1. Dec 2022
    1. Sweden will work to better integrate cyber diplomacy issues and the EU’s external digital policy into its overall foreign policy.
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    1. Prime Minister Modi recognizes the potential that collaboration with SCO members holds for improving India’s trade relations in the region and cementing itself as a reliable trade partner, especially since East Asia is poised to become the new center of development of world economy.
    2. “democracy, dialogue, and diplomacy”

      3 keywords.

    3. And with the recently announced National Logistics Policy—a national initiative to reduce logistics costs, digitalize the logistics sector, and increase supply chain efficiency—India could become globally competitive on a scale comparable to China and the United States.

      to follow on logistics and supply chains ||Jovan||

    4. to take a people-centric development model, an approach that will in turn transform the population into a competitive workforce and will also value the spread of technology.
    5. Trade cooperation was a hot topic at the summit. India pressed on the need to address the major disruptions caused to trade, supply chains, food security, and the energy sector as a result of the Ukraine crisis and Covid-19. India’s interests in having stronger supply chains coincides with the country’s ambitions to become a manufacturing hub, which, therefore, requires it to collaborate with the region’s major economies. In this vein, Prime Minister Modi pressed for transit rights at the summit in order to facilitate stronger supply chains through enhanced connectivity; previously, India has struggled to access Central Asian markets without transit rights across Pakistan’s territory.

      India's push for trade and non-securityissues.

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    1. Solve Discussion Questions

      More 'scientific approach' to promptology

      ||anjadjATdiplomacy.edu||||sorina||||JovanNj||

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    1. Promptology, Or The Art Of Creating Good Prompts

      ||sorina|| ||JovanNj|| ||anjadjATdiplomacy.edu||

      Text on 'promptology' - the art of creating good prompts.

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    1. People using the stimulator and their physicians could no longer access the proprietary software needed to recalibrate the device and maintain its effectiveness.

      Key question: What happens with neurotech and the people using them when the companies behind the tech are no longer?

      Issues: access to software, battery drain, ...

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    1. TechChina is about to get tougher on deepfakes in an unprecedented way.

      TITLE: China to introduce pioneering regulation on “deepfakes”

      CONTENT: In January, China will introduce pioneering regulation on “deepfakes”, reinforcing their policies of control over internet content. Deepfakes are synthetically generated or altered images or videos built using artificial intelligence. This technology can be used to alter an existing video, for example, by creating realistic fake speech. China announced its new rules for governing “deep synthesis technologies” earlier this year, and finalized them in December. These new legislation will come into effect on Jan. 10.

      EXCERPT: In January, China will introduce pioneering regulation on “deepfakes”, reinforcing their policies of control over internet content.

      LINK: https://www.cnbc.com/2022/12/23/china-is-bringing-in-first-of-its-kind-regulation-on-deepfakes.html

      TOPIC: Freedom of expression

      TREND: Fake News

      DATE: 23/12/2022

      COUNTRY: China

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    1. has readers fretting about space debris and traffic management. Given the attention to the problem, it’s unfair to say that this will sneak up on us, but the lack of urgency around addressing space safety might leave us with a nasty surprise. The leak in the Soyuz spacecraft at the ISS, likely caused by a micrometeroid impact, may be a warning for congested space lanes to come. It’s a champagne problem, in the sense that space junk worries us because of the growing value of space activity. But as I will ruefully attest on Jan. 1, champagne problems can still hurt.

      Not enough focus on space debris and traffic management.

    2. Robots are headed for the moon en masse: Attempted landings from companies including Japan’s iSpace, Intuitive Machines (two different missions!), Astrobotic, plus robots built by space agencies in Japan, India, and Russia.

      The moon in focus in 2023, for both space agencies and private actors.

    3. China’s new space station will be complete, and western researchers have already started signing up to collaborate there. Will we see a non-Chinese astronaut visit?

      China's space station coming up in 2023. To watch as a potential are of cooperation/diplomacy.

    4. Russia’s decision to invade Ukraine, for example, has been a debacle, but it put an incredible spotlight everything changing in space. One of Russia’s first acts of war was hacking satellite communications networks, while SpaceX’s Starlink network became a vital tool for Ukrainian resistance. The public, along with intelligence agencies and militaries, relied on satellite data to understand and prosecute the fighting. Drones and missiles that rely on satellite navigation and communications have become central to the conflict. AdvertisementIt’s not the first “space war”—the 1990 Gulf War typically gets that distinction—but never before have space assets been so front and center.

