Here is a reported video from this week of workers fighting with guards at Foxconn Technology’s plant in China that produces Apple’s, $AAPL, iPhones. pic.twitter.com/IIJlBoEJvX
(1) There was a form of God Moses was not allowed to see. (2) Abraham met God. (3) Nobody has seen the Father but me. A reference to people in the immediate audience or those alive at the time? (4) If God the Son is capable of human incarnation, why not God the Father?
Ranked choice voting has now passed in a blue state, a red state, and a purple state, along with dozens of cities. It’s the most viable, substantive reform to make our democratic system more representative of the electorate.
BREAKING: @dellavolpe calculates that the record-breaking turnout among voters between 18-29-years-old canceled out *every voter* above the age of 65. Gen Z literally saved democracy. And going forward, there is no path to victory for Democrats without young voters. Full stop.
Four years ago, when I released my memoir, Becoming, I traveled across the country and around the world, meeting so many incredible people—including many of you. It was a little scary to share so much of my story for the first time, but I was so moved by your response. pic.twitter.com/RUDCs1cEKe
China’s Business Elite See the Country That Let Them Thrive Slipping Away The business class, which shunned politics, is now questioning if there is still a place for it in a system dominated by one ruler, Xi Jinping. ........ China’s leader, Xi Jinping, used an important Communist Party congress last month to establish near-absolute power and make it clear that security will trump the economy as the nation’s priority. ....... Mr. Xi’s sweeping victory, by pushing out perceived moderates in favor of loyalists, made it clear that it would be a one-man-rule system that could last for decades. ........ China’s last leader as powerful as Mr. Xi, 69, was Mao Zedong, who led the country into the Great Famine and the Cultural Revolution, which resulted in tens of millions of deaths, social chaos and economic destruction. ....... These tech entrepreneurs mostly grew up “in the age of ‘economism,’ when money making, economic principles and economic rationality trumped everything else,” said Minxin Pei, professor of government at Claremont McKenna College in California. “Now they see the regime puts politics in command,” he said. “For them, this is incomprehensible.” .......... China’s harsh “zero-Covid” policy has left the economy in the worst shape in decades. ....... In his opening address at the party congress, Mr. Xi mentioned “security” 52 times, “Marxism” 15 times and “markets” three times. ....... Mr. Xi’s leadership lineup showed that he did not value expertise in managing a market-oriented economy. “He values people who can implement his policy regardless of the economic consequences.” ....... “Under the leadership of this dictator, our great country is falling into an abyss,” said a hardware tech executive in Shenzhen. “But you can’t do anything about it. It pains and depresses me.” ....... He said he used to be very nationalistic, believing that the Chinese were among the smartest and hardest-working people in the world. Now, he and many of his friends spend most of their time hiking, golfing and drinking. “We’re too depressed to work,” he said. ........ Just like many ordinary Chinese people, the executives I spoke to said they were horrified by the video of Hu Jintao, Mr. Xi’s predecessor as China’s top leader, being abruptly led out of the closing ceremony of the party congress. .
For Weissmann, the revelations made for an aha! moment. The partition plan, he realized, was the “quo” Putin wanted for the “quid” of helping Trump’s campaign. “On August 2, if not earlier,” he wrote in his 2020 memoir, “Russia had clearly revealed to Manafort — and, by extension, to the Trump campaign — what it wanted out of the United States: ‘a wink,’ a nod of approval from a President Donald Trump, as it took over Ukraine’s richest region.” .......... as he road-tested a new doctrine of hybrid warfare, a mix of weapons and words. ...... Then, after three phone calls with Manafort, Roger Stone posted a link to the piece on Twitter. “The only interference in the US election is from Hillary’s friends in Ukraine,” he added as punctuation. ....... Putin joined the chorus in February, asserting that the Ukrainian government had “adopted a unilateral position in favor of one candidate” — Clinton. “More than that,” he added, without evidence, “certain oligarchs, certainly with the approval of the political leadership, funded this candidate, or female candidate, to be more precise.” .......... Manafort might have been in prison, but, in search of a pardon, he still had something of value for the transactional president — his unparalleled knowledge of Ukrainian politics and government. He would effectively pass the baton to Trump’s personal lawyer, the former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, who in the fall of 2018 was preparing an offensive to definitively cast the special-counsel investigation as a political hit job after its final report failed to prove “collusion.” .......... What was lost on the American audience, though, was the way Trump’s pressure campaign and Giuliani’s freelance diplomacy were buffeting a country that, whether it knew it or not, was careening toward war. Their machinations were playing directly into a soft-power contest over whether Ukraine would lay the true foundations of an independent Western-style democracy or remain in thrall to Moscow and its proxies. ......... One was the energy broker Firtash, the embodiment of the oligarchic system that had proved so beneficial to Putin. He had built extraordinary wealth through a partnership with Gazprom, Russia’s leading energy concern: Gazprom sold deeply discounted gas to a middleman company that it owned with Firtash, which then resold it, at a considerable profit, to Ukraine and throughout Europe. Firtash, in turn, used some of those profits to support Russia-aligned politicians. He had been a major sponsor of the Party of Regions and, prosecutors believed, an important paymaster for Manafort. The men were also would-be business partners; a decade earlier, they discussed a deal to buy a hotel in Manhattan. ....... Trump pardoned Manafort before leaving the White House. Had he remained in office, the former president said in a statement earlier this year, “the Ukraine desecration would not be happening.” But with Biden’s inauguration in January 2021, Putin was now facing a new American president who promised a tough line against his imperial designs on Ukraine — and with no obvious back channels through which to manipulate him or his policy. Thirteen months later, Russian tanks crossed the Ukrainian frontier. .
According to @ZelenskyyUa, Hollywood actor Sean Penn left his @TheAcademy, Oscar award, in Ukraine, which will remain there "until Ukraine's victory" as a symbol of belief in such an outcome. President Zelensky awarded Penn Ukraine's Order of Merit. https://t.co/R9LKV53dmV
The Woman T.S. Eliot Loved at Arm’s Length and Enshrined in Verse While Eliot was attending graduate school at Harvard, he expressed his love to Hale but did not ask her to marry him. He moved to England to study at Oxford, and he surprised Hale and everyone else he knew by announcing his wedding to the spirited but fragile Vivienne Haigh-Wood. The two embarked on an unusually tortured marriage, becoming estranged and living separately until, in 1938, he helped have her committed to a mental hospital. As the marriage deteriorated, Hale became his muse and confidante. He wrote: “My love for you has steadily grown into something finer and finer. And I shall always write primarily for you.” ....... He was somehow more at ease in words, in abstractions and in memories, than in life. One senses that what he liked was the longing, the generating of the romantic image, the lofty, idealizing word game, rather than the inconvenient presence of the woman herself. ........ In a marriage, he writes at one point, “every moment is a new problem.” Though they spent nights sleeping next to each other, they apparently never consummated the relationship. Gordon calls their long, tormented, highly theoretical affair a “dance of possession and withdrawal.” ....... she did note the “abnormal” conditions of the attachment. Whenever she wavered, Gordon writes, Eliot sent “letters like lassos to hold her fast.” He destroyed most of her side of the correspondence, of which only 26 letters survive, but these give a strong sense of her boldness, intelligence and depth of feeling. ....... When, in 1947, Vivienne’s death finally freed him to marry Hale, he decided not to; he had already moved into rooms with a male friend, an arrangement, he told her, that would be for the rest of his life. ........ In narrating his romantic attachments, she captures his manipulations, his selfishness, what she calls his “cruelty,” without abandoning her mission to understand him and his writing .
Ukraine’s New Air Defense System Comes With a Deep Supply of Ammunition The two NASAMS launchers delivered to Kyiv fire common air-to-air missiles used by its allies......... NASAMS can defend against “basically any type of advanced aerial threat that Russia may try to employ against Ukrainian targets or civilians.” ........ This weapon generally falls into what militaries call a medium-range air defense system, able to hit targets at greater distances than weapons like the shoulder-fired Stinger missile the Pentagon has provided Ukraine, but with less range than larger and more expensive ones like the Patriot missile system. ....... it will allow them to beef up defenses at certain critical sites that need protection,” including around electrical infrastructure. ........ The launcher is capable of firing four different American-made missiles, Mr. Williams said, including the heat-seeking AIM-9X Sidewinder and the AIM-120 Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missile, which has a radar that can home in on airborne threats about 30 miles away. Additionally, it can identify targets approaching from any direction ......... The NASAMS system is among those being considered for the European Sky Shield, a group of 15 nations led by Germany that will be purchasing a variety of missiles to protect against any military incursion by Moscow. ....... “NASAMS won’t provide a dome of protection over all of Ukraine, but it will significantly augment their ability to protect key areas,” he said. “And Ukraine needs more than the two units they have right now.” .
