In The News

Slate: Hunger and Obesity Can Be Two Sides of the Same Coin

Eleanor Cummins October 4, 2017
The recent United Nations report on “The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2017” explains the troubling recent increase in world hunger and obesity rates. Global hunger rates had been steadily declining for decades, but from 2015 to 2016 there was an increase of 40 million people who went hungry. Obesity has doubled since 1980. Each year, an estimated 815 million people go hungry...

Project Syndicate: The Dangers of Demographic Denial

Adair Turner October 3, 2017
Too many leaders of emerging economies are counting on sizable numbers of young adults to become consumers and fuel growth. But technological advancements could contribute to high rates of unemployment. The term “demographic dividend” is misunderstood, explains Adair Turner for Project Syndicate. “The term was originally used to describe a transition in which countries enjoyed both a one-off...

The Washington Post: North Korean Ship Seized Off Egypt With Cache of Weapons

Joby Warrick October 2, 2017
A ship bearing the Cambodian flag with a North Korean crew was stopped just before entering the Suez Canal in August. Acting on a tip from US intelligence officials, Egyptian custom agents found more than 30,000 Soviet-style rocket-propelled grenades with removable, non-lethal warheads onboard– the “largest seizure of ammunition in the history of sanctions against the Democratic People’s Republic...

Foreign Affairs: How ISIS Is Transforming

Colin P. Clarke October 1, 2017
The counterterror campaign against the Islamic State since the group’s violent emergence in 2014 has made progress. Yet, “predictions of the group’s ultimate demise are premature,” argues Colin P. Clarke for Foreign Affairs. Ultimately, Clarke argues, analysts witness a transformation “from an insurgent organization with a fixed headquarters to a clandestine terrorist network dispersed throughout...

Financial Times: AI’s Rapid Advance Sparks Call for Code for Robots

John Thornhill September 22, 2017
The artificial intelligence, or AI, field has experienced great advances, with recent innovations enabling robots to become increasingly autonomous. Many AI inventions, such as Amazon’s Alexa and Apple’s Siri, are benefiting society and quickly become routine for users. On the opposite end of the spectrum, the potential for robot-induced destruction is emerging. In August, two Chinese chat bots...

The Economist: Can Political Islam Make It in the Modern World?

September 21, 2017
In the aftermath of the Arab Spring, Islamist parties across the Middle East and North Africa have achieved mixed results. As the Economist notes, the legacy of the Muslim Brotherhood, which began as an anti-imperialist social and educational movement in Egypt under Hassan al-Banna in 1928, gave way to Islamist offshoots, each iteration borne out of its own historical particularities and social...

Project Syndicate: The Risk of a New Economic Non-Order

Mohamed A. El-Erian September 19, 2017
The current global economic order is under strain, and the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund could pursue reforms and take steps to adjust to new economic realities, preventing disintegration and disorder, argues Mohamed A. El-Erian for Project Syndicate. The current order is rooted in “an economic paradigm that aimed to promote win-win interactions among countries, emphasizing trade...