Good Evening,
It's Thursday, April 20th.
Champs Elysees Shooting
A gunman opened fire on French police today on a renowned Paris boulevard, killing one and wounding two others before being fatally shot himself in an incident that shook France just three days before a crucial election, as the Washington Post’s James McAuley and William Branigin report.
Dive Deeper: See CSIS’s interactive report Turning Point: A New Comprehensive Strategy for Countering Violent Extremism, which this week won the 2017 Shorty Award for Best Data Visualization for its map of the world’s terror attacks between 2012-2015.
Iranian Agreement
President Donald Trump slammed Iran this afternoon during a joint news conference with Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni, accusing the country of “not living up to the spirit” of the nuclear deal that his administration said this week Tehran was following, as Politico’s Kelsey Sutton reports.
The Wall Street Journal’s Aresu Eqbali and Asa Fitch today report Iran’s ex-President Ahmadinejad has been disqualified from another presidential run.
Plus, President Trump discussed trade and other security matters today at the White House with Italy’s Prime Minister, as the AP’s Vivian Salama reports.
Dive Deeper: A transcript of the Italian PM’s remarks at CSIS today can be accessed here.
Oil Slide
Oil prices stabilized today after a steep drop in the prior session, with promises of further cuts from the world’s exporters countering fears of growing production coming from the United States, as the Wall Street Journal’s Timothy Puko reports.
Dive Deeper: See CSIS’s new report, US Oil in the Global Economy: Markets, Policy and Politics.
In That Number
9,000
The number of people—mostly drug users and small-time dealers—that have been killed in the Philippines since President Rodrigo Duterte’s drug war began. Source: Reuters.
Critical Quote
“Personalism is rising. And it does not appear to be limited to autocracies anymore.”
—CSIS’s Andrea Kendall-Taylor authored a new article in the Washington Quarterly, “The Global Rise of Personalized Politics: It’s Not Just Dictators Anymore.”
iDeas Lab
See Missile Threat’s new feature on the missiles of Pakistan.
The Andreas C. Dracopoulos iDeas Lab at CSIS enhances our research with the latest in cutting-edge web technologies, design, and video.
Optics
(Photo Credit: JUNG YEON-JE/AFP/Getty Images.)
A US pilot gestures from an F-16 jet fighter before taking off during the “Max Thunder” South Korea-US military joint air exercise at a US air base in the southwestern port city of Gunsan today.
Recommended Reading
James Rosen’s review for the National Interest of Pat Buchannan’s new book, Nixon’s White House Wars: The Battles That Made and Broke a President and Divided America Forever .
This Town Tomorrow
Join CSIS’s Americas Program at 12:30 p.m. for “The OECD: Effective Multilateral Co-operation for More Inclusive and Sustainable Globalization.”
Join the CSIS Wadhwani Chair in U.S.-India Policy Studies at 2:00 p.m. for “U.S.-India Economic Ties in the Trump-Modi Era.”
And join CSIS’s Americas Program at 2:00 p.m. for a discussion with Mexico’s secretary of finance and public credit, José Antonio Meade Kuribreña, on the future of the U.S.-Mexico bilateral economic relationship.
On Demand
Today, CSIS’s Middle East Program hosted “Vision 2030: One Year into Saudi Arabia's Economic Reforms,” featuring an address by Majed Al-Qasabi, Saudi minister of commerce and investment.
Sounds
“The Venezuela Crisis, Explained” from Global Dispatches.
Smiles
Another great early 1980s performance by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers is this classic from Saturday Night Live in ’83.
I invite you to email me at aschwartz@csis.org and follow me on Twitter @handrewschwartz