U.S., Allies Vow to Protect Ukraine’s Infrastructure From Russian Attacks Top diplomats from the Group of 7 nations discussed sending more air defense equipment to Ukraine and agreed to coordinate on rebuilding its infrastructure. ......... The Group of 7 nations announced Friday that they would work together to rebuild critical infrastructure in Ukraine that has been destroyed by Russia’s military and to defend such sites from further attacks........ The statement was the culmination of two days of meetings of foreign ministers in the old city hall of Münster, where negotiations that led to the Peace of Westphalia occurred, ending two 17th-century European wars in which millions died. ........ U.S. officials say the chances of Mr. Putin’s using a tactical nuclear weapon on the battlefield are low, but an American intelligence assessment that circulated in mid-October said Russian military leaders had talked about when and how to use tactical nuclear weapons ......... For now, Mr. Putin has adopted another tactic: using missile and drone attacks to damage Ukraine’s energy grid infrastructure. U.S. and European officials say
he is seeking to break Ukrainians’ morale by depriving them of electricity and heat during the winter
. ......... To carry out such attacks, Russia has been getting drones from Iran, and the diplomats discussed imposing further economic sanctions on Tehran ........ The first line in the China section said the group would aim for “constructive cooperation” with China where possible, in particular on climate change and global health. The group went on to criticize China’s human rights abuses and its aggressions against Taiwan. .
Architects Plan a City for the Future in Ukraine, While Bombs Still Fall Irpin was one of the first Ukrainian cities to be destroyed and liberated. Now it’s becoming a laboratory for rebuilding. ....... Today Sapon is in charge of overseeing the reconstruction of not only the Irpin bridge but the entire city. The Russian invasion obliterated much of Irpin’s civilian infrastructure: Attacks blew out thousands of residential windows, collapsed roofs, eviscerated heating systems and destroyed the water filtration system. The Central House of Culture, the public market, the hospitals and the stadium were shelled. All of them would somehow need to be restored. “During this month, we started counting all the damage, scanning everything with drones,” Sapon told me. “We realized that 70 percent was destroyed, that the bridges were gone, all the kindergartens are damaged.” He is working with Irpin’s mayor, Oleksandr Markushin, and the executive director of the Irpin Reconstruction Fund (and a former mayor), Volodymyr Karpluk, to restore the city even as rolling blackouts and energy cuts remind residents that more pain is still to come. ........ The city estimates that it needs at least 50 million euros to prepare for winter, which has already arrived in Ukraine, and one billion euros to completely rebuild. .......... The reconstruction of Irpin may one day serve as a template — or a cautionary tale — for the eventual rebuilding of larger cities like Kharkiv, Kherson and Mariupol. ......... the reconstruction of the Balkans after the Bosnian war is an instructive precedent for Ukraine. Well-meaning organizations and foreign governments arrived with their own plans and strategies for rebuilding and their own expectations for how their work would be received, without adequate consideration of local contexts and histories. In Sarajevo, the newly established municipal government received millions of dollars from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Jordan and Kuwait to build mosques and Islamic centers, but it could not raise comparable funds to rebuild the city’s factories and other critical infrastructure. Everyone seemed to want Sarajevo to become a symbol of something — of reconciliation, multiculturalism, cosmopolitanism, nonalignment, privatization, new urbanism — and no sum of money would be enough to reconcile these competing visions in a society that was fragmented and grieving after a half decade of war. “Already, we are seeing how international institutions are coming to Ukraine and pursuing the same strategies that will lead to failure” ......... The outcome, Piplas details in his 2019 doctoral thesis, “Non-Aligned City,” was a chaotic race to reconstruct Sarajevo in the image of its varied benefactors. ......... Irpin is already awash in international aid and interest. ......... The team understands all too well that they cannot count on international good will alone to survive. To receive the funds they need, they need to market their own averted obliteration. .
Could India Help Broker Peace in Ukraine?India has good relations with both Russia and the West, and seeks a more muscular role in geopolitics. The biggest obstacle is that Ukrainians and Russians don’t want to talk. ....... In July, when a critical deal was brokered by the United Nations and Turkey to free up millions of pounds of desperately needed Ukrainian grain, India played an important behind-the-scenes role in helping sell the plan to Russia, which had been blockading the grain ships. ....... Two months later, when Russian forces were shelling the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in Ukraine, leaving the world anxious about a nuclear catastrophe, India stepped in again and asked Russia to back off........ Earlier this year, France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, floated the idea of hosting peace talks along with India’s leader, Narendra Modi, according to two Indian officials. The Franco-Indian effort never materialized. But it showed that India is increasingly viewed as a potential peacemaker with access to both sides. ....... “Were Russia and Ukraine to express interest in having a neutral third party mediate,” said Jeff M. Smith, director of the Asian Studies Center at The Heritage Foundation, a Washington research institute, “India would be a strong candidate with credibility on both sides.” ........... Even as India has grown — it’s now the second most populous country after China and the world’s fifth largest economy — it is still trying to squeeze itself through a geopolitical needle. It has cultivated closer relations with the United States but Moscow remains a trusted partner, a key energy supplier and the source of much of the Indian military’s weaponry. ....... Mr. Modi seems to enjoy a good rapport with Russia’s leader, Vladimir V. Putin ....... He can speak to Russia directly, which may be why Mr. Macron approached Mr. Modi about joint peace talks. ......... As they faced pressure from the West, Indian officials all along privately maintained that calling out Russia would achieve little, while staying neutral — at least in public — could come in handy in efforts to end the war. So while India has refrained from directly criticizing Russia, it has expressed concern about the violence and suffering the invasion has caused. ......... Mr. Modi, India’s most powerful prime minister in decades, has been trying to refashion the country’s tradition of nonalignment into a more commanding strategy — an “all alignment” of sorts. Peacemaking could carve a more prominent place for India in the global order and possibly bring it closer to a long-sought prize of a fairer power distribution — a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council. ........ Mr. Jaishankar, who holds a Ph.D. in nuclear diplomacy, has been the chief theorist, as well as the chief implementer, of India’s new foreign-policy approach. When not shuttling between world capitals, he gives frequent and candid lectures at universities and research institutions. In his 2020 book “The India Way,” he said India’s rise would be determined by how it navigates a “world of naked self-interest.” .
The Housing Market Is Worse Than You Think Buyers, sellers and renters are in for more twists and turns, as soaring mortgage rates and stubborn inflation signal belt tightening ahead. ....... “Mortgage rates are sky high, prices are sky high, and there’s no inventory,” said Mark Zandi, the chief economist at Moody’s Analytics. “This may be the worst time in my living history for the home buyer — it just doesn’t make sense.” ....... they all agreed that the market is cooling fast. Home prices are going to drop, just not to the extent some buyers have hoped for. Sellers are going to have to work for their closings again. And renters may finally get a reprieve from surging prices, even as prices stay well above prepandemic levels ........ the cuts are coming, analysts said, perhaps as deep as 20 to 30 percent in markets that saw the most appreciation ...... Existing home prices soared 45 percent from December 2019 to June 2022, the start of the pandemic to the summer peak in pricing, the biggest jump ever recorded in such a short window of time ......... if a recession hits, an increasingly likely scenario, prices could drop 20 percent. ........ buy the house you can afford now, and refinance when mortgage rates dip. ........ There may be some moderate relief for renters, but a return to prepandemic pricing isn’t likely ....... Demand for market-rate rentals in the third quarter was negative, meaning there were more people moving out of apartments than into them — the first time this has happened in the typically busy summer months in 30 years .
We Need to Be Clear About Who Pushed Us to the Breaking Point Where Will This Political Violence Lead? Look to the 1850s. In the mid-19th century, a pro-slavery minority — encouraged by lawmakers — used violence to stifle a growing anti-slavery majority. It wasn’t long before the other side embraced force as a necessary response........ Early Friday morning, an intruder broke into the San Francisco home of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and bludgeoned her husband, Paul Pelosi, 82, on the head with a hammer......... Details are still scant, but early indications suggest that the suspect, David Depape, is an avid purveyor of anti-Semitic, QAnon and MAGA conspiracy theories. Before the attack, the assailant reportedly shouted, “Where is Nancy? Where is Nancy?” ........ This is the United States of America in 2022. A country where political violence — including the threat of political violence — has become a feature, not a bug......... That’s the stuff of the 1850s, when mainstream Democrats turned away from democracy and openly embraced violence, vigilantism and treason to protect a world they saw at risk of disappearing........ Democratic violence in the 1850s ultimately led a majority of Republicans, who represented the political majority, to draw a line in the sand and enforce it by violence when necessary. If history is a guidepost, we are on the precipice of dangerous future in which politics devolves into a contest of force rather than ideas. That’s a future everyone should want to avoid. .
