velocityconf: @da3mon Sorry! We were just doing some followup with past Velocity attendees. Sorry to intrude. No harm intended. :-(

Billions of dollars were funneled to school districts across the U.S. to help them make up for learning loss from the pandemic. But new research shows that even with that extra money, school districts are still struggling to close the gaps in reading, writing and math. Stephanie Sy discussed the findings with Karyn Lewis of the Center for School and Student Progress and a lead researcher at NWEA.

Ergatta's Black Friday deals are live now, giving shoppers a chance to save up to $850 on its smart rowers, including free shipping.

Paleontologist Dave Hone rates the realism of the dinosaur attacks in the "Jurassic Park" and "Jurassic World" movies.

The Houthis launched a complex attack consisting of anti-ship missiles and drones, a Pentagon spokesperson said Tuesday.

The Internet Archive, an online repository of web pages, was offline Thursday after its founder confirmed a major cyberattack that exposed the data of millions of users and left the site defaced.

News24 brings you the top stories of the day, summarised into neat little packages. Read through quickly or listen to the articles via our customised text-to-speech feature.

The World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) has raised the alarm over climate change, reporting 2024 is the world's hottest year yet.

Video: Merlin Mann - "Time & Attention Talk (improvised)"

Audio (mp3): "Merlin Mann - 'Rutgers Time & Attention Talk'"

This is a talk I did at Rutgers earlier this month. I kinda like it, but for a weird reason. Something something, perfect storm of technology Ragnarok, and yadda yadda, I had to start the talk 20 minutes late with no slides. Nothing.

So, I riffed.

And, I ended up talking about a lot of the new stuff you can expect to see in the Inbox Zero book—work culture, managing expectations, the 3 deadly qualities of email, and one surprising reason email's not as much fun as Project Runway.

Some people liked it. I think. I liked it. I hope you do, too.

Here's the slides I would have shown. ;-)

Many thanks, again, to my great pal, Dr. Donald Schaffner, for bringing me in for this visit. I had a great time and met some fantastic, passionate people. Much appreciated.

update 2010-04-27_13-50-00

Apologies—my friends at Rutgers (inexplicably) have placed this video under lock and key. Fortunately, I have a lock-picker called Firefox. Samizdat video available soon...

update 2010-04-27_14-42-24

Yay, fixed! Many thanks to my hero, Jesse Schibilia.

To a large extent, President-elect Donald Trump’s winning coalition came together around one absolute truth. In sum, Americans do not have a self-governing constitutional republic if we also have a […]

The post Trump Shares His 10-Step Plan to 'Shatter the Deep State' and It Will Give You Chills appeared first on The Western Journal.

Now that there is a Republican majority in the next Congress, it’s time for the party to bare its internal fault lines. That is likely to take place Wednesday, according […]

The post Another House Speaker Battle? Mike Johnson's Position May Be at Risk as Conservative Anger Heats Up appeared first on The Western Journal.

As captain, Aiden Markram is allowed a long rope from a wonky form perspective, but how long can that rope be as the run river continues to shrivel, asks Khanyiso Tshwaku.

The Springboks will continue to evolve their attack, but they must do so within the framework of what has made them so successful, says attack coach Tony Brown.

The first battle cry has sounded ahead of the showdown at Twickenham on Saturday, with English winger Tommy Freeman reckoning that the Springboks are 'still human' and 'still playing the same game'.

Wednesday's third T20 between South Africa and India at SuperSport Park in Centurion is shaping up to be a run-drenched one, especially if the weather holds and SA's bowling centre doesn't.

China is attempting a precarious balancing act Expert comment NCapeling 9 March 2023

In its efforts to maintain ties with both Russia and Europe, China is having to wade through conflicting interests and rapidly changing sentiments.

Precisely how far China will go in supporting Russia has been one of the most important questions of the war in Ukraine.

On 20 February, US secretary of state Antony Blinken warned China may soon provide arms (‘lethal support’) to Moscow. But then, on 24 February – the anniversary of Russia’s invasion – China released a position paper calling for a political settlement to end the conflict, tellingly omitting any mention of its ‘no-limits partnership’ with Russia.

China’s goal was to present itself as a neutral mediator. In fact, Beijing’s ties with Russia remain unchanged, even if this relationship has grown more exasperating for Chinese diplomats over the past year.

Their job is to continue striking a delicate balance, a task that is becoming increasingly difficult as Russian president Vladimir Putin doubles down on nuclear brinkmanship and reckless rhetoric.

Staying out of the Ukraine war

With Putin extolling the law of the jungle in its most brutal form, China must be careful not to involve itself too much in the conflict. After all, Russia is clearly losing, and China has high hopes of repairing ties with major European economies.

But Putin is of course keen to signal that China has his back. That is why he recently rolled out the red carpet for China’s top diplomat Wang Yi and then alluded to an (unconfirmed) upcoming visit by Chinese president Xi Jinping.

Such diplomatic developments allow him to present China’s ambivalent position as, in fact, an endorsement of the invasion. While the costs of aligning with Russia could easily outweigh the benefits for China, one must remember that China’s reasons for maintaining good relations with the Kremlin go beyond the war in Ukraine.

For starters, the two countries share a 2,672-mile (4,300-kilometer) border – roughly equivalent to the width of Europe – and the frontier’s exact location was not even finally settled until the beginning of this century, after generations of negotiations that included some 2,000 meetings.

Yet to this day, the spectre of the Sino-Soviet split in the 1950s and 1960s looms large on both sides and it is not likely to be exorcised anytime soon. With China focused on moves by the US and its allies in East Asia and the Indo-Pacific, it simply cannot afford sabre-rattling or unrest on its other borders.

Moreover, unlike the collective West, China’s foreign policy has always been shaped by interests rather than by values. Even with respect to Russia, the two countries’ bond is based mainly on shared resentment of US hegemony. By deepening their bilateral cooperation in recent years, they have been able to achieve a level of great-power status with which to counterbalance America.

