NEWSWEEK 03/19/15 By Michael Shank and US Congresswoman Yvette Clarke In the wake of island nation Vanuatu’s devastation by Cyclone Pam, in which 320 mile-per-hour winds killed dozens of people and destroyed 90 percent of the buildings in the capital city of Port Vila, public health experts fear that the […]
HUFFINGTON POST 03/12/15 By Michael Shank Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s recent attack on the West for “hate speech” and misattributing terrorism during the Paris attacks is ironic. Erdogan is erroneously doing both already: labeling the Gulen movement a terrorist organization and using hate speech to characterize it. In fact, […]
HUFFINGTON POST 03/03/15 By Michael Shank With Yemen politics in perpetual disarray – as President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi escapes house arrest, rescinds his resignation, seeks refuge in the south, and a transitional council commences in the capital – the country’s economy and currency remain on the brink of collapse, water […]
NATIONAL INTEREST 01/26/15 By Michael Shank and Des Browne We are facing a new security threat, and, if left unaddressed, it has the potential to kill thousands of people in a single summer. We are talking, of course, about climate change. A new study authored by the British Met Office […]
THE WEEK 01/26/15 By Michael Shank and Sabina Dewan Urging Prime Minister Narendra Modi to commit to action on climate change ranks high on President Barack Obama’s list of priorities during his visit to India. The recent U.S.-China agreement sparked optimism on climate change cooperation between industrialized and developing countries. […]
US NEWS & WORLD REPORT 12/09/14 By Michael Shank and Johann Saathoff With the German government’s reaffirmation this month of carbon emissions reduction goals of 40 percent by 2020, and its courageous commitment to phase out coal, the country is now leading the world with an aggressive and unparalleled climate […]
DAILY BEAST 11/13/14 By Michael Shank and Casey Harrity Guns, drones, and special forces were not enough to stabilize Yemen, and they won’t be enough to stop ISIS. Remember the so-called “Yemen model,” the seeming success story for a U.S. policy targeting terrorists that President Barack Obama pointed to a […]
US NEWS & WORLD REPORT 11/06/14 By Michael Shank and Casey Harrity Yemen is teetering on the verge of an all-out sectarian civil war. Recent peace deals may prove to be fleeting. The Houthis, a Zaydi-Shiite group based in northern Yemen, stormed the capital, Sanaa, over one month ago, resulting […]
GLOBAL BRIEFING October 2014 By Michael Shank The USA’s air strikes on ISIS positions could inadvertently exacerbate Iraq’s problems, given the recent history of the West’s interventions in the country Iraq continues to pose a conundrum for the international community. Many in the West feel that Iraq is perpetually ungovernable […]
HUFFINGTON POST 09/30/14 By Michael Shank and Jamila Raqib The Occupy Movement has returned and is resurrecting itself in Hong Kong. But in this case, the “occupying” is not associating itself with the Occupy Wall Street of recent years. Instead, a new political initiative in Hong Kong – called Occupy […]