Новости за 22.01.2024

Select politicians, government officials, economic elites, and experts arriving at the annual World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland were greeted with an open letter signed by more than 250 billionaires and millionaires. The signers request their respective governments raise their taxes.

By Gabriela Bernal

Barely two weeks into 2024, tensions on the Korean Peninsula are rapidly escalating, as IFIMES Institute was periodically writing. On one hand, North Korea has declared it will no longer pursue unification as long as Seoul sticks to a strategy centred around the “collapse of the DPRK’s regime,” “unification by absorption,” and “unification under liberal democracy.”

On the other hand, South Korea announced plans to further strengthen the US-ROK extended deterrence system aimed at the North... Читать дальше...

Jawaharlal Nehru, the first prime minister of India is reported to have said that “Crises and deadlocks when they occur have at least this advantage, that they force us to think.” They also say that every crisis is an opportunity, but an opportunity always favors those who are prepared for it and the good thing about a crisis is that, at least, it wakes one up.

Maldives’ decision not to use Indian helicopters may have caused the death of a 13-year old gravely sick boy in a distant island in the archipelago.   

Plenitude has reached an agreement with BlueFloat Energy and Sener Renewable Investments to join their strategic partnership to advance the development of offshore wind projects in Spain. The agreement with Plenitude bolsters the joint venture formed by BlueFloat and Sener Renewable Investments 3 years ago, creating a leading consortium in the offshore wind sector in Spain with a total portfolio of approximately 1.25 GW of floating offshore wind projects across Galicia (Parque Nordés), Catalonia... Читать дальше...

Minority Rights Activist Joseph Jansen, alongside Akmal Bhatti, Chairman of Minority Alliance Pakistan (MAP), visited Jaranwala to address the lingering aftermath of a horrific incident that unfolded on August 16, 2023. This day remains etched in the memories of the Christian community in Jaranwala as a day of terror when religious freedom was brutally attacked.

Nesrine Malik of The Guardian rightly pointed out that it’s not only Israel on trial. South Africa is testing the West’s claim to moral superiority. The world, she writes, has failed Gaza in ‘live-streamed genocide’, South Africa’s delegation says at ICJ.  This is not the only challenge to an international order that has made Palestinian claims so difficult to validate. The ICJ case shows how Western logic is wearing thin and its persuasive power waning in a multipolar world.

By Huricihan Islamoglu 

The Israel-Hamas war is dangerous for many reasons, but most significantly because neither side has a sustainable political objective. Mired in narratives of messianic conquest of promised lands, and of rights of return to the historic homeland, neither Israel nor Hamas has a vision for the resolution of their conflict except the expulsion and/or annihilation of the other.

Making this collision of non-negotiable aspirations particularly threatening is... Читать дальше...

By Peter Fabricius

Africa’s 2024 election season – comprising 19 presidential and general polls – got off to an unpromising and alarming start this past week. After the re-election of President Azali Assoumani to an effective fifth term, violent protests against the result broke out in Moroni, the capital of Comoros.

The government responded by imposing a night-time curfew and deploying the army on the streets. The United Nations Commissioner for Human Rights appealed for calm... Читать дальше...

By Jon Miltimore

Dr. Anthony Fauci sat down last week with the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic. During a 14-hour session, the former head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases was grilled by lawmakers on various subjects, including the origins of COVID-19, coerced vaccination, mask mandates, and the lost learning of students due to school closures.

Though the interview took place behind closed doors, parts of Fauci’s testimony were reported by media and lawmakers... Читать дальше...

By Alexandra Brzozowski and Aurélie Pugnet

(EurActiv) — The EU has drafted a 10-point plan for a “credible, comprehensive solution” to the Israel-Palestine conflict, according to a draft document, seen by Euractiv, though securing EU member states’ and regional buy-in will be hard-fought.

“In view of the current situation and despite the evident difficulties and uncertainties, the time to prepare for (a) comprehensive Israeli-Palestinian peace is now,” the draft document, as seen by Euractiv, says in its introduction. Читать дальше...

