The Evening CSIS April 23 2015

Good Evening,

Welcome to The Evening CSIS—my daily guide to key insights CSIS brings to the events of the day plus HIGHLY RECOMMENDED content from around the world. To subscribe, please click here and if you want to view this in your browser, click here.

US & Italian Hostages Killed
In January, a US drone strike on a suspected al Qaeda compound in Pakistan accidentally killed an American and an Italian being held hostage by the group, President Obama announced yesterday, as CNN reports.

CNN also reports that two other Americans who were al Qaeda operatives were also killed in US operations in the same region. CNN provides “Fast Facts” about one of them, Adam Gadahn.

Gazzetta del Sud has a short “Factbox: Italian aid worker Giovanni Lo Porto.”

The killing of American development expert Warren Weinstein and Italian aid worker Giovanni Lo Porto is the first known instance in which the US has accidentally killed a hostage in a drone strike, the Wall Street Journal’s Adam Entous reports.

Dive Deeper: ABC News has a piece on its website by Susanna Kim, “Warren Weinstein: A Look Back at the Life of the American Hostage Killed During Counterterrorism Operation.”

The Independent has a piece by Payton Guion, “Giovanni Lo Porto: Who was the Italian citizen killed by a US drone strike in Pakistan.”

A New Yorker article by Raffi Khatchadourian in late January 2007, “Azzam the American: The making of an Al Qaeda homegrown,” profiles Gadahn.

International Development Agenda
Today, CSIS hosted its inaugural Global Development Forum, bringing together representatives from public and private sectors to focus on the future of US foreign assistance and development.

Dr. Sri Mulyani Indrawati, managing director of the World Bank Group, gave an important keynote on the concentration of poverty in fragile states and the need to incorporate private-sector and domestic resources to ensure workforce development; “ending poverty cannot be done solely with government aid.”

Dive Deeper: the CSIS Ideas Lab produced this short video to illustrate how private investment and innovative financing can create sustainable growth in places like sub-Saharan Africa.

And, the CSIS Executive Council on Development published thereport, Our Shared Opportunity: A Vision for Global Prosperity, which provides targeted recommendations for the government and the private sector to improve development outcomes.

In that Number
143 million
Over 143 million Americans live in earthquake prone areas, according to the US Geological Survey.
Source : Associated Press.

Critical Question
A daily shortened sampling of our signature "Asked & Answered" series.

Asked: China is warning of rising North Korean nuclear capabilities, how bad is the threat?

Answered: CSIS Korea Chair Victor Cha: The key takeaway from the latest news report of Chinese nuclear experts’ assessment of the DPRK’s nuclear capability is not in the actual number of warheads but in the type of warhead and what it implies for the future of North Korea’s weapons capabilities. While the Chinese estimated number of 20 warheads is large enough to constitute a nuclear ‘arsenal,’ it is not significantly larger than conventional open source estimates of 10 to 15 warheads, provided by U.S. and other experts. What we should note from the report is the prediction that the North could double its arsenal by next year with weapons-grade uranium.

In Washington and Seoul, there has always been a policy tendency to downplay North Korean threats when not in a full-fledged crisis. We downplayed their missile threat until they successfully put a satellite into orbit in December 2012. And until 2006, no one thought they would dare undertake a nuclear test. We are not awaiting the fourth one. These new estimates could be a good reminder that we may have done so again.

One to Watch

Daniel F. Runde (@danrunde) holds the William A. Schreyer Chair and directs the Project on Prosperity and Development at CSIS. His work centers on leveraging US soft power instruments and the central roles of the private sector and good governance in creating a more free and prosperous world. He is the architect of today’s “ 2015 Global Development Forum. ”

Optics
In the northernmost region of Myanmar, the Kachin Independence Army has been fighting for regional autonomy from the central government for the past 50 years. These VICE photos detail photographer Niels Larsen’s two months in Kachin’s rebel-controlled regions.

Highly Recommended
Amazing photo feature in Politico, “I Want to Be With the Circus,” in which David Hume Kennerly tells the story behind 50 years of campaign photography.

CSIS Today
Watch video of today’s events at our HQ.

At left, a panel on Global Priorities for the Sustainable Development Goal Agenda featuring Ms. Amina J. Mohammed, Secretary-General’s Special Advisor on Post-2015 Development Planning, United Nations, in purple. At right, Rep. Ander Crenshaw (R-FL) gives a keynote address. Be sure to watch video from today’s inaugural Global Development Forum here. CSIS Tomorrow What’s in store at CSIS HQ tomorrow. The CSIS Global Health Policy Center will host a major day-long conference on comprehensive prevention and control of cervical cancer, with a keynote by Dr. Ted Trimble, director of the National Cancer Institute Center for Global Health. Click here to RSVP or watch live at 9:00 a.m. Mr. Devin Wenig, president of eBay Global Marketplaces, will join CSIS for a keynote and the rollout of a new CSIS report,Fueling the Online Trade Revolution: A New Customs Framework to Facilitate Small Business Commerce and Security. Join us at 12:15 p.m. This Town Tomorrow So many important things in this town—so little time. Of note: The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace will host a timely discussion on “What the New U.S.-South Korea Civil Nuclear Cooperation Means,” featuring leading think tank experts, including CSIS Korea Chair Victor Cha. Click here to RSVP or watch live at 11:00 a.m. CSIS on Demand Yesterday, Juan Zarate, CSIS senior adviser and former deputy national security adviser for combating terrorism, testified before the House Financial Services Committee on what can be done to counter terrorist financing. ICYMI, be sure to watch the hearing or download his highly informative testimony . Sounds On today’s Fresh Air program, NPR talks with BuzzFeed News reporter Gregory Johnson, who narrowly escaped a kidnapping attempt in Yemen. Johnson explains how the Saudi bombings and surrounding humanitarian chaos have led to new gains for al Qaeda in the region. I Like It Like That Eye catching things in CSIS’s orbit The confluence of sports and statistics is a subject that is paramount to fans. But sometimes sports and statistics transcend the most hardcore fans. The Washington Post’s Ishaan Tharoor has written such a piece on his “WorldViews” blog for the Post, “Map: How English soccer teams rule the world,” based on a data visualization by Twitter. Brilliant. Smiles Public service at the highest level is known to rapidly age those who serve. So take a look at the joy a young woman provided for the first lady yesterday during a Q&A session at the White House. Feedback I always welcome and benefit from your feedback. Please drop me a line at aschwartz@csis.org.