#pakistan floods 2021

[originallandlockedmariner]

2023

Pickleball. Generative AI. Lula takes office in Brazil, Amazon Rainforest throws a party. Prince Harry refusing to stop talking about his frozen penis no matter how many times society begged him to stop. UFOs are real. Viral cat dubbed ‘largest cat anyone has ever seen’ gets adopted. Pee-Wee’s big adventure ends. Musk & X. Turkey-Syria earthquake kills thousands. India surpasses China as ‘country squeezing in the most peeps’. Tucker Carlson ousted. Miss USA and her 30 lbs moon costume. Wildfires in Kelowna and Hawaii. Macron tinkers with retirement age of the French. Paltrow can’t ski. Big Red Boots. Bob Barker leaves us. Alabama mom delivers 2 babies from her 2 uteruses in 2 days. Charles III. Ukrainian counteroffensive against Russian forces as the war drags on. Taylor Swift is Time’s Person of the Year. African ‘coup belt’. Flo-Jo dies in her sleep. Chinese spy balloon shot down. Hollywood writers strike. Human ‘nice mugshot’ Shitstain and his 91 indictments. Highest interest rates in 2 decades. The Bear’s Christmas episode. War in Gaza. Shinzo Abe is assassinated. Alex Murdaugh. Ocean Cleanup removes 25 000 lbs of trash from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Vase purchased for $3.99 sells for $100 000 at auction. Barbenheimer. A third of Pakistan is flooded. Lionel Messi is the GOAT. Travis Kelce. The Sphere opens in Las Vegas. Regulators seized Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank, resulting in two of the three largest bank failures in U.S. history. “The Woman In Me”. WHO declares COVID ain’t a thing no more. Titan sub sinks, rich people die. Matthew Perry drowns. Dumbledore Dies (again). Massive sales of ‘Fuck Trudeau’ flags for jacked-up micro-dick trucks. Everything Everywhere All At Once. June-August was the hottest three-month period in recorded history across the Earth. Tina Turner dies. And the Beatles release a new song?! Wow… You got big shoes to fill 2024.

Archives for context:

2020

Kobe. Pandemic. Lockdown. Koalas on fire. Harry and Meg retire. Toilet paper hoarding. Alcoholism. Impeach the f*cker. Parasite. Bonnie Henry. Tiger King. Working from home. Sourdough bread. Harvey Weinstein guilty. Zoom overdose. Dip your body in sanitizer. 6 feet. Quarantine. OK Boomer. Home schooling (everyone passes). Murder hornets. Dolly Parton. Don’t hug, kiss or see anybody, especially your family. Chris Evans’ junk. TikTok. Glory holes. Face masks. CERB. West Coast wildfires. Stay home. Small Businesses lose, big box stores win. F*ck Bozos. ‘Dreams’ and cranberry juice. Close yoga studios, but thumbs up to your local gym. Speak moistly to me. George Floyd. BLM. F*ck Trump. Phase 2, 3 and Summer. RBG. Baby Yoda. Biden wins. Bond and Black Panther die. No more lockdown. Back to school and work. Just kidding... giddy up round 2. Giuliani leaks shit from his head. Resurgence of chess. UFOs are real. Restrictions. Dave Grohl admits defeat. Monolith. “F*ck... forgot my mask in the car”. No Christmas shenanigans allowed. Bubbles. Alex Trebek. Use the term ‘dumpster fire’ one too many times. Jupiter and Saturn form 'Christmas Star'. Happy New Year Bitches!!!! 2021... you better not sh*t the bed!!

2021

“We love you, you’re very special”. Failed coup attempt at the Capital. Twitter, FB and IG ban Donny. Hammerin’ Hank goes to the Field of Dreams. Bozo no longer richest man but still a twat. Leachman, Tyson, and Holbrook pass. The economy is worse than expected. Kim and Kanye split. Brood X cicadas. Dre has an aneurysm and nearly has his home broken into. Bridgerton. MyPillow CEO is a douche. Covid restrictions extended indefinitely. Captain Von Trapp dies. Proud Boys officially a Terrorist Organization. Richard Ramirez. Cancer takes Screech. Travel bans. Impeachment trial (again?… oh and this was barely February? WTF??!!) Suez Canal blockage. Myanmar protest. Kong dukes it out with Godzilla, while Raya watches. Olympics. Friends compare elective surgeries. F9. Canada Women’s Soccer Gold. Free Britney. Multiverses. Residential Schools in Canada unearth children’s bodies. Kate is Mare of Easttown. Cuomo resigns. Disney and Dwayne cruise together. Wildfires. Delta variants. Musk passes Bezos. Candyman x 5. Capt. Kirk goes to space. F*ck Kyle Rittenhouse. Astros didn’t win. Squid Game. Goodbye Bond. Dune is redone. Angelina is Eternal. Astroworld deaths. Meta. Omicron. Three Spidermen. Tornados in December? World Juniors cancelled. Pills against Covid. School opening delayed. And Betty White dies. 2022… my expectations are ridiculously low…

