Months after some Israelis started to protest against aid lorries entering Gaza at the main Kerem Shalom crossing, the battle has moved to other key junctions, where rival groups of activists do their best to block or protect aid convoys […]
Right-wing activists, including Jewish settlers living in the occupied West Bank, have uploaded dozens of videos of crowds, including some very young children, hurling food onto the ground and stamping on boxes of aid.
You’ll find a short video embedded in the linked article.
Months after some Israelis started to protest against aid lorries entering Gaza at the main Kerem Shalom crossing, the battle has moved to other key junctions, where rival groups of activists do their best to block or protect aid convoys […]
Right-wing activists, including Jewish settlers living in the occupied West Bank, have uploaded dozens of videos of crowds, including some very young children, hurling food onto the ground and stamping on boxes of aid.
You’ll find a short video embedded in the linked article.
Months after some Israelis started to protest against aid lorries entering Gaza at the main Kerem Shalom crossing, the battle has moved to other key junctions, where rival groups of activists do their best to block or protect aid convoys […]
Right-wing activists, including Jewish settlers living in the occupied West Bank, have uploaded dozens of videos of crowds, including some very young children, hurling food onto the ground and stamping on boxes of aid.
You’ll find a short video embedded in the linked article.
I doesn’t seem so given Israeli officials’ statements. But it will have a long-term political impact if Israel ignores that imho. It could lead to a higher degree of ‘diplomatic isolation’ for Israel and its allies for a long time. That’s just my opinion. And there’re arrest warrants, too.
With the announcement by Norway and Ireland that they have recognised Palestine as an independent state, and Spain expected to follow suit by the end of May, it appears that international momentum for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is growing.
The concept has long been supported by the US and its allies, as well as most Arab states and the United Nations […] Could things be different under different leadership? To answer this, we need to know whether the Israeli and Palestinian people could be persuaded to accept such a plan. Here it’s worth taking a look at what polling tells us.
With the announcement by Norway and Ireland that they have recognised Palestine as an independent state, and Spain expected to follow suit by the end of May, it appears that international momentum for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is growing.
The concept has long been supported by the US and its allies, as well as most Arab states and the United Nations […] Could things be different under different leadership? To answer this, we need to know whether the Israeli and Palestinian people could be persuaded to accept such a plan. Here it’s worth taking a look at what polling tells us.
The risk to public health from human faeces in our [UK] rivers and seas will increase without action to create a wastewater system fit for the future, according to Professor Barbara Evans, Leeds’ Professor of Public Health Engineering at the University of Leeds.
The report [led by Professor Evans]says collective action by industry, government, public bodies and the general public is required. It makes 15 recommendations, including: review current bathing water regulations; prioritise maintenance of the existing sewage network; return to collecting widespread data on faecal bacteria; develop a long-term strategy for better designing cities to reduce flooding, and the appointment of a dedicated wastewater champion.
You can’t build and scale a start-up fast enough, say, in case of a crisis. Furthermore, China will use such investments to gain political influence in the foreign country -in that case Canada-, and they won’t stop in this particular industry. Countries must think more in vertically-integrated supply chains and strategic clusters rather than in industries, and they must include geopolitical issues.
China’s economy is slowing, and the regime is coming under greater domestic pressure—witness the large-scale protests that broke out against Xi’s covid-zero policy in multiple cities and on dozens of university campuses in late 2022. Beijing is encountering growing international criticism and resistance on other fronts as well. Around the world, negative views of China have surged to highs not seen since the 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre […]
China’s rulers also have long understood what political scientists have proven empirically: Autocracies often fall in waves, as revolutionary activity in one country inspires popular uprisings in others […]
The CCP has responded with stepped-up repression over the past decade—jailing dissidents, mobilizing security forces, censoring information, and preempting popular unrest. Yet China is now strong enough that it can do more than just hunker down in the face of foreign pressure. Xi believes that the CCP’s domestic power will be enhanced if authoritarianism is prevalent and democracies are dysfunctional—fellow despots will not punish China for rights abuses, and the Chinese people will not want to emulate the chaos of liberal systems. He thinks that preventing revolts against authoritarianism in other countries will lower the odds of such a revolt erupting in China. And he believes that silencing critics abroad will limit the challenges facing the CCP within China. Xi sees rolling back democracy overseas as part of his plan to secure his regime at home […]
Beijing spends billions of dollars annually on an “antidemocratic toolkit” of nongovernmental organizations, media outlets, diplomats, advisors, hackers, and bribes all designed to prop up autocrats and sow discord in democracies. The CCP provides fellow autocracies with guns, money, and protection from UN censure while slapping foreign human-rights advocates with sanctions. Chinese officials offer their authoritarian brethren riot-control gear and advice on building a surveillance state; PRC trade, investment, and loans allow those dictators to avoid Western conditionality regarding anticorruption or good governance.
Beijing uses its globe-spanning media organs to tout the accomplishments of illiberal rule while highlighting democratic governments’ flaws and hypocrisies. China works with fellow authoritarian regimes, such as Vladimir Putin’s in Russia, to push autocrat-friendly norms of internet management in international institutions and standards-setting bodies.
These are some quotes, but whole article makes an interesting read.
This is not ‘only’ about trade or dominance in a particular market such as EVs or solar panels. China aims to leverage market dominance for political influence. The Chinese government wants to export not just products but its autocratic system.
First of all, it doesn’t make sense to compare economic policy performance by a single metric, be it inflation or GDP or anything else, let alone if you compare economies in different periods.
For example, the high inflation during president Carter’s term was mainly due to the oil crisis in the 1970s. President Biden started his term in 2020 - right when the pandemic broke out and subsequent interruptions of global supply chain caused a soaring inflation. You may or may not agree with both presidents’ economic policies, but you can’t obviously blame Carter or Biden for the oil crises and the pandemic, respectively.
The articles also says:
Neither the Fed nor economists in general view housing prices as inflation. The economic illiterates do not count asset prices in general as inflation.
The ‘economic illiterates’ use inflation to measure prices of consumer goods and services but explicitly not to measure prices of assets. This is why rent can reasonably be part of such an index, but house prices probably not (exactly because a house is an asset and not a consumer good). This is also one reason why you should always look at a dashboard of metrics and interpret them to the individual circumstances (e.g., in different epoches, cultures, etc.) rather than looking at just one measurement.
So the inflation and the way how it is measured (there are multiple ways to do so) is certainly an imperfect metric, but this is true for any metric. And comparing the economic policies over several decades by just using a single metric doesn’t make any sense.