Donald Trump might have left the White House. His nefarious legacy, however, lingers on. A prominent case in point is the dramatic rise in the number of attacks on Asian Americans, ranging from verbal insults and harassment to physical assault to deadly acts of violence that has gone hand in hand with the pandemic.
A week after taking office, US President Joe Biden made a point of breaking with the position of his predecessor, Donald Trump , who famously blamed China for deliberately spreading the coronavirus. Trump insisted on calling it the Wuhan flu, Kung flu or any other xenophobic alternative. Coming to the defense of the entire Asian community in the United States, Biden issued a memorandum stating the following: “Inflammatory and xenophobic rhetoric has put Asian-American and Pacific Islander persons, families, communities and businesses at risk.”
Wired this week features a story by Will Knight with the title, “Why a YouTube Chat About Chess Got Flagged for Hate Speech.” It highlights the curious relationship between the natural behavior of human beings and the sophisticated but fundamentally unnatural logic of artificial intelligence (AI). Until very recently, our civilization thought of data simply as the formally defined information humans gleaned from their collective experience of the world. In recent years, the innocent notion of data morphed into a compelling and powerful phenomenon called Big Data. This new organic personality foisted on what was formerly thought of as a collection of random facts became a kind of Frankenstein’s monster.
Of late, statements from the highest level in Pakistan’s government have urged the global community to build a relationship with the country centered around “geoeconomic security.” The new policy posture is aimed at the Biden administration, but it appears in equal proportion in Pakistan’s recent diplomatic overtures to other countries.
In a recent interview with the BBC, President Ashraf Ghani insisted that the condition for peace in Afghanistan depends on the condition of the war. First, according to him, Afghan security forces need international support due to intensifying violence by armed groups, including the Taliban. Second, without addressing Taliban sanctuaries in Pakistan, the situation with the conflict will not change. “My message is those who provide sanctuaries to the Taliban should be talked very straight,” he said. “There’s so many fears of collapse into civil war.”
A decade after the Arab Spring, Tunisians have made significant progress in the field of democratization with respect to the constitution and the guarantee of public and private freedoms. However, economic performance remains modest, and many of the demands of the Tunisian Revolution are still pending.
As last year’s British Social Attitudes survey indicates, 66% approve of same-sex couples, meaning about a third do not. Our newest research suggests that, with 95% of fans saying they favor openly gay players, football crowds are more welcoming of gay people than the rest of the UK population. It may sound a counterintuitive argument, but it is based on the results of an online research project comprising the detailed accounts of 2,665 fans, the vast majority of whom are embarrassed that football is continually characterized as a homophobic environment that prohibits gay players from revealing their sexual identity — at least until their playing career is over.
On January 25, addressing a virtual World Economic Forum, China’s President Xi Jinping not only strongly advocated for a multilateral approach to the COVID-19 pandemic but insisted on the virtues and systemic benefits of free trade and globalization. Jeopardizing those elements may introduce conflict into the international system, Xi warned, clearly referring to, although not mentioning, the United States. This is not the first time Xi has credited himself as the “champion of globalization,” in particular when attending meetings in Davos. In 2017, in the early days of Donald Trump’s presidency, with the long shadow of barriers to trade and isolationist policies just starting to appear on the horizon, China’s president made important remarks encouraging free trade and opening up the markets.
Globally, the short-term changes in pollution levels associated with COVID-19 lockdown measures highlighted the importance of investment in renewable energy sources more than ever. India’s National Solar Mission was set as one of the policy initiatives under the National Action Plan on Climate Change in 2010. As a signatory to the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement, India has committed to generating 175 GW of renewable energy capacity by 2022, which included a major share of 100 GW from solar, 60 GW from wind, 10 GW from biomass and 5 GW from hydropower.
With movie theaters closed all over the world due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Hollywood studios had little reason for celebration over the past year. In business for over a century, Universal Pictures (founded in 1912), Paramount (1912), Warner Bros. (1923), Walt Disney (1923) and Columbia Pictures (1924) now have an extra reason to be concerned. In 2020, China took over Hollywood’s crown as the world’s biggest movie market, with a revenue of $3.2 billion, 84% of which came from domestic sales.