Written by: Cormac O’Harrow In all likelihood, you’ve probably heard of Stuxnet: a joint CIA/Mossad cyberattack that crippled Iran’s nuclear centrifuges in 2010. You may have even heard of Natanz, another Iranian centrifuge site that was targeted earlier this year and was attacked using a Stuxnet-style virus. This too was a Mossad, the Israeli Intelligence…
Category: Asia
The Implications of the US Military Pullout from Afghanistan
Written by: Ken Wang The United States first stepped into the sphere of Afghanistan in the 1950s. We began our first military operation during the 1970s and further expanded our operations in 2001 after President Bush declared a War on Terror, vowing to hunt down Osama bin Laden, the man responsible for the 9/11 attack…
Newcastle United’s Blood Money Takeover
Written by: Harry Colvin This past October, English football club Newcastle United was purchased by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, emphasizing an ongoing debate about where the line is drawn between western morals and football success. The funding comes specifically from Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, run by Yasir Al Rumayyan, who will become a…
By Outlawing Six Palestinian Human Rights Groups, Israel Undermines the UN
Written by: Julian Cooper On October 22nd, Israel’s Justice Ministry outlawed six human rights organizations by declaring them to be affiliates of “terrorism.” Among these six organizations was a relief group for Palestinian children, a legal support group for Palestinian prisoners and a women’s rights group. The other three organizations, all based in the West…
Dane County Board Refuses to Condemn Israeli Apartheid
Written by: Julian Cooper On October 7th, the Dane County Board of Supervisors was scheduled to vote on Resolution 131, formally titled “Resolution Condemning the Acts of Israel and Calling for the Biden Administration to Immediately Cut All Military Sales to the Country.” Dane County is the second-most populous county in Wisconsin, containing the state’s…
Involution: China’s Hyper-Competitive Education System
Written by: Wenzhe Teng Involution, or “Nei Juan ” in Chinese, is one of the most discussed terms in 2020 China, commonly referred to by both citizens and the state media. To better understand the term, imagine you are in a movie theater, and suddenly, people in the front row stand up. In order to…
The Invisible Cost of School Closures
Written by: Kamika Patel The tremendous impact of the global COVID-19 school closures on young people worldwide is detrimental to children’s academic wellbeing, social development, and future career prospects. The extended school closures since March 2020 left more than 1.6 billion children out of school during the beginning months of the pandemic. Globally, around 1…
The Jakarta Game
Written by: Nils Peterson As the United States completed its military withdrawal from Afghanistan, the Indo-Pacific began to loom ever larger in American geopolitical strategy. War is a two-sided game, however, and military conflict with terrorist groups like al-Qaeda will not end simply because the United States took its ball and went home from Afghanistan….
A Childless Future: East Asia’s Fertility Crisis
Written by: Wenzhe Teng What do China, Japan, and South Korea have in common? Geographically, they are neighboring countries in East Asia. Culturally, their citizens share many common traditions; South Korea and China even have the same date for the Spring Festival, which is their New Year. Economically, the three countries were powerhouses known for…
How China Uses Its Fishing Fleet to Increase Its Own Power
Written by: Cooper Stewart As China continues to cement and expand its superpower status, a growing number of people believe China is on an inevitable path toward conflict with the U.S. and other Asian nations. That conflict is already here, at least in a naval sense, as the Indonesian navy fired upon and destroyed Chinese…
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