2022

Wow… eight billion people. Queen Elizabeth II passes away after ruling the Commonwealth before dirt was invented. The monkeypox. Russia plays the role of global a**hole. Wordle. Mother Nature rocks Afghanistan. Hover bike. Styles spits on Pine. Olivia Newton John, Kristie Alley, and Coolio leave us. Pele was traded to team Heaven. FTX implodes. Madonna and the 3-D model of her vagina. Pig gives his heart to a human. Beijing can brag that it is the first city ever to host both the Summer Olympics and Winter Olympics. Uvalde. $3 trillion Apple. Keith Raniere gets 120 years. The Whisky War ends with Canada and Denmark going halfsies. Mar-a-Lago. Nick Cannon brood hits a dozen. Shinzo Abe is assassinated. Inflation goes through the roof (if you can actually afford to put a roof over your head). Volodymyr Zelensky. European heat wave. Bennifer. Salman Rushdie is stabbed on stage, Dave Chappelle tackled, and Chris Rock is only slapped. Thích Nhất H��nh. Heidi Klum goes full slug. Cuba knocked out by Ian. Liz Truss and 4.1 Scaramuccis. Taylor Swift breaks Ticketmaster. Human shitstain Elon Musk ignores helping mankind and buys Twitter instead. Riri becomes a mommy. NASA launches Artemis 1. Trump still a whiny little b*tch. Music lost Loretta Lynn, Christine McVie, and Meat Loaf. Democracy died at least three times. Pete Davidson continues to date hottest women on the planet (no one understands how?!) Microplastics in our blood. Alex Jones is a c*nt. So is DeSantis. Argentina wins the World Cup. Meghan and Harry. Eddie Munson rips Metallica in the Upside Down. tWitch. Roe vs Wade is overturned by the micro dick energy of the Supreme Court. CODA. James Corden shows he is a "tiny Cretin of a man". Amber (and the sh*t on the bed) Heard (round the world). Sebastian Bear-McClard proves he’s one of the f*cking dumbest men alive. Latin America's ‘pink tide’. Anti-Semitic rants by Ye. Bob Saget. A verified blue checkmark. Godmother of punk Vivienne dies. And, Tom Cruise feels the need for speed yet again. 2023… whatcha got for us?!? Nothing shocks me anymore.

@daily-esprit-descalier

[indizombie]

Mountains in the Himalayas, which span India, Bhutan, Nepal and Pakistan, hardly have any weather stations, which often leads to a lack of accurate data on precipitation levels. There are a few stations located in the lower elevations of the mountains but they do not show whether the precipitation recorded is rain or snowfall. However, a weather station installed at the base camp of Mount Everest showed that 75% of the 245.5mm precipitation on the mountain between 1 June and 10 August this year had fallen as rain. The remaining was snow or a combination of rain and snow. This is a huge jump from the 32% of rain recorded between June and September in 2022, 43% in 2021 and 41% in 2020.

Navin Singh Khadka, ‘Himachal Pradesh floods: More rain, less snow are turning Himalayas dangerous’, BBC

[beardedmrbean]

SRINAGAR, India — Weapons left behind by U.S. forces during the withdrawal from Afghanistan are surfacing in another conflict, further arming militants in the disputed South Asian region of Kashmir in what experts say could be just the start of the weapons’ global journey.

Authorities in Indian-controlled Kashmir tell NBC News that militants trying to annex the region for Pakistan are carrying M4s, M16s and other U.S.-made arms and ammunition that have rarely been seen in the 30-year conflict. A major reason, they say, is a regional flood of U.S.-funded weapons that fell into the hands of the Taliban when U.S.-led NATO forces withdrew from Afghanistan in 2021.

Most of the weapons recovered so far, officials say, are from Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) or Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), both Pakistan-based militant groups that the U.S. designates as terrorist organizations. In a Twitter post last year, for example, police said they had seized an M4 carbine assault rifle after a gunfight that killed two militants from JeM. 

Militants from both groups had been sent to Afghanistan to fight alongside or train the Taliban before the U.S. withdrawal, said Lt. Col. Emron Musavi, an Indian army spokesperson in Srinagar, the capital of Kashmir.  

“It can be safely assumed that they have access to the weapons left behind,” he said.

Government officials in Afghanistan and Pakistan did not respond to requests for comment.

Kashmir, a Himalayan region known for its beautiful landscapes, shares borders with India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and China. A separatist insurgency in the part of Kashmir controlled by India has killed tens of thousands of people since the 1990s and been a constant source of tension between nuclear powers India and Pakistan. 

The year opened in violence as Kashmir police blamed militants for a Jan. 1 gunfire attack that killed four people in the southern village of Dhangri, followed by an explosion in the same area the next day that killed a 5-year-old boy and a 12-year-old girl. At least six people were injured on Jan. 21 in two explosions in the city of Jammu.

While the U.S.-made weapons are unlikely to shift the balance of power in the Kashmir conflict, they give the Taliban a sizable reservoir of combat power potentially available to those willing and able to purchase it, said Jonathan Schroden, director of the Countering Threats and Challenges Program at the Center for Naval Analyses, a research group based outside Washington.

“When combined with the Taliban’s need for money and extant smuggling networks, that reservoir poses a substantial threat to regional actors for years to come,” he said. 

A trove of weapons

More than $7.1 billion in U.S.-funded military equipment was in the possession of the Afghan government when it fell to the Taliban in August 2021 amid the withdrawal, according to a Defense Department report published last August. Though more than half of it was ground vehicles, it also included more than 316,000 weapons worth almost $512 million, plus ammunition and other accessories.

While large numbers of small arms that had been transferred to Afghan forces most likely ended up in the hands of the Taliban, “it’s important to remember that nearly all weapons and equipment used by U.S. military forces in Afghanistan were either retrograded or destroyed prior to our withdrawal,” Army Lt. Col. Rob Lodewick, a spokesperson for the Pentagon, said in a statement.