The Lifeblood of Iranian Democracy in September, the movement soon mobilized under the chant of zan, zendegi, azadi—“women, life, liberty”—and has used social media posts alongside street demonstrations to critique the government’s violent apparatuses of control over women’s bodies and life choices. ....... it is an organic movement that continues to define its democratic ambitions through each act of resistance, each instance of imagining governance otherwise. ......... One of the remarkable facets of this resistance is the creativity through which protesters, led by women, make their voices heard and their demands known. Their actions—through song and dance, artistic interventions and performances—illustrate the multiplicity of forms through which democratic agency can be enacted and mobilized. ......... Iran undertook one of the most significant experiments with democracy at the turn of the last century with the Constitutional Revolution of 1905–1911. The constitutionalists who challenged and imposed limits on the ruling Qajar dynasty established a parliament that purported to represent the whole people, but like so many governments making such claims, it turned out to be highly exclusionary. Through a gendered concept of citizenship, women were deprived of voice and decision-making in government, all the while a new bill of rights professed to guarantee citizens legal equality and protection of life and property. .......... Faced with unjust political and legal mandates alongside oppressive social norms, Iranian women found creative ways to resist regulatory discourses through writing, speaking, and performing their agency in their own voices. ......... As early as the nineteenth century, Iranian women took up the pen in a bid to critique and reshape the culture. One of the most remarkable such figures was Bibi Khanum Astarabadi (1858/9–1921). Known simply as Bibi Khanum, she is remembered for writing one of the most scathing critiques of men’s comportment toward women in Qajar Iran before the constitutional period. ........... With incisive humour and wit, she dismantled each of the ten recommendations in The Education—including women’s obedience, forbearance, and “proper” bodily comportment—and further took men to task for their vices and hypocrisies. As she notes, she was encouraged by other women who felt The Education deserved a strong response. Vices of Men indicates the enduring presence of a powerful counter-discourse against dominant narratives in Iran’s public sphere. ..........
My country, I will build you again, if need be, with bricks made from my life. I will build columns to support your roof, if need be, with my own bones. I will inhale again the perfume of flower
favored by your youth. I will wash again the blood off your body with torrents of my tears.
............. Our preachers who make grand displays on their pulpits/ act in a different way as soon as they’re in private. ........... You could say they have no belief in Judgment Day/ the way they practice deceit and hypocrisy in God’s name. .......... Building up through the 1990s to the early 2000s, expressions of popular opposition to the government found a peak in the 2009 Green Movement, which saw a massive outpouring of public defiance in the streets. .......... What exactly can those living under an authoritarian regime in Iran show “Western” observers about ways to rethink the practice of democracy? .......... Democratic theorists in Europe and North America tend to focus heavily on a certain Western understanding of democracy: one that has its historical roots in Judeo-Christian, Greco-Roman, and modern European canons of political thought and its contemporary tribulations in liberal societies characterized by diversity and polarization. .......
we would do well to try to expand our field of vision and consider other experiences for richer insights about ways to practice freedom and democracy.
........ the dissident Sufi tradition ........... art has been thriving underground in Iran, both spatially and symbolically. Censored artists have resorted to using spaces ranging from abandoned buildings in Tehran to rural areas and desert landscapes for spontaneous creations of visual art and dramatic performance. Others have worked within the limits imposed on them by the regime, at times playfully reappropriating its imagery and symbols to signal disobedience. ........ the will of the Iranian populace to reclaim their homeland from a regime that refuses to represent their needs and interests.
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Why I Keep Coming Back to Reconstruction “What were to be the limits of democratic control in the United States?” Du Bois asks. “Was the rule of the mass of Americans to be unlimited, and the right to rule extended to all men regardless of race and color?” And if not, he continues, “How would property and privilege be protected?” ........ Abolition-democracy, Du Bois writes, was the “liberal movement among both laborers and small capitalists” who saw “the danger of slavery to both capital and labor.” ....... Opposing abolition-democracy, in Du Bois’s telling, were the reactionaries of the former Confederate South who sought to “re-establish slavery by force.” The South, he writes, “opposed Negro education, opposed land and capital for Negroes, and violently and bitterly opposed any political power. It fought every conception inch by inch: no real emancipation, limited civil rights, no Negro schools, no votes for Negroes.” ......... What killed Reconstruction — beyond the ideological limitations of its champions and the vehemence of its opponents — was a “counterrevolution of property,” North and South. ........ Democratic life cannot flourish as long as it is bound by and shaped around hierarchies of status. The fight for political equality cannot be separated from the fight for equality more broadly. .
How Elon Musk Became a Geopolitical Chaos Agent The world’s richest man has inserted himself in some of the world’s most combustible conflicts...... While plenty of billionaire executives like to tweet their two cents on world affairs, none can come close to Mr. Musk’s influence and ability to cause trouble. ....... Starlink can beam internet service to conflict zones and geopolitical hot spots, and it has become an essential tool of the Ukrainian army. ........ He has called himself a free speech absolutist, and he is expected to take a light touch to moderating Twitter’s content. ....... Nonetheless, Mr. Musk revealed his plan 10 days later on Twitter. The Kremlin publicly supported the idea. ...... This month, Mr. Musk delivered more uncertainty to Ukraine when he said he could not keep paying for Starlink service to the country, making it seem like he was shouldering the expense. In fact, the United States, Britain and Poland have paid SpaceX for at least part of the Starlink cost ...... While he was in Aspen laying out his peace plan for the war in Ukraine, Mr. Musk also waded into unrest in Iran. ...... Starlink offered the potential to bypass the government’s blockade of land-based internet connections that had taken Iranians in many cities offline. ....... Mr. Musk also recently stepped into perhaps the world’s most delicate geopolitical hot spot: Taiwan. ...... Tesla operates a manufacturing facility in Shanghai that produces as much as 50 percent of the company’s new cars. The Beijing government tightly controls how Western companies operate in the country, and observers have long worried about how Tesla’s dependence on China could affect Mr. Musk’s political positions....... This month, Mr. Musk confirmed that he faced pressure from Beijing, when he told the Financial Times that the Chinese government had made it clear that it disapproved of his offering Starlink internet service in Ukraine. Beijing sought assurances, he said, that he would not offer the service in China.
Labour Party Comes Out Swinging at Britain’s New Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak The opposition’s lines of attack, starting with Mr. Sunak’s choice of home secretary and his wife’s wealth, gave a glimpse of where it sees vulnerabilities in the governing Conservatives. ...... It was a bracing debut for Mr. Sunak in the weekly political cage match known as prime minister’s questions ........ Mr. Starmer described a governing party out of control, bereft of ideas, with a standard-bearer who could not relate to the anxieties of ordinary people. ....... “My record is clear,” Mr. Sunak declared, looking unruffled by Mr. Starmer, as his backbenchers cheered and whooped. “When times are difficult in this country, I will always protect the most vulnerable.” ...... The minister, Suella Braverman, was appointed as home secretary, the same job from which she had been fired by Ms. Truss, ostensibly because she sent a government document on her personal email. ....... She is a popular figure on the party’s right, and her endorsement gave him crucial momentum to thwart Mr. Johnson’s efforts to catch him in the race for nominating votes. Her appointment, they said, was a simple quid pro quo.
