• German Domestic Intelligence: Heightened Terror Risk

    Germany’s domestic intelligence agency says the danger of a terror attack in the country is “higher than it has been for a long time.” It cited the October 7 Hamas attacks and the subsequent Israel-Hamas war as factors.

  • Stop Venezuela's Aggression - Before It Creates a War in the Americas

    As a ploy to distract from his country’s domestic collapse, Venezuela’s dictator Nicolas Maduro - following the Putin and Hamas play-book - is suddenly demanding that neighboring Guyana “surrender” 2/3 of its territory - the entire western region called Essequibo - to him.

  • Argentina: Can Milei’s “Radical, Untested” Ideas Supplant Peronist Clientelism?

    As an antisystem candidate and now president-elect, Javier Milei, who will become Argentina’s news president on 10 December, is not a singular phenomenon in Latin America. Dissatisfaction with the functioning of democracy was key to catapulting Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil and Nayib Bukele in El Salvador. Milei, however, has significantly less political experience than either of them, and his proposals are a more radical break from the past than what even most political outsiders propose.

  • International Partnership Focuses on Insider Threats

    Insider threats can take many forms. They are real, and if not identified, they can be costly and damaging.

  • Bioengineered Potato Plant Detects Gamma Radiation

    A researcher in the University of Tennessee Herbert College of Agriculture has developed a potato plant that can detect gamma radiation, providing reliable indications of harmful radiation levels without complex monitoring technologies. The natural radiation sensor is affordable, too.

  • Global Shipping Rattled After Houthis Seize Israeli Vessels

    Since Houthis seized a ship owned by an Israeli businessman last week in the Red Sea, global shipping has been taking stock of potentially rising risks.

  • The Path to Peace in Gaza Lies in Defeating Hamas

    Israel cannot continue living with a Hamas-controlled Gaza. The untenability of having Hamas on Israel’s border has long been clear. However, to dismantle and disarm the group was always going to involve grievous civilian bloodshed and the inflaming of anti-Israeli opinion—a prohibitive proposition for Israel prior to 7 October. Yet now Israel finds itself facing this task anyway, which is a reminder to the world that tolerating the intolerable—even grudgingly, because the alternatives are too difficult—is never sustainable in the long term. This was demonstrated on 7 October.

  • Can the Democracy Europe Has Cultivated Endure?

    The modern concept of democracy originated in Europe and, from ancient Athens to 21st-century Brussels, governments have sought to ensure that elections are free and secret, state power is shared, and fundamental rights are guaranteed. But the continent is not immune to the anti-democratic developments across the world.

  • How Do Reasonable People Disagree?

    U.S. politics is heavily polarized. This is often regarded as a product of irrationality: People can be tribal, are influenced by their peers, and often get information from very different, sometimes inaccurate sources. Tribalism and misinformation are real enough. But what if people are often acting rationally as well, even in the process of arriving at very different views? A study explains how political differences can result from a process of “rational polarization.”

  • Crowdsourced Fact-Checking Fights Misinformation in Taiwan

    As journalists and professional fact-checkers struggle to keep up with the deluge of misinformation online, fact-checking sites that rely on loosely coordinated contributions from volunteers, such as Wikipedia, can help fill the gaps, Cornell research finds.

  • Gaza War: How Representative Is Hamas of Ordinary Palestinians?

    The catastrophic Hamas attack on October 7, which has led to the deaths of so many Palestinian civilians in Gaza in Israel’s response to the Hamas attack, has eliminated any pretense of legitimacy that Hamas may ever have had in the eyes of most of the world. Indeed, the days of Hamas may be over. But this will only increase the urgency of finding a long-term solution for Palestine, something that seems further away than ever.

  • Regional Security Analysts Say Africa at Risk of Drone Terrorism

    African terrorist groups are using global affiliations to acquire and modify drones for their own needs. Though the drones are not yet being used to launch attacks, the growing use of drones by terrorist groups is only a question of time, and analysts worry that in the long run, they could change the balance of power with governments.

  • Japan Military Aid Expands Southeast Asia Footprint

    A new security assistance scheme is allowing Japan to expand its role in helping smaller countries like the Philippines cope with China’s military ambitions.

  • EFF to Supreme Court: Fifth Amendment Protects People from Being Forced to Enter or Hand Over Cell Phone Passcodes to the Police

    The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) last week asked the Supreme Court to overturn a ruling undermining Fifth Amendment protections against self-incrimination and find that constitutional safeguards prevent police from forcing people to provide or use passcodes for their cell phones so officers can access the tremendous amount of private information on phones.

  • “Rogue” Security Officers Pose a Threat to Life and Public Safety

    Halo Solutions, a British security and safety technology firm helps stamp out fraudulent security guards at events and gigs. The issue of qualified and certified security officers becomes even more important now, ads the U.K. is about to mandate robust public security measures at public events.