In The News

Times of India: Behind the Trade War

Nayan Chanda November 27, 2018
Intellectual property theft is the heart of the trade war between the United States and China. “While ramping up tariffs on products gets headlines, the US has quietly stepped up its counter-intelligence and law-enforcement machinery to foil Beijing’s multi-directional espionage efforts aimed at challenging US hegemony,” explains Nayan Chanda, founding editor of YaleGlobal Online, in his column...

BBC: Russia-Ukraine Tensions Rise

November 26, 2018
Russia is expanding control over Ukraine step by step – annexing Crimea in 2014, supporting militants in eastern Ukraine, inspecting vessels passing through the Kerch strait, and most recently opening fire on and confiscating three naval vessels off the Crimean coast. The Ukrainian vessels were trying to sail from the Black Sea port of Odessa to Mariupol in the Sea of Azov, and Russia’s control...

Japan Times: Delay in UN Security Council Reform

November 25, 2018
Developed and developing nation alike are impatient for reforms in the UN Security Council with its governance structure of permanent members, any of which can veto actons. “The negotiations have been going on for the past 10 years with various groups representing different positions on how reform should be manifested and has relied on a consensus-based decision-making style,” report Kyodo and...

National Geographic: AI and Wildlife Research

Anne Casselman November 23, 2018
Numerous wildlife species are in rapid decline. New software, photography, remote-sensing and other technologies like Wildbook assist biologists to document the decline, allowing calculation of individual species counts, locations and population assessments in a few days rather than months. Wildbook is free and open source. “AI is well on the road to completing tasks typically done manually by...

New York Times: Trump Pardons Saudi Arabia

Mark Mazzetti and Ben Hubbard November 22, 2018
For the US president, only his opinion matters as he regularly ignoring professionals with years of experience. The latest example is Donald Trump dismissing a finding by US intelligence agencies that the Saudi Crown Prince ordered the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in a Saudi diplomatic consulate. “Trump has long viewed foreign policy as a series of business deals, stripped of values and...

Haaretz: Airbnb and West Bank Settlements

Noa Landau, Yotam Berger and Jack Khoury November 21, 2018
Most of the world has condemned the Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank for complicating peace negotiations with the Palestinians. Airbnb is removing rental listings of West Bank Jewish settlements, reports Haaretz, and Israel has countered by restricting the company’s operations nationwide, calling the removal “discriminatory.” The decision affects about 200 listings. Israel also...

Foreign Affairs: The Next Arab Uprising

Marwan Muasher November 21, 2018
The Arab Spring uprisings, the low price of oil and the disregard for human rights as displayed by the murder of a journalist in a Saudi diplomatic consulate – ordered by the Saudi crown prince, according to the US Central Intelligence Agency – is prompting nations and businesses around the globe to reassess stability of the Middle East. Likewise, citizens living in the region under authoritarian...