Much could upset deal on Bosnian state government

Significance Under pressure from the US and EU ambassadors, Bosnia's leaders have reached agreement to form a state government. The breakthrough has provided a badly needed respite from political paralysis; it required difficult concessions from all sides. Impacts By emphasising each side's concessions, politically affiliated media could jeopardise a shaky settlement. The United States and EU are too preoccupied with mainly internal problems to re-engage in Bosnia or the Balkans more concretely. Tensions between Russia and the West are being reflected in Bosnian politics.

Subject Assessment of the 'Khorasan Group' Significance The US-led coalition's airstrikes in Syria since 2014 have focused on the Islamic State group (ISG). However, they have also struck the 'Khorasan Group' -- a collection of veteran al-Qaida operatives that allegedly plots terrorist attacks abroad, and that operates on the edges of Syria's al-Qaida affiliate, Jabhat al-Nusra (JaN). Beginning in late 2014, Washington warned repeatedly that the Khorasan Group was plotting attacks in Europe and the United States, and that it was recruiting holders of Western passports who would be able to enter and transit Western countries more easily. Impacts Al-Qaida outside Syria will likely pursue terrorist attacks that punish the West for its policies in the Muslim world. ISG will also carry out terrorist attacks in an effort to assert its leadership over the global jihadist movement. Without an imminent threat from the Khorasan Group, the West will have difficulty making a case for targeting JaN. JaN will retain a base of Syrian opposition support so long as it does not invite international retaliation by supporting an attack abroad.


Significance However, the United States has already blocked a Kuwaiti-drafted statement expressing “outrage” at Israeli security forces’ killings of protesters and calling for an independent investigation. The demonstrations by thousands of Gaza Palestinians approaching the Israeli security fence coincided with the formal opening of the new US embassy in Jerusalem. Impacts The turn in international opinion against Israel could bolster Iran and its Lebanese protégé Hezbollah. Events in Gaza make progress in the stalled Egypt-backed ‘reconciliation’ agreement with the West Bank authorities even more unlikely. Few countries will follow the US example of moving their embassies to Jerusalem, despite Israeli inducements. Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s recent foreign policy successes could bolster his position against corruption investigations.


Significance Representing a victory for international diplomacy, the deal promises to resolve a 13-year stand-off between Iran and the West, and pave the way to Iran's reintegration into the international community and economy. However, it must first receive Iranian government approval, and pass review in the US Congress, where Republicans are gearing up to oppose it. Impacts Iranian hardliners are unlikely to scuttle the settlement as long as Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei maintains his support for it. President Hassan Rouhani and his centrist-reformist allies will be strengthened politically against the hardliners. The deal will exacerbate tensions between the United States and key regional allies, Israel and the Gulf Arab states. Detente with Washington will be limited by hardliners on both sides, and by Iran's unstinting support for its regional proxies.


Significance Follow-on action from Washington and responses from foreign actors will shape the US government’s adversarial policy towards China in semiconductors and other strategic technologies. Impacts The Biden administration will likely conclude that broad-based diversion of the semiconductor supply chain away from China is not feasible. The United States will rely on export controls and political pressure to prevent diffusion to China of cutting-edge chip technologies. The United States will focus on persuading foreign semiconductor leaders to help develop US capabilities, thereby staying ahead of China. Washington will focus on less direct approaches to strategic technology competition with China, notably technical standards-setting. Industry leaders in the semiconductor supply chain worldwide will continue expanding business in China in less politically sensitive areas.


Significance The growing numbers of senior citizens in the United States, their rapidly increasing adoption of social media and their high levels of voter turnout make their vulnerability to disinformation a matter of special concern. Other advanced democracies likely mirror the US experience. Impacts Older US adults' use of television as their primary news source may provide some bulwark against being targeted by disinformation online. The rapid evolution of news distribution technologies will challenge older adults used to a more slowly changing media landscape. Further research is necessary to determine the causes of age-based vulnerability and levels of resilience.


