Open newsletter – April 27, 2022

ACTA  DIURNA (di Marco Emanuele)

Ben si comprende la rabbia per l’invasione operata da Putin ai danni dell’Ucraina, in particolare del suo popolo. E’ venuto il tempo, però, di un atteggiamento realisticamente progettuale.

Se il blocco occidentale intendesse davvero mostrare la propria unità e strategia, l’unica proposta sensata sarebbe quella di una “larga” Conferenza di Pace quanto prima. Si tratterebbe di una occasione non solo per definire un compromesso accettabile per Mosca e per Kiev/Washington (lavorando per una reale, e garantita internazionalmente, autodeterminazione dei popoli) ma anche per ripensare, fuori dagli estremismi pacifista e bellicista, una seria (finalmente) organizzazione della sicurezza europea che comprenda la Russia.

In questa situazione di stallo, non più sopportabile, si mettono sul tavolo le opzioni pericolose di un riarmo crescente, crescono i numeri dei morti, dei feriti e degli sfollati, aumentano le provocazioni reciproche e la disinformazione, si “gioca” a bloccare le forniture di gas. Sullo sfondo, la minaccia nucleare.

Mi limito a dire questo, notando che la complessità del momento è tale da richiedere una partecipazione il più possibile scevra dagli interessi particolari dei singoli Paesi con Mosca. Si sono visti, in queste settimane, troppi incontri bilaterali spacciati per mediazioni diplomatiche. La Conferenza che qui si propone dovrebbe guardare oltre l’imminenza, comprendendola, perché la posta in gioco è alta e riguarda i nuovi assetti planetari del potere. L’ONU, vergognosamente risvegliatosi dopo 60 giorni di guerra, dovrebbe prendere le redini di tale appuntamento e guidarlo con decisione e visione storica.

TODAY:

• AROUND THE WORLD
• CYBER – DEFENSE – MILITARY – SPACE
• HORIZONS

AROUND THE WORLD

Afghanistan

• April 27. By Sahar Fetrat, Heather Barr, HRW. After taking over Afghanistan in August 2021, the Taliban instituted a de facto ban on girls’ secondary education, even though community pressure resulted in some girls’ secondary schools reopening in about nine provinces. Many of these closed after the Taliban broke their promise to reopen all schools in March. (read more)

Africa

• April 27. By Mike Ogbalu III and Aloysius Uche Ordu, Brookings. Mike Ogbalu, CEO of the Pan-African Payment Settlement System (PAPSS) at the African Export-Import Bank, discusses PAPSS, a cross border, financial market infrastructure enabling payment transactions across Africa. (read more)

ASEAN – RCEP

• April 26. By Jayant Menon, East Asia Forum. To understand the interrelationship between ASEAN and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), it is useful to separate the newer, less developed members — Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam (CLMV) — from the older, more developed ones — Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore and Thailand (ASEAN 6). RCEP has a diverse agenda and the opportunities and challenges differ across the two groups. (read more)

BMW – Silk Road – China

• April 27. By Global Times. German carmaker BMW said that it uses the “Silk Road” via Belarus and Russia to China, according to a statement from BMW sent to the Global Times on Wednesday. (Global Times)

BRI – Pacific Island Nations

• April 27. By Global Times. The US, Australia and their Western allies have long been conspiring a systematic, top-down smear campaign targeting China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) projects in the Pacific islands, and these attacks culminated in recent days with the signing of an open, transparent security pact between China and the Solomon Islands- a Pacific nation which the US and Australia treated as their “vassals” under hegemony mindset. (read more)

Chad

• April 27. By Virginia Pietromarchi, Al Jazeera. Pressure is piling on the Chadian government to delay the date of a national dialogue set to start in two weeks as rebel groups and representatives of the country’s transitional council are yet to reach an amnesty agreement seen as a crucial condition for the success of the talks. A year ago, longtime ruler Idriss Deby was killed on the battlefield while fighting with his soldiers against rebels from the Front for Change and Concord in Chad (FACT) – one of the last remaining rebel groups with fighters on the ground. Since then, the country has been in turmoil. (read more)

China

• April 27. By Global Times. Chinese President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, chairman of the Central Military Commission, and director of the Central Commission for Financial and Economic Affairs (CCFEA), presided over the 11th meeting of the CCFEA on Tuesday to discuss matters on comprehensively advancing infrastructure development and implementing decisions and plans made by the CCFEA since the 19th CPC National Congress in 2017. (read more)

