Subject: The Evening CSIS: Cease Fire, California Stars, Kingpin & More
From: "Andrew Schwartz" <[email-masked]>
To: <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 12 Feb 2016 23:25:26 -0000

To ensure receipt of our email, please add us to your address book.

 [ http://www.csis.org ]  

 Good Evening, 

Welcome to  The Evening CSIS —my daily guide to key insights CSIS brings to the events of the day plus HIGHLY RECOMMENDED content from around the world. If you want to view this in your browser, click here [ http://CSIS.informz.net/InformzDataService/OnlineVersion/Individual?mailingInstanceId=5355252&subscriberId=1062005454 ] . To subscribe, please send me an email at [email-masked] [ mailto:[email-masked] ] .

 Cease Fire
 Deep skepticism today about how and when a Syrian truce will work, as the  Washington Post ’s Liz Sly and Zakaria Zakaria report [ http://cs.is/1PS9HLM ] .

And, as the digital platform Syria Deeply [ http://cs.is/1PSa2Ot ]  reports, today is the 1,795th day of conflict, and Russian airstrikes in and around Aleppo have forced more than 50,000 people to flee their homes and head for the Turkish border.

 Dive Deeper:  No Labels cofounder Dan Arbess and CSIS’s Karl Theodore zu Guttenberg (former German defense minister) today authored a MUST READ [ http://cs.is/1PS94lp ]  commentary calling on the G-20 and majority Eurasian Muslim nations to convene an international summit, a “Geopolitical G-X,” with the goal of working toward consensus on the geographic, political, and economic arrangements for restoring stability to the Middle East.

 California Stars
 President Obama meets on Monday with leaders of the 10 members of ASEAN at the Sunnylands estate in Rancho Mirage, California, and as the  New York Times ’ Joe Cochrane reports [ http://cs.is/1PSar3B ] , TPP and the South China Sea are high on the agenda. 

 Dive Deeper:  Late last week, CSIS’s Ernie Bower and Murray Hiebert held a press briefing for members of the media on the Sunnylands Summit. A transcript of the briefing is available for download [ http://cs.is/20RHc4s ] .

Plus, CSIS’s Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative [ http://cs.is/amtiMischiefReef ]  (AMTI) has all the latest satellite images, analysis, and resources regarding activity in the South China Sea.  [ http://cs.is/amtiMischiefReef ] 

 In Other News You Need To Know...
 Oil prices soared 12.3% in their biggest single-day gain since the financial crisis, as the  Wall Street Journal  reports [ http://cs.is/1o7M1s0 ] .

The  Financial Times  reports [ http://cs.is/1o7MsCJ ]  that the Zika epidemic has prompted the global pharmaceutical and bioscience industry to rush to develop a vaccine.

The  Economist  reports [ http://cs.is/1o7ME4M ]  that a controversial law to strip French-born dual citizens convicted of terrorism of their French nationality passed its first hurdle this week.

And, CSIS’s Bonnie Glaser testified before the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific on “The Future of U.S.-Taiwan Relations [ http://cs.is/1o7LCWx ] .”

 In that Number
  $14 billion 
The Obama administration has approved $14 billion in arms sales to Taiwan since 2009.
Source: Associated Press [ http://bigstory.ap.org/article/cce0e6b733c94fcd8153ea9af30d8a07/us-urges-china-taiwan-talks-amid-uncertainty-after-election ] .

 Critical Quote
 “On the NATO side, something had to be done because there’s real angst in the Baltic states and Poland, as well as one or two others, about the possibility of some kind of Russian intervention.”
—Jeffrey Mankoff, deputy director of the CSIS Russia and Eurasia Program, on NATO intentions to deter further aggressions from Russia while reassuring NATO allies.
Source:  Christian Science Monitor [ http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Global-News/2016/0211/Why-is-NATO-reinforcing-its-eastern-frontier-and-how-will-Moscow-react?cmpid=push004 ]  .

 One to Watch 

 

 

( Photo Credit: Twitter. )
Erik Hinton (@erikhinton [ https://twitter.com/erikhinton ] ) is joining the  Wall Street Journal ’s graphics team. Erik previously worked as an interactive developer at the  New York Times . For interactive news stories, Erik is one to watch. 

 Optics
 By now you’ve probably heard that the National Science Foundation has announced the detection of gravitational waves by the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) [ https://www.ligo.caltech.edu/news/ligo20160211 ] . NASA has released a simulation [ http://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2016/nsf-s-ligo-has-detected-gravitational-waves ]  of two black holes merging, along with the resulting gravitation radiation, to illustrate how the waves were detected.

 Highly Recommended
 “The Diplomat and the Killer,” [ http://cs.is/1PS89RU ]  by Raymond Bonner for the Atlantic.

 CSIS on Demand
 Catch Larry Summers, former US secretary of the treasury, in a discussion highlighting the strategic role of economics in foreign policy and exploring the making of international economic policy. Here’s the recap [ http://csis.org/event/us-economic-statecraft-and-global-order ] .

 Sounds
 CSIS’s Scott Kennedy, director of the Project on Chinese Business and Political Economy, joined the Mercator Institute for China Studies on their latest podcast to discuss [ https://soundcloud.com/merics-612350689/merics-experts-episode-4-with-scott-kennedy-chinas-economy-and-the-new-five-year-plan ]  China’s economy and the new five-year plan.

 I Like It Like That 
 Eye-catching things in CSIS's orbit 

The Munich Security Conference began today. Great agenda and video available here [ http://cs.is/1PS8zHU ] .

 Smiles
 “Statue of Liberty play/it only works once, don’t throw it away.”

Among rock fans my age, the Chicago-based band Wilco, has the ultimate street cred. My friend Dan DeLuce, the great Foreign Policy reporter, wrote me today to say just that. Brother Dan knows of what he speaks.

Wilco is a band that has never/will never sell out. They proved this with their seminal 2002 record, “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot,” when they famously refused to rework their music because the record label told them to.

Reprise, Wilco’s label, hated the record Wilco turned in under contract and wanted Wilco to redo it and play “more hits.”

Wilco essentially told the label, “Trust us, our record is a hit, and you don’t know what a hit is. We do.”

The 2002 Sam Jones documentary, “I am Trying to Break Your Heart: A Film About Wilco” captures this tense situation as it unfolds. In the cannon of rock documentaries, it’s up there with “The Last Waltz” starring The Band and friends.

Wilco is a lot like The Band. Authentic, multi-faceted, roots oriented, superb musicianship and song writing. And like The Band, Wilco has a way of connecting with its audience in an organic way.

This performance [ http://cs.is/1mxoakk ] , captured live at New Orleans’s iconic music venue Tipitinas was tapped for a second Wilco documentary called “Ashes of American Flags.”

Wilco couldn’t have chosen a better venue to underscore how they connect with their audience. How do I know this? I had the honor of living up the street from “Tips” for three of my four years at Tulane. Which, has left a permanent smile on my face.

 Feedback
 I always welcome and benefit from your feedback. Please drop me a line at [email-masked].

 Need help finding us? Use the map of our new location [ http://csis.org/about-us/contact-information ]  on csis.org with parking lots and metro stops. 

 

To unsubscribe from all CSIS emails, please click here [ http://CSIS.informz.net/CSIS/default.asp?action=u&email=[email-masked]&mi=5355252 ] .

 

Powered by Informz for iMIS  http://pod4.informz.net/clk/red8.asp?u=1062005454&mi=5355252&l=1