But Putin’s misadventure in Ukraine has forced Xi and China’s newly minted Politburo to manage a new set of economic, financial, and political risks.

Russia’s war has left the West more firmly united than it has been in years. As China’s relations with the US have reached new lows, Chinese leaders want to avoid also alienating the European Union (EU), which is one of the country’s biggest trading partners.

This is why Xi and Chinese diplomats have been so careful not to accept the Kremlin’s talking points in full. Being isolated from the ‘collective West’ is not an attractive option for China, given its hopes of achieving a robust economic rebound after years of the zero-COVID policy.

Balancing Europe with the Global South

In seeking to keep diplomatic and trade channels open, China’s main tactic has been to reassure European countries that it will use its own ties with Russia to restrain Putin from deploying nuclear weapons.

At the same time, China is making a renewed push to strengthen its ties with the Global South where many countries do not see the war in Ukraine in the same stark moral terms as the West does.

The emphasis on energy and food security in China’s recent position paper may have struck a chord with developing countries that have been reeling from the war’s negative knock-on effects on their economies.

Why the UN matters for Britain Interview LJefferson 6 September 2022

In the fourth of a series of interviews with Queen Elizabeth II Academy faculty, Jeremy Greenstock argues that the UN is still important in a polarized world.

For many people looking at the United Nations (UN) today, the institution (and the world) appears to be at an inflection point and the UN seems ill-equipped to meet these challenges. From your vantage point, how does this period look in relative terms? 

I think for an institution like the UN founded on principles and compromises laid down in 1945, the passage of time is bound to be difficult because society changes quicker than an institution can reform. We can talk about reform later, but the UN has challenges. Where do these challenges come from? I see them coming from a crisis in governance, in governments around the world.

The UN is a forum of member states, and the member states carry their national labels at the UN and follow their national interests at the UN. And almost all governments are suffering huge challenges, not just from the circumstances of geopolitics, but from the expectations of their own people, which they find difficult to meet.

The UN is a servant in that sense, of governments, and so what happens at the UN reflects what is happening in and between governments. We need to keep that in perspective. The UN still retains a tremendous value as a forum. It is a natural forum for governments to talk before they shoot, which was not there in previous eras, and that has had a significant effect since 1945 in reducing the incidence of war between states, particularly between the largest states.

It has obviously been more difficult to deal with local and regional conflicts, but the kind of confrontation that threatens to escalate into a global war has been severely restricted by the UN. The habit of talking at the UN General Assembly (UNGA), artificial as it may seem, is an extremely important part of the avoidance of conflict in the modern age.  

There is a deep scepticism about the UN. Many people think there is a lot of talking but that the real action takes place elsewhere. What is the value of the UN?  

Well, there are two aspects to this. One is the fact that leaders must give their reasons for their policymaking to an international public. This has a force in today’s digital world where most people have access to a megaphone of some kind. The legitimacy of what governments do is exposed at the UNGA.

Secondly, alongside the open meetings and the publicized speeches, there are countless side meetings that go on, and it is an opportunity for leaders to test each other out, and to have private words that may differ from the public words they have to produce for their own followers in their own capitals.

It is an opportunity for personal diplomacy which is highly valuable, and which might not otherwise happen, particularly between leaders who have very serious differences. And I think that the testing of the legitimacy of policy in both the public and the private spheres is an important aspect of international diplomacy that the UNGA provides an opportunity for.  

At the UNGA, states are called to account before the UN, and this can expose hypocrisies. But sometimes there are fundamental clashes over interests and also over values. How would you characterize the UN’s handling of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine?

It is a different audience at the UN from the audience that they have back in their capitals or in their own groups of like-minded people. They must justify themselves in different ways, and there are a whole host of inconsistencies in foreign policy that get exposed at the UN when people must explain themselves in public.

A lot of member states around the world have not condemned the Russian invasion of Ukraine; yet underneath their non-condemnation is a general regret because Russia has broken a huge taboo of the UN Charter, which is the sacrosanctity of independent sovereign territories in Article 2.7.

And that article is valuable to member states who feel threatened by more powerful member states. Russia, as a permanent member, has ridden roughshod over sovereign independence. China and India will have equivocal feelings about that, but they can’t say so in public because they want some of the West’s hypocrisies and inconsistencies exposed, and because they find the approach of sanctions very unpalatable.

Sanctions are unpopular, and the use of sanctions has become a major weapon of non-war by the United States in particular. So, the Russian invasion is unpopular, but the approach of the West is also unpopular for not better looking after the interests of emerging economies and lower-income states, particularly on climate change, but also on economic development.

So, a whole host of different considerations come into play over Ukraine at the UNGA.

How do you think the UN could be best repurposed or reformed?  

It is terribly difficult, because if you open the UN Charter for one reason, you are opening it up to a host of demands from member states for other reforms. And remember that no reform of the Charter can happen without a 2/3 majority at the General Assembly, and that is an effective blocker, because you will always find more people opposing a particular reform that supporting it.

So, I think formal reform remains a bit of a dream in the circumstances of a polarized world. I want to divert discussions about UN reform into areas where the Secretary General has a competence without needing a vote from member states.

I am talking about improvement in methodologies, in the meritocracy of appointments, in the day-to-day workings of the UN. It looks unambitious on a large-scale basis, but just improving the competence of the UN and its agencies will ensure the relevance of the UN to people’s material interests in terms of human rights, refugees, food distribution, and children, and all the other things that the agencies look after.

So, I would prefer to concentrate reform energy into competence reforms, management reforms, rather than reforms of the Charter. 

This takes us to the question of the permanent members of the Security Council, and especially the US and the UK. You have experienced first-hand America’s ambivalence towards the UN. How much has this undercut the UN’s relevance?

