HOMELAND SECURITY

Anthony Bergin
(Senior analyst at ASPI and a senior research fellow at the ANU’s National Security College)

Kate Grayson
(Teacher and an independent researcher who previously served as an adviser to the late Senator Russell Trood)

Copyright: https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/intelligence-oversight-or-out-of-sight-recommendations-for-legislative-review/ - Australian Strategic Policy Institute (Australia), 18 January 2019 – Posted at RIEAS web site on 20 January 2019.

Australia’s national intelligence community (NIC) has grown and evolved significantly in recent years. But its key oversight and accountability mechanisms have remained comparatively unchanged and legislatively constrained.

By their very nature, intelligence agencies need to be secretive, and the standards of accountability and oversight they’re subject to necessarily differ from those applicable to other parts of government. Read more

Carlos López-Veraza Pérez
(Public Prosecutor, Huelva, Spain)

Note: An early version of this text has been presented at the OSCE Conference (18 Alliance against Trafficking in Persons, Vienna 2018)

Copyright: Research Institute for European and American Studies (www.rieas.gr) Publication date: 22 July 2018

Note: The article reflects the opinion of the author and not necessarily the views of the Research Institute for European and American Studies (RIEAS).

Identifying and prosecuting Trafficking in Human Beings (hereinafter, THB) is often very difficult because of the fear of the victims to testify in a criminal proceeding. Therefore, it is fundamental that there is cooperation among states, at all levels and with a holistic plan of action. ..Read more

But will it reverse decades of entrenched indoctrination?

Raymond Ibrahim
(Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center, a Judith Friedman Rosen Writing Fellow at the Middle East Forum and a CBN News contributor. He is the author of Crucified Again: Exposing Islam’s New War on Christians (2013) and The Al Qaeda Reader (2007).

Copyright: https://www.frontpagemag.com/ 
Publication on RIEAS web site (www.rieas.gr) on 23 December 2017

President Trump’s new national security strategy is set to return words relevant to understanding Islamic terrorism—such as “jihad”—that had been expunged from the Intelligence and Defense communities’ lexicon, most notably under the Obama administration. According to the new strategy document, “The primary transnational threats Americans face are from jihadist terrorists and transnational criminal organizations”; the document also vows to “pursue threats to their source, so that jihadist terrorists are stopped before they ever reach our borders.” Read more

Matthew Crosston (PhD)
(RIEAS Senior Advisor and Vice Chairman of Modern Diplomacy)

Copyright: www.moderndiplomacy.eu – Publication date on www.rieas.gr on 25 November 2017

The current political climate in Washington DC towards the American Intelligence Community (AIC) is perhaps at an all-time low. Not only is there a special prosecutor taking over for a fired FBI Director to investigate the President of the United States, trying to determine if the Commander-in-Chief in fact colluded with a foreign nation to undermine the sanctity of the American electoral system, that same President seems to take every opportunity he can to denigrate, call into question, and heap insults upon the AIC in its entirety...Read more

Global Trends Main Report
(Office of the Director of National Intelligence)

Copyright: https://www.dni.gov/

These global trends, challenging governance and changing the nature of power, will drive major consequences over the next five years. They will raise tensions across all regions and types of governments, both within and between countries. These near-term conditions will contribute to the expanding threat from terrorism and leave the future of international order in the balance.
Within countries, tensions are rising because citizens are raising basic questions about what they can expect from their governments in a constantly changing world. Publics are pushing governments to provide peace and prosperity more broadly and reliably at home when what happens abroad is increasingly shaping those conditions. Read more

Quantin de Pimodan
(Co-author of The Khaleeji Voice, six-part book series about each of the GCC nations and their respective urban art cultures)

Copyright: Research Institute for European and American Studies (www.rieas.gr) Publication date: 10 December 2016

In “Peak Water: How We Built Civilisation on Water and Drained the World Dryi”, Alexander Bell narrates what he calls the first war in human history that takes place around 2450 BC in Mesopotamia in today’s Iraq. This war was fought between two city-kingdoms, the Lagash and the Umma, both kingdoms of Sumerian civilization. The Lagash were found northwest of the Euphrates’ shores with its spiritual center of Girsu while upstream, of the same river, Umma is located, looking at its southern rival with much envy for its access to water. Read more