      Interesting framing of the Ukraine war as a 'space war'. ||JovanK||

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    1. Realise the OECD Global Forum on Technology Governance to foster multi-stakeholder collaboration on digital and emerging technology policy, to facilitate future-facing strategic discussions on technology governance and inform the development and use of technology in line with shared democratic values.

      ||sorina|| New governance initiative?

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    1. Yes. Go to Settings -> Modern Footnotes and choose the “Display footnote list at bottom of posts” option. Or, if you only want the footnotes at the bottom of the post when printing, choose the “When printing, list footnotes at the bottom of posts” option.

      ||sorina|| This is nice feature

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    1. Musk is baiting mainstream media companies to cover a manufactured scandal about something that happened years ago and it is still not yielding returns. So far, the media largely isn’t taking the bait, showing that news coverage doesn’t just happen simply because a billionaire tries to engineer it. Silence is still the editor’s best kept weapon in the content wars.
    2. Over at Twitter, Musk has given privileged access to some ideologically friendly journalists who must publish their findings on his platform.
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    1. But that same morning, Twitter staff assigned to evaluate tweets had quickly concluded that Trump had not violated Twitter’s policies.
    2. multiple tweeps [Twitter employees] have quoted the Banality of Evil suggesting that people implementing our policies are like Nazis following orders.” 
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    1. “A lot of times, SI [Twitter’s Site Integrity team] has used technicality spam enforcements as a way to solve a problem created by Safety [team at Twitter] under-enforcing their policies.”In a follow-up message with a colleague, Roth said he was looking for ways to marginalize accounts that had fallen into disfavor without banning them outright.
    2. Site Integrity Policy-Policy Escalation Support team, or SIP-PES
    3. trategic Response Team-Global Escalation Team, or SRT-GET. It handled up to 200 cases a day.
    4. Do Not Amplify
    5. Search Blacklist
    6. Trends Blacklist
    7. a set of tools that include locking users out of searches and preventing some users’ tweets from trending—which is how countless other users discover what’s popular or being talked about on Twitter.
    8. visibility filtering
    9. What “shadow banning” has long meant to lay critics of Twitter was not that no one on the platform could see their posts, but that far fewer people could. They meant something fishy was happening, screens were being thrown up, the air let out of their tires, so that posts by conservative or non-woke thinkers never seemed to reach as many eyeballs as those that espoused left-approved ideas.
    10. shadow banning.
    11. Tweets or accounts or hashtags that offended the powers that be were not publicly shamed, but quietly throttled, meaning users frequently did not know they were being deprived of arguments or data that did not support the prevailing wisdom or the politically favored narrative.
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    1. TITLE: 2023 Digital Media and Developing Minds International Scientific Congress

      CONTENT: 2023 Digital Media and Developing Minds International Scientific Congress

      Theme: Researchers, clinicians, educators, government agency representatives, and others with expertise in psychology, psychiatry, neuroscience, pediatrics, communications, social work, public health, education, and more will come together to explore how digital media use impacts the social, psychological, cognitive, behavioral, and physical development of children.

      Date: 20-23 September 2023

      Location: Washington D.C., The U.S.

      Host: Children and Screens: Institute of Digital Media and Child Development is an international non-profit organization founded in 2013 to understand and address compelling questions regarding media's impact on child development through interdisciplinary dialogue, public information, and rigorous, objective research bridging the medical, neuroscientific, social science, public health, educational, and academic communities.

      EXCERPT: 2023 Digital Media and Developing Minds International Scientific Congress will be hosted by Children and Screens: Institute of Digital Media and Child Development on 20-23 September 2023 in Washington D.C.

      LINK: https://www.childrenandscreens.com/2023-digital-media-and-developing-minds/

      TOPIC: Child safety online

      TREND: digital media, children development

      DATE: 21 Dec 2022

      COUNTRY: the U.S.

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    1. TITLE: More time spent online might increase the risk of OCD for children

      CONTENT: Preteens are more likely to develop the obsessive-compulsive disorder if they spend more time playing internet games or watching videos. The most extensive long-term investigation of brain development in American children, the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development research, has reached this conclusion. The preteens had a 13% higher chance of developing obsessive-compulsive disorder within two years for every additional hour they spent playing video games. Additionally, for every additional hour they spent watching internet videos, their chance of OCD increased by 11%. According to the report, schools can be vital in ensuring that adolescents form positive digital habits at a crucial juncture in their growth.