I was frequently disappointed by the approach of the US to issues of policy at the UN. The US finds it very difficult as a nation to move beyond the primacy of its own domestic public opinion.

That perspective – that we have democracy at home, but we will not, as Americans, allow international democracy – is regarded around the world as an untenable position for the superpower. And I think it is more than untenable, it is against the US’s long-term interests to demand such national exceptionalism.

That exceptionalism is extremely unpopular, and the US’s extraterritorial reach is very unpopular. That loss of legitimacy around the world is affecting American interests, in the Middle East, over Afghanistan, over the reaction to the Russian invasion of Ukraine; America losing the argument with international public opinion has a material effect on American power, influence and interests.

Has America paid the price for asserting its exceptionalism? From your perspective, representing the UK, arguably the closest ally of the US and one with a permanent seat on the Security Council, how did you manage this?

Well, I had a long experience of that in my job in Baghdad. Yes, the UK normally supports the US in international forums because our interests coincide. In foreign policy, interests are more important than values, and sometimes you have to make compromises and shade your values in order to get results and to avoid conflict.

I found myself taking up the US’ arguments and trying to deliver them as the UK, because the US was more unpopular than the UK and we could act more subtly. The US was more unpopular than the UK because the UK – and a lot of the time France – tried a lot harder than other permanent members to work for the common interest of UN members.

There were times I argued publicly against the US at the Security Council because their logic was incompatible with a multilateral approach, over the International Criminal Court for instance, or over some approaches to the Middle East. I would take a different view, not just because I didn’t want to seem like a constant puppet of the US, but because I thought the logic that they were following was constraining for them, and the counter-productiveness washed off on us.

Here, I want to make an important point. You won’t get governments coming together to form a multilateral approach with all the compromises that this entails unless they are confident of their position at home. They can’t otherwise explain those compromises to their domestic public opinion. If governments are insecure at home, they won’t pursue a multilateral approach because of that insecurity.

The UK is seeking to define a new global role for itself. It has been one of the most influential states at the UN. Do you see this changing?

I don’t think the change of leader makes a terrific difference for the UK in the UN because there is cross-party parliamentary agreement that the UN is important.

I was disappointed that the UK did not take the UN more seriously at a political level except when it badly needed it at a particular moment. At an official level, there was plenty of support from London, but I don’t think that politicians ever gave much priority to the health of the UN.

Why America’s midterm elections matter for the world The World Today mhiggins.drupal 28 September 2022

The outcome could threaten the fight against climate change and the future of democracy itself, warns Leslie Vinjamuri.

As the November 8 midterm elections in the United States approach, the sense of urgency among the Democrats and Republicans is escalating. Early voter turnout is on track to surpass the 2018 midterms, when a record 122 million Americans voted ahead of election day. The midterms – when congressional, state and local seats are determined – used to pass almost unnoticed, especially outside the US.

Since 2018, though, they have become a matter of global concern. The 2022 midterm elections will be the first major elections in the US since the January 6 insurrection at the US Capitol. As such, they will be the first real litmus test for the continued relevance of Donald Trump and Trumpism.

For both parties, winning is more important than ever and it is not only a matter of policy. Today, a majority of members of both parties – 72 per cent of Republicans and 63 per cent of Democrats – see those belonging to the opposing party as immoral, according to a Pew Research Center poll in September, representing a significant rise since 2016.

In many states, the midterms will have a direct impact on the 2024 presidential elections, influencing who decides how voting takes place, how votes are counted and, especially, who controls the certification of election results.

Given this context, the stakes in elections are especially high. The winners will have the upper hand not only in defining many procedural rules but also the values that constitute the nation, such as on abortion rights, education and healthcare.

Republicans and Democrats align on most key foreign policy

Though foreign policy will bear a strong resemblance to its former self even if Republicans gain a majority in the House of Representatives, as many anticipate, the outcome of the elections on US global influence could impact efforts to combat climate change and to support the defence of Ukraine.

The Republican Party has become known for its embrace of climate deniers and the radicalized anti-immigrant rhetoric of many of its party’s most established figures. The failure to address rampant gun violence – and, instead, to defend a historically suspect interpretation of the right to bear arms – and the push for a national abortion ban mean that the party is imposing a version of America onto itself that is out-of-step with virtually all other rich democratic countries.

The choices voters make in November are likely to shape the values that come to the fore in the US, and with this the affinity that America’s closest partners feel for it.

Domestic policy is likely to be more heavily affected by the elections. A Republican majority in the House would stall progress on President Joe Biden’s domestic agenda and undercut his ability to raise the taxes he needs to pay for his spending plans. The drive to hold the former President Trump accountable will also be affected by the choices voters make in November.

A Republican majority in the House would spell an end to congressional investigations of Donald Trump. Instead, Republicans would use their electoral gains to launch their investigations into the Democrats.

One anti-Trump Republican on the January 6 committee investigating the storming of the Capitol building last year warned of a vengeful and obstructive turn against Biden from his Republican colleagues if they took the House. ‘They’re going to demand an impeachment vote on President Biden every week,’ said congressman Adam Kinzinger. It is under this shadow that the January 6 Committee is pressing ahead to finish its proceedings and publish its report.

On foreign policy, the parties are more aligned than divided on most of the key issues. Their differences are a matter of diplomacy, which matters, and degree. Support for Ukraine has had bipartisan backing, but in recent weeks the issue has become politicized. Some congressional Republicans are more hawkish than their Democratic counterparts in their ambition to support Ukraine. Yet, the congressman set to be Speaker of the House if Republicans gain a majority, Kevin McCarthy, is leading an effort to exercise far stronger oversight of any additional funds for Ukraine.

Ultimately, though, the president and his advisers maintain considerable control over foreign policy.  

