WANNA CRY? The weekend's big news was the huge WannaCry cyber attack that hit an estimated 300,000 computers across 150 companies, locking them up and demanding ransom payments for releasing them. Major corporations and government offices--in particular Britain's National Health Service--were crippled for much of the weekend. The outbreak appears to have been brought under control … Continue reading Europe/Americas update: May 12-15 2017

AZERBAIJAN The Azerbaijani Defense Ministry said on Monday that it destroyed an Armenian air-defense system, plus crew, in its breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region. Separatist sources reported that the system was damaged but that there were no casualties, and then seemed to suggest there would be a reprisal of some sort. AFGHANISTAN China held its big Belt … Continue reading Asia/Africa update, May 12-15 2017

Things are still a little catch as catch can here at attwiw world headquarters, but I'll do my best to get you all up to date on news that doesn't involve Donald Trump's multiple imminent indictments at the hands of the FISA court, the Eastern District of Virginia, the International Criminal Court, the Justice League, … Continue reading Middle East update: May 12-15 2017

BEST FOOT FORWARD I don't have much to add to the conflagration over Donald Trump's decision to fire the guy investigating his possible ties to Russia--I recommend Benjamin Wittes and Susan Hennessey on this if you're not already oversaturated about it. But I do think it's worth understanding how the banana republicification of our government … Continue reading Europe/Americas update: May 8-11 2017

I'm doing tonight's mega-update in multiple parts. This one deals with news from the parts of Asia and Africa that aren't in the Middle East. SOUTH KOREA South Korea has a new president: as expected, it's Moon Jae-in. So...what the hell does this mean? Perhaps you've noticed that things around the Korean peninsula have been … Continue reading Asia/Africa update: May 8-11 2017

Hi, long time no see I guess. Everybody OK? No? Right, of course not. Because this update is going to be so big, I'm splitting it into an as yet unknown number of parts. I'm actually considering doing this for every one of these updates moving forward to keep post length down, but I'm not … Continue reading Middle East update: May 8-11 2017

Friends, now that Western Civilization has been made safe for fiscally prudent centrist capitalism again, I think I'm going to take a bit of an irregular schedule this week barring something really extraordinary happening. I have several reasons for this: one, I have another project I need to try to finish; two, in general I could … Continue reading Conflict update: May 6-7 2017

FRANCE France's runoff election is this Sunday, and active campaigning ended today, so there shouldn't be any more major developme-- With mere minutes to go before the end of active campaigning in France’s presidential election on Friday evening, front-runner Emmanuel Macron’s campaign released a statement saying it had been the victim of a “massive” computer … Continue reading Conflict update: May 5 2017

UNITED KINGDOM That big emergency meeting that the Queen made her staff attend at Buckingham Palace this morning, the one that sent your social media feeds into a tizzy? It was to announce that Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, her husband of almost 70 (!) years...is retiring from public life this fall. Which, I … Continue reading Conflict update: May 4 2017

WELL, AT LEAST HE'S BEING HONEST Rex Tillerson gave a talk at the State Department today and I think he might have said the quiet parts loud: “I think it is really important that all of us understand the difference between policy and values,” the secretary of state, a former oil executive, said as part … Continue reading Conflict update: May 3 2017