China – Lithuania

• April 27. By Hui Qing, Global Times. Showing no sign of redressing its ill-advised approach on violating the one-China principle, Lithuania proposed an aid package to provide access to financing for companies hit by so-called “China’s trade restrictions.” The proposal was approved by the European Commission on Tuesday, according to media reports. (read more)

China – Russia

• April 27. By Global Times. Russia completed construction of its section of the first China-Russia railway bridge on Wednesday, which will be opened for traffic soon, marking a major progress in rail transport between the two countries. (read more)

China – UN

• April 27. By Global Times. The UN General Assembly passed a resolution that allows it to convene automatically when a veto is cast. China’s UN representative said that China understands the original intention of the move, but is also concerned over the procedural confusion and inconsistency in practice it may cause, and whether it can achieve its intended purpose. (read more)

India

• April 27. By  Srishti Jaswal, Al Jazeera. There is a lot in common between Devanti Devi and Soni Devi. Both are in their mid-thirties, come from the same district in the eastern Bihar state, live in the same neighbourhood in New Delhi, and their husbands pick rubbish in the sprawling capital. When Soni got married in 2004, her name was added to a government document, called a ration card, that ensures essential food items to the poor at subsidised rates under the Public Distribution System (PDS). (read more)
• April 25. By Rahul Nath Choudhury, East Asia Forum. In 2022, India has renewed its interest in free trade agreements (FTAs) with several economies, including the United Kingdom and Australia. India and Australia had already signed an interim FTA last week and expected to enter into a full FTA by end of this year. India’s approach to resuming negotiations has a sense of urgency and a few rounds of discussion have already taken place. The United Kingdom has traditionally been a large trading partner for India while Australia is emerging as a promising destination. (read more)

Israel – Palestine

• April 27. By Al Jazeera. Palestinian legal experts, academics and digital rights groups have expressed outrage over an incoming Israeli policy for the entry and residence of foreigners in the occupied West Bank, which they say further complicates the rules of movement, and adds restrictions to an already convoluted system. The 97-page ordinance, called Procedure for Entry and Residence for Foreigners in Judea and Samaria Area (PDF), replaces the current four-page document. Judea and Samaria is the term the Israeli government uses to refer to the West Bank. (read more)
• April 27. By Al Jazeera.  Israeli forces have shot dead a Palestinian teenager during a raid on the Jenin area in the northern occupied West Bank. The 18-year-old was identified as Ahmad Fathi Masad, a former prisoner from the village of Burqin, west of Jenin. (read more)

Japan – Myanmar

• April 27. By Teppei Kasai, HRW. During the parliamentary committee session on security on April 26, 2022, Japanese Defense Minister Nobuo Kishi revealed that Japan will once again accept Myanmar military personnel for training at Japan’s defense facilities. This is the second time since the February 2021 coup in Myanmar that Japan has accepted members of the Myanmar military, or Tatmadaw, for a program that began in 2015. (read more)

Libya

• April 27. By HRW. At least 130 people, mostly civilians, have been killed by landmines and abandoned or unexploded ordnance in Libya since the armed group called the Libyan Arab Armed Forces (LAAF) withdrew from Tripoli’s southern suburbs in June 2020, Human Rights watch said today. (read more)

Mali – France

• April 27. By Al Jazeera. Malian authorities have accused the French army of “spying” and “subversion” when it used a drone to film what France alleged were mercenaries burying bodies near a military base. The drone flew “illegally” over the Gossi base on April 20, the day after French forces handed the site back to Mali, the government said in a statement on Tuesday. (read more)

Nagorno – Karabakh

• April 26. By Paul Globe, The Jamestown Foundation. It is possible to argue that the weightiest consequence of the 44-day war between Armenia and Azerbaijan in September–November 2020 was not Baku’s victory over Armenian forces but rather the return of Russian troops to the region in the form of “peacekeepers” in Karabakh (see EDM, December 16, 17, 17, 2020). And even though those Russian soldiers are supposed to remain for only five years, their presence effectively seems to have marked the establishment of a Russian protectorate there—one that will not end anytime soon (see EDM, March 18, 22, 23, 2021; Ekho Kavkaza, April 15, 2022). (read more)

