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Education in North Korea: Playing the Long Game

Education in North Korea: Playing the Long Game

Thursday, September 29, 2022

For the last 30 years, U.S.-North Korea engagement has been erratic. Despite moderate success during the 1990s, the inconsistent nature of official engagement with North Korea over the last two decades has hindered sustained progress in improving bilateral relations and the welfare of North Korean civil society. More recently, the compounding effects of diplomatic and economic isolation caused by the U.S.-led global pressure campaign, an escalating array of multilateral and unilateral sanctions, the COVID pandemic and North Korea’s self-imposed border shutdowns have exacerbated the environment for economic and business engagement. At the people-to-people level, the barriers to engagement have even begun eroding relationships and local know how for many U.S.-based organizations.

Type: Analysis

Education & Training

Pakistan Presses U.S. to Lead Global Response to Climate Disasters

Pakistan Presses U.S. to Lead Global Response to Climate Disasters

Thursday, September 29, 2022

Pakistan’s unprecedented flood disaster is a wakeup call for governments and international institutions on the need to build a worldwide response to the disproportionate burden of climate change on nations of the Global South — a challenge that Pakistan’s foreign minister underscored to U.S. officials and foreign policy analysts Wednesday at USIP. Bilawal Bhutto Zardari urged policymakers to lead an international effort to use the Pakistan crisis as a catalyst for a more effective international effort to help the countries most vulnerable to climate change.

Type: Analysis

Environment

Want more accountability for the Taliban? Give more money for human rights monitoring.

Want more accountability for the Taliban? Give more money for human rights monitoring.

Thursday, September 29, 2022

Ahead of the U.N. General Assembly last week, U.N. Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Afghanistan Richard Bennett released his first report grading the Taliban’s treatment of Afghans’ rights. It was an F. In the past year, the Taliban have engaged in a full-scale assault on Afghan’s human rights, denying women access to public life, dismantling human rights institutions, corrupting independent judicial processes, and engaging in extralegal measures to maintain control or to exact revenge for opposition to their rule. That is one of the main reasons — along with their continued support of al-Qaida and a refusal to form a more inclusive government — that Afghanistan has no representation at the U.N.

Type: Analysis

Human RightsJustice, Security & Rule of Law

Brian Harding on the First U.S.-Pacific Islands Summit

Brian Harding on the First U.S.-Pacific Islands Summit

Wednesday, September 28, 2022

As President Biden hosts a first-ever U.S. summit with Pacific Island countries, USIP’s Brian Harding says regional leaders “have some concerns” about growing U.S.-China competition — but they would rather “talk about their own interests and needs … If you ask them, their top priority by far is climate change.”

Type: Podcast

Global Policy

U.S. to Move Afghanistan’s Frozen Central Bank Reserves to New Swiss Fund

U.S. to Move Afghanistan’s Frozen Central Bank Reserves to New Swiss Fund

Wednesday, September 28, 2022

For almost seven months, Afghan central bank reserves frozen by the United States and set aside to somehow help the Afghan people, have sat, immobilized. Now those funds — $3.5 billion — are at long last on the move. On September 14, the U.S. and Swiss governments unveiled the “Fund for the Afghan People” as a Geneva-based foundation with its account at the Bank for International Settlements. The Fund will preserve, protect and selectively disburse this money. With this major policy step accomplished, new questions arise: What do these developments mean, what are realistic expectations for the reserves, and what needs to happen next?

Type: Analysis

Economics

Give Haiti Another Chance — and the Support It Needs

Give Haiti Another Chance — and the Support It Needs

Tuesday, September 27, 2022

In the midst of a clearly unfolding humanitarian disaster, many friends of Haiti are turning away from the impoverished nation, arguing that everything has been tried and little has worked. But turning our backs on Haiti now will only consign the country to misery, violence and hunger, with the ensuing outflow of emigrants. Based on wide experience in eight conflicts, to include Haiti, I believe there is a way out of the current dead end. It requires patiently and assertively combining international expertise and resources with Haitian will and energy to address the country’s intertwined problems of security and governance.

Type: Analysis

Fragility & Resilience

Why is Biden Hosting the First U.S.-Pacific Islands Summit Now?

Why is Biden Hosting the First U.S.-Pacific Islands Summit Now?

Monday, September 26, 2022

President Joe Biden will host leaders of Pacific Island countries for a summit at the White House from September 28-29, the latest U.S. effort to strengthen ties with a region that is increasingly the focus of competition between China and the United States and its partners. While China is a major force behind the United States’ effort to reengage with the Pacific Islands, strategic competition has also reawakened Washington to its fundamental interests in the region, which have existed for many decades, and long predate the current era of U.S.-China rivalry.

Type: Analysis

Global Policy

The 1963 Franco-German Reconciliation Treaty: A Guide for Japan and South Korea?

The 1963 Franco-German Reconciliation Treaty: A Guide for Japan and South Korea?

Friday, September 23, 2022

Relations between Japan and South Korea are at a dead end. Officials on both sides have acknowledged the need to improve relations. Beset by stark differences over compensation for historical issues of coerced sexual slaves (so-called comfort women) and forced labor, and contemporary issues of trade, the relationship needs a game changer to alter course. South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol has called for a “rethink” of the relationship. Conflict-resolution practices beyond East Asia could help us to think outside the box.

Type: Analysis

Reconciliation

Regime Preservation is Putin’s Primary Concern

Regime Preservation is Putin’s Primary Concern

Thursday, September 22, 2022

Russian President Vladimir Putin and the Russian leadership are not irrational. Their primary goal is regime survival. To date, the Russian military’s poor performance in Ukraine does not present an existential threat to the Putin regime. Neither the Russian military’s failure to decisively defeat the Ukrainian military nor a Ukrainian victory that leads to complete expulsion of Russian forces from Ukrainian territory are likely to topple it.

Type: Analysis

Global Policy

Modi, Putin and Xi Join the SCO Summit Amid Turbulent Times

Modi, Putin and Xi Join the SCO Summit Amid Turbulent Times

Thursday, September 22, 2022

The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) resumed in-person summits last week in the wake of the COVID pandemic and at a moment of unprecedent change and challenge. Member states Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan are at war over their border. So are dialogue partner states Armenia and Azerbaijan. All SCO members are dealing with the economic impact of the Russian war in Ukraine as well as climate disruptions like the floods overwhelming Pakistan. Mistrust between India and Pakistan, full members since 2017, make cooperation difficult on the SCO’s original core mission of counterterrorism. And India and China, which were building toward the “Wuhan spirit” of cooperation when India joined in 2017, are hardly on speaking terms despite recent progress toward deescalating a friction point along their disputed Line of Actual Control.

Type: Analysis

Global Policy