This interview has been edited for length and clarity. It took place in May, before Gershon finished his semester and returned to the United States and before some developments in political negotiations related to this issue in late May.Michael Johns: Where in the world were you and what were you doing there?Gershon Stein: I’m in...
As the armed conflict between rival factions of Sudan’s military government approaches its second month, there may be a possible end in sight. General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, leader of the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), and General Mohamed Hamdan “Hemedti” Dagalo, leader of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), are currently engaged in a conflict which has...
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.Michael Johns: Where in the world were you and what were you doing there?Oleksii Antoniuk: I was in Poland pretty much the entire mid-winter, starting from December 15th to January 14th. I spent an entire month in Warsaw and went around neighboring cities – Kraków, Wrocław. It...
Last month, the United States announced significant new commitments to security and humanitarian aid in coastal West Africa and the Sahel, a region immediately south of the Sahara. Deepening U.S. involvement in this part of the world is meant to be responsive to several challenges: a sharp rise in jihadist violence and terrorism; the expansion...
Last Thursday, TikTok’s CEO, Shou Zi Chew, testified in front of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce as efforts to ban the app have picked up support among lawmakers. After a 5-hour testimony, Republican and Democrat lawmakers appeared unconvinced by Chew’s arguments as he tried to address their concerns regarding TikTok’s threat to national...
The collapse of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) this month has sent shockwaves throughout the global tech sector — especially U.S. venture capital-backed science and tech firms, of which about half banked with SVB. This bank failure, which is the largest since the 2008 financial crisis, immediately caught the attention of federal regulators: the U.S. Treasury...
On March 10, Xi Jinping was re-elected for an unprecedented third term as president of China, solidifying his control over the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) for another five years. While the election in China was performative, the message was heard loud and clear in Washington; China is not backing down and, under Xi, will continue...
Hundreds of thousands of demonstrators gathered in Mexico City this week to protest changes to Mexico’s electoral laws promoted by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador. They say the reform – which introduces new limits on the oversight and sanctioning powers of the nonpartisan National Electoral Institute as well as cuts down its size and funding...
On Monday, February 20th, President Joe Biden visited Kyiv to meet with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy. While Biden’s visit may have been shrouded in secrecy, his message was clear: the United States would continue to use its intelligence, military, and economic pressures to support Ukraine in defending itself from Russian aggression. The visit and the...
In his State of the Union address last week, President Joe Biden declared his intent for the United States to lead the world in manufacturing and to restructure the supply chain to “[begin] in America.” He credited the bipartisan 2022 CHIPS and Science Act as the first significant step toward that goal, by providing an...