The Defense Department report also pointed out that the operational condition of the Afghan army’s equipment was unknown.

Questions around the weapons being used in Kashmir were raised in January 2022, when a video of militants brandishing what appeared to be American-made guns was shared widely on Indian social media. Though the origin of the weapons in such cases can be difficult to verify — some may be modified to look like U.S. weapons, while others may not have been manufactured in the U.S. — the Indian military says it has recovered at least seven that are authentic.

“From the weapons and equipment that we recovered, we realized that there was a spillover of high-tech weapons, night-vision devices and equipment, which were left by the Americans in Afghanistan [and] were now finding their way toward this side,” Maj. Gen. Ajay Chandpuria, an Indian army official, was quoted as saying by Indian media last year.

Jammu and Kashmir Lt. Gov. Manoj Sinha said the government was aware of the issue and that measures were in place to combat the infiltration of U.S. weapons into Kashmir.

“We are monitoring the situation closely and have taken steps accordingly. Our police and army are on the job,” Sinha, the region’s top official, said on the sidelines of a news conference last year at his official residence in Srinagar.

Kashmir police official Vijay Kumar also said authorities were fully capable of countering the militant threat.

“Our forces are tracking down militants on a daily basis,” he said. “We are constantly upgrading our equipment and have the latest weaponry at our disposal.”

The militant groups JeM and LeT could be buying U.S. weapons from the Taliban in Afghanistan, where the United Nations says both groups have bases, or through smugglers in Pakistan, said Ajai Sahni, an author on counterterrorism who serves as executive director of the Institute for Conflict Management, a think tank in New Delhi. 

Militants will struggle to get the upper hand, however, without more advanced weapons that have greater firepower but are more difficult to smuggle into the region, Sahni said.

Schroden said that although he had not seen substantial reports of U.S.-made weapons left behind in Afghanistan appearing outside of Kashmir, it would not be surprising if they eventually began turning up farther away in places such as Yemen, Syria and parts of Africa.

“I suspect there hasn’t yet been enough time for these weapons to percolate out that far,” he said. “It’s also possible that the Taliban have held tightly to most of them thus far as part of their efforts to consolidate power and seek legitimization from the international community.”

Beyond weapons, the Taliban’s victory in Afghanistan gave an ideological boost to radical militants in Kashmir and elsewhere, said Ahmad Shuja Jamal, a former Afghan civil servant living in exile in Australia. 

Such militants, he said, “now see in clear terms the political dividends of long-term violence.”

[carletes]

I posted 9,655 times in 2022

That's 7,700 more posts than 2021!

6,206 posts created (64%)

3,449 posts reblogged (36%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@whewchilly

@interlagosed

@artemispt

@the-toasted-teacake

@mediapen

I tagged 7,371 of my posts in 2022

Only 24% of my posts had no tags

#hibi answers - 2,871 posts

#carlando - 951 posts

#carlos sainz jr - 677 posts

#tsor - 409 posts

#lewis hamilton - 304 posts

#carlando headcanons - 271 posts

#lando norris - 235 posts

#¡revolución! - 158 posts

#charles leclerc - 151 posts

#hibi writes - 134 posts

Longest Tag: 140 characters

#for hibi because she wanted carlando edits after all those other ships edits i made for anons and she promised me fanfictions in return 👀❤️

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

And what if I just died??? What if this killed me???

197 notes - Posted July 3, 2022

#4

UNREASONABLE. WHY WOULD YOU DO THIS IF YOU WEREN’T IN LOVE.

241 notes - Posted July 15, 2022

#3

LOOK AT CARLOS COMMENT UNDER NEW MERCEDES PIC!!! Now!!! I’m dying here.. how can you be so perfect!???

I’m going to fuckingGGGGG CRYYYYYYY OH MY GODDDDD THESE FRIENDS SOBBING ALSO PLS CARLOS YOURE SO SWEET YOURE GOING TO BE BACK WE KNOW IT

282 notes - Posted June 14, 2022

#2

guess which tweet lando shot out on his own and which tweet team lando shot out for him

299 notes - Posted July 3, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

About to dox myself a little. Please be gentle.

My country, Pakistan, is drowning. A third of Pakistan is at risk of being deluged by massive floods. 1000+ people have been killed, countless others displaced. We have the highest number of glaciers outside the poles, and because of climate change, they’re melting. The knock-on effect is unspeakable—and yet we must speak of it. Tragedy upon tragedy, especially against our poor and most marginalized, and it feels ceaseless.

Pakistan is just one of many countries who will be—who are being—disproportionately affected by climate change. We need international solidarity and we need radical change. Climate change is here, it is happening, it has been happening. The developed world owes developing countries on a moral level; corporations have bloody hands; the neoliberal economic order has stricken us with debts that are choking us; and through it all, we must—cruelly—battle for air against so many other people and causes who deserve equal attention, equal outrage, equal concern. That is not the world we deserve. That is not the world that will save us from climate change. We need to reimagine what a just world will look like. We need to build global, truly global, solidarity. And in the meantime, we need reparations.

If you can, please consider donating to one of these relief efforts.