      EXCERPT: Preteens are more likely to develop the obsessive-compulsive disorder if they spend more time playing on internet games or watching videos. The most extensive long-term investigation of brain development in American children, the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development research, has reached this conclusion.

      LINK: https://www.edweek.org/leadership/screen-time-can-raise-childrens-chance-of-ocd-educators-can-help-prevent-that/2022/12

      TOPIC: Children’s rights

      TREND: online gaming, screen time, mental health

      DATE: December 20, 2022

      COUNTRY: the U.S.

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    1. 5 Fantastic WordPress Footnotes Plugins

      ||sorina|| A good survye of fotnotes

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    1. Title: Nigeria and Rwanda sign Artemis Accords

      Content: Nigeria and Rwanda signed the Artemis Accords, becoming the first two African countries to adhere to the a set of nonbinding commitments to facilitate the peaceful and safe exploration of outer space.

      The Artemis Accords, signed by 23 countries up to December 2022, outlines a series of principles, guidelines, and best practices to o enhance the governance of the civil exploration and use of outer space. Intended to apply to civil space activities conducted by the civil space agencies of each signatory countries, the principles cover issues such as peaceful purposes, transparency, interoperability, emergency assistance, registration of space objects, release of scientific data, deconfliction of activities, protection of space heritage, and mitigation of orbital debris, including spacecraft disposal.

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    1. usage guidelines, enforcing those guidelines, documenting known vulnerabilities and weaknesses and proactively disclosing harmful behavior and misuse scenarios.
    2. choose the smallest model that will provide the accuracy and performance needed to reduce operational complexity, lower energy consumption and optimize total cost of ownership.
    3. Use cases where output is reviewed by humans are preferred.
    4. owever, they also pose risks and ethical concerns, including those associated with: 

      Challenges for chatBot

    5. Success depends on identifying the applications for these technologies that offer meaningful benefits to the organization.
    6. two current ‘hot’ AI topics: chatbots and GPT3.
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    1. are still a work in progress
    2. In The Tangle, each network participant has to validate others’ transactions before their own transactions can be validated. This means there is no need for “miners” and no cost for participating.
    3. t does not use the proof-of-work validation system that has led to bitcoin’s soaring energy consumption.
    4. So far, the best bet is a blockchain called EW Chain, developed by Energy Web Foundation, a Swiss non-profit organisation.
    5. the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance
    6. “I think everyone five years ago assumed that blockchain was the answer, but I don’t think they knew what the question was,”
    7. “The hype surrounding blockchain technology will recede sharply in 2018 as the cost and complexity of implementing blockchain solutions becomes apparent,”
    8. were surfing on a wave of interest created by bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies
    9. By March 2018, analyst firm GTM Research (now Wood Mackenzie) was tracking 122 energy-related blockchain start-ups
    10. a digital platform that would cheapen energy by bypassing the complexities of electricity trading, tracking transactions with nimble blockchain technology instead of bulky centralised trading systems.
    11. Some analysts claimed blockchain could revolutionise everything from finance to democracy.
    12. Some analysts claimed blockchain could revolutionise everything from finance to democracy.
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    1. emrush is a very powerful tool for SEO but it won't do the job itself, you have to play around with it yourself.

      We are revisiting vairous platforms and tools (especially expensive ones).

      The key is that we should start using them actively. Without using them proactively, they are not particuarly useful.

      ||JovanK||

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    1. Check if the main source of your new site’s traffic is either your old links or direct traffic recorded when users type your old URL into their browsers. If this is the case for you, then it’s highly advisable to keep the 301 redirect forever. It would be too risky to suddenly get rid of your old domain especially if your old links are bringing in so much traffic from users who still find them relevant.
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    1. Themes of the OECD Digital Economy Ministerial Meeting 

      ||AndrijanaG|| We will need some coverage of this event on DW. It was big gathering IGF.

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    1. The so-called request for consultations is the first step in a long procedure at the global trade body. The United States has blocked appointments to the WTO's top ruling body on trade disputes, meaning some rows never get settled.

      TITLE: China-USA trade dispute at WTO on the U.S. chip export control measures.

      CONTENT: China initiated a trade dispute procedure against the U.S. chip export control measures arguing that these measures 'threatened the stability of the global industry supply chains."

