Atlantic Council blogs

#CounteringISISpropaganda

By Ashish Kumar Sen

Web-savvy extremists dominate discourse on social media Web-savvy extremists belonging to the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) and their online cohort of supporters dominate the conversation on Twitter leaving little hope for the success of US efforts to counter that propaganda, according to a former State Department official. “ISIS has created, using this […]

Three Main Takeaways from Gen Dunford’s Nomination Hearing

Gen Joseph F. Dunford, Jr., the Commandant of the Marine Corps, testified in front of the Senate Armed Services Committee on July 9 to be the next Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He looks likely to be confirmed, and analysis already exists about what kind of job he will do if he assumes […]

Japan Interested in Joining NATO Missile Consortium

By Reuters and Wall Street Journal

From Tim Kelly and Nobuhiro Kubo, Reuters:  Japan is interested in joining a NATO missile building consortium that would give Tokyo its first taste of a multinational defense project, a move the U.S. Navy is encouraging

Syrian No-Fly Zone: From Slogans to Details

By Frederic C. Hof

The Washington Post, on July 10th,contained an impressive commentary authored by Atlantic Council Director Nicholas Burns and International Rescue Committee CEO David Miliband.  In Syria’s Worsening Refugee Crisis Demands Action from the West, the authors argue—among other things—that, “The debate about a no-fly zone across Syria to protect civilians from the Assad government’s deadly ‘barrel bombs’ needs to […]

Top News: Sisi Approves New Parliamentary Election Law

By EgyptSource

Egyptian president Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has ratified amendments to an election law regulating electoral constituencies, paving the way for setting a date for long-delayed parliamentary elections, according to state news agency MENA.

Egypt’s New Anti-Terror Law: An In-Depth Reading

By Sonia Farid

The assassination of Prosecutor General Hisham Barakat—the first attempt on a senior official’s life since a bombing targeted the Interior Minister in 2013—came as a shock. With the attack taking place in highly secured area in Cairo —the Military Academy neighborhood—the threat suddenly felt much closer to home for many. One of the government’s first […]

Top News: Humanitarian Pause Reached in Yemen

By MENASource

The United Nations has announced an “unconditional humanitarian pause” in the Yemen conflict starting at midnight local time Friday and is seeking commitments from all parties to stop all violence.

EconSource: IMF Further Cuts Saudi Growth Projections

By EconSource

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) on Thursday further cut its growth projections for Saudi Arabia’s oil dependent economy despite a rebound in crude oil prices.

A Look at the 2014 State Department Human Rights Report on Egypt

By Amy Hawthorne and Elissa Miller

Four months after the congressionally mandated due date, the US State Department finally released its 2014 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices.  The report on Egypt paints a disturbing picture of the human rights crisis afflicting the country since the military ousted former president Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood on July 3, 2013, following […]

At Four Years Old, South Sudan is the ‘World’s Most Failed State’

By Ashish Kumar Sen

Atlantic Council’s Pham says President Salva Kiir must step down to give his country a chance Four years after it won independence from Sudan following decades of war, South Sudan is once again trapped in a vicious cycle of conflict that has turned the world’s youngest nation into a failed state, says the Atlantic Council’s […]