What We Are Reading:

Why is the Senate Hobbling American Diplomacy
John Kerry / Politico
Boko Haram’s horrifying abduction of more than 200 schoolgirls in Nigeria ignited universal calls for help to “bring back our girls.” President Barack Obama responded with urgency, but lost in the story is that one tool the United States would like to have at our disposal is hampered by the absence of U.S. ambassadors in neighboring Cameroon and Niger.
Iraq rebels ‘seize nuclear materials’
BBC
Iraq has warned the UN that Sunni militants have seized nuclear materials used for scientific research at a university in the city of Mosul.

Islamist plot to blow up Eiffel Tower, Lourve and nuclear power plant foiled, say French police
The Telegraph
French police stumbled on terror plans after decrypting coded messages between Algerian butcher living in southern France and high-ranking members of al-Queda in the Mahgreb

Chinese President Says Conflict With U.S. Would Be Disaster
Bloomberg
China’s President Xi Jingping called for greater military communication with the U.S., saying as he opened high-level talks between the two countries that any conflict would be a global disaster.

Snowden Asks Russia to Extend Asylum
Neil MacFarquhar / the New York Times
Edward J. Snowden, the former National Security Agency analyst who fled to Russia last year after releasing reams of secret American government documents, has applied to extend his temporary asylum, his lawyer was quoted as telling Russian news agencies on Wednesday.

Chinese Hackers Pursue Key Data on U.S. Workers
Michael S. Schmidt, David E. Sanger, and Nicole Perlroth / the New York Times
Chinese hackers in March broke into the computer networks of the United States government agency that houses the personal information of all federal employees, according to senior American officials.

Palestinian death toll rises to 74 as Israel hits Gaza over rocket fire
Nidal Al-Mughrabi and Jeffrey Heller / Reuters
At least 74 Palestinians, most of them civilians, have been killed in Israel’s Gaza offensive, Palestinian officials said on Thursday, and militants kept up rocket attacks on Tel Aviv and other cities in warfare showing no signs of ending soon.

ASP Recent Reports

Fusion White Paper 2014 – 10 Year Plan for American Energy Security
ASP’s White Paper, “Fusion Power – A 10 Year Plan for American Energy Security” provides a detailed plan on how to accelerate the development of fusion power.
On Our Flashpoint Blog

ASP Senior Fellow Andrew Holland in ClimateWire
Colin Taylor
American Security Project’s Senior Fellow for Climate and Energy Security Andrew Holland recently appeared in a piece on E&E Publishing’s ClimateWire titled “U.K. defense ministry details global security impacts posed by climate change”.

10 Key Facts About Nuclear Fusion
Colin Taylor
Fusion is the same process that powers the sun and is already being conducted in laboratories all over the world.

Diplomacy and Development Series: Telling the Story of (US) Aid
Maggie Feldman-Piltch
Public support for diplomacy and development programs is low. Without a clearly demonstrable link between foreign aid and national interests many see supporting progress overseas as simply diverting resources from needs at home.

Upcoming Events

What’s Next? Fostering the Next Generation of Energy Security Conference

September 30 @ 9:00AM – 4:30PM

The next steps in building a cleaner, more resilient energy system and economy will not be easy. The American Security Project intends to build on its years of research into energy security and climate policy by initiating a study into the next generation of energy policy. Join ASP and our panelists as we discuss the next generation of energy technology and climate policy.

The post What We Are Reading…July 10, 2014 appeared first on American Security Project.