Good Evening,
It's Wednesday, September 9th.
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Major Coronavirus Vaccine Trial is Paused to Investigate Unexplained Illness.
AstraZeneca PLC said Wednesday an independent committee is reviewing the potential safety concern that led to a pause in its clinical trials of an experimental Covid-19 vaccine, and the trials could restart depending on the outcome, as the WSJ reports.
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U.S. to reduce troop levels in Iraq
The Trump administration will reduce the number of American troops in Iraq by more than a third this month to 3,000, as the U.S. military seeks to leave the battle against Islamic State militants to local forces, as the Washington Post reports. |
Brexit in Crisis
Britain plunged Brexit trade talks into crisis on Wednesday by explicitly acknowledging it could break international law by ignoring some parts of its European Union divorce treaty, prompting a rapid rebuke from the EU’s chief executive, as Reuters reports. |
CSIS Executive Education
Join CSIS’s Trade Guys for their next crash course on trade policy. This two-day program breaks down the fundamentals of how U.S. trade policy is formulated, the legalities of trade in an international arena, and the impact of Covid-19 on supply chains. Register here. |
Video Shorts
Check out CSIS’s new series of video shorts: “Testify,” "What's Happening,"
"Preview," and “High Resolution.” And don’t forget to subscribe to the CSIS YouTube Channel!
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In That Number
6
The United Kingdom, seeing a spike in new coronavirus cases, will ban most gatherings of more than six people beginning next week, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said Wednesday.
Source: NYT |
Critical Quote
“To try to predict whether it happens on a particular week before or after a particular date in early November is well beyond anything that any scientist right now could tell you and be confident they know what they are saying.”
— Dr. Francis Collins, director, National Institutes of Health |
iDeas Lab
The Hungnam Fertilizer Complex has long been associated with producing chemical feed stocks or agents for North Korea’s nuclear weapons, chemical weapons and ballistic missile programs. New satellite imagery shows modernization in its production capacities.
The Andreas C. Dracopoulos iDeas Lab at CSIS enhances our research with the latest in cutting-edge web technologies, design, and multimedia. |
Optics
(Photo credit: Philip Pacheco/Getty Images). Smoke from various wildfires burning across Northern California mixes with the marine layer, blanketing San Francisco in darkness and an orange glow on September 9, 2020 in San Francisco, California. |
Recommended Reading
“Semiconductors and Modern Defense Spending,” by CSIS’s James Andrew Lewis. |
This Town Tomorrow
Tomorrow, at 9:00 a.m., CSIS's Korea Chair will host its tenth episode of “The Capital Cable”. Featured at the event will be General Robert B. Abrams, Commander of United Nations Command, ROK-U.S. Combined Forces Command, and United States Forces Korea.
Then, at 10:00 a.m., CSIS will hold a Smart Women, Smart Power conversation on how West Virginia is dealing with the opioid crisis, the importance of education in combatting education, and how the state is supporting students through the Covid-19 pandemic.
Later, at 4:00 p.m., Susan Eisenhower, granddaughter to Dwight D. Eisenhower, joins the CSIS Project on History and Strategy to talk about her grandfather’s story and legacy ahead of the September inauguration of the Eisenhower Memorial in Washington. |
Video
60 years ago, the U.S. and Japan signed the Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security. In cooperation with the Mt. Fuji Dialogue, CSIS celebrates the alliance and assesses how the two countries can continue to build peace and prosperity in the Asia-Pacific region. Watch the full event here. |
Podcasts
This week, Scott and I spoke with Henrietta Fore, Executive Director of UNICEF, about the pandemic's impact on children and families around the world.
Listen on Spotify & Apple Podcasts. |
Smiles
Today the Grateful Dead announced that on October 30, they will release a deluxe 50th Anniversary edition of one of their finest studio albums, “American Beauty.” The Anniversary edition will include one of the most requested archival recordings in the Dead's vault—the unreleased concert recorded on February 18, 1971 at the Capitol Theatre in Port Chester, NY. At that show, the Dead debuted five new songs live for the first time: “Wharf Rat,” “Playing In The Band,” “Bertha,” “Greatest Story Ever Told” and “Loser.” A seminal track from “American Beauty” that the band had already been performing live, “Truckin,’” was also a highlight of that Capitol Theatre show. The Dead released it today to create a bit of buzz for the Anniversary edition https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwTpo4jrkRc. |
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