Bipartisan support for a tougher stance on China was consolidated under Trump. He mobilized US voters by blaming China for the loss of manufacturing jobs. Later he held China responsible for the outbreak of Covid and for covering it up. China’s crackdown on democracy in Hong Kong, its assertiveness in the South China Seas, tensions over Taiwan and reports of human rights abuse against the Uighur in Xinjiang have cemented a bipartisan consensus on America’s China policy. But a more empowered Republican base looks likely to lead to a more ideologically driven anti-China rhetoric. 

The ground has also shifted over Russia. During President Trump’s tenure, Republican attitudes towards Vladimir Putin softened. But the Russian president’s aggressive invasion of Ukraine has entrenched American opposition to him and bolstered support for NATO.

Democrats and Republicans are also more aligned on policy towards Iran today than they were before Trump abandoned the Iran Deal negotiating the Middle Eastern country’s nuclear programme. On some contentious issues, such as immigration reform, progress is already stalled and that is unlikely to change.

US climate change policy may depend on the results

The upshot of all this is that the president is unlikely to make radical changes to US foreign policy regardless of the results of the midterms. The most important exception to this is climate change, which continues to be the unwanted stepchild of the Republican Party. Domestic infighting in the US would inevitably detract even further from the bold policy that is needed.

Republicans are unlikely to get the two-thirds majority needed to pass legislation that would undermine President Biden’s climate bill. Republican control of House committees, however, would add more politically driven oversight of any climate spending, including what has already been authorized by the Inflation Reduction Act. 

Policy convergence and clear executive authority cannot mitigate the sheer disruption that would be unleashed if the Republicans were to gain majorities in both the Senate and the House, however. For the rest of the world, and especially within Europe, this would send warning signs about the future trajectory of US foreign policy commitments and set off alarm bells that an ‘America First’ president might return to the White House after 2024.

A Republican majority in the House with a Democratic majority in the Senate would be disruptive, if less so, but would probably spell the end of business as usual, unsettling people, states and markets. All of this is unfolding at a time when many of the world’s rich democracies face internal divisions, rising inequality and populist challenges at home and so are ill-equipped to lead.

Democracies face a trust deficit. This is especially apparent in the US where only 43 per cent of Americans have trust in US institutions, according to the 2022 Edelman Trust Barometer.

Internal threats to democracy also unsettle the promise of US global leadership at a time when concerted and determined leadership is needed to maintain a strong and united response to Russia, and to tackle global food insecurity and the energy, climate and debt crises. In addition, the failure to lead a global response that can help developing countries is feeding a trust deficit between rich and poor countries.

The midterms will reveal a greater truth about the future of the Republican Party. Even more so, it will reveal the values held by the American electorate. In the run-up to the 2020 US presidential elections, Europeans frequently said that they would not give Americans a pass if they voted for Donald Trump twice – and indeed only 17 per cent of those in European Union countries would have cast a vote for Trump if they could.

A Republican midterm victory in both the Senate and the House of Representatives would have ripple effects across the Atlantic at a time when the threat from Russia has intensified.

The US is judged around the world for what it does, but also for who it is. The perception that democracy is failing in America creates a permissive environment for aspiring autocrats. At a time when democracy has been in decline around the world for more than 15 years, it is essential that the US fix its own democracy and that it demonstrates to the rest of the world that democracy can deliver.

The midterms will signal to the world what Americans value, sending a message about what it can expect from the US.

This article was updated on October 31, 2022 to reflect developments such as early voting turnout, and the impact of the midterms on the 2024 presidential election, support for Ukraine and climate change spending.

James M. Ntambi
Sep 1, 1999; 40:1549-1558
Reviews

Gijs den Besten
Sep 1, 2013; 54:2325-2340
Reviews

K Schoonjans
May 1, 1996; 37:907-925
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William R. Morrison
Oct 1, 1964; 5:600-608
Articles

Sir David Attenborough and the BBC Studios Natural History Unit awarded Chatham House Prize 2019 for ocean advocacy News Release sysadmin 18 November 2019

The 2019 Chatham House Prize is awarded to Sir David Attenborough and Julian Hector, head of BBC Studios Natural History Unit, for the galvanizing impact of the Blue Planet II series on tackling ocean plastic pollution.

Battle lines being drawn over online freedoms in Asia Expert comment NCapeling 22 March 2021

Social media giants are increasingly clashing with Asian governments over free expression and censorship as the region lurches towards digital authoritarianism.

Freedom of expression was subject to significant restrictions in Asia even before the pandemic, with several governments having enacted laws that stifle online debate. But since COVID-19, restrictions have increased even further due to a rash of so-called ‘emergency measures’ introduced by governments across the region.

Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Vietnam have all put new laws into place, and many restrictions are already being applied in a draconian fashion, such as in the Philippines and Bangladesh.

As outlined in a new Chatham House research paper, one inspiration behind this trend is China, home to the world’s most sophisticated and restrictive system of internet control. The Chinese government’s restrictive online regime, which has tightened further under COVID-19, relies on a combination of legal regulations, technical controls, and proactive manipulation of online debates.

This model was an inspiration for Vietnam’s cybersecurity law, as well as Myanmar’s new draft cybersecurity bill, proposed by the Military-run State Administration Council in the wake of the military coup last month, which would give the military there extensive powers to access individuals’ data, restrict, or suspend access to the internet.

This ‘sovereignty and control’ model of internet governance is also gaining impetus through China’s ‘Digital Silk Road’ initiative, under which the Chinese government is exporting both its technology – such as through the establishment of smart cities, the installation of AI, and surveillance technology – and its vision of how the internet should be governed.

In November 2020, Xi Jinping pledged to further deepen cooperation with ASEAN through the Digital Silk Road, and the pandemic has expanded the appeal of Chinese surveillance technologies and data collection platforms to governments both in Asia and beyond. China’s Health Silk Road, which aims to promote global health cooperation, is centered on the Chinese government’s high-tech model under which civic freedoms are sacrificed in the name of public health.

