irmajor-blog

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IR Major’s Pivot to Email!

Now that I'm decrepit by Tumblr standards, IR Major is maturing into a (marginally) more polished newsletter. Don't worry, gifs will still abound! Every Wednesday, I’m sending out articles and job/internship listings, along with a healthy dose of topless Putin pics.

I just sent out this week’s newsletter, but if you missed it, you can sign up here.

While I might still lurk around on Tumblr every once in a blue moon, the new newsletter is your best bet for keeping up with all things IR.

#international relations #tinyletter #IR

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“Around the world, climate change increases the risk of instability and conflict.” —President Obama to the 2015 graduates of the U.S. Coast Guard Academy on the threats posed by climate change and the urgent need to act

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Santa Clauswitz is coming to town!

#santa #santa claus #clausewitz #ho ho ho

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This is one of the best (English) articles I've read that really gets at just how *huge* a deal opening relations with Cuba is for the US's relationship with the rest of Latin America. Worth a full read. A change in policy toward Cuba was long, long overdue.

Washington’s isolation of Cuba has long been a defining fixture of Latin American politics, something that has united governments across the region, regardless of their ideologies. Even some of Washington’s close allies in the Americas have rallied to Cuba’s side.

Now, Mr. Obama’s restoration of diplomatic ties with Cuba is snatching a major cudgel from his critics and potentially restoring some of Washington’s influence in a region where rivals like China have long chipped away at America’s primacy.

“We never thought we would see this moment,” said Brazil’s president, Dilma Rousseff, a former Marxist guerrilla who chided the Obama administration last year over the National Security Agency’s surveillance of her and her top aides. She called the deal with Cuba “a moment which marks a change in civilization.”

...

The thaw comes just a few months before the Summit of the Americas, a gathering of hemispheric leaders in Panama under the Organization of American States, the Washington-based group from which Cuba was suspended in 1962.

The Panamanian hosts confirmed earlier this month that Cuba would attend the summit for the first time, making for a potentially awkward meeting for American officials.

...

One senior Obama administration official said that pressure from the region on Washington’s Cuba policy had crept into and impeded other discussions.

“In the last Summit of the Americas, instead of talking about things we wanted to focus on — exports, counternarcotics — we spent a lot of time talking about U.S.-Cuba policy,” said the official, who was not authorized to speak publicly. “A key factor with any bilateral meeting is, ‘When are you going to change your Cuba policy?' ”

#Cuba

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US-Cuba deal: a marriage 18 months in the making, blessed by Pope Francis

#Cuba

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"...all people, even captured enemies, possess basic human rights, which are protected by international conventions the U.S. not only joined, but for the most part authored."

The Republicans who are trying to smear this Senate report should shut up and listen to the senator in their party who's actually been a POW. McCain is providing some much-needed clarity right now.

#cia #torture #McCain #GOP

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The CIA is under scrutiny after the release of a Senate report detailing its use of torture on suspects following 9/11. The report concludes the CIA’s interrogation techniques were harsher and more widely used than previously admitted. It also concluded that the use of torture did not save American lives, as the CIA has claimed.

Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Tim Weiner has chronicled the agency’s mixed past. He spoke with Here & Now‘s Robin Young about how the report and response fit into the legacy of the CIA:

“What’s new in this report is not that people were waterboarded or tortured. It is that the CIA misrepresented the value of intelligence garnered from torture and that it continues to represent that it saved thousands of lives by subjecting people to torture. And this report suggests that that is self-deception — which is very dangerous in a government — and a damnable lie. We will always have a tug-of-war in this country between liberty and security, between secrecy and democracy. We now have a moment when openness and disclosure have the upper hand and I think that is a good thing for democracy.”

Listen to the entire interview here.

#cia #torture #senate report

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While I can't say I'm surprised (read this Congressional hearing on extraordinary rendition from back in 2007), I am horrified, unsettled, and disgusted.

As thought pieces and talking heads buzz about this, it's worth reading from the source.

#torture #senate report #CIA

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"Sometimes I get confused Kosovo and Montenegro"

This little kid is my spirit animal.

h/t Colleen

#geography #map

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Ebola hasn’t gone away in Sierra Leone

It was only a month ago Ebola hysteria gripped headlines, feeding a media frenzy over the possibility of an epidemic in the U.S. But even though the country’s attention has waned as the virus proved to be a non-threat stateside, it continues to maintain a lethal stranglehold over West Africa.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Ebola outbreak has claimed more than 6,000 lives, the majority coming from Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

It’s getting worse in Sierra Leone

#ebola

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USA! USA! US... Oh...

The US is the only developed country that doesn’t guarantee paid maternity or parental leave to workers. It’s an often-cited statistic— but one that should continue to shock us. 

Here’s what’s being done to fix the problem.

#women #social policy #comparative politics

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VIENNA—Asserting the Middle Eastern nation’s right to a safe, peaceful energy program, members of the Iranian diplomatic team attempted to seek more favorable terms of a deal with the P5+1 global powers while openly assembling a nuclear weapon...

#iran #nuclear talks #the onion #satire

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*facepalm*

Wait, I’m sorry, you what? 

#go look up insurgency #isis

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"Mexico is on the brink, and America is largely oblivious.”

Rubén Martínez for the LA Times

#mexico #iguala

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Keep your eyes on Ferguson

Although Ferguson isn't international news for those of us in the US, no IR major should ignore the tragedy or the surrounding dialogue on institutionalized racism in this country. IR majors, myself included, sometimes make the mistake of following protests, social movements, and political strife in North Africa, South America, and Eastern Europe hyper-closely, only to forget to focus with that same intensity on movements and problems in the US. ...And, for many of my followers, Ferguson *is* international news: http://internacional.elpais.com/internacional/2014/11/18/actualidad/1416275346_539903.html Keep watching.

#ferguson

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#ferguson #police #us