An Era Just Ended in China Forty-four years ago, Deng Xiaoping kicked off the period of “reform and opening up” that transformed China from a poor, autarkic nation into an emerging global power. President Xi Jinping officially ended that era last week........ Deng Xiaoping’s strategy for China’s spectacular economic achievements had two main components. The first was a collective leadership arrangement within the Communist Party. Deng rejected Western-style democracy, but China’s tumultuous decades under Mao Zedong had taught him that one-man rule is dangerous. He and the party introduced partial checks and balances into politics at the highest level, including term limits. The second component was a single-minded pursuit of economic growth that, Deng famously declared, would be China’s “hard principle.” Officials throughout China dove headlong into promoting growth at all costs — bringing prosperity but also corruption, inequality and heavy industrial pollution. ......... heavily prioritizing national security over the pursuit of economic growth. ........ “National security is the bedrock of national rejuvenation, and social stability is a prerequisite for building a strong and prosperous China.” ......... If there were any remaining doubts about Mr. Xi’s intentions, he dispelled them by vowing that China would stick to its zero-Covid policy, “without wavering.” His government’s approach to the pandemic, a public health policy in name, is in reality the most powerful security tool devised by the Communist Party, restricting access to the country and controlling who can go where, underpinned by tracking apps that citizens and visitors must have on their smartphones. .......... For observers long accustomed to Deng’s growth-first ethos, Mr. Xi’s policy choice is mind-boggling. The Covid controls are angering citizens, crippling China’s economy, decimating domestic consumption, disrupting manufacturing and logistics, and repelling foreign and local investors alike. .......... and is doubling down on repression out of his instinct for self-preservation. ........ an abrupt and sweeping regulatory crackdown last year that has alarmed investors. The market backlash was intense: Within months, more than a trillion dollars in value at many of China’s most innovative companies evaporated. ........ The Trump administration’s chaotic handling of the pandemic prompted Mr. Xi to boast that “the East is rising and the West is declining.” But his triumphalism was premature. China is far from an even match with the United States in economic, military or technological power. And while American democracy is in crisis, the United States remains strong, a true superpower and a free country able to criticize and renew itself. .......... to his credit, he has confronted serious problems that his predecessors swept under the rug, particularly corruption and economic inequality. His vision of a powerful China, respected on the global stage, is warranted given his country’s size and economic clout. ........ Mr. Xi has plunged China into a vicious cycle: A hubristic and authoritarian leader, unaccountable to society and unchallenged even by his own advisers, makes poor policy choices, which add to his problems, exacerbating his fears of a revolt and leading to more repression. .......... China is the world’s second-largest economy and the biggest trading partner of dozens of countries. ....... Chinese tech companies are already expanding overseas to compensate for a restrictive home environment. ...... China under Mao and the former Soviet Union proved that absolute dictatorships fail miserably at making nations prosperous and strong. They bring only impoverishment and false security. Mr. Xi is likely to relearn those lessons in the coming years.
Xi Jinping Has Fallen Into the Dictator Trap could spell years of uncertainty as problems mount around an unbound leader who has shown little inclination to share decision-making. ....... Mr. Xi fell into the same trap that has ensnared dictators throughout history: He overreached. He has concentrated more power in his hands than any Chinese leader since Mao Zedong, looming so completely over the country that he’s been called the “chairman of everything.” ......... He values fealty to himself as more important than competence, and subordinates compete to prove their loyalty by carrying out his policies to the extreme rather than raising harsh truths about negative consequences. ........ The over-concentration of power in Mao’s hands led to decisions such as his misguided Great Leap Forward, a campaign to greatly increase agrarian and industrial output in the late 1950s that led instead to a devastating famine, and the chaotic political violence of the 1966-76 Cultural Revolution. ........ After Mao’s death in 1976, Mr. Deng made leadership competition more predictable by introducing term limits and retirement ages for leading posts in the government and military and giving party institutions more authority. A pattern of decade-long reigns set in. But Mr. Deng refused to give China’s legislature and courts authority over the party. Party institutions — their members all appointed by senior leaders — proved to be pushovers for Mr. Xi. No visible resistance was raised when he engineered the abolition of presidential term limits in 2018, which could allow Mr. Xi, who is 69, to stay in power until he dies or is deposed in a power struggle. ......... And while the rest of the world has learned to live with the pandemic, Mr. Xi has stubbornly refused to loosen his zero-tolerance approach. Officials nationwide are overzealously imposing mass lockdowns and surveillance in a bandwagon dynamic that has echoes of the Great Leap Forward, when officials over-complied with Mao’s damaging directives. ........... For the first time in years, unemployment has become a serious political risk for the party, and a tanking Chinese real estate market threatens to pull down the entire economy. ........ China has militarized disputed islets in the South China Sea, threatened military action against Taiwan, picked a border fight with India and cut off many imports from Australia after that country’s government called for an international investigation into the origins of the pandemic. Mr. Xi destroyed Hong Kong’s autonomy and has deepened China’s isolation from Europe and the United States by aligning with President Vladimir Putin of Russia just before Mr. Putin launched his brutal invasion of Ukraine.
China and Russia Are Giving Authoritarianism a Bad Name The last decade looked like a good one for authoritarian regimes and a challenging one for democratic ones. Cybertools, drones, facial recognition technology and social networks seemed to make efficient authoritarians even more efficient and democracies increasingly ungovernable. ......... Russia and China each overreached. ....... inviting a war with one of Mother Nature’s most contagious viruses — the Omicron mutation of SARS-CoV-2. It’s now led China to lock down all of Shanghai and parts of 44 other cities — some 370 million people. ........... both Moscow and Beijing find themselves suddenly contending with much more powerful and relentless forces and systems than they ever anticipated. And the battles are exposing — to the whole world and to their own people — the weaknesses of their own systems. So much so that the world now has to worry about instability in both countries. .......... Russia is a key supplier of wheat, fertilizer, oil and natural gas for the world. And China is the origin of, or a crucial link in, thousands of global manufacturing supply chains. If Russia is locked out and China is locked down for a prolonged period, every corner of the planet will be affected. And that is no longer a remote possibility. ........
Putin’s Russia is basically built on oil, lies and corruption, and that is not a resilient system.
....... China bet on a “zero Covid” policy. If it could get through the pandemic with fewer deaths and a more open economy, it would be another signal to the world — a big signal — that Chinese communism was superior to American democracy. ........ if the virus mutates globally, as it did with Omicron, and you have “a less than effective vaccine, virtually no natural immunity in the population, and millions of elderly unvaccinated, you’re in a bad place and there is no easy way out.” ......... High-coercion authoritarian systems are low-information systems — so they often drive blind more than they realize. And even when the truth filters up, or reality in the form of a more powerful foe or Mother Nature slams them in the face so hard it can’t be ignored, their leaders find it hard to change course because their claims to the right to be presidents-for-life rest on their claims to infallibility. And that is why Russia and China are both now struggling.
Xi Jinping Is a Captive of the Communist Party Too Since taking leadership of the Chinese Communist Party a decade ago, he mothballed a power-sharing arrangement among party factions, transforming one of the world’s largest political organizations into a unified whole in which his words, thoughts and visage are everywhere. Speaking in 2016, he used a phrase once uttered by Mao Zedong in describing the party as China’s “east, west, south, north and center.” .......... There is indeed an autocrat who rules modern China, but it is the party that Mr. Xi serves, not the man.
And in a strange way, he is as much a captive of the party as everyone else.
............ the party’s fundamental aim: restoring China to its ancient role as a great nation worthy of its Chinese name, “Zhongguo,” “the central country.” ........ This mission has been in the making ever since the depredations China suffered at the hands of Western nations in the 19th and 20th centuries, followed by the collapse of Chinese imperial rule in 1912 and Japan’s savage wartime invasion. The Communist Party picked up the pieces of a broken nation. Mr. Xi’s power derives from the party’s nationalist goal of wiping away those past shames, restoring China’s strength and control over “lost” territories like Taiwan. Revanchism may drive President Vladimir Putin of Russia, but it is the lifeblood of the Chinese Communist Party. .......... During the Cultural Revolution, Maoist student militants ransacked the family’s home; one of Mr. Xi’s sisters died in the mayhem. Paraded publicly as an enemy of the people, his own mother was forced to denounce him. Mr. Xi eventually spent seven years exiled to the countryside as part of Mao’s exhortation to “learn from the peasants.” .......... Convinced that only the party could restore China’s strength, Mr. Xi was not corruptible by material gain, his old friend said. The question was whether he would succumb to the intoxication of power. ........ The decade under his predecessor, Hu Jintao, was one of missed opportunity, the grand mission of national restoration seemingly forgotten. Corrupt local officials governed their turf like petty tyrants, and protests raged over government heavy-handedness, rampant corruption, poor labor conditions and colossal pollution. ......... It is striking how little meaningful pushback he has encountered. Formidable as Mao was, even he encountered opposition to his destructive utopian policies. Deng Xiaoping faced resistance to his market reforms and Jiang Zemin contended with forces that wanted even greater reform. But with Mr. Xi, there has been almost no party dissent ........... The internet could have threatened centralized authoritarian rule, but Mr. Xi’s government has used algorithms, face recognition and mass electronic surveillance to more pervasively assert party power. A technology backwater for much of the 20th century, China now has the world’s most advanced techno-autocracy. ...........
The systematic repression in Xinjiang is the most extreme manifestation of his obsession with preserving stability, even at the risk of international criticism and domestic suffering. The same goes for his uncompromising zero-Covid policy.
