Al Jazeera English
Ukraine is usually one of the world’s biggest exporters of grain, but the war has changed that. What’s going on? And why has it got the UN warning about famine? #AJStartHere with Sandra Gathmann explains.
The New 14th BRICS Summit Declaration (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa)
Jun 28, 2022 Posted by Silk Road Briefing Written by Chris Devonshire-Ellis
By Chris Devonshire-Ellis
While the G7 group of nations (Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States together with the European Union) has been meeting in Germany, the BRICS nations (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) have been meeting in China for the 14th Summit. The contrasts could not be more different – one the grouping of mainly white, powerful Western nations, representing contemporary global leadership, the other a grouping of globally powerful emerging markets wanting a larger say in the developing world. The BRICS nations differ from the G7 in two main factors, most notably in the populations they serve – 3 billion as opposed to the G7’s 987 million (including the EU), and GDP, where the G7’s GDP is currently US$33.93 trillion and the BRICS about US$23.5 trillion.
Western economists as a result tend to talk up the G7’s role in global financial strength however the growth rates of both the G7 and BRICS predicted by the IMF suggest that the latter could be responsible for 50% of all global trade by the 2030’s. This means that paying attention to the BRICS consensus leads to some direction over how the global economy is likely to change over the next decade.
At present, the G7 appear determined to continue with the existing world order, which China and Russia in particular view as ‘unipolar’, meaning centered around the United States and directed by whatever US foreign, global and domestic policies are at the time. Both countries (and others) are looking for a more inclusive role in global affairs as befits their status. China for example is the world’s second largest economy, and India the fifth. Yet neither have the percentage say in global financial institutions such as the World Bank and IMF they would like – hence the development of alternative policy banks such as the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and the BRICS own New Development Bank. There are also accusations that global institutions such as the United Nations (based in New York) has begun to be too influenced by Washington’s policies than global ones. Calls for reform are increasingly being heard.
Lithium mine pits electric cars against sacred Indigenous land
The Guardian
As the United States turns to electric vehicles, solar and wind for its clean energy transition, the demand for lithium – used in rechargeable batteries – is on the rise.
The semiconductor problem
The military relies on advanced semiconductors. The U.S. doesn’t make any.
NYTimes – July 14, 2022
The most advanced category of mass-produced semiconductors — used in smartphones, military technology and much more — is known as 5 nm. A single company in Taiwan, known as TSMC, makes about 90 percent of them. U.S. factories make none.
The U.S.’s struggles to keep pace in semiconductor manufacturing have already had economic downsides: Many jobs in the industry pay more than $100,000 a year, and the U.S. has lost out on them. Longer term, the situation also has the potential to cause a national security crisis: If China were to invade Taiwan and cut off exports of semiconductors, the American military would be at risk of being overmatched by its main rival for global supremacy.
How South Korea is transforming into a top global arms exporter
JULY 14, 2022 | FP Situation Report
By Robbie Gramer and Jack Detsch
Welcome back to Foreign Policy’s SitRep!
Before we get to our regularly scheduled programming, if you haven’t done so already, take a few minutes to marvel at the new high-definition imagery coming out of deep space, courtesy of the James Webb telescope.Alright, back to more earthly matters, here’s what’s on tap for the day: How South Korea is becoming a top global arms exporter, a new report warns of laggard U.S. missile defense capabilities, and Congress sours on F-16 sales to Turkey.
The Business of Booms Is Booming in South Korea
There’s been a not-so-quiet revolution taking place in South Korea in recent years, and it’s all about the defense industry.Since former President Moon Jae-in first took power in 2017, South Korea has turbocharged its arms sales abroad, positioning the country to become one of the world’s leading arms exporters and vastly outpacing the rest of the world in increasing the volume of its arms exports. Under the new conservative government, led by Yoon Suk-yeol, that trend shows no signs of slowing down.
Tiếp tục đọc ” How South Korea is transforming into a top global arms exporter”
“Viết cho trẻ em là một trách nhiệm lớn lao”
PHAN XUÂN LOAN 26/10/2017 2:10 GMT+7
TTCT – Quan sát Tamara Kriukova trò chuyện với các độc giả của mình tại hội sách quốc tế Matxcơva tháng 9-2017, khó tưởng tượng nữ nhà văn đã ngoài lục tuần.