      The WTO process will start with request for consultations. But, any resolution is not likely as WTO's arbitration body has been disfunctional due to the U.S. blockage of appointing new judges. The WTO's arbitration mechanisms are not likely to be de-blocked.

      Thus, China's move has more symbolic relevance in ongling 'chip war' between two countries.

      TOPIC: e-commerce

      LINK:

      PROCESS: The WTO Joint Statement Initiative (JSI) on e-commerce

      ||VladaR|| ||AndrijanaG|| Do we have any page on microchips?

    2. The so-called request for consultations is the first step in a long procedure at the global trade body.
    3. "China takes legal actions within the WTO framework as a necessary way to address our concerns and to defend our legitimate interests,"
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    1. TITLE: Gender equality in space diplomacy

      CONTENT: Space negotiation should become more gender-inclusive. This article calls Australia to have leading role in space diplomacy and gender in the wider context of UN women, peace and security (WPS) agenda with the following specific proposals:

      • to use of gender-neutral language such as ‘piloted’ or ‘automated’ rather than ‘manned’ or ‘unmanned’ when referring to spacecraft;
      • to ensure greater participation by women diplomats and decision-makers in space security negotiations; and
      • to take into account the disproportionate impact on girls and women when space-based technologies are interrupted, interfered with or attacked in grey-zone and conflict situations.

      EXCERPT: Space diplomacy should become more gender inclusive from changes in language used in space negotiations to more involvement in women in space diplomacy.

      TOPIC: Space diplomacy

      LINK:

      ||sorina|| Let us also publish this on Space Diplomacy at Diplo website

    2. o have signed all five of the core space treaties

      what are five core space treaties?

    3. the use of gender-neutral language such as ‘piloted’ or ‘automated’ rather than ‘manned’ or ‘unmanned’ when referring to spacecraft

      Language in space diplomacy.

    4. on gender mainstreaming in all security issues,

      Probably link to NZ initiative

    5. Australia is already known as a leader in advancing the WPS agenda
    6. There is increasing evidence that women’s participation in decision-making results in more durable peace agreements, increased trust and collaboration across political agendas, and more comprehensive and nuanced information gathering to better inform decision-making.

      Interesting statement. Is there any evidence and research supporting it?

    7. Australia is a signatory to the WPS agenda, first codified in 2000 by UN Security Council resolution 1325.

      ||AndrijanaG||||VladaR|| Who is covering gender in our team. WE should include this resolution.

    8. UN women, peace and security (WPS) agenda

      ||VladaR|| It seems to be part of NZ initiative as well for cybersecurity and gender.

    9. From Australia’s participation in the UN open-ended working group on reducing space threats,

      ||sorina|| Do we have any info on this working group. It is supposed to work in Geneva?

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    1. Australia signed a bilateral security agreement with Vanuatu on Tuesday which will include cooperation over cybersecurity matters, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) announced. The agreement was signed as Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong visited the island nation in the wake of a severe ransomware attack in November. The attack left the Pacific island’s government in disarray; internal systems were completely unavailable impacting a host of emergency services, alongside schools and hospitals. The Sydney Morning Herald reported that officials from the Australian Cybersecurity Centre assisted Vanuatu’s government in rebuilding the systems following the attack. The two countries have historically had strong diplomatic ties. The pact involves cooperation in a range of areas, including humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, as well environmental and resource security, maritime and aviation safety and security, as well as defense and policing, according to DFAT. It “reflects Australia and Vanuatu’s ongoing commitment to working together as members of the Pacific family to address shared security challenges,” said Australia’s deputy prime minister Richard Marles. Australia, which is rewriting its own national security strategy following the ransomware attack on health insurance business Medibank, has ramped up its diplomatic work in the region as it competes with China. Beijing attempted — although ultimately failed in May — to sign regional trade and security agreements with the 10 Pacific Island states it has diplomatic relations with. An unexpected security deal between China and the Solomon Islands in April provoked enormous concern — particularly plans that would permit China to create a military base just 2,000 km from Australia itself.  Following the announcement of the agreement, the Solomon Islands’ prime minister Manasseh Sogavare stressed that he would not allow a Chinese military base in the country. He said the agreement covered the contingency of “a gap” in the kinds of security that Australia can provide: “When it comes to security issues in the region, we will call on them [the Australians] first.” The details of China’s agreement with the Solomon Islands have not been published, although a leaked draft was posted online revealing broad access to the Solomon Islands was being offered to China’s military and police. Australia’s agreement with Vanuatu “will be publicly available,” said Wong on Tuesday, because both nations are “committed to democracy, accountability and transparency.”