China Is Running Covert Operations That Could Seriously Overwhelm Us China has acquired global economic and diplomatic influence, enabling covert operations that extend well beyond traditional intelligence gathering, are growing in scale and threaten to overwhelm Western security agencies. ........ a “breathtaking” Chinese effort to steal technology and economic intelligence and to influence foreign politics in Beijing’s favor. ....... The pace was quickening ......... China can best be described as an intelligence state. The party views the business of acquiring and protecting secrets as an all-of-nation undertaking, to the point that rewards are offered to citizens for identifying possible spies and even schoolchildren are taught to recognize threats. ............ Barely visible on the world stage 30 years ago, China’s intelligence agencies are now powerful and well resourced. They are adept at exploiting the vulnerabilities of open societies and growing dependence on China’s economy to collect vast volumes of intelligence and data. Much of this takes place in the cyber domain .......... China’s consulate in Houston was closed by the Trump administration in 2020 after it served as a national hub for collecting high-tech intelligence. ......... China’s Intelligence Law, which was enacted in 2017, required its citizens to assist intelligence agencies. But this legislation simply formalized a situation that had already been the norm. The wider China challenge comes from organizations and actors engaged in activities that may not conform to normal concepts of espionage. .......... the United Front Work Department, a party organization that seeks to co-opt well-placed members of Chinese diaspora communities — and whose scope has been expanded under Mr. Xi. China also endeavors to entice other Western citizens. A textbook case, exposed this year, involved a British politician whose office received substantial funding from an ethnic Chinese lawyer who thereby gained access to the British political establishment. One Chinese approach is to patiently cultivate relationships with politicians at the city or community level who show potential to rise to even higher office. Another is known as elite capture, in which influential Western corporate or government figures are offered lucrative sinecures or business opportunities in return for advocating policies that jibe with Chinese interests............ Mr. Xi has stressed the need to adopt “asymmetrical” means to catch up to the West technologically. ....... The Soviet Union lost the Cold War not because of its intelligence operations — which were good — but because of the failure of its governing ideals. .......... Western policymakers and intelligence services must innovate and adapt. But they also must ensure that strategies they employ honor the ideals of freedom, openness and lawfulness that pose the greatest threat to the Chinese party-state.
No, Capitalism and the Internet Will Not Free China’s People Communist Party rule of China has been punctuated by one mass public campaign after another, each designed to commandeer Chinese minds in service of the state. ........ Their cumulative effect is one of the Communist Party’s greatest achievements: a near-perfect symbiosis between dictatorial government and subservient population. ........
The government’s nearly three-year-old zero-Covid campaign may be the worst of all.
......... It’s an affront to science and common sense, yet — reminiscent of the mindlessness of the Cultural Revolution — officials and citizens around the country go to ridiculous lengths to execute it. Entire cities are shut down even for small outbreaks, and coronavirus tests are conducted on fish and other food products, cars, even construction materials. ...... When Chengdu, a city of 21 million people, was locked down in September, residents were blocked from leaving their flats even when an earthquake struck. .......... the government now has a system that Mao Zedong could only have dreamed of, powered by data and algorithms, to monitor and control the people. ........ Chinese minds have in fact never truly been free. China has been a largely united, centralized state for most of the past 2,000 years, and similar ethics and a similar relationship between ruler and ruled have endured throughout. No fundamental change is possible; China’s lowly people are expected to merely obey. ....... He came home one night, exhausted, his face black after someone at a political rally dumped a pot of ink over his head. In an example of the helplessness and resignation of China’s people, he suggested that we just imagine that grim place had always been our home, accept our lot in life and get on with it. China’s people still live under this mentality of surrender today. ......... When I ran afoul of authorities in 2011 after criticizing the government, the police threatened me with an “ugly death” and said they would tell all of China about the absurd allegations they leveled, like tax evasion, to discredit me. I asked if China’s people would believe their lies. Ninety percent will, an officer told me. In China, where all “truth” comes from the party, he may have been right. .......... Things have only worsened in the past decade. Authorities have smothered remaining traces of independent thought, decimated Chinese civil society and cast a chill over academia, media, culture and business. ........ Western engagement with China has been driven by the pursuit of profit rather than values. Western leaders criticize Communist Party violations of human rights, free speech and spiritual freedom, but long have continued to do business with Beijing. U.S. hypocrisy about independent thought is evident in its approach to the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who stands for freedom of information but whom the U.S. government is prosecuting. ........ Millions of Chinese take pride in modern China’s growing wealth and power. But this feeling of well-being is a mirage conjured by superficial material gain, constant propaganda about the decline of the West and suppression of intellectual freedom. China is in fact decaying morally under the influence of the party. In 2011, a 2-year-old girl was run over by two vehicles in southern China and left bleeding in a street. Eighteen people passed by without doing anything, some even swerving aside to avoid her. Don’t think, don’t get involved, just keep walking. The girl later died. ........