To learn more:

https://twitter.com/southasiaindex/status/1563185381876842496?s=21&t=FGyKVZQnqv_-eVRO-GnIvQ

https://twitter.com/baytalfann/status/1564185095510032389?s=21&t=FGyKVZQnqv_-eVRO-GnIvQ

See the full post

8,653 notes - Posted August 29, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[brookstonalmanac]

Events 10.14 (after 1950)

1952 – Korean War: The Battle of Triangle Hill is the biggest and bloodiest battle of 1952. 1956 – Dr. B. R. Ambedkar, leader of India's Untouchable caste, converts to Buddhism along with 385,000 of his followers (see Neo-Buddhism). 1957 – The 23rd Canadian Parliament becomes the only one to be personally opened by the Queen of Canada. 1957 – At least 81 people are killed in the most devastating flood in the history of the Spanish city of Valencia. 1962 – The Cuban Missile Crisis begins when an American reconnaissance aircraft takes photographs of Soviet ballistic missiles being installed in Cuba. 1964 – Martin Luther King Jr. receives the Nobel Peace Prize for combating racial inequality through nonviolence. 1964 – The Soviet Presidium and the Communist Party Central Committee each vote to accept Nikita Khrushchev's "voluntary" request to retire from his offices. 1966 – The city of Montreal begins the operation of its underground Montreal Metro rapid transit system. 1966 – The Dutch Cals cabinet fell after Norbert Schmelzer, the leader of the government party, filed a successful motion against the budget, in what later became known as the Night of Schmelzer. 1968 – Apollo program: The first live television broadcast by American astronauts in orbit is performed by the Apollo 7 crew. 1968 – The 6.5 Mw  Meckering earthquake shakes the southwest portion of Western Australia with a maximum Mercalli intensity of IX (Violent), causing $2.2 million in damage and leaving 20–28 people injured. 1968 – Jim Hines becomes the first man ever to break the so-called "ten-second barrier" in the 100-meter sprint with a time of 9.95 seconds. 1973 – In the Thammasat student uprising, over 100,000 people protest in Thailand against the military government. Seventy-seven are killed and 857 are injured by soldiers. 1975 – An RAF Avro Vulcan bomber explodes and crashes over Żabbar, Malta after an aborted landing, killing five crew members and one person on the ground. 1979 – The first National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights draws approximately 100,000 people. 1980 – The 6th Congress of the Workers' Party ended, having anointed North Korean President Kim Il Sung's son Kim Jong Il as his successor. 1981 – Vice President Hosni Mubarak is elected as the President of Egypt, one week after the assassination of Anwar Sadat. 1982 – U.S. President Ronald Reagan proclaims a War on Drugs. 1991 – Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. 1994 – Yasser Arafat, Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres receive the Nobel Peace Prize for their role in the establishment of the Oslo Accords and the framing of future Palestinian self government. 1998 – Eric Rudolph is charged with six bombings, including the 1996 Centennial Olympic Park bombing in Atlanta, Georgia. 2003 – The Steve Bartman Incident takes place at Wrigley Field in Chicago, Illinois. 2004 – MK Airlines Flight 1602 crashes during takeoff from Halifax Stanfield International Airport, killing all seven people on board. 2004 – Pinnacle Airlines Flight 3701 crashes in Jefferson City, Missouri. The two pilots (the aircraft's only occupants) are killed. 2012 – Felix Baumgartner successfully jumps to Earth from a balloon in the stratosphere. 2014 – A snowstorm and avalanche in the Nepalese Himalayas triggered by the remnants of Cyclone Hudhud kills 43 people. 2014 – The Serbia vs. Albania UEFA qualifying match is canceled after 42 minutes due to several incidents on and off the pitch. Albania is eventually awarded a win. 2015 – A suicide bomb attack in Pakistan kills at least seven people and injures 13 others. 2017 – A massive truck bombing in Somalia kills 358 people and injures more than 400 others. 2021 – About 10,000 American employees of John Deere go on strike.

[alecbicheno]

Blog post 8 - Representation of other cultures within video games

History of representation

When it comes to the history of cultural representation, there is a complex narrative which features both progress and controversy. Early videogames often perpetuated some stereotypes and clichés, simplifying diverse and complex cultures into some offensive portrayals. However, as the industry has evolved, developers started to recognise the importance of sensitivity and cultural authenticity and began creating more nuanced and respectful portrayals. Some instances of cultural appropriation and misrepresentation still occur, but some titles strive for these accurate and respectful portrayals such as the Assassin’s Creed franchise, with its most recent instalment Assassin's Creed Mirage (2023) being well received for its accurate depiction of 9th century Baghdad.

Examples of representation

The above-mentioned Assassin’s Creed franchise is a good place to start when discussing examples of representation. There is a dedication to accurate and respectful portrayals of the culture and location of where each game is set. Assassin's Creed Mirage (2023) is the most relevant example as it is the most recent instalment. It features Baghdad being inhabited by people who spoke Arabic, Persian, Chinese, Hebrew, and Greek which makes sense because as at the time it was seen as the centre of the world and featured many people from many backgrounds. It also had a very open and tolerant society, which can be seen in game by the women who are veiled or unveiled depending on their religion.

Another success is the game Spider-Man: Miles Morales (2020), which was praised for its portrayal of underrepresented communities such as the Puerto Rican population in New York. In the reveal for the game there was a flood of positive reaction over the Puerto Rican flag and other cultural aspects on show. It brings diversity into the gaming landscape with Miles Morales, an Afro-Latino character, and also explores his cultural background where many gamers could relate to his life and struggles.

