troops to DC: Stars and Stripes

Corey Dickstein June 3, 2020
Protests sweep throughout the United States after a handcuffed man died in police custody in Minneapolis. Onlookers filmed and pleaded with police officers to stop, after one held his knee to the back of the man’s neck for more than eight minutes. Some extremists disrupt the peaceful protests, and Donald Trump, stating he wanted to end rioting and property destruction, ordered active-duty troops...