Freedom relies on courage and sustained risk-taking.
But a vast majority of China’s people feel that resistance, even at the philosophical level, is impossible, and that personal survival depends on compliance. They are reduced to an anxious servility, lining up like sheep in long lines for their coronavirus tests, or scrambling for food before sudden lockdowns. ........... Freedom and individuality can never be completely suppressed. And no country, no matter how strong it appears, can truly prosper without diversity of opinion. But there is no hope for fundamental change in my country while the Communist Party is in power.
'काठमाडौं- ७ बाट उम्मेदवार बन्न ओलीले अफर गर्नुभएको थियो' : स्वर्णीम वाग्ले टुकुचा अभियानले छेडेको बहस महानगरपालिका स्थानीय सरकार हो तापनि देशको राजधानीमा विकास–निर्माणका काम गर्दा संघीय सरकारसँग समन्वय हुनुपर्छ । त्यसैले टुकुचा अभियानबारे सरकार प्रमुखलाई समय–समयमा जानकारी गराउनुपर्छ । ...... भदौ ६ यता यो लेख लेखुन्जेलको अवधिमा अवैध ढंगबाट निर्माण गरिएका ५६ स्थानका १३५ संरचना भत्काइएका छन् । मेयर बालेन शाहले असोज १५ मा भनेका थिए, ‘कानुनी रूपमा अवैध ठहरिएका सबै संरचना र अनियमित तरिकाले निर्माण गरिएका तथा सार्वजनिक जग्गा मिचेर बनाइएका सबै संरचना भत्काउने कामलाई निरन्तरता दिइनेछ । त्यसका लागि कामनपाले नक्सा अनुसार वैध–अवैध यकिन गरिरहेको छ ।’ ...... नेपाल भाषामा तोरीको साग–डाँठको त्यान्द्रोलाई ‘टुकँचा’ भन्ने गरिन्छ । टुकुचा भन्ने नाम यसै शब्दको अपभ्रंश हो कि भन्ने अड्कल कतिपय अध्ययनार्थीले गरेका छन् । टुकुचा खोलाको आकार ‘टुकँचा’ सागको त्यान्द्रोजस्तै कम चौडा (साँघुरो), तर लमतन्न परेको छ । काठमाडौं महानगरको तत्कालीन सहरी भागको करिब मध्यभागबाट टुकुचा बगेको छ । ....... टुकुचा खोला चुनदेवीदेखि करिब ६.५ किलोमिटर लामो, ४ देखि ८ मिटरसम्म चौडा र ४ देखि १० मिटरसम्मको गहिराइबाट बगेको छ । सजिलोसँग खोलाको पानी बगोस् भनेर खोलामाथि बनाइएको गुम्बजजस्तो संरचना निर्माण गर्दा ठाउँठाउँमा भर्याङजस्तो छाँगा बनाइएको छ । लुकेको टुकुचा क्षेत्रमा करिब ८५ घरधुरी छन् । ...... टुकुचा खोला वर्षायाममा जता इच्छा लाग्यो उतै बग्ने भएकाले पौराणिक कालमा यसको नाम ‘इच्छुमती’ राखिएको होला । ....... जय नेपाल सिनेमा हलदेखि कमलादी मोडसम्म छोपिएको भाग खुला गर्न महानागर लागिपरेको छ । त्यस क्रममा भत्काइएका ठाउँमा टुकुचा खुला भएको छ । ........ मेयर बालेन शाहले असोज ७ गते सामाजिक सामाजिक सञ्जालमा लेखेका छन्, ‘नदीमा अदालतले अल्पकालीन आदेश दिएको छ, अदालतले टुकुचा (इच्छुमती) नदीलाई खोला भन्न सक्दैन भने नेपाललाई कसरी नेपाल देश भनेर प्रमाणित गर्छ ?’ उनले भनेका छन्, ‘हामीले टुकुचालाई न्याय दिन खोजेका हौं, त्यसलाई पुरानै लयमा फर्काउन खोजेका हौं । तर नगरवासीलाई दुःख दिने हाम्रो नियत छैन । समस्यामा परेका र कागजपत्र भएकासँग हामी छलफल गर्नर्छौं । अहिले हामी आफ्नो अभियानबाट रोकिने पक्षमा छैनौं । टुकुचामा पानी बग्न ४ मिटर छाडिनेछ भने दायाँबायाँ ४–४ मिटरको करिडोर बन्नेछ । यो काम पाँच वर्षभित्र पूरा गर्ने उद्देश्य छ ।’ ......... अदालतले स्टे अर्डर जारी गर्न थालेपछि महानगर प्रहरी प्रमुखले भने, ‘यो गतिविधि राम्रो भएन । अब महानगरलाई जनताको साथ चाहिन्छ । केही गरौं भनेको, ठूलाबडाहरू अदालत गुहार्न थाले । जसले खोलामाथि घर बनाएको छ, त्यसलाई अदालतले पनि संरक्षण गर्नु हुन्न । नक्सा पास लिएर त्यति बेला घर बनाएको भए पनि नियम अनुसार नै भत्काउन सुरु गरिएको हो । नक्सा पास लिँदैमा खोलामाथिको घर नभत्काउने हो भने टुकुचाको बाँकी भूभाग खाली गर्न कठिन हुने भयो । अदालतको आदेशविपरीत काम गर्न पनि नसकिने भयो ।’ ....... ‘टुकुचाको डुँड ऐतिहासिक–पुरातात्त्विक हो भन्नेमा शंका छैन । यो डुँड सय वर्ष पुरानो भएकाले प्राचीन संरक्षण ऐन अनुसार भत्काउन मिल्दैन । यसलाई मौलिक शैलीमै राख्नुपर्छ । दस दिन अध्ययन गर्दा पनि टुकुचाको समग्र पक्ष पत्ता लगाउन नसकिएकाले अब दसैंपछि खोलाको शिरदेखि अन्त्यसम्मै अध्ययन गरिनेछ । कतिपय ठाउँमा टुकुचा कहाँबाट बगेको छ भन्ने अत्तोपत्तो छैन ।’ ......... संस्कृतिविद् सत्यमोहन जोशीले पनि भनेका थिए, ‘उति बेला नै राजाहरूले खोलालाई बंग्याउँदा त्यसको समस्या अहिले देखिएको छ । खोला सधैं स्वतन्त्र हुनुपर्छ, तर इच्छुमतीलाई राणा र राजाकालीन समयमै खुला बग्न दिएनन् । टुकुचालाई पनि अन्य खोलाजसरी खुला र स्वतन्त्र हुन दिनुपर्छ ।’ ........... त्यति बेला सडक फराकिलो पारिएको हुनाले कलंकी भएर काठमाडौंबाहिर जाने सवारीसाधनको जाम हटेको छ । ........ स्थापितले पाँचतले घर पनि भत्काई माइतीघर मण्डला निर्माणका लागि मार्गप्रशस्त गरेका थिए । मण्डलाले आज काठमाडौंको सान राखेको छ । रत्नपार्कका टहरा पसलहरू भत्काउने समयमा पितृ किरियाकर्ममा रहेका उनी कोरा कपडामै आई डोजर चलाउने आदेश दिएका थिए । उनले ‘सार्वजनिक भलाइको काममा अहिले कसैले छेक्छ भने उसैलाई डोजर लगाउँछु’ भनेका थिए । यस्तो प्रक्रियाले गर्दा आज त्यहाँ शान्ति वाटिका बनेको छ । ....... सर्वसाधारणले रत्नपार्कमा सुगमताका साथ सार्वजनिक सवारीसाधन उपयोग गर्न पाएका छन् । यसै गरी टुँडिखेल पश्चिमको सडक फराकिलो पार्ने क्रममा स्थापितले महाकालस्थान अगाडिको साझाको फार्मेसी भवन, विश्वज्योति सिनेमा अगाडिको सडक फराकिलो पारे अनि बानेश्वर शंकर चिम उकालोको साँघुरो सडक छेउछाउ भत्काई फराकिलो पार्न डोजर नै उपयोग गरेका थिए । धोबीखोला करिडोर अवधारणा उनैले ल्याई भाइकाजी तिवारी (पछि सहरी विकासका प्रमुख आयुक्त भए) लाई त्यसको योजना र निर्माणको काम सुम्पेका थिए । आज धोबीखोला दायाँबायाँ करिडोरमा सडक सुविधा पुगी ट्राफिक व्यवस्थापनमा सहयोग भएको छ । यसै अवधारणाको अनुसरण गरी वाग्मती, विष्णुमती, मनोहरा करिडोर योजना बनाइएका हुन् । मेयर बालेन पनि यसैअनुरूप अहिले टुकुचा करिडोर सडक कार्यलाई सफलीभूत पार्न लागिपरेको बुझिन्छ । ......... तत्कालीन मन्त्रिपरिषद्को २०६५ मंसिर २ गतेको बैठकले वाग्मती–वष्णुमती–मनोहरा नदी, धोबीखोला, बल्खु–साङ्ले–महादेव खोलाका दायाँबायाँ क्रमशः २०–२० मिटर, १२–१२ र ६–६ मिटर अनि टुकुचा खोलाको ४–४ मिटर क्षेत्रभित्र कुनै पनि संरचना निर्माण गर्न रोक लगाउने निर्णय गरेको थियो । यी नदी खोला किनारमा भौतिक संरचना निर्माण गर्नुपरे अधिकारसम्पन्न वाग्मती सभ्यता एकीकृत विकास समितिको अनिवार्य रूपमा स्वीकृति लिनुपर्ने भनिएको थियो । यसै निर्णयअनुसार समितिले टुकुचा खोलाको पूर्वसम्भाव्यता अध्ययन प्रतिवेदन तयार पार्न लगाउने कार्य अगाडि बढाएको थियो । ......... जग्गा प्राप्ति ऐन–२०७६ को दफा ९(१) मा ‘नेपाल सरकारलाई सार्वजनिक हितका लागि आवश्यक पर्ने जहाँसुकैको र जतिसुकै क्षेत्रफल भएको जग्गा यस ऐनबमोजिम प्राप्त गर्ने र त्यस सम्बन्धी यस ऐनबमोजिम कारबाही गर्ने, क्षतिपूर्ति निर्धारण गर्ने पुनःस्थापना वा पुनर्बास योजना स्वीकृत गर्ने तथा अन्य आवश्यक निर्णय गर्ने अधिकार हुनेछ’ भन्ने उल्लेख छ । यस अनुसार सार्वजनिक कार्यका लागि टुकुचाको पानी देखिने गरी खुला गर्न सकिने देखिन्छ । ........ फ्रान्सको पेरिसमा आइफल टावर नजिकैको सेइन नदीलाई दायाँबायाँ पर्खाल लगाएर दुवैतिर प्यारापेट बनाई स्थानीय बासिन्दा तथा पर्यटकका लागि मनोरम वातावरण सृजना गरिएझैं टुकुचा करिडोरलाई पनि यस्तै बनाउने योजना गर्नुपर्छ । ........ मन्त्रिपरिषद्ले निर्धारण गरेको मापदण्डभित्र रहेर नियमसंगत तरिकाबाट टुकुचा अभियान सञ्चालन गर्दा मेयर बालेन शाहलाई केही तत्त्वले आपत्ति जनाए भने त्यस्तो तत्त्वलाई युवा पिँढीले नकार्नेछन् । .
