Today's Headlines and Commentary
Some important stories have surfaced in the past few days.
On Tuesday, the U.S. and Pakistan reached an agreement to reopen the supply lines along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, which have been closed since last December. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton issued an apology for the NATO airstrike last December that killed two dozen Pakistani soldiers; Pakistan refused to compromise on this point.
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Some important stories have surfaced in the past few days.
On Tuesday, the U.S. and Pakistan reached an agreement to reopen the supply lines along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, which have been closed since last December. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton issued an apology for the NATO airstrike last December that killed two dozen Pakistani soldiers; Pakistan refused to compromise on this point. Read Karen DeYoung and Richard Leiby's piece in the Washington Post, Salman Masood's article in the New York Times, Carlo Munoz's report at The Hill, and Jeremy Herb's piece in The Hill discussing Members' of Congress reactions. Craig Whitlock and Karen DeYoung report on the importance of another route out of Afghanistan: through the former Soviet Union.
Airstrikes on Tuesday in Yemen killed four suspected members of Al Qaeda in Yemen, reports Carlo Munoz at The Hill.
Members of Afghanistan's National Assembly are pessimistic about the ability of its government to function once NATO withdraws at the end of 2014. Jeremy Herb at The Hill notes this Sacramento Bee story out of California.
Carol Rosenberg of the Miami Herald breaks the news that the Navy is planning a fiber-optic cable connecting Guantanamo Bay to South Florida.
Jennifer Martinez at The Hill provides details of a report released last week from the Industrial Control Systems Cyber Emergency Response Team, a branch of the Department of Homeland Security. The report indicated that in 2011, there were 198 "cyber incidents" reported by companies that operate critical infrastructure systems.
Peter Bergen and Jennifer Rowland write on CNN.com on the expansion of and success of drone strikes, using New America Foundation's updated tracker
Alex Perry at Time investigates the African and the U.S. response to a number of terrorist organizations in eastern Africa, including Al Shabab in Somalia, Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, and Boko Haram in Nigeria.
Daveed Gartenstein-Ross writes at Foreign Policy on the increasing frequency and violence of attacks by the Boko Haram Islamist movement in Nigeria.
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Raffaela Wakeman is a Senior Director at In-Q-Tel. She started her career at the Brookings Institution, where she spent five years conducting research on national security, election reform, and Congress. During this time she was also the Associate Editor of Lawfare. From there, Raffaela practiced law at the U.S. Department of Defense for four years, advising her clients on privacy and surveillance law, cybersecurity, and foreign liaison relationships. She departed DoD in 2019 to join the Majority Staff of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, where she oversaw the Intelligence Community’s science and technology portfolios, cybersecurity, and surveillance activities. She left HPSCI in May 2021 to join IQT.
Raffaela received her BS and MS in Political Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2009 and her law degree from Georgetown University Law Center in 2015, where she was recognized for her commitment to public service with the Joyce Chiang Memorial Award. While at the Department of Defense, she was the inaugural recipient of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence’s General Counsel Award for exhibiting the highest standards of leadership, professional conduct, and integrity.