In Syria, a ceasefire negotiated by Russia and the United States quickly broke down last week. Although unstable from the outset, the truce crumbled after the US bombed a Syrian army position, in a move it said was accidental, and Russian or Syrian jets attacked a UN aid convoy near Aleppo. This ceasefire was just […]

By Sasha Ramani, MPP 2018 Self-driving cars have the potential to save thousands of lives, and a friendly regulatory atmosphere can encourage innovation into this burgeoning field. However, they may struggle to be adopted by a skeptical public. Picture: One of Uber’s autonomous Ford Fusions cruising the streets of Pittsburgh. Soon to be joined by 100 […]

BY BEN BLINK I was disappointed last week to learn that Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson was officially excluded from the three U.S. presidential debates. The two-term New Mexico governor, who cares equally about reducing budget deficits, protecting civil liberties, and improving the justice system, will not get a podium. I was frustrated, but hardly […]

Wars may be started by adults, but the effects of war do not discriminate by age. The lives, and futures, of children are just as vulnerable to the physical and mental traumas of modern warfare. Today, Aleppo is one of the most violent battlefields of the war in Syria, and an estimated 75,000 children survive amidst barrel bombs, […]

US Secretary of State John Kerry strongly condemned the breakdown of the recent ceasefire in Syria before a meeting of the “Quintet” foreign ministers at Tufts University on Saturday. “One thing I think all of us join in saying, and I’m going to make this clear: What is happening in Aleppo today is unacceptable. And […]

By Ivan Rahman, MPP 2018 On September 13th, over 100 students packed the JFK Jr. Forum. Okendo Lewis-Gayle, HKS Election Chair, stood tall, in a beige suit behind the podium. He commenced the Kennedy School Student Government (KSSG) election session of 2016. With a radiant smile, he began the night by introducing the candidates competing […]

BY GRANT TUDOR September 25 marks the first anniversary of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): a list of global ambitions for improving the state of things. The first is to “end poverty.” The goal’s various targets, which intend to elaborate on what exactly is meant by ending poverty, tell us that by 2030 all […]

BY SARAH TESAR AND PITICHOKE CHULAPAMORNSRI The people of San Francisco, hoping to transform their city into a bustling economic metropolis, built the Golden Gate Bridge to connect two previously divided urban areas. During the peak of the Great Depression, the city issued forty-year municipal bonds that paid 5% interest in order to finance the […]

By Sasha Ramani, MPP 2018 Hong Kong’s Legislative election on September 4th saw newindependence-leaning candidates winning seats in the territory’s Legislative Council (LegCo). Traditionally, Hong Kong’s politics have been divided among the pro-Beijing “Establishment” camp and the pan-Democratic camp. This election saw the new “localist” camp take 6 out of 70 LegCo seats;/. Localists are […]

BY ANSHUL PACHOURI The year 2016 marks an important milestone in India’s innovation story. First, India’s rank in the global innovation index improved quite significantly from 81st position in 2015 to 66th position in 2016. Second, the country also launched its flagship program Atal Innovation Mission (AIM) to advance its national innovation ecosystem under the […]

BY NIKOLAS OTT AND HUGO ZYLBERBERG Practical yet effective digital data regulations are an enormous policy challenge. Both in the United States and in Europe, businesses, privacy-advocacy groups, and government all have competing interests, and they are struggling to find a workable solution. Meanwhile, machines are tracking their users in an ever-increasing number of ways. […]

By David Duesing, MPP 2018 On Monday, September 12, the JFK Jr. Forum received the Academy Award-winning director, screenwriter and producer Oliver Stone in a conversation moderated by a man similarly distinguished within his field, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author Ron Suskind. Stone, the screenplay writer of works such as Scarface and director of myriad […]