चार वर्षमा चीन-नेपाल सम्बन्धमा नयाँ अध्याय थपेँ सन् २०१८ डिसेम्बरमा म महान् मिसनका लागि जिम्मेवारी काँधमा बोकी भाव व्याकुल भई भगवान बुद्ध जन्मिनु भएको हिमालयको देश नेपालमा आएँ । ....... संयुक्त रूपमा हिमालय वारिपारिको बहुआयमिक कनेक्टिभिटी सञ्चालन निर्माण गरी नेपाललाई 'भूपरिवेष्ठित देश' बाट 'भूजडित देश' मा रूपान्तरण गर्न सहयोग पुर्याउनेबारे पनि मतैक्य भएको थियो । ...... चीन र नेपाललाई जोड्ने अरनिको राजमार्गको तेस्रो चरणको मर्मतसम्भार कार्य, काठमाडौं चक्रपथको पहिलो चरणको स्तरोन्नति कार्य सफलतापूर्वक सम्पन्न भइसकेको छ । त्रिभुवन अन्तर्राष्ट्रिय विमानस्थल, गौतम बुद्ध विमानस्थल, पोखरा विमानस्थलको स्तरोन्नति अथवा निर्माण परियोजनाहरु सम्पन्न भई नेपाल पक्षलाई हस्तान्तरण गरिसकिएको छ । माथिल्लो तामाकोसी, माथिल्लो त्रिशूली ३ विद्युत् स्टेसनको विद्युतीय ग्रिडमा जोडी विद्युत् उत्पादन प्रारम्भ भएको छ । चीन नेपाल सीमा पार रेलमार्ग, विद्युतीय ग्रिड सञ्जाल आदिको संभाव्यता अध्ययन प्रारम्भ भइसकेको छ । ........ चीन नेपालको दोस्रो ठूलो व्यापारिक सहकर्मी देश हो, सन् २०२१ मा चीन नेपाल व्यापारको परिमाण १ अर्व ९७ करोड ७० लाख अमेरिकी डलर पुगेको थियो ; नेपालबाट चीनमा भएको निर्यात एक वर्ष पहिलेको सोही समयावधिको भन्दा ६३% ले अभिवृद्धि भएको थियो । चीनले नेपालबाट हुने आयात बढाउनका लागि सक्रिय भूमिका निभाएको छ र नेपालबाट आयात हुने ९८% करयोग्य वस्तुहरुमा 'सून्य भन्सार कर' को सुविधा प्रदान गरेको छ, जसमा अहिले नेपालबाट चीनमा निर्यात हुने सम्पूर्ण वस्तुहरू पर्दछन् । ........ दुई देशबीच नेपालबाट सुन्तला, जुनार तथा पशुआहार घाँस चीनमा निर्यात गर्ने बारेको सन्धीपत्रमा हस्ताक्षर भएको छ । नेपालमा सबैभन्दा बढी आर्थिक लगानी गर्ने देश पनि चीन नै हो । माथिल्लो मर्स्याङ्दी विद्युत स्टेसन, होङ्शी सिमेन्ट, ह्वासिन सिमेन्ट आदि चिनियाँ लगानीका परियोजनाहरूबाट उत्पादन प्रारम्भ भइसके अथवा छिटै हुँदैछन् । ....... चीनले प्रत्येक वर्ष एक सयभन्दा बढी नेपाली विद्यार्थीहरूलाई सरकारी छात्रवृत्ति प्रदान गर्दै आएको छ ...... विगत ४ वर्षमा चीन र नेपालबीचको शान्ति सुरक्षा क्षेत्रको सहकार्य पनि बढेको छ । दुई देशका विशेष सेनाको टोलीले 'सगरमाथाको मैत्री' नामक संयुक्त सैन्य अभ्यास गरेका थिए । ....... बहुलवादको सही कार्यान्वयन र आर्थिक भूमण्डलीकरणको समर्थन, एकलवाद, प्रभुत्ववाद र शीतयुद्धकालीन विचार शैलीको विरोध गरी बहुसंख्यक विकासशील देशहरुको साझा हित, क्षेत्रीय एवं सम्पूर्ण विश्वको शान्तिसुरक्षा र विकासका लागि सक्रिय योगदान पुर्याएका छन् । ....... सन् २०२० को प्रारम्भमा विश्वमा शताब्दीकै सबैभन्दा ठूलो महामारी फैलिन गयो ...... नेपालमा पनि सोही महामारी फैलिएपछि चीनले नेपाललाई ठूलो परिमाणमा महामारी नियन्त्रणका सामग्री र करिब २ करोड ४० लाख खोपहरू प्रदान गरेको थियो । विशेष गरी नेपालमा कोभिड–१९ को दोस्रो लहर चल्दा चीनले यथाशीघ्र नेपाललाई अक्सिजन उत्पादक यन्त्र, अक्सिजन सिलिण्डर र तरल अक्सिजन आदि सामग्री सहयोगस्वरूप प्रदान गरी हिमालय वारिपारिको स्वास्थ्य करिडोरको निर्माण गरेको थियो । ....... अर्को महिना नेपालमा पनि निर्वाचन हुँदैछ ..... पहिलो पटक राजदूत बन्दा मैले मैत्रीपूर्ण सुन्दर छिमेकी देश नेपालमा आउने अवसर पाएँ, यसलाई मैले आफ्नो सौभाग्य सम्झेकी छु । ...... भक्तपुरको जुजु धौ दहीको त्यो स्वाद, सूर्यास्त बेलाको माछापुच्छ्रे हिमालको दृश्य, दसैंको बेलामा नेपाली सहकर्मीसँग रातो टीका लगाएको त्यो न्यानो क्षण, तीजका दिन नेपाली गीतसंगीतसँगै नाचिने त्यो उल्लासपूर्ण नाच आदि म कहिले पनि भुल्न सक्दिनँ ।
Rishi Sunak warns of risk that markets lose faith in UK economy (August 30) Former chancellor says Truss’s campaign promises could force up inflation and increase borrowing costs ...... Rishi Sunak has warned that it would be “complacent and irresponsible” to ignore the risk of markets losing confidence in the British economy .......... Sunak said his leadership rival Liz Truss had made unfunded spending commitments that he feared could force up inflation and interest rates, and increase UK borrowing costs........ said he “struggled to see” how Truss’s promises of sweeping tax cuts and help for families struggling with soaring energy costs “add up”. ....... said that market confidence had been maintained through having an independent central bank, strong institutions and a “credible fiscal trajectory”. ....... “We have more inflation-linked debt by a margin than any other G7 economy — basically more than double,” Sunak said. “Because of the structure of QE [quantitative easing], we’re also particularly much more sensitive to an upward rate cycle than we have been.” ....... "What we need to do is just get a grip of inflation now. So that’s a combination of monetary policy, it’s making sure that fiscal policy does not make the situation worse and put fuel on the fire.” ....... He warned that if the Conservative party surrendered its reputation for fiscal discipline it could destroy one of its principal advantages over Labour. ....... uggested that while he expected Johnson to continue as an MP, the outgoing prime minister should accept that his time in frontline politics is over. .......... 60 members of the government all resigned, which you’d have to remember, it’s essentially unprecedented ........ and on Tuesday party members turned up in Bentleys and Porsches to hear Sunak’s pitch. ...... He joked that one of the best parts of the race had been “all these people coming up to me and say ‘wow you’re shorter in real life’”. ........ The biggest applause came for Sunak’s stance on cultural issues: “I want to take on this leftie woke culture that wants to cancel our values, our culture and our women.” .......... Sunak said he “always” tried to give Johnson the benefit of the doubt during policy disputes. “I was there to be supportive, to try and implement what he wanted. I always had a fair shot at making my case. Resigning from being chancellor is a big deal, it’s not something you should do lightly.” .......... “I was always only going to do this on terms that worked for me, in the sense I was going to be true to myself, true to what I believe was right for the country.”
Boris Johnson says he will not stand in Tory leadership contest Move means Rishi Sunak looks almost certain to be PM ........ After cutting short a Caribbean holiday, Johnson spoke to rivals Sunak and Penny Mordaunt in an attempt to persuade them to get on board with his attempted political comeback. ........ However, Johnson has said he is not running after only making it to about 60 declared backers by Sunday evening – well short of the 100-MP threshold required to make it on to the ballot.
“Distributed work introduces friction for managers and they have to learn to manage people as people and not manage by proximity” ....... The point isn’t that there’s something wrong with working from an office. It’s that there’s something right about working from home. ...... It will also probably take years for the pro-remote work argument to fully sink in with the people who have the power to make it the new normal. And giving workers with caregiving responsibilities the flexibility to manage their lives is a drop in the bucket in terms of what America would need to do to make this country truly family friendly. But it’s a very necessary start. .
Xi Jinping Expands His Power, Elevating Loyalists, Forcing Out Moderates A new lineup of the Communist Party elite will limit potential resistance to Mr. Xi’s agenda of bolstering security and expanding state sway over the economy. ....... He kept officials who have promoted his muscular approach in diplomacy and the military. And Mr. Xi gave no hint of preparing for eventual retirement by anointing a likely successor. ......
“China has entered a new era of maximum Xi”
......... a stronger focus on political control, economic statism, and assertive diplomacy.” ...... Mr. Xi’s progress toward his new term has been hampered this year by China’s painful economic slowdown, spreading public frustration over the country’s strict Covid rules, and rumors of internal opposition. ..... urging the party’s members to stay in lock step with him “in thought, politics and action.” ........ A statement from the meeting said Mr. Xi’s leadership was essential to “eradicating grave hazards that were present inside the party, state and military,” apparently referring to corruption and disloyalty. ...... Mr. Xi’s enhanced control suggests China will maintain its tough stance toward Washington, and expand the party’s intervention in the economy, technology and the internet. ....... “It’s all shoulders to the wheel.” ......... Mr. Xi’s new term and his leadership team will not be officially confirmed until Sunday, when the new Central Committee meets and holds a carefully controlled vote. ........ “Proximity to Xi is all that really matters now.” ....... “There are no alternative centers of power centers left in the Standing Committee, if there ever were, even symbolically.” .
