The Evening: Cases Grow Globally, Uighur Sanctions Bill, Los Lobos and More

June 18, 2020

Cases Grow Globally

The number of coronavirus cases continues to grow globally, with two of the highest tallies in the history of the pandemic recorded this week, driven by outbreaks in Latin America, Africa, South Asia, and the United States, which still posts some of the highest counts of new cases, as the NYT reports.

China Finds Heavy Coronavirus Traces in Seafood, Meat Sections of Beijing Food Market

China has found the trading sections for meat and seafood in Beijing’s wholesale food market to be severely contaminated with the new coronavirus and suspects the area’s low temperature and high humidity may have been contributing factors, as Reuters reports.

Uighur Sanctions Bill

President Trump signed a measure to potentially sanction Chinese officials for their role in interning ethnic Uighurs amid new claims by former national security advisor John Bolton that Trump told President Xi Jinping he approved of China’s construction of large-scale camps to forcibly reeducate Muslim minorities. The new Uighur Human Rights Policy Act, which passed the Senate and House unanimously, drew a furious response from Beijing today during a delicate moment when Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was meeting in Hawaii with Communist Party foreign policy director Yang Jiechi, as the Washington Post reports.

Climate Check

"The United States is getting to the point where our lack of ability to engage seriously and consistently on [climate change] is becoming a vulnerability both at home and abroad," writes CSIS's Sarah Ladislaw in a new commentary.

CSIS Executive Education

Enrollment is now open for CSIS and Syracuse University’s joint Executive Master’s in International Relations. This first-of-its-kind degree allows working professionals in the nation’s capital to benefit from the academic strengths of the #1 graduate school in public affairs and the policy know-how of #1 think tank in the U.S. Learn more and apply today.

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

1.7 Billion

Roughly 1.7 billion people have at least one of the underlying health conditions that can worsen cases of the coronavirus.

Source: The Lancet

Critical Quote

“I did something good: I made Juneteenth very famous. It’s actually an important event, an important time. But nobody had ever heard of it.”

— President Donald Trump

iDeas Lab

China has deployed a network of sensors and communications capabilities between Hainan Island and the Paracel Islands in the northern South China Sea. These capabilities are part of a “Blue Ocean Information Network” to aid in the exploration and control of the maritime environment using information technology. CSIS's Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative is tracking the deployment of these "Ocean E-Stations."

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: Nicholas Kamm/AFP via Getty Images.) DACA activists in front of the Supreme Court today.

Recommended Reading

"The Escalating Terrorism Problem in the United States," by CSIS's Seth G. Jones, Catrina Doxsee, and Nicholas Harrington.

Online Events

Tomorrow, at 8:30 a.m., CSIS will host a discussion on the future of cross-Strait relations and potential policies Beijing and Taipei may pursue.

Later, at 9:00 a.m., CSIS will hold a discussion on the role of corruption in Venezuela in light of the recent arrest of Alex Saab, a corrupt businessman with strong links to the Maduro regime.

And, at 12:00 p.m., CSIS will host a conversation with David Beasley of the World Food Progamme on the near-term challenges to food security.

Video

Yesterday, CSIS hosted former secretary of defense Robert M. Gates to discuss his new book, Exercise of Power: American Failures, Successes, and a New Path Forward in the Post-Cold War World . Watch the full video here.

Podcasts

Julie Sweet, CEO of Accenture, joined my colleague Scott Miller and me to discuss how businesses large and small are adapting to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Listen on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, & Spotify.

Smiles

Have you ever heard Los Lobos cover the Grateful Dead’s “ Bertha ”? If not, you are in for a treat.