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| Tamara Kriukova với chú mèo (nhưng không phải là Barsik) của mình.-Ảnh: P.X.L. |
Trẻ trung, hóm hỉnh khiến các khán giả nhí cười vang, Tamara Kriukova cùng các nhân vật của mình đã chiếm một góc ấm áp và tin cậy trong tim những người đọc trẻ. Bà đã dành cho TTCT cuộc trò chuyện nhân cuốn sách đầu tiên của bà, Nhật ký mèo khôn, ra mắt độc giả Việt Nam.
Sinh nhật ngày cá tháng tư
Chị nổi tiếng ở Nga là nhà văn thiếu nhi với đủ các thể loại chinh phục, từ cổ tích, truyện tranh, nhật ký các chú mèo… tới những truyện dài về rung động đầu đời của tuổi thiếu niên… Vì sao chị chọn độc giả trẻ?
NuScale’s Small Modular Nuclear Reactor Passes Biggest Hurdle Yet
James Conca, Forbes
May 15, 2018,06:00am EDT
![NRC just completed their Phase 1 review of NuScale’s Small Modular Nuclear Reactor. The small size... [+] of its Power Module means it can be factory-built and shipped by truck, deceasing construction costs enormously.](https://imageio.forbes.com/blogs-images/jamesconca/files/2018/05/TruckTransportGraphic.jpg?format=jpg&width=960)
NRC just completed their Phase 1 review of NuScale’s Small Modular Nuclear Reactor. The small size… [+]
NUSCALE
NuScale Power is on track to build the first small modular nuclear reactor in America faster than expected.
Two weeks ago, NuScale’s small modular nuclear reactor design completed the Phase 1 review of its design certification application (DCA) by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. That’s a huge deal because Phase 1 is the most intensive phase of the review, taking more hours and effort than the remaining five phases combined.
Tiếp tục đọc “NuScale’s Small Modular Nuclear Reactor Passes Biggest Hurdle Yet”Making sense of Shinzo Abe
On the day of his funeral service, we consider the full legacy of Japan’s longest-serving prime minister.
Nytimes – July 12, 2022
Shinzo Abe could sometimes look like yet another one of the world’s modern breed of nationalist leaders, alongside Viktor Orban in Hungary, Vladimir Putin in Russia, Xi Jinping in China and Donald Trump in the U.S.
Abe came from a family of Japanese nationalist politicians, including a grandfather whom the U.S. accused of war crimes during World War II. Abe himself downplayed Japan’s wartime atrocities and spoke of the importance of patriotism and “traditional values.” Above all, he pushed his country to shed its post-1945 pacifism and become more militaristic.
Confronting Reality in Cyberspace: Foreign Policy for a Fragmented Internet
Council on Foreign Relations
Independent Task Force Report No. 80
Confronting Reality in Cyberspace: Foreign Policy for a Fragmented Internet
Nathaniel Fick and Jami Miscik, Chairs
Adam Segal, Project Director
Gordon M. Goldstein, Deputy Project Director
India & China Continue to Lead –as World Population Projected to Reach 8.0 Billion
Credit: Freepik
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 11 2022 (IPS) – India and China, two Asian nuclear powers who are also longstanding rivals embroiled in the geo-politics of the Indian Ocean region, have remained two of the world’s most populous nations accounting for over a billion people each.
But as the world’s population reaches the 8.0 billion mark, come November, India is projected to surpass China.
The current numbers stand at 1.44 billion people in China and 1.39 billion in India. But the numbers are expected to change as India races ahead of China. The US ranks third with over 335 million people. By the end of last yar, the world’s total population was approximately 7.9 billion.
According to a report in the New York Times July 9, China is going through a “demographic crisis”. With abortion and reproductive health heavily centered on the Chinese Communist Party, the CCP now wants women to have multiple children abandoning the country’s longstanding one-child policy.
