Month: March 2017

The UN Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs office announced that they have only received $423 million of the $4.4 billion needed to help the people on the brink of famine in Nigeria, South Sudan, Somalia, and Yemen. Earlier this month, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres warned the international community that it was crucial to raise the funds by the end of March to help 20 million people at risk of famine, including 1.4 million children.

The funds will help provide humanitarian assistance, including food, water, medicine, and other basic necessities to 20 million people at risk of famine. Only 8 percent of the funds have been raised for Yemen, 9 percent for Nigeria, 18 percent for South Sudan, and 32 percent for Somalia.

Terrorism and cyber warfare are the two most important threats to humanity, and NATO and the European Union must take steps to create defense systems. The possibility of starting a cyber-war is analyzed with seriousness and professionalism, given that such a conflict would throw the world into chaos unimaginable.

Until today, 90% of attacks that could be considered legal, terrorist-informational, did not reach any legal discussion because “victims” have been thousands of miles of “attackers” positioned in different countries or continents and in most of them as “attackers” were working in the service of states.

The first reported cases of terrorism informational caused by terrorist groups “established” occurred in 1998 in Sri Lanka by “Tamil Tigers” in Serbia in 1999 by one of Serbian policeman who attacked NATO information systems, and of course in the conflict between Hamas and Israel-Hizbulah since 2006.

There are many cases that do not reach the press because of restrictive legislation on terrorism, for example, several attempts to derail fast trains in Japan (Shinkansen), which are fully computerized or in some cases criminal penetration of air traffic control networks.

Source Knowledge Horizons. Economics

The past two decades has witnessed a number of initiatives by international bodies like; the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), Council of Europe (COE), G-8, European Union, United Nations and the Interpol, which recognized the inherent cross border reaches of cybercrime, the limitations of unilateral approaches, and the need for international harmony in legal, technical, and other areas.

 

In cyberspace a cyber attacker can hide himself readily, and even disguise his attack to appear to originate from a third party. The problem of attribution for a cyber-action is clearly one that will complicate any effort at security controls. Uncertainty about attribution will also constrain retaliatory action. The current level of research in reliable attribution is not adequate. The cyber crime treaties cannot be implemented unless trust exists between signatories that best efforts are being put to identify the criminals and therefore, transparency is first precondition for success.

The inability to track cyber terrorists would make it difficult for local and international jurisdictions to track the entire network of cyber terrorists as well as to prosecute them due to the lack of proof of identification of these cyber terrorists. The potential adoption of a new variant of Cyber Crime and Terrorism convention by all nations would provide the eco-system that may put the criminals and terrorists under pressure and increases the success probabilities of the international law enforcement agencies.

Source     Norbert Wiener in the 21st Century (21CW),  IEEE Conference

This article reminded me that trade is fragile and impacted by a number of other factors. This article is about the adverse affect THAAD is having on Chinese-South Korean relations. China is angry about the missile system, as we discussed, and is taking retaliatory actions against South Korea, including music and television boycotts. So far, South Korea has lodged a complaint with the WTO but China has declined to meet with them directly to work out their disputes.

“It would be up to South Korea to follow up on its complaint to the WTO for any action to take place, analysts say, either by continuing to raise its concerns and spelling out what China is doing wrong, or by launching a trade dispute.”

There is a new head of the World Bank – Kristalina Georgieva from Bulgaria. Georgieva is a proponent for world trade and tried to make some points for why it’s a good thing, even giving credit to China while suggesting that it increase domestic competition. Bonus in this article: an interview with John McCain about TPP.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/new-world-bank-chief-stumps-for-global-trade/

According to a recent UN humanitarian report, over two-thirds of the population in Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) is affected by a humanitarian crisis worsened by natural disasters and political tensions. More than 18 million people in North Korea lack access to food security and basic services. The report states that $114 million is needed to provide crucial humanitarian needs.

The crisis in DPRK has been largely overlooked and ignored despite some efforts by the international community to provide humanitarian aid. Six UN agencies and seven NGOs are among several partner agencies collaborating on relief efforts, but they lack the necessary funding to provide nationwide assistance. The report also notes that international sanctions enacted on DPRK have indirectly affected the current humanitarian situation. Efforts have been hindered by blocked funding, limited donations, and difficulties in transporting and delivering aid supplies to vulnerable populations. The adverse effects of the sanctions reveal some of the problems of global governance, leading us to wonder – are the sanctions doing more harm than good? They seem to be, at least from a humanitarian standpoint.

The article points out two facts:

1. Trump is prioritizing America’s dealings with big powers like Russia and China over its security commitments to small nations.
2. In addition to the point above, Trump’s promotion of nationalism, skepticism of free trade, criticism of traditional US allies… contributes to a new consequential dynamic in international affairs: the slow-motion fraying of US-Europeans relations.

It also leads to European nations distrust to the new US administration. The author predicts that they are going to find a new way to protect themselves without strong support from the US.

https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2017/03/trump-tillerson-nato/520254/

Last month, Trump vowed his support for NATO, which might be a little relief for some European countries. However, he still strongly pushes other NATO members to compromise on “allied responsibility-sharing”. Specifically, this article mentions Germany, which Trump tweeting that it owes “vast sums of money to NATO”.

https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2017-03-22/trump-to-visit-brussels-in-may-to-meet-with-nato-leaders

There are many ways to reduce our carbon footprint to keep the Earth’s temperature under 2 degrees celsius per the Paris Climate Agreement, but we often talk about reducing emissions through energy sources like transitioning away from coal and gas to renewables.

In good news for the U.S., even as the current administration is poised to gut the EPA and roll back emissions levels set by the Obama administration, the U.S. population has cut 591 megatons of carbon by eating 19% less beef over the past 10 years. This is the equivalent of cutting emissions from 39 million cars. Cows are huge methane gas producers and methane traps 25 times more heat in the atmosphere than carbon.

Many countries are addressing the connection between food and climate change. India has been on the forefront of working with livestock to do so. India has bred dwarf cows that are drought resistant, while creating feed that limits the amount of gas cows produce.  These cows produce one tenth of methane gas emissions, while being able to withstand extreme heat and drought conditions that are already happening in India due to climate change.

Monday morning (this morning) the House Intelligence Committee holds its first public hearing in its investigation into Russian interference–meddling sounds far too friendly–in the 2016 presidential election. While the questions of who, how and why the Russians hacked the campaign–and how we stop it from happening again–are critical to national security, the big news today will be what FBI director James Comey says when asked about President Trump’s ‘Obama-wiretapped-me’ claim. That delusion isn’t only undermining the President’s credibility at home, it is doing serious damage to his, and this country’s, credibility abroad. And Trump can’t seem to stop. His spokesman, Sean Spicer, claimed for a while that the Brits were in on it–infuriating Mr. Trump’s only pal out there, British PM May. And then POTUS made a joke about how he and German Chancellor Angela Merkel had something in common: they were both wiretapped by Obama. Beyond the obvious–this man has nuclear weapons and sounds unhinged–problem, wiretapping is a hyper-sensitive issue for Merkel, who grew up in East Germany.

For background on the hearings, and whether we can realistically expect to learn anything from them given the partisan leanings of this Congress, you can read this piece I wrote this past weekend in The American Interest. And if you are wondering about the term ‘gaslighting’ in the lede, it refers to a great Ingrid Bergman movie in which she is being driven slowly crazy by her husband who, among other things, keep turning the (gas) lights up and down. We all feel that way these days, no?