THREAT REPORTS

Geopolitical
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Israel Judical Reform Crisis

Israel is currently experiencing severe political tensions, the worst since its independence, which has severely polarized the population and has the potential to boil over and turn violent. The tensions erupted after the newly appointed justice minister, Yariv Levin, a vocal critic of the Supreme Court, unveiled the newly created government “reform” of the judicial system. If passed, the plan will give the government-- the most ultranationalist and ultra-Orthodox in the nation’s history--a total control over the appointment of judges, including Supreme Court justices, which will severely limit the Supreme Court ability to strike down self-determining legislation. The plan will also allow the 120-seat parliament (Knesset) to pass laws that the supreme court has annulled as unconstitutional by override the supreme court decisions with a simple majority of 61 votes.

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Kidnapping
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The skinny on virtual kidnappings

The growth of interconnectivity – especially low or no-cost communication around the world has led to many efficiencies. For example, individuals can work on projects with team members that spread all over the world and families with a loved one serving in military can video chat using a service such as Skype of Google Hangouts. The growth, however, is not all positive. As individuals found with e-mail as it matured, scammers and other criminal perpetrators take advantage of new technologies to expand their scope of operations and to seduce unwitting individuals into sending them money. A new dark trend, virtual kidnapping, has emerged and authorities are cautioning the public as it has already ensnared some who have been left poorer and emotional distraught at the experience.

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Civil Unrest
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Cameroon Anglophone crisis

Cameroon has been struggling with increasingly violent crisis between the country’s two linguistic communities. Despite the current conflict only being active since 2016, the roots of the conflict go back to decisions made by the country’s linguistic communities and the international community, both leading up to independence and immediately afterward. The aftermath of World War I resulted in Germany Cameroon’s original colonial ruler, losing its possession, and the League of Nations splitting the colony and giving mandates to both France and the United Kingdom. Each new ruler proceeded, during the mandate period, to pursue integrating their possession into their colonial holdings; thus, the legal and educational systems were separated and, most importantly, as a cultural signifier, Cameroon became split along linguistic lines

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