      TITLE: Australia and Vanuatu conclude pact on defense, including cybersecurity

      CONTENT: The agreement includes cybersecurity cooperation. Australia already helped Vanuatu after November randsomwere attack that impacted emergency services, schools and hospitals.

      This agreement is part of Australia's renewed push to strengthen its relationships with other countries in the Pacific in the context of increasing presence of China.

      EXCERPT: Australia strengthens cybersecurity cooperation in the Pacific region by singing safety pact with Vanuatu.

      LINK:

      TOPIC: cybersecurity

      TREND: n/a

      PROCESS: n/a

      DATE: 12 December 2022

      COUNTRY: Australia, Vanuatu

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    1. 73rd Annual ICA Conference Theme Call for Papers

      ITLE: 73rd Annual ICA Conference Theme Call for Papers: Reclaiming Authenticity in Communication

      CONTENT: The ICA 2023 conference theme of Reclaiming Authenticity in Communication invites communication scholars to examine how authenticity has become a variable, rather than a constant, in public discourses and popular culture across the globe, and with what relational, social, political, and cultural implications.

      EXCERPT: The ICA 2023 conference theme of Reclaiming Authenticity in Communication invites communication scholars to examine how authenticity has become a variable in communication.

      LINK: https://www.icahdq.org/mpage/ICA23-CFP

      TOPIC: Freedom of the press

      TREND: Fake News

      DATE: 14/12/2022

      COUNTRY:

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    1. Twitter dissolves Trust and Safety Council

      TITLE: Twitter abruptly dissolves its Trust and Safety Council.

      CONTENT: Twitter abruptly dissolved its Trust and Safety Council on Monday night. This happened just moments before a scheduled meeting with company representatives. The Trust and Safety Council was created to make the platform safer and more civil, after years of work towards that goal. Members of Twitter’s Trust and Safety Council received an email informing them the council was no longer “the best structure” to bring “external insights into our product and policy development work.”

      EXCERPT: Twitter abruptly dissolved its Trust and Safety Council on Monday night.

      LINK: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/12/12/musk-twitter-harass-yoel-roth/

      TREND: Fake News

      PROCESS: Freedom of expression

      DATE: 12/12/2022

      COUNTRY: United States

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    1. If a search engine sees a glut of raw AI content, then the page will receive a penalty point.
    2. Google is paying more and more attention to video content, this is a truth that you just need to come to terms with
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    1. the U.S. intelligence apparatus has made quantum decryption a priority, regardless of market fluctuations.
    2. Even the most optimistic analysts believe that quantum computing will not earn meaningful profits in the next five years, and pessimists caution that it could take more than a decade.
    3. The Quantum Insider, an industry trade publication, has tallied more than six hundred companies in the sector, and another estimate suggests that thirty billion dollars has been invested in developing quantum technology worldwide.
    4. “We have good reason to believe that a quantum computer would be able to efficiently simulate any process that occurs in nature,” Preskill wrote, a few years ago.
    5. Kitaev’s error-correction scheme is one of the most promising approaches to building a functional quantum computer,
    6. Entanglement is to computing what nuclear fission was to explosives: a strange property of the subatomic world that could be harnessed to create technology of unprecedented power. If entanglement could be enacted at the scale of everyday objects, it would seem like a magic trick. Imagine that you and a friend flip two entangled quarters, without looking at the results. The outcome of the coin flips will be determined only when you peek at the coins. If you inspect your quarter, and see that it came up heads, your friend’s quarter will automatically come up tails. If your friend looks and sees that her quarter shows heads, your quarter will now show tails. This property holds true no matter how far you and your friend travel from each other. If you were to travel to Germany—or to Jupiter—and look at your quarter, your friend’s quarter would instantaneously reveal the opposite result.
    7. ​Earlier this year, the Biden Administration announced that it was moving toward new, quantum-proof encryption standards that offer protection from Shor’s algorithm.
    8. the physicists realized that whether an electron behaved more like a particle or more like a wave depended on whether or not someone was observing it.
    9. A full-scale quantum computer could crack our current encryption protocols, essentially breaking the Internet.

      ||sorina|| Is something wrong with me? The main success of quantum computing would be to break encryption?