Pakistan

• April 27. By Yin Yeping, Chu Daye and Li Xuanmin, Global Times. Chinese businesses in Pakistan are operating without disruption, though they are ramping up precautions to ensure the safety of personnel and projects in accordance with official guidelines, after a terrorist attack in Karachi killed three Chinese nationals on Tuesday afternoon. (read more)
• April 27. By Global Times. Pakistani Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif visited the Chinese Embassy in Islamabad on Tuesday afternoon to express his condolences to the victims of a terrorist attack and wrote a message, vowing to do whatever it takes to bring the perpetrators to justice, according to a release from the Chinese Embassy in Pakistan. (read more)
• April 27. By Al Jazeera. A female suicide bomber who has killed three Chinese teachers in Pakistan was herself a teacher who had enrolled for a master’s degree months before the attack, carried out on behalf of separatist rebels, says a Pakistani official. The blast detonated by the 30-year-old woman on Tuesday blew up a minivan outside University of Karachi’s Confucius Institute, a Chinese language and cultural centre, killing her, the three Chinese teachers and a Pakistani driver. (read more)

Pakistan – Afghanistan

• April 27. By Hajira Maryam, Al Jazeera. Tensions are high between Pakistan and Afghanistan over cross-border attacks, with Islamabad accusing Kabul of doing little to stop attacks that have increased since the Taliban came to power last August. Pakistan says its security forces are being targeted from across the border in Afghanistan. Pakistan Taliban, known by the acronym TTP (Tahreek-e-Taliban Pakistan), and ISIL (ISIS) affiliated fighters, who operate along the porous border between the two countries have carried out numerous attacks inside Pakistan since 2007. (read more)

Russia – Ukraine (impact, reactions, consequences)