There are however many cases of misrepresentation in games such as the Call of Duty franchise, one example being in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (2009), which was an extremely popular game. There is a map called Karachi, supposed to represent the city in Pakistan of the same name, and it features Arabic written across the map, Arabic isn’t spoken in Pakistan.

There is also Sniper Ghost Warrior Contracts 2 (2021) which continues to perpetuate stereotypes and displays causal violence towards Arabs as games have been doing for years. While it is set in a fictional place and has a fictional narrative there is a clear Arab influence. There is a part where an Arab father is worried about his daughter getting a phone which brings up negative stereotypes “it actually brings up a negative Arab stereotype: that all Arab men hate women and want to control their daughters. Cell phones, as a cultural object, represent youthful freedom. To deny his daughter of that is to deny the very ‘freedom’ Americans are out there fighting for every day”. (VELDE, 2021)

It just goes to show the way the Middle East is viewed “CI Games is a Polish company, meaning either the American depiction of Arabs has become so pervasive throughout the West - or so lucrative in gaming - that it is the only perspective our medium has on the Middle East.” (VELDE, 2021)

The importance of representation

It is crucial for games to have authentic and respectful depictions of different cultures, especially as games reach a global audience. By representing diverse cultures accurately, games contribute to breaking stereotypes and combating cultural ignorance. Furthermore, these portrayals help players to connect to these characters on a deeper level, helping understand them better and empathise with them and the represented culture.

To summarise, authentic representation in video games is important as it plays a large role in challenging stereotypes, creating a more inclusive and culturally aware gaming community.

Bibliography

CI GAMES. (2021) Sniper Ghost Warrior Contracts 2. [DISC] Xbox Series X. Warsaw: CI Games

DUCKWORTH, J., 2023. Assassin's Creed Mirage Historian Talks Cultural Representation in Baghdad. [Online] Available at: https://gamerant.com/assassins-creed-mirage-baghdad-cultural-representation/ [Accessed 10 December 2023].

Feliciano, E., 2020. The importance of cultural representation in video games. [Online] Available at: https://unfspinnaker.com/87139/features/the-importance-of-cultural-representation-in-video-games/ [Accessed 10 December 2023].

FRANZESE, T., 2020. WHY WE LOVE SPIDER-MAN: MILES MORALES. [Online] Available at: https://www.inverse.com/gaming/spiderA-man-miles-morales-ps5-harlem-diversity-inclusion [Accessed 10 December 2023].

INFINITY WARD. (2009) Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. [DISC] Xbox 360. Santa Monica: Activision

INSOMNIAC GAMES. (2020) Spider-Man: Miles Morales. [DISC] PlayStation 4. San Mateo: Sony Interactive Entertainment

Lee, N., 2016. Shooting the Arabs: How video games perpetuate Muslim stereotypes. [Online] Available at: https://www.engadget.com/2016-03-24-shooting-the-arabs-how-video-games-perpetuate-muslim-stereotype.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAADNKYljNr5WC6TNtnjC9KYJWzIZo_NcxVFyQtVEyPgjGvuRvYlKJ_7ZVwOSnVKm-gmpEJ [Accessed 10 December 2023].

Taylor, B., 2022. Black Culture and Representation in video Games: Black History Month. [Online] Available at: https://terralocalizations.com/2022/02/28/black-history-month-representation-in-video-games/ [Accessed 10 December 2023].

UBISOFT BORDEAUX. (2023) Assassin’s Creed Mirage. [DISC] Xbox Series X. Saint-Mandé: Ubisoft

VELDE, I. V. D., 2021. Video Games Are Still Failing Arabs When It Comes To Representation. [Online] Available at: https://www.thegamer.com/video-games-failing-arab-representation/ [Accessed 10 December 2023].

[sophiesicelebblog]

What's Next for José Andrés and World Central Kitchen? (5/5)

#ChefsForUkraine:

This is the first time José Andrés and WCK have entered a war zone, and yet somehow they are seemingly doing more than ever for the people of Ukraine.

Andrés and his team entered Ukraine just days after the initial invasion. They began by setting up kitchens on the country's borders so that those who were fleeing would have food as they waited for entry to bordering and other nearby countries, including Poland, Romania, Moldova, Hungary, Slovakia, Spain, and Germany. From there, they set up kitchens across Ukraine for those who decided to stay as soon as it was safe to do so. They have also provided water, seeds (home gardens are incredibly common in Ukraine), and other supplies (1, 2).

WCK remains in Ukraine, proving that there truly are no limits to what they can achieve nor the number of people they can help.

Climate Change:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by World Central Kitchen (@wckitchen)

The majority of events that necessitate a response from WCK are caused or worsened by climate change: from wildfires in California and Spain, to Hurricane Ian in Florida, intense rainfall and flooding in Pakistan and beyond, relief is needed more than ever. Climate change causes catastrophic disasters that drive people from their homes, leaving them without access to food. In 2021, WCK launched their Climate Disaster Fund and committed to raising and spending $1billion to provide immediate assistance and food relief for those affected or displaced by natural disasters. They have a ten year plan, and in the meantime they are applying public pressure on world leaders to create long-term climate policies and solutions (3).

Final Thoughts...

