Category: Blogs

Plebiscite Leaves Colombia’s Peace Process in Limbo

By Ashish Kumar Sen

On October 2, Colombian voters rejected a peace accord with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) guerrillas. This was a “surprising” outcome of a plebiscite that has thrown into question the prospects for peace in the country, according to Atlantic Council analysts. “One could argue that it both complicates and eases this problem,” said […]

Kremlin Panics after Dutch Report, and It Should

By Alexei Sobchenko

The report of the Dutch-led investigation team on the shoot down of Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 over eastern Ukraine offered a momentary glimpse into the true nature of the proverbial riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. Instead of denying any Russian involvement in the death of 298 people in July 2014, a number […]

What Egypt’s Assassination Attempts Say about its Islamist Insurgency

By Mokhtar Awad

An attempted assassination at the end of September on Egypt’s assistant prosecutor general, Zakaria Abdul Aziz, highlights the capability and determination of militant Islamist actors in the Egyptian mainland to wage terror in the mainland.

Egypt’s Currency Catch 22

By H.A. Hellyer

The board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is due to meet sometime in the next two to three weeks, at which point it will formally sign off on the deal for Egypt. It’s a deal wrought with challenges, but is likely to go forward anyway. Cairo insists that the IMF deal ties in well […]

Georgia at a Crossroad

By Tedo Japaridze

Georgia today is a very different country from what it was four years ago. Owing in large part to its strong regional relationships and geographic location, Georgia has enhanced its partnerships with Europe and the United States, and has also become increasingly relevant to East Asia, largely through trade. It is now time to reflect […]

Gene Editing: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

In the 2016 Worldwide Threat Assessment of the US National Intelligence Community, Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper noted: “given the broad distribution, low cost, and accelerated pace of development of this dual-use technology [genome editing], its deliberate or unintentional misuse might lead to far-reaching economic and national security implications.” The CRISPR-Cas9 (clustered regularly […]

A Return to Civil War in South Sudan?

By Julian Wyss

While South Sudan’s First Vice President Taban Deng Gai carries out a public relations offensive in New York and Washington this week, all indications suggest that the country is teetering dangerously close to collapsing back into civil war.

NATO ‘Best Deal’ the United States Has Ever Made

By Ashish Kumar Sen

Former NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen warns against placing conditions on defense of allies In a thinly veiled swipe at Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, a former secretary general of NATO, said on September 29 that it is in the United States’ best interests to be the world’s “policeman,” and it […]