• April 27. By Sinead Harvey, IAEA. The IAEA has delivered specialised equipment to Ukraine in the first major step in its technical assistance to help the country ensure the safety and security of its nuclear facilities during the ongoing conflict. (read more)
• April 27. By Ragip Soylu, Breaking Defense. A group of Turkish citizens allegedly siphoned off nearly $5 million from the Ukrainian government with false promises of defense equipment deliveries in the first days of the Russian invasion in Ukraine, according to a senior Ukrainian official. (read more)
• April 27. By HRW. United Nations Security Council members should use an informal meeting on accountability for serious crimes in Ukraine to highlight the importance of impartial justice and coordination of a wide range of international accountability efforts, Human Rights Watch said. (read more)
• April 27. By Kenneth Roth, HRW. Two years ago, Human Rights Watch analyzed who bears command responsibility for war crimes in Syria’s Idlib province, the one part of the country still controlled by the armed opposition to President Bashar al-Assad’s regime. There, we documented 46 cases in which the Russian-Syrian military alliance hit hospitals, schools, markets and apartment buildings. The lack of any legitimate military target in the vicinity strongly suggests that these attacks were deliberate and unlawful. We determined that command responsibility for these apparent war crimes went all the way to the top – to Russian President Vladimir Putin. (read more)
• April 27. By  Linah Alsaafin, Al Jazeera. Emmanuel Macron’s victory in securing a second term as France’s president will enable him to adopt a more aggressive approach on the Ukraine-Russia conflict, analysts say. In the run-up to the presidential election held earlier this month, Macron eschewed campaigning in favour of shuttle diplomacy, regularly meeting presidents on both sides – Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenksyy and Russia’s Vladimir Putin. (read more)
• April 27. By Al Jazeera. A series of explosions were heard in the early hours of Wednesday in three Russian provinces bordering Ukraine, authorities said, and an ammunition depot in the Belgorod province caught fire around the same time. Belgorod regional governor, Vyacheslav Gladkov, said no civilians had been injured in the fire, which broke out at a facility near Staraya Nelidovka village and was subsequently extinguished. (read more)
• April 27. By Al Jazeera. India’s Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) is struggling to find a vessel to ship 700,000 barrels of crude from Russia’s Far East, in a growing sign that complex trades involving one of Moscow’s biggest partners are being interrupted by Western sanctions, Reuters has reported, citing sources. Several Indian companies including ONGC have stakes in Russian oil and gas assets, and India has been buying more Russian crude since Moscow invaded Ukraine, snapping up the popular Urals crude grade, while other buyers have shunned Russian exports.  (read more)
• April 27. By Al Jazeera. Polish and Bulgarian officials say Russia is cutting off gas deliveries to their countries after their refusal to pay in Russian roubles, a demand made by President Vladimir Putin as the West tightened sanctions over the war in Ukraine. Poland’s state-owned PGNiG, citing the Russian energy giant Gazprom, said the suspension would come into effect at 8am local time (06:00 GMT) on Wednesday. (read more)
• April 27. By Al Jazeera. DJI, the world’s largest drone manufacturer, has announced it is temporarily halting operations in Russia and Ukraine, in a rare example of a Chinese firm suspending business in response to the war in Ukraine. The Shenzhen-headquartered company said on Wednesday it would suspend its business in the two countries while “internally reassessing compliance requirements in various jurisdictions”. (read more)
• April 26. By Mark F. Cancian, CSIS. The White House announced a new military aid package of $800 million on April 21, just five days after the previous $800 million aid package. The new package has many similarities to the earlier one described in a recent CSIS commentary: it expands U.S. support by including U.S. weapons, requires the United States to train Ukrainians in the use of these systems, and implicitly assumes a long war. The new aid package includes two new items: an increase in the overall rate of support and a mysterious custom-designed unmanned aerial vehicle. (read more)
• April 26. By Atlantic Council. As Russia continues its assault on Ukraine, the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab (DFRLab) is keeping a close eye on Russia’s movements across the military, cyber, and information domains. With more than seven years of experience monitoring the situation in Ukraine, as well as Russia’s use of propaganda and disinformation to undermine the United States, NATO, and the European Union, the DFRLab’s global team presents the latest installment of the Russian War Report. (read more)
• April 26. By John E. Herbst, Atlantic Council. Following the nomination of veteran diplomat Bridget Brink to fill the long-vacant post of US ambassador to Ukraine, John E. Herbst, who served in that role from 2003 to 2006, wrote an open letter to Brink with some advice for the difficult assignment ahead. (read more)
• April 27. By Han Phoumin, East Asia Forum. Even before the Russia–Ukraine war, the COVID-19 pandemic had brought the world economy into recession. Global oil demand also declined by about 8 million barrels per day in 2020 and 2021. OPEC+ agreed to cut output by 10 million barrels per day from May 2020 to April 2022. This led oil prices to rise to around US$75 per barrel in July 2021, which prompted OPEC+ to raise output again at the end of 2021. (read more)
• April 26. By Mateusz Kubiak, The Jamestown Foundation. On April 19, the Latvian Economy Minister Jānis Vitenbergs announced his government’s decision to support entirely abandoning natural gas supplies from Russia by the end of 2022 (Em.gov.lv, April 19). The strategy in that regard relies on expanding liquefied natural gas (LNG) regasification capacity across the region—that is, both domestically in Latvia and in neighboring Estonia, Finland as well as, possibly, Lithuania. If everything goes as planned, the Baltic States (Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia) should in the coming years have not one but as many as three LNG import terminals, significantly increasing their security of supply. (read more)
• April 26. By Aslan Doukaev, The Jamestown Foundation. In a throwback to Stalinist-era practices, Russian forces in Ukraine may have been using some of their own detachments as “barrier troops”—a term originating in World War II for so-called anti-retreat forces (Gazeta.ua, March 11; T.me/SBUkr, March 12). The deployment of such units to deter frontline waverers or to punish insubordination among Russian service members has been reported in Kyiv, Sumy, Mykolayiv and Zaporizhzhia oblasts. Zaporizhzhia military administration spokesperson Colonel Ivan Arefyev described the most recent incident of this type as follows: “According to Ukrainian intelligence, Russian troops began to mutiny yesterday in the Polohy Raion of [Zaporizhzhia] Oblast: Russian soldiers refused to fight because they had not received their promised payouts. However, ‘kadyrovtsy’ brutally killed three of the instigators of the riot who were ready to lay down their arms and head home” (T.me/zoda_gov_ua, April 19). (read more)
• April 26. By Caitlin Talmadge, Brookings. Russia’s recent test of a new long-range nuclear missile has renewed concerns about escalation of the current war in Ukraine. Some analysts viewed the missile test as evidence of President Vladimir Putin’s isolation as his ill-fated campaign drags on — or even as nuclear saber rattling. Putin himself warned that Russia’s missile would “make those, who in the heat of frantic aggressive rhetoric try to threaten our country, think twice.”. (read more)
• April 26. By Constanze Stelzenmüller, Brookings. Amerciless war is being waged in the middle of Europe — on Germany’s ruling Social Democratic Party (SPD). That, at least, is what a casual observer of German politics might conclude. (read more)