An alternative model

This ‘sovereignty and control’ model is increasingly at odds with the more ‘human-centric’ model of tech governance favoured by many democratic states, Western social media companies, and international institutions, especially the United Nations (UN) and European Union (EU).

Although this emerging model also involves regulation, it is regulation which aims to be inclusive, risk-based, and proportionate – balancing the need for protection against online harms with the need to preserve freedom of expression. It is a multi-stakeholder, rights-based approach which brings together not just governments but also representatives of the private sector, civil society, and academia. The EU’s draft Digital Services Act and the UK’s proposals for an Online Safety Bill are both reflective of this approach.

Western social media giants such as Facebook and Twitter have recently introduced new policies which seek to identify and mitigate online harms, such as hate speech and disinformation. Industry bodies such as the Global Network Initiative, independent oversight bodies such as the Oversight Board established by Facebook, and civil society advocacy and initiatives such as the Santa Clara Principles on Transparency and Accountability in Content Moderation are also an important part of the picture.

Admittedly, these various digital governance initiatives are in some cases embryonic, and are by no means a silver bullet solution to the complex problem of online content moderation, which continues to be hotly debated in democratic societies. But they are at least underpinned by the same philosophy – that international human rights law standards must continue to apply even during emergencies such as COVID-19. With the Biden administration in the US prioritizing tech governance in its policy agenda, there is added momentum to the international leadership behind this model.

A clash of ideology

These conflicting philosophies are playing out in debates on technology governance at the UN, with one group of countries led by China and Russia advocating for greater government control of the internet, and many Western democracies emphasizing the need for an open, global internet that protects human rights.

These differing ideologies are also creating tensions between Western social media companies operating in Asia and the various governments in that region which have increased restrictions on online expression. And the gulf between the two appears to be widening.

In 2017, the Thailand government threatened Facebook with legal action unless it agreed to remove content critical of Thailand’s royal family and, in 2020, Facebook announced it had been ‘forced to block’ such material. Also in 2020, the Vietnam government pressured state-owned telecom companies to throttle internet traffic to Facebook, effectively restricting access to the platform, until Facebook agreed to take down content the government deemed to be anti-state.

Platforms refuse to silence legitimate criticism

However, Silicon Valley’s social media companies have also been pushing back. Facebook restricted the accounts of Myanmar’s military on the basis of ‘spreading misinformation’ in the wake of the military’s imposition of an internet shutdown that blocked access to Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. And Twitter resisted requests by the Indian government to block accounts involved in protests by farmers.

Twitter stated that while it would block any accounts which it felt incited violence, it would not take action on accounts belonging to news media entities, journalists, activists, and politicians because it believed that would ‘violate the fundamental right to free expression under the Indian law’. The Indian government responded by fast-tracking stringent new social media regulations heavily criticized by rights groups for increasing government power over content on social media platforms, including online news.

So how can social media companies find avenues for operating in Asia and beyond without being co-opted into the lurch towards digital authoritarianism? There are no easy answers here, but collaboration is key. Cooperation between tech companies and local civil society partners can help companies better understand risks to human rights in the country concerned and how they might be mitigated. And tech companies are more effective in alliance with each other than acting on their own, such as the refusal by Facebook, Google, Telegram, and Twitter to hand over data on protestors to the Hong Kong police.

The fact that in many countries in Asia there are no alternatives to Western social media companies – unlike China, where platforms such as WeChat are part of the government’s internet control apparatus – gives the companies concerned some leverage. In February 2020, Facebook, Google, and Twitter together – through the Asia Internet Coalition – threatened to leave Pakistan in response to the government’s draconian proposals to regulate social media. Along with pressure and lawsuits from civil society, this forced the government into retreat, although the tussle over the new rules, introduced in November, continues.

At a time when illiberalism was already on the rise in Asia (including in democracies – Freedom House has just downgraded India’s status from ‘free’ to ‘partly free’), COVID-19 has made tighter state control of online freedom of expression even more attractive to many governments. As it seems increasingly unlikely that restrictions enacted under the guise of pandemic-related emergency measures will be repealed once the COVID-19 crisis ends, it is even more important that tech companies work with civil society on the ground to minimize the censorship of citizen voices.

A seat at the table – why inclusivity matters in global governance 10 May 2021 — 1:30PM TO 3:00PM Anonymous (not verified) 22 April 2021 Online

Exploring the changing dynamics of global cooperation and the role inclusivity can play in building collaborative action.

Please click on the below link to confirm your participation and receive your individual joining details from Zoom for this event. You will receive a confirmation email from Zoom, which contains the option to add the event to your calendar if you so wish.

The scale of today’s global challenges demand collaborative and coordinated action. But deepening geopolitical competition is threatening multilateralism while growing inequality and social tensions continue to undermine public confidence in the ability of international institutions to deliver.

Into this challenging environment, add the complexity and sheer pace of many global challenges such as the climate crisis and the proliferation of new technologies – issues that cannot be addressed effectively by governments alone.

• How do global institutions and mechanisms need to adapt to address the demands for a fairer distribution of power between states and to engage the diverse set of actors essential today for effective solutions?
• What can be learnt from existing initiatives that bring together governments, civil society, private sector, cities, next generation leaders and other stakeholders?
• And what are the political obstacles to greater inclusivity?

This event supports the launch of a synthesis paper from Chatham House’s Inclusive Governance Initiative.