José Andrés and the team at World Central Kitchen do incredible, inspiring work every day by providing hot meals and a big dose of hope to people in need around the world. Considering the contagious nature of altruism, the moral elevation effect, it shouldn't be surprising how successful they have come as world leaders in relief. Their social media presence combines Andrés' star power with strategies of recruitment, fundraising, and calling on world leaders to join the cause. Andrés breaks barriers and does not wait for the slow-moving bureaucratic red tape to help others; he disrupts the system by ignoring it, with instant action. From their continuing efforts in a war zone to their work to slow down climate change, thus hopefully preventing from natural disasters from occurring in the first place, there's no telling how much they will do for humanity. So, what's the future like for José Andrés and World Central Kitchen? One thing is for sure...

"We’re here with a simple mission: to make sure food is an agent of change. -José Andrés"

Sources:

1: https://wck.org/relief/activation-chefs-for-ukraine

2. https://wck.org/news/ukraine-beyond-meals

3. https://wck.org/climate

[ausetkmt]

Truthout: Earth Is in “a New Chapter in the Climate and Ecological Crisis,” Study Finds

A new study released Thursday warned that the planet has entered “a new chapter in the climate and ecological crisis,” in which communities are forced to direct massive resources to responding to the escalating impacts of the climate emergency, taking focus away from efforts to slash fossil fuel emissions — causing what the report authors called a “doom loop” that will make avoiding the worst effects of planetary heating increasingly difficult.

The report, published by the Institute for Public Policy Research and Chatham House, calls on policymakers to “actively manage” the risk that further global heating poses to a green transition itself.

“It’s too late to avoid the climate storm altogether, and the challenge of navigating around a storm is very different to the challenge of navigating through it,” said Laurie Laybourn, an associate fellow of IPPR and visiting fellow at Chatham House who co-authored the study. “Our ability to steer out of the storm is frustrated by having to manage the impacts of the storm on the ship.”

“This is an analogy for the challenge facing environmentalism as we head closer to 1.5°C of global heating,” he added. “The worsening symptoms of the climate and ecological crisis — storms, food price shocks, conflict — will increasingly distract us from realizing action to tackle its root causes.”

The report notes that the cost of climate disasters — such as catastrophic flooding last year in Pakistan and in 2021 in Europe and prolonged drought in the western United States and parts of Africa — is already expected to reduce global economic output by $23 trillion by 2050, and recovery efforts could cost the U.S. $2 trillion per year by the end of the century.

“Such demands could come at the cost of diverting effort away from the rapid switch now needed to decarbonize the global economy,” said the researchers in a statement. “The report argues that this risks creating a vicious circle, or ‘doom loop’; the impacts of the climate and nature crises draw focus and resources away from tackling their underlying causes and the urgent steps needed to address them.”

The researchers referred to the dynamic that has emerged in the debate over whether limiting global heating to 1.5°C above preindustrial levels, the target agreed upon in the Paris climate accords, is still possible and how the global community can meet that goal.

“Some argue that declaring the target to be still in reach remains the most powerful motivator, but others believe that breaching the limit could be the ‘wake-up call’ that would spur activists and policymakers to step up their efforts,” said the authors. “But both stances can be exploited by ‘climate delayers’ who don’t want to see rapid reductions in greenhouse gas emissions and wish to block transformational change.”

A failure to move past that debate could lead to policymakers pursuing untested geoengineering methods of limiting planetary heating instead of passing policies to eliminate fossil fuel emissions, as energy experts and climate scientists have clearly stated they must in order to avoid the worst effects of the planetary emergency.

“This is a doom loop: the consequences of the crisis draw focus and resources from tackling its causes, leading to higher temperatures and ecological loss, which then create more severe consequences, diverting even more attention and resources, and so on,” reads the report.

The study bolsters the argument made earlier in February by researchers at the University of Hamburg in Germany. As Common Dreams reported, their study said that continued despair over reaching climate “tipping points” such as the melting of sea ice and glaciers risks taking attention away from “the best hope for shaping a positive climate future… the ability of society to make fundamental changes.”

Laybourn and his co-author, Chatham House research analyst Henry Throp, likened the “strategic risk” of losing sight of solutions to the danger “facing a ship that sailed too long towards a storm on the horizon without significantly changing course.”

“As the storm begins to engulf the ship, making the changes needed to escape it is ever more difficult for the crew, who are distracted by its immediate impacts,” they said.

The authors called on policymakers to:

Develop narratives that motivate even as the climate and nature crises deepen, focusing on the benefits climate action will brig to societies around the world;

Decisively shift the focus of environmental politics toward realizing economic transformation by moving beyond describing the problem and setting climate targets to focusing more strongly on the economic policies needed to transform societies, such as an approach to public finances that enables the required government-led green investment;

Better understand the risks to the green transition as the crisis deepens by improving analysis of complex, cascading risks that could feed into the dynamic of the ‘doom loop’; and

Ensure that younger people are better prepared to lead the green transition despite the distractions and chaos of a world where temperature rises are close to or above 1.5°C or even 2°C.