Tiếp tục đọc “India & China Continue to Lead –as World Population Projected to Reach 8.0 Billion”
Country Climate and Development Report for Vietnam
Vietnam is increasingly seeing its development affected by climate change and now faces critical questions about how to respond. The Vietnam Country Climate and Development Report proposes that Vietnam shift its development paradigm by incorporating two critical pathways – resilient pathway and decarbonizing pathway – that will help the country balance its development goals with increasing climate risks.
After more than two decades of steady growth, Vietnam has set an ambitious goal of reaching high-income status by 2045. It has been recognized in the 2021-2030 Socioeconomic Development Strategy that the country’s economic transformation will greatly depend on better management of natural capital – the extensive stocks of agricultural, forest, and mineral resources that have helped drive development.
Yet Vietnam, with over 3,200 km of coastline and many low-lying cities and river delta regions, is one of the most vulnerable countries in the world to climate change. Climate change impacts – mainly higher and more variable temperatures and sea level rise – are already disrupting economic activity and undermining growth. Initial calculations suggest that Vietnam lost $10 billion in 2020, or 3.2 percent of GDP, to climate change impacts.
Tiếp tục đọc “Country Climate and Development Report for Vietnam”
Gold rush turns Vietnam forest into construction site
By Dac Thanh July 7, 2022 | 08:13 am GMT+7
Bandits have set up camps and built tunnels to illegally extract gold inside a protection forest of Quang Nam Province.
For around three months now, miners have rushed to the mountainous district of Phuoc Son in the central province to illegally extract gold.
Miners set up tents and made a pond to pan for gold in a protected forest in Phuoc Son.
People living near the site said two Quang Nam residents had invested in machinery and hired locals to work at the mining site without permission.
A tunnel that runs five meters deep at the mining site.
Tiếp tục đọc “Gold rush turns Vietnam forest into construction site”
Why we stopped trusting elites – podcast
the guardian – Wed 27 Apr 2022 05.00 BST
We are raiding the Audio Long Read archives to bring you some classic pieces from years past, with new introductions from the authors.
This week, from 2018: the credibility of establishment figures has been demolished by technological change and political upheavals. But it’s too late to turn back the clock
Nigel Farage campaigning with Donald Trump in 2016. Photograph: Jonathan Bachman/Getty Images
Written by William Davies, read by Andrew McGregor, produced by Simon Barnard, with editions from Jessica Beck. Executive producer was Nicole Jackson
Why Sri Lanka’s Unrest Is an Omen
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JULY 11, 2022, FP Newsletter
One year ago today, thousands of people took to the streets across Cuba to protest the skyrocketing prices of essential goods. It was the largest event of civil unrest on the island since the 1990s—and as journalist Lillian Perlmutter writes in a riveting dispatch, a disproportionate number of those arrested in an ensuing crackdown on dissent came from Havana’s poorest enclaves. Perlmutter reports that new laws passed by the Cuban National Assembly of People’s Power in May threaten citizens’ civil liberties further, criminalizing any participation in an unauthorized demonstration of two or more people, punishable by four to 10 years in prison.
Tiếp tục đọc “Why Sri Lanka’s Unrest Is an Omen”Những cuộc chia ly phía sau bục giảng
VNE – Trên con đường cõng chữ lên non, có thầy giáo xa vợ con 17 năm, cắm bản ở điểm trường ngã ba biên giới, có cô giáo phải sau 10 năm mới được ăn cơm chung với chồng, con cái chia đôi.
Đêm 28/11/2013, mưa lạnh lắc rắc rơi trên đất Chiềng Ngàm, huyện Thuận Châu, Sơn La. Trong căn phòng công vụ quây ván gỗ của mấy giáo viên trường tiểu học, vợ chồng cô Quàng Thị Sỏm nằm đợi gà gáy để đèo nhau vượt 30 km xuống huyện, nhập viện chờ sinh.
Nhưng cô bé trong bụng Sỏm không muốn theo kế hoạch bố mẹ. Nửa đêm, thai phụ thức giấc vì những cơn đau bụng. Sỏm lay chồng, thở nhọc: “Em sinh”.
Thầy Thiệu chưa kịp dụi mắt, hốt hoảng chạy sang đập cửa phòng vợ chồng đồng nghiệp, nhưng cả bốn người họ đều bối rối vì không ai biết đỡ đẻ, bệnh viện quá xa.
CVD 