Expert

Histone recognition by “reader” modules serves as a fundamental mechanism in epigenetic regulation. Previous studies have shown that Spindlin1 is a reader of histone H3K4me3 as well as “K4me3-R8me2a” and promotes transcription of rDNA or Wnt/TCF4 target genes. Here we show that Spindlin1 also acts as a potent reader of histone H3 “K4me3-K9me3/2” bivalent methylation pattern. Calorimetric titration revealed a binding affinity of 16 nm between Spindlin1 and H3 “K4me3-K9me3” peptide, which is one to three orders of magnitude stronger than most other histone readout events at peptide level. Structural studies revealed concurrent recognition of H3K4me3 and H3K9me3/2 by aromatic pockets 2 and 1 of Spindlin1, respectively. Epigenomic profiling studies showed that Spindlin1 colocalizes with both H3K4me3 and H3K9me3 peaks in a subset of genes enriched in biological processes of transcription and its regulation. Moreover, the distribution of Spindlin1 peaks is primarily associated with H3K4me3 but not H3K9me3, which suggests that Spindlin1 is a downstream effector of H3K4me3 generated in heterochromatic regions. Collectively, our work calls attention to an intriguing function of Spindlin1 as a potent H3 “K4me3-K9me3/2” bivalent mark reader, thereby balancing gene expression and silencing in H3K9me3/2-enriched regions.

An Attack on the ‘One Country, Two Systems’ Principle in Hong Kong Expert comment sysadmin 11 January 2016

The disappearance of publisher Lee Bo may mark the beginning of the end of Beijing’s commitment to uphold the framework that provides the territory with a high degree of autonomy.

The disappearance of a publisher in Hong Kong, Lee Bo, who owns a well-known bookshop that sells books critical of Chinese leaders, is a landmark event and potentially a historical turning point for Hong Kong. It is not clear if this happened at the behest of the senior Chinese leadership. But if those responsible for the disappearing of Lee are not punished, it will be clear that their acts are condoned by the authorities.

This is deeply worrying as it gravely undermines the ‘one country, two systems’ framework, which provides Hong Kong with high degree of autonomy from Beijing. Under the Sino-British Agreement of 1984 and Hong Kong’s Basic Law, which govern relations between Hong Kong and China, the rights of Hong Kong citizens are meant to be protected within the territory. Mainland Chinese authorities do not have the legal power to arrest or detain an individual in, or remove anyone from, Hong Kong.

The Chinese know the limit of their legal authority in Hong Kong. Hence, Lee was quietly disappeared, rather than openly arrested. But that it happened at all may mark the beginning of the end of Beijing’s commitment to uphold the ‘one country, two systems’ framework – a relationship that requires Beijing to tolerate, if not respect, the judicial integrity and the way of life in Hong Kong.

Do we know for sure that Lee was ‘disappeared’ by China’s security apparatus? Before he disappeared, Lee said in an interview that he knew he had been watched and that his emails were accessed by Chinese agents, and that he would not travel to the mainland as a result. And we know that Lee’s travel documents are all in his home; yet he is now supposedly in China ‘assisting the authorities in an investigation’ into something unspecified. This explanation comes from a fax sent to Lee’s wife, probably intended by the Chinese authorities to put an end to speculation. But why would Chinese authorities work with Lee, a British citizen who carries no travel documents and would thus have broken the law by entering China? The circumstantial evidence is strong enough to show that whether he was taken by Chinese officers or someone else, his removal from Hong Kong to China must have received official endorsement.

Should the rest of the world be concerned about this? Hong Kong is a major financial center that services the world economy, and it can do so largely because it enjoys judicial independence and the high degree of autonomy under the ‘one country, two systems’ framework. It is also a shining example of how the rights and scope of development for individuals can be respected in a Chinese community. Should the ‘one country, two systems’ framework be undermined, Hong Kong as we know it will be no more.

Beijing’s quick response in requiring Lee to fax his family may come across as ham-fisted and callous, but it also demonstrates that it had not expected the strong backlash to Lee’s disappearance. A strong and well-articulated international response that brings the matter to Xi’s attention may persuade him that it is in China’s best interest to put a stop to this process of undermining the ‘one country, two systems’ framework. Given Hong Kong’s importance to the global economy, this should be a priority for the international community.

This article was originally published in the Diplomat.

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Combatting Human Trafficking: The Situation in East Asia 16 September 2019 — 10:30AM TO 5:30PM Anonymous (not verified) 30 August 2019 Taipei, Taiwan

In 2017, there were an estimated 40.3 million victims of modern slavery worldwide. The prevalence for individuals to fall victim to forced labour practices is highest in the Asia-Pacific region where four out of every 1,000 people have been found to be victims of forced labour and labour trafficking. Many of these victims end up in the more developed economies of East Asia as destination countries of labour trafficking. Such cases are, however, often under-reported and under-detected, largely owing to a lack of a coherent response to trafficking across the sub-region.

At this roundtable, organized in partnership with the Taiwan Foundation for Democracy, the Taiwan-Asia Exchange Foundation and the University of Portsmouth, participants will discuss emerging anti-trafficking practices from a regional perspective including legal and policy frameworks and the role of business and recruitment agencies.

Attendance at this event is by invitation only.

Math is often described as the science of patterns, which makes it a natural subject to help in the study of the underlying causes of patterns found in nature, for example, bands of vegetation that often occur on gently sloped terrains in certain near-desert ecosystems worldwide. We are starting to learn more about these bands' common properties by using mathematical models built on data, such as rainfall totals and the curvature of the terrain. Mary Silber talks about these mathematical models of vegetation bands.

Ivan Soprunov and Jenya Soprunova
Proc. Amer. Math. Soc. 152 (), 5313-5325.
Abstract, references and article information

Ana Caraiani, Royal Society University Research Fellow and professor of pure mathematics, Imperial College London, has been awarded the 2025 Ruth Lyttle Satter Prize in Mathematics by the American Mathematical Society (AMS). She has been honored for contributions to arithmetic geometry and number theory: in particular, the Langlands program.

From the citation

Ana Caraiani’s work is characterized by a combination of novel ideas and a fearlessness in the face of technical obstacles that would daunt almost any other researcher. This has enabled her to prove several fundamental theorems in the Langlands program.