Moving Backward’: In Xi’s China, Some See an Era of Total Control A decade ago, many prominent Chinese hoped that Xi Jinping would usher in openness and reform. Today, some of them believe he has created a totalitarian state. ....... As Xi Jinping was preparing to take the helm of the Chinese Communist Party a decade ago, a great number of China’s political, business and intellectual elites were hopeful that he would make their country more open, just and prosperous. ........ China is moving in the opposite direction from liberalization. Obsessed with national security, he is more focused on quashing all ideological and geopolitical challenges than on reform and opening up, the policies that brought China out of poverty. ........ He used the term “new era” 39 times in his speech, boasting of the party’s achievements under his leadership. But for some Chinese, it has been a dark era — a shift away from a system that, while authoritarian, tolerated private enterprise and some diversity in public opinion to one that now espouses a single ideology and a single leader. ......... a totalitarian state that rules with “terror and ideology,” referring to a well-known political theory. ......... Ms. Cai has been expelled from the party for such criticism. The historian, Sun Peidong, can no longer teach or publish freely. Xu Chenggang, the economist, is disappointed that the party again controls everything, including the private sector. All three are living in the United States. ............. They all believe that China, with its vast surveillance systems and punitive social control, now resembles Stalin’s Soviet Union and Mao’s China. In their view, even Russia and Iran have more space for dissent. ............ It’s a view whispered at dinner tables and in chat groups. One online nickname refers to China as “the North Korea to the west.” ............ Many Chinese people were surprised to learn that before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Russians had access to Twitter and Facebook, and that there were several independent Russian media outlets. Beijing has nearly absolute control over what information Chinese people can see and what they can say online. ......... When Mr. Xi came to power in 2012, Ms. Cai believed that the party would embark on a path of reform. But Mr. Xi soon began going after journalists, lawyers, entrepreneurs and nongovernmental organizations. ........ When Mr. Xi changed China’s Constitution in 2018 so he could serve more than two terms as president, Ms. Cai lost hope. “I realized that the party wasn’t able to change,” she said. “If the party couldn’t change, the country wouldn’t be able to change.” ....... In an online hangout with friends back in China, she criticized the party as a “political zombie” and Mr. Xi as a “mafia ringleader.” ......... In 2018, after spending two years in the United States, she went back to Fudan, to a changed country and a changed classroom........ She found that class discussions had become less candid, and she said so on the social media platform Weibo. One morning, she found her office door plastered with printouts of her social media posts, along with threats to post them in other places on campus. ........ Ms. Sun, now an associate professor of history at Cornell University, said she still had nightmares about her experience. “The teeth of totalitarianism were inching toward me,” she said in an interview. “If I still wanted to do the kind of research I liked, I would have to leave China.” .
Not-So-Great Britain’s Conservative Crackup She wilted faster than The Daily Star head of lettuce gussied up to look like her. ........ Liz squared. The longest-reigning monarch meets the shortest-serving prime minister. It was such a swift fall that Truss was anointed by a queen and resigned to a king. ...... Many consider the third woman to dwell at No. 10 incompetent and hopeless, perhaps the worst P.M. in history. ....... She was a bad communicator, a poor speaker and weak on camera. She didn’t understand that you couldn’t simply borrow money from the future. She managed to be a radical ideologue and a lightweight at the same time. ....... “It’s incredibly funny if you’re not English,” Henry Porter, a British writer, told me. “It’s humiliating if you are. Boris is Boris Karloff, the monster who comes alive again, after you thought he was buried.” ....... The outcome was foggy, as Johnson rushed back from a vacation in the Caribbean. In some vote estimates, Sunak was ahead but Johnson was winning support, as well. James Duddridge, an M.P. who backs Johnson, told the British press: “I’ve been in contact with the boss via WhatsApp. He’s going to fly back. He said: ‘I’m flying back, Dudders, we are going to do this. I’m up for it.’” ......... .
Tory lawmakers are split. Half are morally outraged by Boris, and the rest are worried that without the riveting spectacle of Boris, they’ll lose their seats in two years. ...... Many Tories believe, amid rising electric bills, power shortages and inflation, that Sunak — whose wealthy wife was accused of avoiding paying 20 million pounds in taxes until the press upbraided her — would be wiped out by Labour in two years. ........British conservatives are becoming as shameless as American conservatives, willing to put up with any outrage to keep their posh offices and perks. The “good chap” principle in England, the tradition that sometimes you have to leave office for the greater good, seems passé.
Liz Truss Believed in Markets, but the Markets Did Not Believe in Her The world has just witnessed one of the most extraordinary political immolations of recent times. Animated by faith in a fantasy version of the free market, Prime Minister Liz Truss of Britain set off a sequence of events that has forced her to fire her chancellor of the Exchequer, Kwasi Kwarteng, and led her to the brink of being ousted by her own party. ........ The stakes of the crisis were global size. Strangest of all, this was done purposefully, in a reckless act of deliberate policy, better thought of as a gesture of political conviction. .......... capitalist revolutionaries Ms. Truss and Mr. Kwarteng laid low by the mechanisms of capitalism itself. Ms. Truss and Mr. Kwarteng may be the last of the Thatcherites, defeated by the very system they believed they were acting in fidelity to........ Many of Thatcher’s true believers attributed the derailing of her project to the rise of the European Union, which in their view tangled the homeland of classical liberalism in the red tape of European law. .......... Losing the leadership in 1990, Thatcher continued to grumble from the backbenches, growing increasingly hostile to the European Union and finding comfort with a surly group of Tory hard-liners. These Thatcherites, known collectively as the ultras, gained fresh blood in the 2010s as a group of Gen Xers too young to experience Thatcherism in its insurgent early years — including the former home secretary Priti Patel, the former foreign secretary Dominic Raab, the former minister of state for universities Chris Skidmore, Mr. Kwarteng and Ms. Truss — attempted to reboot her ideology for the new millennium. ........... They followed their idol not only in her antagonism to organized labor but also in her less-known fascination with Asian capitalism. In 2012’s “Britannia Unchained,” a book co-written by the group that remains a Rosetta Stone for the policy surprises of the last month, they slammed the Britons for their eroded work ethic and “culture of excuses” and the “cosseted” public sector unions. They praised China, South Korea, Singapore and Hong Kong. “The average Singaporean works two hours and 20 minutes a day longer than the average Brit,” they observed — as if longer working days were something to aspire to. “Britannia Unchained” expressed a desire to go back to the future by restoring Victorian values of hard work, self-improvement and bootstrapping. ......... “there remains a sense in which many of Britain’s problems lie in the sphere of cultural values and mind-set.” ......... As Thatcher herself put it, “Economics are the method; the object is to change the heart and soul.” ........ Ms. Truss and Mr. Kwarteng seemed to have believed that by patching together all of the most radical policies of Thatcherism (while conveniently dropping the need for spending cuts), they would be incanting a kind of magic spell, an “Open sesame” for “global Britain.” This was their Reagan moment, their moment when, as their favorite metaphors put it, a primordial repressed force would be “unchained,” “unleashed” or “unshackled.” ............ But as a leap of faith, it broke the diver’s neck. ..........
This was “Reaganism without the dollar.”
Without the confidence afforded to the global reserve currency, the pound went into free fall.
Liz Truss in the Libertarian Wilderness When the tax cuts were announced, many conservatives compared Truss’s policies — favorably — to those of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. When Reagan pushed through unfunded tax cuts, they also raised interest rates — but they drove the dollar up, not down. Thatcher similarly presided over a strong pound. Why was this time different? ....... the bank did intervene to limit what it considered the danger of a sort of death spiral driven by forced fire sales of long-term bonds........ Politics in the modern West tends to be more or less two-dimensional. One dimension is the left-right divide in economic policy, between those who favor high taxes on the rich and large social benefits and those who want low taxes and small government. The other dimension is the divide over social issues, between those who favor policies promoting racial equality and gay rights and those who bitterly oppose anything they consider “woke.” ........ most voters like government benefits, a lot. Opposition to social spending comes mainly from voters who believe that spending goes to the wrong people — people who don’t look like them. ........ a large bloc of voters who want the nastiness of MAGA without the right-wing economics.
How Atlanta Remade Hip-Hop In a regional game, rap’s Southern contingent has come to dominate its counterparts in New York and L.A. ......... the complex intersections between music, artists, the streets’ illicit economies, the prison system, racism, poverty and class dynamics in Atlanta, a city that’s branded from the block to the boardroom by an ethos of Black Excellence.
