On 19 July 2025, China began construction on a 60,000-megawatt hydropower project at Medog, with three times the output of Three Gorges and roughly the UK’s entire annual power production. This is a 1.2-trillion-yuan investment (USD 170B) that Beijing frames as clean energy and development. It is located in southeast Tibert, and only 30km upstream…
Palmo Tenzin is an Advocacy Officer and Senior Researcher for the International Campaign for Tibet (ICT). She is an experienced researcher and policy officer specialising in Chinese politics and contemporary Tibet, Sino-Tibetan relations and Asia-Pacific security. At ICT, Tenzin focuses on investigating and analyzing developments in Tibet, ranging from land management and environmental policies to…
Brian Eyler is the Director of the Stimson Center‘s Southeast Asia and Energy, Water and Sustainability programs. He is widely recognised as a leading voice and expert on transboundary water-energy-food nexus security issues in the Mekong River Basin, having spent more than 15 years living and working in China. Eyler is the Co-Lead of the…
Cormac Smith works at the intersection of authentic leadership & effective communication. He travelled to Ukraine in 2016 to take up a special appointment as the ‘Strategic Communication Advisor’ to Pavlo Klimkin, the then Foreign Minister of Ukraine. Cormac was attached to the British Embassy in Kyiv but was embedded in Ukraine’s Ministry of Foreign…
Coordinated and Produced by Elisa Garbil Dive into the ongoing war with Cormac Smith today. Dominic and Cormac discuss Mariupol, whether the war can be considered genocide, the disinformation war, the reality of Russian aggression, war crimes, hybrid warfare, the need for unity, and more! Today we are joined by Cormac Smith. Cormac works at the intersection of…
Written by Elisa Garbil – 16.10.2025 Late in the night of 4–5 October 2025, Russian forces launched one of the more intense combined missile-and-drone assaults of the war. According to Ukrainian officials, more than 50 ballistic and cruise missiles, along with nearly 500 drones, struck nine regions across the country, hitting energy infrastructure, civilian districts, and industrial…
Dr. Arian Sharifi is an American-Afghan national security professional with two decades of high-level policy and academic experience. He has taught as a Lecturer and Chair of the Master’s in Public Policy Program at Princeton University’s School of Public and International Affairs, and as a lecturer at Gawharshad University in Kabul and at the American…
In this episode of The International Risk Podcast, Dominic Bowen is joined by Dr. Arian Sharifi, Chief Strategy Officer at PercedgeResearch, to examine the evolution of the political situation in Afghanistan since the fall of Kabul in August 2021. The conversation assesses both regional and international risks linked to terrorism, economic, humanitarian, and political risks associated with…
In this episode, Dominic Bowen and Dr. Arian Sharifi discuss the events leading to the fall of Kabul in August 2021 and the rise of the Taliban to power in Afghanistan. Find out more about what the Taliban have implemented in the country, how they managed to secure most of the territory from terrorism,…
Today Dominic Bowen hosts Professor Adam Chalmers on The International Risk Podcast to explore the global race for leadership in artificial intelligence. They discuss the United States’ AI Action Plan and China’s AI Plus Plan, how these competing strategies reveal different models of governance, regulation, and ideology, and what this competition means for innovation, global influence, and risk. Together they examine how the…