2007 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 124-144 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susanne C. Moser

Many observers perceive the US as an obstructionist force in global efforts to address greenhouse gas emissions. Federal leadership—despite rhetoric—remains absent even as the scientific consensus about the urgency of climate change and public acceptance of the reality of the problem are growing. This situation has created fertile ground for bottom-up political mobilization and action to reduce emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gases. Using an actor-centered model of social movement evolution, this paper surveys the signs in civic society, the private sector, and at local and state government levels for the emergence of a climate protection movement in the United States. Diverse initiatives are networked and expanding, thus creating pressure for more federal action. This paper paints a more optimistic and realistic picture of actual efforts in climate protection in the United States, the immensity of the challenges remaining notwithstanding.


Significance The US-led diplomatic boycott of the Winter Olympics in February will increase the pressure on US companies to decide whether China or the United States is their more valuable market. Some of that pressure to decide is coming from employees and customers in both countries. Impacts More frequent and sharper confrontations between US companies and China could accelerate the decoupling of the two economies. Renewed emphasis on human rights concerns will encourage the further shifting of some supply chain elements out of China. Consumer brands are particularly vulnerable to human rights concerns, as are their suppliers.


2008 ◽  
Vol 90 (8) ◽  
pp. 272-274
Author(s):  
Matt Freudmann ◽  
Lucy Wales

As a final-year trainee in vascular surgery, I was working at the West London Renal and Transplant Centre for Professor Nadey Hakim and Vassilios Papalois. I am very grateful to both of them for encouraging me to apply for a visiting fellowship to the United States, enabling me to experience some of the benefits of surgical training abroad and to broaden my perspectives in transplantation. I was awarded a visiting fellowship to the University of Minnesota Transplant Center by Professor David Sutherland, head of the division of transplant surgery.


2020 ◽  
Vol 72 (4) ◽  
pp. 625-652 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jairo Buitrago Ciro ◽  
Lynne Bowker

PurposeThis is a comparative investigation of how university libraries in the United States, Canada and Spanish-speaking Latin America are responding to predatory publishing.Design/methodology/approachThe Times Higher Education World University Rankings was used to identify the top ten universities from each of the US and Canada, as well as the top 20 Spanish-language universities in Latin America. Each university library's website was scrutinized to discover whether the libraries employed scholarly communication librarians, whether they offered scholarly communication workshops, or whether they shared information about scholarly communication on their websites. This information was further examined to determine if it discussed predatory publishing specifically.FindingsMost libraries in the US/Canada sample employ scholarly communication librarians and nearly half offer workshops on predatory publishing. No library in the Latin America sample employed a scholarly communication specialist and just one offered a workshop addressing predatory publishing. The websites of the libraries in the US and Canada addressed predatory publishing both indirectly and directly, with US libraries favoring the former approach and Canadian libraries tending towards the latter. Predatory publishing was rarely addressed directly by the libraries in the Latin America sample; however, all discussed self-archiving and/or Open Access.Research limitations/implicationsBrazilian universities were excluded owing to the researchers' language limitations. Data were collected between September 15 and 30, 2019, so it represents a snapshot of information available at that time. The study was limited to an analysis of library websites using a fixed set of keywords, and it did not investigate whether other campus units were involved or whether other methods of informing researchers about predatory publishing were being used.Originality/valueThe study reveals some best practices leading to recommendations to help academic libraries combat predatory publishing and improve scholarly publishing literacy among researchers.


Subject The US intelligence community in a year after purported reforms. Significance On December 29, an agreement between the United States, Japan and South Korea to share intelligence on North Korea went into effect. This ended a year in which the US intelligence community was the subject of broad domestic public scrutiny in the light of continued fallout from former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor Edward Snowden's leaks to a Senate report on the CIA's use of torture. The White House's support for reforms has been watched by tech and telecoms businesses that have lost considerable revenue from reputational damage as a result of the growing awareness of requirements on them of US intelligence activities. Impacts The Obama administration will rely on the US intelligence community as its main counterterrorist instrument. A Republican Congress will be less likely to support intelligence reforms, though only marginally so. There is no indication that the balance of power on intelligence issues between the executive and legislative branches has shifted.


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