A Farcical Ritual

For the last four terms, the results of the general elections in Bangladesh have been decided months before a ballot was cast. The 2024 elections, held on 7 January, were no different. The Opposition parties boycotted the elections after their request that the elections should be held under a neutral caretaker government was rejected. Thousands of opposition leaders and activists had been arrested and were behind bars months before the polls went off.

A little... Читать дальше...

A teacher once said to me: “A society pays for what it values.” If so, our society values commercial entertainment, including spectator sports, orders of magnitude more than it values civics defined as the rights and duties exercised by citizens in a democracy.

By Ryan McMaken

Spreading civilization and human rights has long been used as an excuse for state-building through colonialism and imperialism. This idea dates back at least to early Spanish and colonial efforts in the New World, and the rationale was initially employed as just one of many.  The importance of the conquest-spreads-civilization claim increased, however, as liberalism gained ground in Europe in the nineteenth century.

Liberals were more skeptical of the benefits of imperialism... Читать дальше...

A recent Lebanese public opinion poll suggests there may be limits to Iran-backed Shiite militia Hezbollah’s restraint in confronting Israel. It also suggests why Iran feels emboldened by escalating tensions in the Middle East.

By Robin Jeffrey

For Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its mentors in the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the Hindu supremacist civil society organisation, 2024 could be an epoch-making year.

As 2023 ended, they had much to feel pleased about. Preparation for national elections due by May 2024 had gone on carefully. The BJP received a boost of confidence in early December after landslides in three Hindi-speaking northern states.

The extent of the victory was surprising.

During the six-year Duterte era, the Philippine ties with China were recalibrated from friction to cooperation. In the past year, that period faded away. The costs are evident, huge and rising.

Poignancy, and Melancholy too. 

The feeling I always have when I listen to Pink Floyd’s “Shine on You Crazy Diamond.” from the album Wish You Were Here. I was so obsessed with this album in my late teen years, living in the dormitory where the wild things are, when there was no internet, WhatsApp, no distractions, no Facebook, and no interest in having girlfriends or being attached to something except to the precious things you love, mainly football/soccer, reading novels and encyclopedias... Читать дальше...

By Tenzin Pema 

“Bhutan is open for business,” wrote Prime Minister-elect Tshering Tobgay on X, after the people of the tiny Himalayan kingdom returned him to power in parliamentary elections this month.

Analysts say Tobgay’s two-thirds majority win indicates the 800,000 people of Bhutan are pinning their hopes on an experienced hand to rebuild the economy, reverse an ongoing migration crisis, and strengthen ties with the landlocked nation’s two neighbors, India and Tibet, amidst ongoing border negotiations with China. Читать дальше...

Since 1990, the mortality rate for children born with Down syndrome and a congenital heart defect has more than halved. This has been shown by a study by the University of Gothenburg. However, the mortality rate in this group is still 85% higher, compared to others who have a congenital heart defect but were not born with Down syndrome. 

Getting people to cycle isn’t just about building more and better cycle lanes, to include more demographics, urban planners need to consider factors other than infrastructure, says a Malmö University researcher.

Food sharing is increasingly making its way in cities, offering new opportunities to tackle inequalities and shape more sustainable and resilient urban and peri-urban food systems. However, food sharing initiatives face multiple policy barriers that hinder its potential.

A new EU project has been launched to improve our comprehension of how biodiversity is being impacted by Light and Noise Pollution (LNP) in aquatic environments such as rivers, lakes, coastal and offshore waters.

Research by the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M) and the University of Santiago de Compostela (USC) that analyses how Spaniards kept themselves informed during the COVID-19 pandemic and their perception of the role of journalists, the media, the scientific community and government and health authorities during the pandemic concludes that young people trust science less than older people, among other issues.

Researchers at the University of Toronto, led by Dr. Amr S. Helmy, have developed a new method for integrating electro-optic SiO2/ITO heterointerfaces into MIS structures. This breakthrough paves the way for the development of more efficient and compact photonic devices with applications in telecommunications, data storage, and medical imaging. The novel method involves growing a thin layer of SiO2 on top of ITO, creating a heterointerface that enables substantial light confinement and electro-optic modulation. Читать дальше...