    10. Quantum computers, like the ones Google is building, use qubits, which can take a value of zero or one, and also a complex combination of zero and one at the same time.
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    1. Concern as US media hit with wave of layoffs amid rise of disinformation

      TITLE: Wave of layoffs in US media raises concerns about the spread of disinformation

      CONTENT: A wave of layoffs in US media raises concerns about the spread of disinformation. Several major companies, including CNN, BuzzFeed and Gannett, have laid off hundreds of workers in recent weeks citing economic volatility and uncertainty. The recent staff cuts have triggered new worries over the health of the US media at a time of democratic crisis.

      EXCERPT: A wave of layoffs in US media raises concerns about the spread of disinformation.

      LINK: https://www.theguardian.com/media/2022/dec/10/media-layoffs-cnn-buzzfeed-gannett-recount-protocol

      TREND: Fake news

      DATE: 12/12/2022

      COUNTRY: United States

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    1. Outer space talks are a welcome addition to the US-Africa Leaders Summit - what’s on the table

      @sorina this text links our research on Africa and space diplomacy. It will be discussed next week at the US-Africa summit.

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    1. “The Banshees of Inisherin”

      to watch

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    1. from rule-breaker to rule-maker, he will need to defy both the business challenges to his super-app ambitions and expectations of what he might do as the boss of one.
    2. it is neither as vast as Meta nor as staid as Microsoft.
    3. requires trust from regulators, consumers and the developers who choose to operate their businesses within a platform
    4. Another obstacle is trust
    5. to bypass the Apple ecosystem in the first place.
    6. According to The Information, a news website, Microsoft has considered building its own super-app, a platform combining shopping, messaging and web search that would dip further into consumers’ wallets as its business customers slow spending.
    7. By contrast it is hard to imagine WeChat’s users abandoning the app if it was removed from Apple’s iPhones in China.
    8. Twitter will need to be far bigger before it can begin giving orders to the rule-makers.
    9. any attempt to expand Twitter to integrate a payments system or create a platform for “mini programs” to run within the app would ignite a more fundamental conflict.
    10. The total fees it collects from its app store are not disclosed but are thought to make up a large chunk of a services segment with revenues of $78bn a year.
    11. Apple, which makes more than half of America’s smartphones, is the incumbent gatekeeper to the country’s eyeballs
    12. The greatest impediment to super-apps are, unsurprisingly, app stores
    13. Most involve fitting as many closely related services inside the same app as possible.
    14. in 2017 cemented the platform as the real operating system of the Chinese internet
    15. Launched in 2011, WeChat rode the wave of Chinese smartphone adoption. Today it boasts 1.3bn users and stunning ubiquity
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    1. provides a surprisingly upbeat history of death
    2. The Equality Machine. By Orly Lobel. PublicAffairs; 368 pages; $30 and £25

      to read

    3. she argues that the answer is
    4. This author agrees with
    5. Beyond Measure. By James Vincent. W.W. Norton; 432 pages; $32.50. Faber; £18.99

      to read

    6. An Immense World. By Ed Yong. Random House; 464 pages; $30. Vintage; £17.99

      to read

    7. this book lifts the shroud on
    8. Elusive. By Frank Close. Basic Books; 304 pages; $26. Allen Lane; £25

      to read

    9. A compelling account of
    10. A tour d’horizon of cell theory, by
    11. Papyrus. By Irene Vallejo. Translated by Charlotte Whittle. Knopf; 464 pages; $35. Hodder & Stoughton; £25

      to buy

    12. The author makes a powerful case
    13. clear thinking is the key.
    14. A novel about
    15. The Serpent Coiled in Naples.