In the joint paper with Scholze, titled “On the generic part of the cohomology of non-compact unitary Shimura varieties” (Annals of Math., 2024), Caraiani proved very general results about the torsion cohomology classes in non-compact Shimura varieties, strengthening the early results in their 2017 paper in the compact case. The proof is a tour de force, combining perfectoid spaces, a mastery of the trace formula, and a new theory of perverse sheaves in p-adic geometry. These results are of intrinsic interest (for example, they give the first indications of a characteristic p version of Arthur’s conjectures), but they also have many applications throughout the Langlands program. One spectacular application of these results is in her joint paper, “Potential automorphy over CM fields” (with Allen, Calegari, Gee, Helm, Le Hung, Newton, Scholze, Taylor, and Thorne, Annals of Math., 2023), which among other results proves the Ramanujan conjecture for Bianchi modular forms, a problem that had been thought of as being completely out of reach.

The Ramanujan conjecture is of analytic nature, asserting a bound on the eigenvalue of a certain differential operator, but the only way in which cases of it have been proved is via algebraic geometry. In particular, the original Ramanujan conjecture for modular forms was proved by Deligne in the 1970s, as a consequence of his proof of the Weil conjectures. However, in the case of Bianchi modular forms there is no direct relationship with algebraic geometry, and it seems to be impossible to make any direct deductions from the Weil conjectures. Langlands (also in the 1970s) suggested a strategy for proving the Ramanujan conjecture as a consequence of his functoriality conjecture. Caraiani and her coauthors’ proof of the Ramanujan conjecture for Bianchi modular forms proceeds via a variant of Langlands’ strategy, and in particular does not use the Weil conjectures.

Most recently with James Newton, in the paper “On the modularity of elliptic curves over imaginary quadratic fields” (arXiv: 2301.10509), Caraiani has improved upon these results and applied them to the modularity of elliptic curves over imaginary quadratic fields. They come close to completely solving it, with only a small number of exceptions (which constitute 0% of cases).

Response of Ana Caraiani

First, I would like to thank Joan Birman and the AMS for establishing an award that recognizes research contributions by women mathematicians. This is particularly meaningful to me because I looked to many of the previous recipients of the Satter Prize for inspiration at challenging moments in my career. It is a great honour to be selected as a recipient!

I am indebted to my many collaborators, mentors and colleagues who have generously shared their mathematical ideas with me over the years and supported me in different but crucial ways. Special thanks go to Peter Scholze for the wonderful opportunity to collaborate with him on understanding a part of the geometry and cohomology of Shimura varieties, to Richard Taylor for initiating the "ten author" collaboration, which was much more successful than we had originally expected, and to James Newton for our joyful exploration of elliptic curves over imaginary quadratic fields. I also particularly want to acknowledge Jessica Fintzen and Toby Gee for their longstanding friendship and moral support.

Finally, I want to thank my family, especially my husband, Steven, my mother, Zoe, and my daughter, Nadia.

Biographical sketch of Ana Caraiani

Ana Caraiani was born in Bucharest, Romania, in 1984. She received a bachelor's degree in mathematics from Princeton University in 2007 and completed her PhD at Harvard University in 2012. After temporary positions at the University of Chicago, Princeton and the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS), and the University of Bonn, she moved to Imperial College London in 2017, where she is currently a Royal Society University Research Fellow and Professor of Pure Mathematics. She is a Fellow of the AMS, a recipient of an EMS Prize and a New Horizons Prize in Mathematics and was an invited speaker at the 2022 ICM. 

About the prize

Awarded every two years, the Ruth Lyttle Satter Prize in Mathematics recognizes an outstanding contribution to mathematics research by a woman in the previous six years. The prize was established by Joan Birman in honor of her sister, Ruth. The 2025 prize will be recognized during the 2025 Joint Mathematics Meetings in January in Seattle.

Read more and see the list of past recipients.

Contact: AMS Communications

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The American Mathematical Society is dedicated to advancing research and connecting the diverse global mathematical community through our publications, meetings and conferences, MathSciNet, professional services, advocacy, and awareness programs.

Sirtuin 6, SIRT6, is critical for both glucose and lipid homeostasis and is involved in maintaining genomic stability under conditions of oxidative DNA damage such as those observed in age-related diseases. There is an intense search for modulators of SIRT6 activity, however, not many specific activators have been reported. Long acyl-chain fatty acids have been shown to increase the weak in vitro deacetylase activity of SIRT6 but this effect is modest at best. Herein we report that electrophilic nitro-fatty acids (nitro-oleic acid and nitro-conjugated linoleic acid) potently activate SIRT6. Binding of the nitro-fatty acid to the hydrophobic crevice of the SIRT6 active site exerted a moderate activation (2-fold at 20 μm), similar to that previously reported for non-nitrated fatty acids. However, covalent Michael adduct formation with Cys-18, a residue present at the N terminus of SIRT6 but absent from other isoforms, induced a conformational change that resulted in a much stronger activation (40-fold at 20 μm). Molecular modeling of the resulting Michael adduct suggested stabilization of the co-substrate and acyl-binding loops as a possible additional mechanism of SIRT6 activation by the nitro-fatty acid. Importantly, treatment of cells with nitro-oleic acid promoted H3K9 deacetylation, whereas oleic acid had no effect. Altogether, our results show that nitrated fatty acids can be considered a valuable tool for specific SIRT6 activation, and that SIRT6 should be considered as a molecular target for in vivo actions of these anti-inflammatory nitro-lipids.

