Showing results by narrator "Kevin Stillwell" in All Categories

Two days before the collapse of Hosni Mubarak's regime in Egypt, one man gathered the courage to tell the president the truth: he would be killed in his palace if he did not step down. What came next revealed the bitter power struggles atop the most populous country in the Middle East at its most vulnerable moment in six decades. This is the inside story of the final days of Egypt's modern day pharaoh, who ruled with near autocratic powers for three decades before being forced to resign on February 11, 2011.

Several developed countries, including the United States, are beginning to slide toward kleptocracy. To turn the tide, reformers need to focus on cultural change.

Nineteen-year-old Torien Risto has seen dissidents dealt with before. He knows the young local girl who just knifed him will hang for assaulting an Imperial officer, unless he can stop it. Someone inside the provincial government is kidnapping Imperial citizens and selling them across the desert to the salt mines, silencing anyone who tries to intervene. The girl's brother is one of those who has been taken.

Despite boasting the most powerful economy on earth, the United States too often reaches for the gun instead of the purse in its foreign policy. The country has hardly outgrown its need for military force, but over the past several decades, it has increasingly forgotten a tradition that stretches back to the nation’s founding: the use of economic instruments to accomplish geopolitical objectives, a practice we term “geoeconomics.”


Few anticipated that 2016 would see such unprecedented missile and nuclear testing in North Korea, most recently its fifth and largest ever test, reportedly coming in at 10 kilotons. But none of this should have come as a surprise. Under Kim Jong Un, North Korea’s approach to developing its strategic forces is markedly different - more aggressive - than it was under his father or grandfather.

Brazil has rarely had it so bad. The country’s economy has collapsed: since 2013, its un-employment rate has nearly doubled, to more than 11 percent, and last year its GDP shrank by 3.8 percent, the largest contraction in a quarter century. Petrobras, Brazil’s semipublic oil giant, has lost around 85 percent of its value since 2008, thanks to declining commodity prices and its role in a massive corruption scandal. The Zika virus has infected thousands of Brazilians, exposing the frailty of the country’s health system.

An expatriate businessman, Gregg Westwood, leaves the Officers’ Club at an American Air Base in Japan unaware about the impression he’s made on two intelligence agents. They sized him up as someone with potential for strategic deployment, and more importantly, he's under the radar. Gregg's exploits start with what he thinks is a one-off assignment as a courier, and the straightforward task spirals out of control. He's forced to rise to the occasion and use every resource available to survive. Even his family is jeopardized which forces him to return to Japan to settle scores.

Harrison Raines struggles to keep the Civil War from overtaking the West. It's 1862, and the Civil War hangs in the balance. Although the Union has beaten back the Southern armies in the East, the Confederacy is intent on opening new fronts to the west - and perhaps securing British support to widen this ugly conflict into a world war.

Successful foreign policy is largely invisible. It often means paying up front for benefits that are hard to see until you lose them.

Bernie Sanders, the left-wing populist who for months competed with Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primary, has popularized a simple vision for reform: introduce a Nordic-style welfare state in the United States.

The Obama administration did not give away the Internet by freeing the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers to act autonomously. In fact, its actions will protect the best of the Internet: its openness, diversity, and resilience.

For nearly four centuries, since the Peace of Westphalia, the concept of sovereignty has occupied the core of what international order there has been. But an approach to international order premised solely on respect for sovereignty is no longer sufficient. Today’s circumstances call for an updated operating system—call it World Order 2.0—that includes not only the rights of sovereign states but also those states’ obligations to others.

Fifty years ago this week, the Cultural Revolution began with a sudden shift in power. China’s youth, raised to revere their teachers and Chinese Communist Party (CCP) cadres, were abruptly told to overthrow them instead. CCP Chairman Mao Zedong urged students to “bombard the headquarters,” smoking out crypto-capitalists and spies who had wormed their way into the party and betrayed the revolution. “To rebel,” the chairman assured the young, “is justified.”

Almost as soon as the financial crisis struck in late 2007, policy-makers began working to prevent another one. The roots of the crisis, they contended, lay in reckless lending and excess debt. Banks had made massive loans to “subprime” borrowers, who had little ability to repay them, and the banks funded these investments with borrowed money. When the US housing bubble burst, millions of Americans defaulted on their mortgages, and the overleveraged banks collapsed.

Niklas Zennstrom, founder of Skype, talks to Foreign Affairs about the sharing economy, why start-ups are thriving in Europe, and how technology can address climate change.

Pat Williams has drawn on his basketball industry connections to compile great stories from on and off the court. Fans will be inspired, surprised, and even amused, by inside stories from well-known coaches and players, fascinating looks behind the scenes, and anecdotes from the people who make it all possible - the fans. Includes first person stories from 21 basketball celebrities, plus Pat Williams.

Beijing’s newfound assertiveness is a sign of desperation, not ambition.

In early June, Finns learned that a civilian had put in a bid for a property near a Finnish Defense Force test-shooting range in the town of Taipalsaari, located some 20 kilometers from the Russian border. At first, nothing seemed unusual about this; civilians often live near military shooting ranges. But there was one detail that triggered concern in the Finnish military and government: the prospective buyer was Russian.

Imagine life without electricity. With no lights, electric stove, or water pump, you must travel miles to fetch water and firewood, running a particular risk of attack if you are a girl or a woman. At home, you cook over a smoky stove or an open fire, raising your odds of getting lung and heart disease. If you are pregnant, you may die in the dark, giving birth at a clinic that lacks air conditioning and modern medical equipment. Without vaccines, which require refrigeration, your children remain vulnerable to deadly diseases.

Released in 1974, Sweet Home Alabama has become synonymous with Southern rock. From its opening guitar riff, it is instantly recognizable, a raucous, irreverent defense of a Deep South state and its segregationist governor against the jabs of Neil Young. But the roots of Lynyrd Skynyrd's best-selling anthem go much deeper than regional pride or resentment of a fellow rocker.