      book to read

    16. how close to inhumanity humanity always is
    17. The broad subject of this poignant book is what happens
    18. Mostly it confirms the view that
    19. An elegant account of
    20. This portrait gives him
    21. Its story makes clear how
    22. A monumental study
    23. it provides insights into how
    24. Written with wit, style and a formidable command of detail
    25. A magnificent history of corporations
    26. For Profit. By William Magnuson. Basic Books; 368 pages; $32 and £25

      to read

    27. In this authoritative book a former journalist
    28. Books about
    29. This timely book
    30. Chip War. By Chris Miller. Scribner; 464 pages; $30. Simon & Schuster; £20

      to order

    31. The author, a journalist at the Financial Times, was
    32. The dramatic story
    33. A fortuitously timed history of
    34. It is striking
    35. It reads like
    36. A meticulous narration
    37. A chronicle of the lif
    38. A look at why
    39. personal account
    40. The author shows
    41. The author speaks
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    1. But that analysis underestimates how deeply neoliberal ideas took root across both the left and the right, at least in the Anglosphere.
    2. In Mr DeLong’s version of history, key events are often the product of chance rather than structural forces.
    3. a duel between the insights of Friedrich von Hayek, an Austrian economist who extolled the power of the free market, and Karl Polanyi, a Hungarian thinker who warned that the market was there to serve man, not man the market.
    4. Yet building harmonious societies out of material abundance has proved maddeningly difficult.
    5. a land of plenty that prior generations could scarcely have imagined.
    6. the modern corporation, the research laboratory and globalisation
    7. Mr DeLong, by contrast, argues that the period from 1870 to 2010 is best seen as a coherent whole: the first era, he argues, in which historical developments were overwhelmingly driven by economic ones.
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    1. It turns out that gpus, which were first designed in the 1990s to improve video games, are also excellent at running artificial-intelligence (AI) models. Intel recently launched its first set of stand-alone gpus to compete with Nvidia as well as amd, which also makes them.
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    1. ||sorina|| A bit more insights on Africa and taxtion on digital transactions. There is more dynamism than reproted.

      ||Jovan||

    2. But there was a twist: the number of tweets about protests and rallies increased. Like death, taxes are certain. Their effects are not.
    3. This kind of messy bargaining could eventually strengthen the contract between citizens and states.
    4. In Uganda the total value of mobile-money transactions dropped by a quarter when the state imposed a 1% tax on them in 2018, taking 18 months to recover
    5. Ghana’s e-levy, in force since May, imposes a 1.5% tax on most electronic money transfers, such as those that citizens zap through their phones. Cameroon brought in a similar charge in January. Nigeria is considering a 5% levy on calls, messages and mobile internet.
    6. African countries have proposed that a tax convention be developed at the un, where they hope to have more of a say.

      any resource?

    7. But many African countries worry it is too complex and would be difficult to implement in countries with low administrative capacity, says Thulani Shongwe of the African Tax Administration Forum, a network of tax officials.

      Institutional capacity as limit to imiplement OECD tax deal.

    8. A global tax deal was agreed to by 130 countries last year with the aim of forcing multinational companies to pay more tax in the places where they make their sales, irrespective of where they register their assets.
    9. Now they see untapped potential in new sectors which barely existed 20 years ago, including social media, e-commerce, mobile internet and mobile money.

      chance for taxing Internet industry.