Sri Lanka

• April 27. By Al Jazeera. Missing both legs and an arm, former special forces soldier Thushara Kumara is an unlikely critic of Gotabaya Rajapaksa, a wartime defence chief who became Sri Lanka’s president in 2019. But the 43-year-old army pensioner is one of several dozen veterans now camping out at a protest site near the president’s office in Colombo, having lost faith in a leader who stubbornly resisted calls to resign when the economy began to implode and most of his cabinet quit. (read more)
• April 27. By Al Jazeera. The World Bank has agreed to provide Sri Lanka with $600m in financial assistance to help meet payment requirements for essential imports, the Sri Lankan president’s media division has said. “The World Bank has agreed to provide $600 million in financial assistance to address the current economic crisis,” the media division said in a statement on Tuesday. (read more)

Sri Lanka – Pakistan

• April 25. By East Asia Forum. A Sri Lankan debt crisis — the prospect of which has for many months hung over the country like a storm about to break — has arrived. Observers of the Sri Lankan economy have been warning of a reckoning for some time. In its regular reviews the IMF warned in 2016 of ‘unbalanced macroeconomic policies’; in 2018 of vulnerability to ‘adverse shocks’. (read more)

Syria – Israel

• April 27. By Al Jazeera. Four Syrian soldiers have been killed and three wounded after an Israeli missile attack on positions near Damascus, Syria’s defence ministry has said. The attack on Wednesday also caused material damage, it added, in a statement posted on Facebook. (read more)

Taiwan

• April 27. By Global Times. A total of 11 Taiwan-invested companies included on Shanghai’s “white list” are operating under closed-loop management or gradually resuming production despite the latest COVID-19 outbreak, Ma Xiaoguang, spokesperson from the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council, said at a press conference on Wednesday. (read more)
• April 27. By Liu Xuanzun, Global Times. The Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Eastern Theater Command announced on Wednesday that its forces shadowed a US destroyer when the latter made a transit through the Taiwan Straits on Tuesday, slamming the US move as a provocation that intentionally sabotaged peace and stability in the region. (read more)
• April 27. By Global Times. “Whatever compatriots on both sides of the Taiwan Straits like and support, it will become the target of the Democratic Progressive Party authority and secessionists forces in the Taiwan island. It’s not surprising at all to hear their curse, smear and sneer,” said Ma Xiaoguang, spokesperson for the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council, on Wednesday.  (read more)
• April 27. By Al Jazeera. China’s military has accused the United States of undermining regional peace and security after it sent a naval destroyer through the Strait of Taiwan on Tuesday as part of a routine freedom of navigation exercise. The People’s Liberation Army’s Eastern Theatre Command accused the US of “provocative” naval activities and said the move sent the “wrong signals to ‘Taiwan independence’ forces” in a brief statement. (read more)

UAE

• April 27. By Dana Moukhallati, Al Monitor. The world’s first minister for artificial intelligence says the United Arab Emirates isn’t only looking for economic benefits as it seeks to become a leading nation in the sector. (read more)

UAE – Kashmir – India

• April 27. By Adam Lucente, AL Monitor. A business delegation from the United Arab Emirates visited the disputed Indian-controlled territory of Jammu and Kashmir Monday and met with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. (read more)