“As global temperatures tick up ever closer to the 1.5°C threshold, collective narratives are needed that can convey the accelerating, cascading dangers and spur rapid transformative change,” said Thorp. “These narratives must challenge actors and assumptions that delay action on climate change and should create the basis, direction, and momentum for a climate transition aligned with nature restoration and opportunities for sustainable development.“

[hardynwa]

Suicide bomber kills nine police officers in Pakistan

A suicide bomber killed nine police officers and wounded 16 others Monday in an attack on their truck in southwestern Pakistan, officials said. Security forces have been battling a years-long insurgency by militants in Balochistan demanding a bigger share of the province’s wealth, as well as attacks by the Pakistan Taliban (TTP). “The suicide bomber was riding a motorbike and hit the truck from behind,” senior police official Abdul Hai Aamir told AFP. The incident took place near Dhadar, the main town of Kachhi district, about 120 kilometres (75 miles) southeast of Quetta in Balochistan. Photos of the aftermath showed the police truck upside down on the road with its windows shattered. Mehmood Notezai, police chief for Kachhi district, told AFP the officers were returning from a week-long cattle show where they had been providing security. There has been no claim of responsiblity for the attack. “Terrorism in Balochistan is part of a nefarious agenda to destabilise the country,” Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said in a statement released by his office. The country is facing overlapping political, economic and environmental crises, as well as a worsening security situation.– Attacks on the rise – Attacks have been on the rise in Pakistan since the Afghan Taliban seized control of Kabul in August 2021, emboldening militant groups along the border which have increasingly targeted security forces. Last month five people died when a TTP suicide squad stormed a police compound in the port city of Karachi. It came just weeks after a bomb blast at a police mosque in the northwestern city of Peshawar killed more than 80 officers — an attack claimed by a group sometimes affiliated with the TTP. “Despite different ideological, ethnic and political outlooks, (militant groups) are all franchises bound by one objective: to hit the security forces and instil a sense of fear and uncertainty in Pakistan,” said Imtiaz Gul, an analyst with Islamabad’s Center for Research and Security Studies. Balochistan, which borders both Afghanistan and Iran, is the largest, least populous and poorest province in Pakistan. It has abundant natural resources, but locals have long harboured resentment, claiming they do not receive a fair share of its riches. Tensions have been stoked further by a flood of Chinese investment under Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative, which locals say has not reached them. China is investing in the area under a $54 billion project known as the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, upgrading infrastructure, power and transport links between its far-western Xinjiang region and Pakistan’s Gwadar port. Read the full article

[mariacallous]

The U.S.-Pakistan relationship has weathered several bumps in the road over the past two years, including, most prominently, the fallout from the Afghanistan withdrawal and the Taliban takeover. The Biden administration has now settled on a bureaucratic division of labor in its policy toward Pakistan: a lack of engagement from the White House; robust, well-defined engagement from the State Department; and a continuation of long-standing military and defense ties. The new equilibrium is different from the past: President Joe Biden is the only U.S. president in recent memory not to have engaged with a Pakistani prime minister (neither Imran Khan nor his successor, Shehbaz Sharif). The bilateral relationship is also notably no longer centered solely around America’s interests in Afghanistan, as it was prior to August 2021: there is an effort by both sides to broaden its base.

Unfortunately, the overall relationship is weak at best. Here are the factors that have shaped the relationship over the last two years:

The Afghanistan factor

At the beginning of the Biden administration, Pakistan recognized the need to redefine the bilateral relationship, until then focused on Afghanistan, as the U.S. withdrawal from that country drew close. Prime Minister Imran Khan’s government pitched the need for a comprehensive relationship with the United States, one based on “geo-economics” — Pakistan’s catch-all for trade, investment, and connectivity — as opposed to a relationship focused on security concerns. The Biden administration wasn’t responsive, and the relationship got off to a cold start. At the time, the United States was focused on Afghanistan and the need for Pakistan to exercise pressure on the Taliban to push it toward an intra-Afghan peace. Then, as the Taliban undertook a systematic military takeover of Afghanistan while the United States withdrew, the relationship cooled further. In the months afterward, although Pakistan helped in evacuations from Kabul and in taking in Afghan refugees, the ignominy of the withdrawal — that the war ended with a clear Taliban victory and in view of Pakistan’s close relationship with the Taliban — pushed relations to a relative low point.

No phone call

Biden has not called a Pakistani prime minister in his more than two years in office. Biden neither mentioned Pakistan during the withdrawal from Afghanistan, nor showed any interest in engaging with the country at that point. The lack of a phone call drew considerable attention in Pakistan during Biden’s first year in office, and was ostensibly one of the reasons Khan declined the administration’s invitation to attend the first Summit for Democracy in December 2021. Even Pakistan’s catastrophic summer flooding in 2022, which elicited a robust U.S. government response, did not prompt a Biden call. Yet in October 2022, seemingly out of the blue, Biden mentioned Pakistan in strongly negative terms at a Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee reception, describing it as “what I think is maybe one of the most dangerous nations in the world: Pakistan. Nuclear weapons without any cohesion.” This statement did not go over well in Pakistan, prompting a bit of a walk back from the administration, though Biden may have really meant what he said.

Initially, the complete lack of White House engagement with Pakistan was somewhat of a puzzle. Now though, it seems it’s White House policy — reflecting the fact that Pakistan is not a priority. For Biden, it might draw from a desire to put Afghanistan behind him — and with it, its neighbor. Throughout Biden’s many years of watching the Afghanistan war from the Senate and then as vice president, Pakistan’s relationship with the Taliban had always been a source of tension.

Pakistani politics

In the spring of 2022, America was drawn into Pakistan’s domestic politics in a sudden, unfavorable manner: Khan blamed his ouster via a vote of no confidence on a U.S. “regime change” conspiracy, without evidence — a narrative that stuck among his supporters. In recent months, Khan has stepped back from the U.S. conspiracy narrative and has more directly blamed the Pakistani military for the fall of his government — the actual story. Still, the narrative complicated the U.S. relationship with Pakistan for months in 2022, as Khan’s supporters considered any engagement between the United States and the new government in Islamabad to be confirmation of the conspiracy.

