Giancarlo Elia Valori “My friend, I only want to talk about happy things!”. With this surprising line, US President Joe Biden (did) not respond to the question of a journalist who asked him in early July about the withdrawal of US and allied forces from Afghanistan – a …
Read More »Can a Pragmatic Relationship With the Taliban Help Russia Counter Terrorism?
Dara Massicot Neither the United States nor Russia wants to see Afghanistan become a haven for international terrorist groups. For now, Russia is taking a pragmatic approach to the Taliban in that it has a relationship with the group that the United States does not. Much of the …
Read More »4.1 billion lack social safety net
More than four billion people live without any welfare protection today to cushion them from crisis, the UN International Labour Organization (ILO) said on Wednesday, while highlighting how the COVID-19 crisis has pushed up government spending by some 30 per cent. Leading the call for countries to extend social safety …
Read More »Turkish Economy at odds with the World
Syed Rizvi It seems that the economic fundamentals are breaking away from the very fabric of rationality ever since the pandemic upended the world last year. While the world is lumbering to tighten the monetary policy after awarding trillions to expand undeterred, there is a country operating on …
Read More »Post-Afghanistan intelligence and geopolitics
Giancarlo Valori The troop withdrawal has left Afghanistan in chaos, and the various intelligence agencies (including the Israeli and British ones) assess that geopolitical games are being played. The United States and Europe are worried that the People’s Republic of China and Russia will “control” Afghanistan. Since the …
Read More »The 2021 Canadian Federal Election and the Arctic
Carter Boone On August 15, 2021, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau paid a visit to the new Governor-General Mary Simon, Queen Elizabeth II’s representative in Canada, asking to dissolve parliament and call an election two years ahead of schedule. Trudeau asserts that Canadians must vote on a vision …
Read More »Artificial Intelligence is Critical Enabler of the Energy Transition
The World Economic Forum has published a new study on how artificial intelligence (AI) can be used to accelerate a more equitable energy transition and build trust for the technology throughout the industry. As the impacts of climate change become more visible worldwide, governments and industry face the …
Read More »The jihad after Afghanistan
Giancarlo Elia Valori How will the jihadists’ global threat evolve after Afghanistan is back under Taliban rule? It should not be forgotten that the Taliban are the victorious expression of a people of over thirty million inhabitants. A people that is in no way represented by those few …
Read More »Security and Development in Northeast Asia: New Approaches Needed
Andrey KORTUNOV Today’s Northeast Asia—or the NEA—apparently witnesses a co-existence of two international agenda. The two are closely interconnected; yet, each tends to follow its own logic and dynamics. We inherited the first agenda from last century. The second agenda reflects the realities of the current 21st century. …
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