CYBER – DEFENSE – MILITARY – SPACE

• April 27. By Naval News. The keel-laying of the “Jacques Chevallier” took place at the Chantiers de l’Atlantique shipyard in late December 2021. A keel laying ceremony was initially set to take place on 14 December 2021 (two days prior to the keel laying of the first FDI new generation frigate for the French Navy) and Naval News was set to cover the event. However the ceremony was cancelled at the time due to bad weather: The forward section of the ship, which was built in Italy by local shipbuilder Fincantieri, could not be delivered in time. The keel laying seemingly took place on Christmas Eve, with no ceremony. (read more)
• April 27. By Naval News. Designed and manufactured in Edinburgh, UK, the Leonardo 7500E V2 radar is the latest variant of the highly successful Seaspray Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) radar family, featuring updated processor and receiver technology to meet the evolving demands of the ISR mission set. The 7500E V2 is the largest and most capable Seaspray AESA radar and enhances the operationally proven 7500E. (read more)
• April 27. By Naval News. We’re working with global technology giant Microsoft to advance the application of cloud computing technology in the defence and national security sector. (read more)
• April 27. By Naval News. After cutting the first steel on the programme in September 2021, the traditional keel laying event formally recognised the start of the build, including placing a specially commissioned coin under the keel.  On completion of the ship, the coin will be presented to the Captain and crew.  (read more)
• April 27. By Pierluigi Paganini, Security Affairs. The US Department of State is offering up to $10 million for info that allows to identify or locate six Russian GRU hackers who are members of the Sandworm APT group. The reward is covered by the Rewards for Justice program of the US government, which rewards people that can share information that can allow to identify or locate foreign government threat actors who conduct cyber operations against U.S. critical infrastructure in violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA). (read more)
• April 27. By Pierluigi Paganini, Security Affairs. German wind turbine giant Deutsche Windtechnik announced that some of its systems were hit by a targeted professional cyberattack earlier this month. (read more)
• April 27. By Pierluigi Paganini, Security Affairs. Researchers from Secureworks state that the Conti ransomware gang, tracked as a Russia-based threat actor Gold Ulrick, continues to operate despite the recent data leak on its internal activities. (read more)
• April 27. By Jaspreet Gill, Breaking Defense. A top Army official said the service’s updated cyber security risk management framework will significantly change how the service attacks a glaring, decades-old weakness: bureaucracy. (read more)
• April 27. By Valerie Insinna, Breaking Defense. Boeing’s Air Force One replacement program and its T-7A Red Hawk training jet racked up more than $1 billion in charges for the company so far in 2022, the company reported this morning. (read more)
• April 27. By  Nathan Strout, Defense News. The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency will take operational control of part of the Pentagon’s signature artificial intelligence program, the agency’s director announced April 25. Project Maven is the Department of Defense’s most visible artificial intelligence tool, designed to process imagery and full-motion video from drones and automatically detect potential targets. (read more)
• April 27. By  Christopher Stone, Defense News. At this month’s Space Symposium in Colorado Springs, Colorado, Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall laid out his vision for “transforming” the Space Force into the “great protector” as well as the key enabler for all other terrestrial operations in air, land, sea domains. (read more)
• April 27. By Breaking Defense. A nearly forgotten part of America’s arsenal, the Stinger man-portable anti-aircraft weapon is suddenly a hot commodity. But with production extremely limited and demands through the roof, there is a push for a new Stinger replacement, rather than rebooting production on the existing weapon. In this op-ed, Dan Grazier of the Project on Government Oversight warns not to overthink the issue. (read more)

HORIZONS

• April 27. By Aleksandra Dier, ORF. Worldwide, there are more active conflicts today than at any time since 1945. Conflicts have become increasingly complex and protracted as a growing number of non-state armed groups, regional, and global powers pursue their respective agendas. (read more)
• April 26. By Danny Quah and Vinod Thomas, East Asia Forum. Resilience to shocks is no longer just about bouncing back — it’s also about building preparedness for even bigger disruptions. The climate crisis, COVID-19, and geopolitical conflicts epitomise the biggest risks of our time and illustrate how mainstream economic analysis has undervalued long-term prevention. But the escalating dangers call for a higher priority to be given to preparedness as part of resilience building. (read more)
• April 26. By Vinod Thomas, Brookings. The scientific community is at the forefront in raising the alarm over climate change and providing incontrovertible evidence on the link to human activity. Yet economic policies to decarbonize economies continue to lag behind the urgency of the warnings. Indeed, the lukewarm response of the economic policy community is part of the disconnect between knowledge and action in addressing the climate crisis. Some excellent research notwithstanding, mainstream economics has not factored climate change into its growth calculus. Part of the reason is the fear that strong climate action will sap short-term economic growth. (read more)
• April 26. By Darrell M. West, Brookings. News that Elon Musk bought Twitter could usher in substantial changes for the social media platform. Given its influential role in public conversation and policy actions, a shift in management control could have substantial consequences for the role of social media. Here are five things that could happen under Musk’s ownership. (read more)