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(GCC Countries) Family businesses in the Gulf must not be left behind (Atlantic Council)

Amjad Ahmad and Farida H. Agamy From Fortune 500 companies to local mom-and-pop stores, family businesses represent a significant global economic force. According to the Family Firm Institute, family enterprises constitute around two-thirds of all businesses around the world, generate approximately 70 to 90 percent of annual global GDP, and create 50 to 80 percent of jobs […]

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(Latin America/Carribean) The pandemic is a chance to reshape women’s roles in Latin America and the Caribbean (Atlantic Council)

Eva Lardizábal María Gonzalez, a sixty-one-year-old Honduran woman, has been her family’s breadwinner since 1995. But when Honduras reported its first case of COVID-19 on March 11, 2020, Gonzalez’s employers informed her that she would be furloughed indefinitely.

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(Russia/Mediterranean) Putin’s Mediterranean gambit: Endgame unclear (Atlantic Council)

Mark N. Katz For more than 250 years, Russian leaders have sought to project power and influence in the Mediterranean region. Sometimes these efforts have met with a significant degree of success. At times, though, Russia has pulled back from the Mediterranean because of setbacks in the region, events in Europe, or convulsions inside Russia. […]

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(Defense) The downsides of downsizing: Why the United States needs four hundred ICBMs (Atlantic Council)

Matthew Kroenig, Mark J. Massa, Christian Trotti The United States is at a nuclear modernization crossroads. The United States currently has plans to modernize all three legs of its nuclear triad, including its force of four hundred deployed intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs).

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(Nord Stream 2) Putin’s pipeline of aggression: How the Nord Stream 2 threatens the West (Defense News)

Stanisław Żaryn It is increasingly difficult for Berlin to defend its claims that Nord Stream 2 is a purely economic project. Instead of backing out of this horrendous deal for Europe, Germany appears to be amplifying a new narrative in its favor — to complete the construction of the pipeline while conditioning its use on […]

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Hong Kong Policy Act Report (U.S. Department of State)

PRESS STATEMENT ANTONY J. BLINKEN, SECRETARY OF STATE Over the past year, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has continued to dismantle Hong Kong’s high degree of autonomy, in violation of its obligations under the Sino-British Joint Declaration and Hong Kong’s Basic Law.  In particular, the PRC government’s adoption and the Hong Kong government’s implementation of the National Security Law (NSL) have severely undermined the rights and freedoms of people in Hong Kong. Each year, the Department of State submits to Congress the Hong Kong Policy Act report and […]

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(Defense) Air-Land chairman talks F-35 costs and ‘Buy America’ in the next defense bill (Defense News)

Joe Gould Last year’s defense policy bill passed without language championed by Rep. Donald Norcross that would have gradually increased “Buy American” requirements for major defense programs to 100 percent by 2026. https://www.defensenews.com/congress/2021/03/31/air-land-chairman-talks-f-35-costs-and-buy-america-in-the-next-defense-bill/

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(Space) Last two crewmembers named for SpaceX’s first all-civilian human spaceflight mission (TechCrunch)

Darrell Etherington We now know the names of all four individuals who will fly on the historic Inspiration4 mission, the first all-civilian spaceflight in history.

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(Innovation/Technology) LinkedIn adds Creator mode, video profiles, and in partnership with Microsoft, new career training tools (TechCrunch)

Ingrid Lunden LinkedIn, the social network now with 740 million users around the world, has carved out an identity for itself as the place online where professionals go to list their places of work, get headhunted for other work, and look for work.

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(Innovation/Technology) Weather platform ClimaCell is now Tomorrow.io and raises $77M (TechCrunch)

Frederic Lardinois Weather intelligence platform ClimaCell today announced that it has raised a $77 million Series D funding round led by private equity firm Stonecourt Capital, with participation by Highline Capital.

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(Innovation/Technology) HYCU raises $87.5M to take on Rubrik and the rest in multi-cloud data backup and recovery (TechCrunch)

Ingrid Lunden As more companies become ever more reliant on digital infrastructure for everyday work, the more they become major targets for malicious hackers — both trends accelerated by the pandemic — and that is leading to an ever-greater need for IT and security departments to find ways of protecting data should it become compromised. […]

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(USA/Colombia) How the US can help Colombia surmount dual crises (Atlantic Council)

Larry Luxner On the eve of the two-hundredth anniversary of diplomatic ties between the United States and Colombia, there is “good momentum to strengthen the bilateral relationship,” says Colombian President Iván Duque.