The Evening: Afghan Election Result, Sanctions, Ramble On Rose and More

February 18, 2020

Ghani Named Afghan Election Winner

President Ashraf Ghani on Tuesday was declared the winner of Afghanistan’s presidential vote after five months of delayed results and bitter dispute. But the announcement threatened to tip the country into a full-blown political crisis on the cusp of a U.S. peace deal with the Taliban, as the NYT’s Mujib Mashal, Najim Rahim and Fatima Faizi report.

U.S. Sanctions Subsidiary of Russia’s Rosneft Over Alleged Venezuela Oil Exports

The Trump administration on Tuesday stepped up its pressure campaign against the Maduro regime in Venezuela by blacklisting the trading brokerage owned by Russia oil giant Rosneft that the U.S. says has been helping Caracas export crude, as the WSJ’s Ian Talley reports.

U.S. Designates 5 Major Chinese Media Outlets as Government Entities

The State Department on Tuesday designated five Chinese media outlets as official government entities under the Foreign Missions Act, meaning they will treated as though they are diplomatic outposts of the Chinese government and subject to the same constraints, as the Washington Post’s Anna Fifield, Carol Morello and Emily Rauhala report.

CSIS Executive Education

We invite you to apply or nominate a high-potential employee for the 2020 CSIS Accelerator Series, a training program designed to help young professionals refine their strengths in leadership, management, communication, and a range of professional skills required in today's competitive work environment.

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!

In That Number

760 Million

More than 760 million Chinese people (about half China’s population) live in communities that have imposed strictures of some sort on residents’ comings and goings as officials try to contain the new coronavirus epidemic.

Source: NYT

Critical Quote

“Those who prop up the corrupt regime and enable its repression of the Venezuelan people will be held accountable.”

— Secretary of State Mike Pompeo

iDeas Lab

Nature-based solutions for climate change adaptation promise to stabilize agricultural livelihoods and protect environmental resources, both of which are important pillars of political stability. Watch the trailer for the new CSIS Food Security Project on nurturing climate resilience around the world.

The Andreas C. Dracopoulos iDeas Lab at CSIS enhances our research with the latest in cutting-edge web technologies, design, and video.

Optics

(Photo credit: Mark Wilson/Getty Images). Former NFL players Ronnie Lott, Charles Haley, Jim Brown and Jerry Rice step out of the West Wing to speak about the presidential pardon of Edward DeBartolo Jr. today at the White House.

Recommended Reading

“The FY2021 U.S. Defense Budget Request: A Dysfunctional Set of Strategic Blunders,” by CSIS’s Anthony Cordesman.

This Town Tomorrow

At 10:00 a.m., CSIS will host David Roll to talk about his new book George Marshall: Defender of the Republic, which chronicles the life of American soldier and statesman George Marshall.

Later, at 2:00 p.m., CSIS will host Dr. Walter Copan, undersecretary of commerce for standards and technology and NIST director, Christina Montgomery, chief privacy officer and vice president of IBM, Chris Calabrese, interim co-CEO and vice president for policy at CDT, Naomi Lefkovitz, senior privacy policy advisor at NIST, and Jason Matusow, general manager for corporate standards at Microsoft to discuss the NIST Privacy Framework.

Also, at 1:00 p.m., the John Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies will host former U.S. Ambassador to Senegal Harriet Elam-Thomas for a conversation with Dean Eliot A. Cohen on the intersection of foreign affairs, international relations, and the global experience for the African American people.

Video

Australia’s devastating bushfires exemplify the growing number of climate-related natural disasters taking place around the world. CSIS Energy Security and Climate Change Program expert Lachlan Carey explains how climate change is contributing to Australia’s unfolding crisis and why it must increase the ambition of its climate policies to avoid even worse effects to come. Watch the video here.

Podcasts

In the fifth episode of their miniseries focused on China's relationship to the Middle East, Jon Alterman looks at U.S.-Chinese cooperation and competition in the region with Robert Manning and Dawn Murphy.

Listen on Spotify & Apple Podcasts.

Smiles

“The grass ain't greener
The wine ain't sweeter
Either side of the hill.”

I love this smile. Some songs are meant to be sung by certain singers. And those songs have a way of finding the singers. How else would the Robert Hunter/Jerry Garcia Grateful Dead classic “Ramble On Rose” fall into the hands of country royalty like Wynonna Judd?

Fortunately for us “Ramble On Rose” found its way to Wynonna who recorded it with Bob Weir, and last week they released the track as a single. If you play it loud as I do and it doesn’t give you chills when Wynonna’s voice soars, then you should probably check your pulse. Here’s a clip of Wynonna and Bobby performing “Ramble On Rose” at the Fillmore in San Francisco earlier this month.