17 July 2020

28 July 2020

20 August 2020

Viral infection is one environmental factor that may contribute to the initiation of pancreatic β-cell destruction during the development of autoimmune diabetes. Picornaviruses, such as encephalomyocarditis virus (EMCV), induce a pro-inflammatory response in islets leading to local production of cytokines, such as IL-1, by resident islet leukocytes. Furthermore, IL-1 is known to stimulate β-cell expression of iNOS and production of the free radical nitric oxide. The purpose of this study was to determine whether nitric oxide contributes to the β-cell response to viral infection. We show that nitric oxide protects β-cells against virally mediated lysis by limiting EMCV replication. This protection requires low micromolar, or iNOS-derived, levels of nitric oxide. At these concentrations nitric oxide inhibits the Krebs enzyme aconitase and complex IV of the electron transport chain. Like nitric oxide, pharmacological inhibition of mitochondrial oxidative metabolism attenuates EMCV-mediated β-cell lysis by inhibiting viral replication. These findings provide novel evidence that cytokine signaling in β-cells functions to limit viral replication and subsequent β-cell lysis by attenuating mitochondrial oxidative metabolism in a nitric oxide–dependent manner.

In addition to their well-known role in the control of cellular proliferation and cancer, cell cycle regulators are increasingly identified as important metabolic modulators. Several GWAS have identified SNPs near CDKN2A, the locus encoding for p16INK4a (p16), associated with elevated risk for cardiovascular diseases and type-2 diabetes development, two pathologies associated with impaired hepatic lipid metabolism. Although p16 was recently shown to control hepatic glucose homeostasis, it is unknown whether p16 also controls hepatic lipid metabolism. Using a combination of in vivo and in vitro approaches, we found that p16 modulates fasting-induced hepatic fatty acid oxidation (FAO) and lipid droplet accumulation. In primary hepatocytes, p16-deficiency was associated with elevated expression of genes involved in fatty acid catabolism. These transcriptional changes led to increased FAO and were associated with enhanced activation of PPARα through a mechanism requiring the catalytic AMPKα2 subunit and SIRT1, two known activators of PPARα. By contrast, p16 overexpression was associated with triglyceride accumulation and increased lipid droplet numbers in vitro, and decreased ketogenesis and hepatic mitochondrial activity in vivo. Finally, gene expression analysis of liver samples from obese patients revealed a negative correlation between CDKN2A expression and PPARA and its target genes. Our findings demonstrate that p16 represses hepatic lipid catabolism during fasting and may thus participate in the preservation of metabolic flexibility.

Cancer cachexia is characterized by reductions in peripheral lean muscle mass. Prior studies have primarily focused on increased protein breakdown as the driver of cancer-associated muscle wasting. Therapeutic interventions targeting catabolic pathways have, however, largely failed to preserve muscle mass in cachexia, suggesting that other mechanisms might be involved. In pursuit of novel pathways, we used untargeted metabolomics to search for metabolite signatures that may be linked with muscle atrophy. We injected 7-week–old C57/BL6 mice with LLC1 tumor cells or vehicle. After 21 days, tumor-bearing mice exhibited reduced body and muscle mass and impaired grip strength compared with controls, which was accompanied by lower synthesis rates of mixed muscle protein and the myofibrillar and sarcoplasmic muscle fractions. Reductions in protein synthesis were accompanied by mitochondrial enlargement and reduced coupling efficiency in tumor-bearing mice. To generate mechanistic insights into impaired protein synthesis, we performed untargeted metabolomic analyses of plasma and muscle and found increased concentrations of two methylarginines, asymmetric dimethylarginine (ADMA) and NG-monomethyl-l-arginine, in tumor-bearing mice compared with control mice. Compared with healthy controls, human cancer patients were also found to have higher levels of ADMA in the skeletal muscle. Treatment of C2C12 myotubes with ADMA impaired protein synthesis and reduced mitochondrial protein quality. These results suggest that increased levels of ADMA and mitochondrial changes may contribute to impaired muscle protein synthesis in cancer cachexia and could point to novel therapeutic targets by which to mitigate cancer cachexia.

Oxygen regulates hypoxia-inducible factor (HIF) transcription factors to control cell metabolism, erythrogenesis, and angiogenesis. Whereas much has been elucidated about how oxygen regulates HIF, whether lipids affect HIF activity is un-known. Here, using cultured cells and two animal models, we demonstrate that lipoprotein-derived fatty acids are an independent regulator of HIF. Decreasing extracellular lipid supply inhibited HIF prolyl hydroxylation, leading to accumulation of the HIFα subunit of these heterodimeric transcription factors comparable with hypoxia with activation of downstream target genes. The addition of fatty acids to culture medium suppressed this signal, which required an intact mitochondrial respiratory chain. Mechanistically, fatty acids and oxygen are distinct signals integrated to control HIF activity. Finally, we observed lipid signaling to HIF and changes in target gene expression in developing zebrafish and adult mice, and this pathway operates in cancer cells from a range of tissues. This study identifies fatty acids as a physiological modulator of HIF, defining a mechanism for lipoprotein regulation that functions in parallel to oxygen.

Visual Abstract

Sophos X-Ops unveils five-year investigation tracking China-based groups targeting perimeter devices

Protein biosynthesis is fundamental to cellular life and requires the efficient functioning of the translational machinery. At the center of this machinery is the ribosome, a ribonucleoprotein complex that depends heavily on Mg2+ for structure. Recent work has indicated that other metal cations can substitute for Mg2+, raising questions about the role different metals may play in the maintenance of the ribosome under oxidative stress conditions. Here, we assess ribosomal integrity following oxidative stress both in vitro and in cells to elucidate details of the interactions between Fe2+ and the ribosome and identify Mn2+ as a factor capable of attenuating oxidant-induced Fe2+-mediated degradation of rRNA. We report that Fe2+ promotes degradation of all rRNA species of the yeast ribosome and that it is bound directly to RNA molecules. Furthermore, we demonstrate that Mn2+ competes with Fe2+ for rRNA-binding sites and that protection of ribosomes from Fe2+-mediated rRNA hydrolysis correlates with the restoration of cell viability. Our data, therefore, suggest a relationship between these two transition metals in controlling ribosome stability under oxidative stress.