    10. Levies on mobile and internet services have sparked street protests in Uganda, cabinet squabbles in Nigeria and a parliamentary brawl in Ghana.
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    1. And China imports $400bn-worth of chips a year, more than any other country. Though private companies and allied countries might be happy to go along with the Americans now, the amount of money being left on the table by not selling to Chinese customers may start to rankle.
    2. The list includes chips used for artificial intelligence (ai), software to design advanced chips and the machine tools to manufacture them. Selling such things to China is now barred without explicit permission from America’s government. Rulebreakers risk being cut off from American tech themselves.
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    1. China’s growing isolation—both self-imposed and enforced by restrictions like America’s new rules on tech exports—is far more severe.
    2. American politicians do not seem to understand the advantage conferred by their country’s openness, however.
    3. Less than half as many Chinese received visas to study abroad in the first half of 2022 as in the first half of 2019. This pulling apart is bad for the world, but China may suffer more. It does not have as diverse a pool of researchers as the West. According to data from MacroPolo, a think-tank, although 60% of the world’s best AI researchers work in America, over two-thirds of them are foreign (and over a quarter of them Chinese). In contrast, China draws overwhelmingly on domestic talent: almost all its best ai researchers are Chinese, and 70% of them have studied only in China.
    4. he West is ahead on biotech, cloud computing and AI
    5. China is dominant in some industries, such as 5G telecoms. It makes some 80% of the world’s lithium batteries.
    6. what is called juguo tizhi or the “whole-of-the-nation system”.
    7. China’s investments are also more co-ordinated.
    8. This calculation confirms that America maintains a slight edge (see chart 1), spending about $800bn or 3.8% of GDP in 2020. That compares to about $660bn in China after adjusting for differences in the cost of living, or 2.7% of gDP.
    9. Peter Thiel, a fabled investor, has argued that there has been too much investment in “bits” (software and analytics) and not enough in “atoms” (hardware and manufacturing).
    10. Private investment, meanwhile, doubled from 1% of GDP in 1979 to 2% in 2017. Giant tech firms such as Google, Facebook (now Meta), Amazon and Apple sprouted in America. China spawned similar titans, such as Alibaba, Baidu, JD.com and Tencent.
    11. Its spending peaked at 1.86% of GDP in 1964. But after the fall of the Berlin Wall federal spending on R&D fell well below 1% of gDP.
    12. “Technological innovation has become the main battlefield of the international strategic game,” said China’s president, Xi Jinping, in a speech last year to Chinese scientists. “We’re in a multi-generation era-defining competition against the ccp [Chinese Communist Party],” rhymes Mr Young, one of the sponsors of the Chips Act.
    13. The month before it passed the Chips and Science Act, which provides $52bn over five years for the semiconductor industry, some of which will incentivise private R&D.
    14. “It’s a total clamp down, trying to cut off every head of the hydra of China’s chip industry.”
    15. The anxiety is easy to understand. In 2008 China spent a third as much as America did on research and development (R&D) and about half as much as Europe, after adjusting for differences in the cost of living. By 2014 it had surpassed Europe. By 2020 its spending was 85% of America’s.
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    1. China fears rule-making as a plot to stop it catching up.
    2. “When you are the weaker party, you cannot get a fair deal.”
    3. A truly desperate Russia might stop selling advanced arms to India and Vietnam, both rivals of China’s, and forget its previous disquiet about China playing a larger role in the Arctic.
    4. The Americans were too late: the prime minister, Manasseh Sogavare, signed the Chinese pact before they arrived. In August the islands announced a $66m Chinese loan to pay for Huawei, the Chinese telecoms giant, to build mobile-phone towers. In September Mr Sogavare defied public appeals from Australia, previously its closest partner, and delayed elections for a year, saying they clashed with a sports tournament.
    5. China has begun working with the IMF, the G20 and the Paris Club of creditors to help some low-income countries restructure crippling debts, among them Zambia. It has also recently struck a restructuring deal with Ecuador.
    6. China prefers to extend the terms of loans rather than write them off, often securing promises to give Chinese lenders a priority claim to revenues (as well as clauses to keep loan terms secret)
    7. In June a first cohort of 120 young cadres from six ruling parties in southern Africa attended a “leadership school” in Tanzania, opened with $40m in Chinese funding.

      ||Jovan|| another leadership school in Tanzania?

    8. A European diplomat asserts that Mr Xi is guided by a tianxia guan: an ancient world view with China at the centre, and the influence of Chinese civilisation radiating out to all compass points
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    1. Without team-specific coaching and development, the work is indeed harder than it needs to be, and collaboration is less effective—so workloads become even heavier, making people feel even more overwhelmed and less able to pursue development and growth.
    2. I believe that Yoda’s type of wisdom exists on every team, but only when everyone’s input is openly shared.
    3. A replay may also be requested if it appears that a violation of the social contract—such as a back-channel conversation or an aggressive encounter—has occurred.
    4. Circulate the results in a shared document and then orally after reconvening the full team. Candor breaks can serve as a coaching mechanism: In time team members will begin spontaneously sharing their feedback.
    5. “Most important, they must be able to put their egos aside and assess themselves candidly.”
    6. No matter how sensitive the issue or how serious the criticism, members must feel free to voice their thoughts openly—though always constructively—and respond to critical input with curiosity, recognizing that it is a crucial step toward a better solution.
    7. Conflict avoidance can be corrosive, even deadly, causing teams to miss opportunities and needlessly exposing them to risk
    8. This ensures that the person responsible for the project has clear, well-documented input encompassing a variety of perspectives along with concrete offers of support and that by the time the project comes to fruition, it has been subject to rigorous examination and benefits from the full wisdom of the team.
    9. we have discovered that this courage and candor are sustained when the larger group reconvenes.
    10. People have more courage in small groups; they are less inhibited about critiquing ideas and weeding out weak ones.
    11. who will make the final decision.
    12. The aim is robust dialogue, not consensus
    13. Is this the highest performance we’re capable of?
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