At the huge FNB Stadium in Johannesburg on December 2, more than one hundred thousand people participated in the Global Citizen Festival: Mandela 100, sponsored by the Motsepe Foundation. The event raised some $7 billion in commitments for the relief of poverty across the African continent, from big corporations, governments, and small donors. Performers included Beyonce, Jay-Z, and Usher, and speakers included a variety of South African political, economic, and traditional leaders, as well as Mandela’s family. In the audience was Oprah, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, and numerous other heads of state. The event was hosted by South African comedian Trevor Noah.

It is easy to draw analogies between early nuclear scholarship and its cyber counterpart. However, three factors make scholarly research about cyber conflict a significantly more challenging task.

Cyril Ramaphosa, president of South Africa since January, was a close colleague of Nelson Mandela and regularly associates himself with the Mandela legacy and seeks to restore the late president’s values as South Africa’s lodestar.

This year, renewed tension on the Korean Peninsula was included as a top tier priority in the Center for Preventive Action’s annual Preventive Priorities Survey.

The central takeaway from Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s Cairo speech is that the United States needs to rely more on allies to stabilize the Middle East.

This year, a worsening of the humanitarian crisis in Yemen was included as a top tier priority in the Center for Preventive Action’s annual Preventive Priorities Survey.

2018 was the year that a handful of countries got serious about protecting users' data. 

Former President Shehu Shagari passed away on December 28, 2018, in Abuja at the age of 93. He was the only president of Nigeria’s Second republic, which lasted from 1979 to 1983, when his government was overthrown in a military coup by then-General Muhammadu Buhari, who is now Nigeria’s democratically elected president of the country’s Fourth Republic.