Dramatic Return
Opposition leader Juan Guaidó staged a dramatic return to Venezuela on Monday despite government threats to arrest him, energizing the country’s opposition and raising the stakes in the political showdown with President Nicolás Maduro’s government, as the WSJ’s Ryan Dube and Maolis Castro report.
Dive Deeper: “Made by Maduro: The Humanitarian Crisis in Venezuela and U.S. Policy Responses,” CSIS congressional testimony by Moises Rendon.
Plus, see a 90 second summary of Rendon’s testimony, in CSIS’s new “Testify” video series.
Cuba Embargo
The White House is tightening a decades-old embargo on Cuba, but delaying a decision for another month that could put foreign companies invested on the island in legal jeopardy, as NPR’s Michele Kelemen reports.
Safeguards for Afghan Peace Plan Amid India-Pakistan Crisis
The United States is trying to prevent simmering tensions between India and Pakistan from impacting a third country: Afghanistan, where a fragile peace push is underway to try to end more than 17 years of war with Taliban insurgents as Reuters’ Phil Stewart, Idrees Ali and Michelle Nichols report.
Dive Deeper: “Hold My Chai: Escalation and De-Escalation Scenarios in South Asia,” by CSIS’s John Schaus and Hijab Shah.
“Why India and Pakistan Are Fighting Over Kashmir Again,” by CFR’s Lindsay Maizland.
Your Questions
Do you have any questions about trade and how a changing U.S. trade policy may affect your life? If you do, please email me your question(s) to aschwartz@csis.org. We’ll publish some of the best questions and get our experts to answer them on an upcoming CSIS podcast.
Video Shorts
Check out CSIS’s new series of video shorts: “Testify” and “High Resolution.” In under 90 seconds, CSIS experts tell you what they told Congress in testimony, or use high-resolution satellite images and advanced mapping to break down national security issues. And don’t forget to subscribe to the CSIS YouTube Channel!
In That Number
364 Million
364 million records of Chinese users have been left exposed on the internet containing social media profiles and chat logs linked to names and identity card numbers.
Source: FT
Critical Quote
“It is unfortunate that China continues to move forward on these arbitrary detentions. We will continue to stand up for these Canadians.”
— Canadian PM Justin Trudeau on Chinese espionage accusations.
iDeas Lab
CSIS has developed a new series of video shorts called "Testify," in which our experts summarize their congressional testimony in 90 seconds or less. The first “Testify” videos featuring Victor Cha, Bonnie Glaser, Jim Lewis, Moises Rendon and Whitley Saumweber are posted here on our YouTube channel.
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: Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images). President Trump speaks behind a table of fast-food during an event in honor of the 2018 Division I FCS National Champions: The North Dakota State Bison in the State Dining Room of the White House today.
Recommended Reading
“How Civilian Firms Fact-Check North Korea’s Denuclearization Efforts,” by the New Yorker’s Doug Bock Clark.
This Town Tomorrow
At 9:00 a.m., the Wilson Center’s Mexico Institute will host a conference on the outlook for Mexico’s energy sector under the ALMO administration.
And at 11:30 a.m., Politico will hold an event called “A New Roadmap for Environmental Sustainability.” Senior experts in the environmental field discuss innovations that are gaining momentum, particularly in the context of agriculture and energy production.
Finally, at 12:30 p.m., the Middle East Institute launches a new report on the Syrian refugee crisis. The report, along with a panel discussion, analyzes the political and economic impact of refugee mobility.
Video
CSIS has developed a new series of video shorts called "Testify," in which our experts summarize their congressional testimony in 90 seconds or less. The first “Testify” videos featuring Victor Cha, Bonnie Glaser, Jim Lewis, Moises Rendon and Whitley Saumweber are posted here on our YouTube channel. Watch them here.
Podcasts
North Korea is the Impossible State. Each week join the people who know the most about North Korea—The Center for Strategic and International Studies’ Victor Cha, Mike Green, and Sue Mi Terry—for an insiders discussion with host H. Andrew Schwartz about the United States’ top national security priority.
Listen on SoundCloud, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.
Smiles
It’s Carnival Time in New Orleans. Among other things, that means that the music in the Big Easy is firing on all cylinders. Today is Lundi Gras when the music around town hits its collective peak. Tomorrow is Mardi Gras Day, also known as “Fat Tuesday” when the biggest parades roll.
This clip is from Jazz Fest in 2000, when Art Neville and the Funky Meters were firing on all cylinders. Happy Mardi Gras to all my people at Tulane and in New Orleans and to lovers of the Crescent City sound the world over.