Ties with State, and broadening the relationship

Although the White House remained silent, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Khan’s foreign minister, Shah Mahmood Qureshi, spoke several times and met in New York in September 2021. Spring 2022 began a period of robust engagement from the State Department, a mini reset of sorts that has focused on expanding the relationship. In March 2022, the United States and Pakistan launched a year-long campaign marking 75 years of relations. In April, the new U.S. ambassador to Pakistan, Donald Blome, was sworn in. In May, Pakistan’s new foreign minister, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, met Blinken in New York. The U.S. special representative for Commercial and Business Affairs, Dilawar Syed, visited Pakistan in July to “strengthen the economic partnership and bilateral trade” between both countries. Also in July, the two governments launched a health dialogue. Soon after Pakistan’s flooding disaster hit in August, U.S. Agency for International Development Administrator Samantha Power visited the country, documenting both the catastrophe as well as U.S. relief assistance; the United States has announced more than $200 million in flood assistance. Bhutto Zardari and Blinken met again in September when the 75th anniversary of U.S.-Pakistan relations was officially celebrated at the State Department. The relationship between the two counterparts appears constructive; it has focused on relief and recovery after Pakistan’s calamitous summer of flooding and increasing cooperation on economic matters.

Engagement and diplomacy continue apace on other fronts: State Department Counselor Derek Chollet and a delegation of senior U.S. government officials visited Pakistan in February 2023 in support of the U.S.-Pakistan relationship. The Pakistani commerce minister visited Washington the same month to hold a meeting under the U.S.-Pakistan Trade and Investment Framework — held after seven years — with United States Trade Representative Katherine Tai. Also in February, a U.S. congressional delegation led by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer visited Pakistan to discuss the “broad-based partnership that includes trade, investment, regional security, and flood recovery efforts.” Pakistan has also been the single largest recipient of COVID vaccines from the United States since 2021.

Defense and military ties

The military leadership in Pakistan had a major transition last fall, with the chief of army staff, General Qamar Javed Bajwa, leaving his post after six years (following an extension). He visited Washington in October before his term ended and met Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. And the commander of United States Central Command, General Michael Kurilla, traveled to Pakistan to reaffirm security ties after the new chief of army staff, General Asim Munir, was sworn in.

The long-standing defense and security relationship continues (though it is no longer the entirety of the bilateral relationship). In September, the U.S. government notified Congress of a proposed $450 million foreign military sale to maintain Pakistan’s fleet of F-16 fighter jets. The security relationship also includes a key focus on counterterrorism and intelligence that presumably encompasses an over-the-horizon arrangement on Afghanistan — but that specific aspect remains shrouded in secrecy. CIA Director Bill Burns visited Pakistan twice in 2021: once in an unannounced visit in April and then again after the withdrawal in September.

What limits the relationship

Pakistan is in a very different place than when its government pitched a geo-economic reset in early 2021. It is now mired in a political and economic crisis, veering perilously close to default. For the time being, its spiraling economic situation and domestic problems limit its attractiveness as a U.S. partner.

Distrust born out of the last four decades of the U.S.-Pakistan-Afghanistan triangle will take time to overcome, despite both sides’ attempts in the last year at broadening the relationship. And while Afghanistan no longer defines the U.S. relationship with Pakistan, the Biden administration’s approach to its other neighbors, China and India, does restrict it. The administration’s intense competition with China, Pakistan’s long-standing ally; its growing partnership with India, Pakistan’s foe; and its focus on the Indo-Pacific (which excludes Pakistan) has led to a priority shift away from Pakistan. Pakistan has long said it doesn’t want its relationships with the United States and China to be seen as zero-sum, and the United States has acknowledged that it doesn’t see its relationships with India and Pakistan as zero-sum. Yet, the American approach to these two Pakistani neighbors does seem to, at this point, impose constraints on the bounds of the U.S.-Pakistan relationship.

This need not be the case: As I have long argued, Pakistan, the fifth-largest country in the world and a nuclear-armed nation, ought to be seen by the United States on its own terms and not through the prism of its neighbors. A cold shoulder risks pushing Pakistan further toward China — which is neither an inevitable nor desirable outcome for the United States. What’s more, Pakistan’s multiple crises — political instability, economic malaise, and rising insecurity — warrant greater American engagement, not less, and certainly more than the current administration’s policy of fractured engagement from the United States.

[xtruss]

How To Save Two Million Lives a Year! India and Pakistan Need To Join Forces To Fight Smog

A man walks along a pedestrian bridge as the sun rises behind him during a smoggy morning amidst the ongoing air pollution in Kathmandu, Nepal April 7, 2021. REUTERS/Navesh Chitrakar

— Leaders | Air Pollution in South Asia | February 17th 2023 | The Economist

Environmental problems in big, fast-growing developing countries can seem intractable. China’s recent advances against air pollution therefore offer, as well as relief to millions, an inspiring lesson.

Before hosting the Olympics in 2008, Beijing was so blanketed in poisonous smog it had to close factories and empty its roads to protect athletes’ health. Yet by applying more modest controls over a much greater area, spanning Beijing, Tianjin and 26 adjacent prefectures, it has since made much more sustainable progress. The average concentration of hazardous pm2.5 particles in Beijing in 2021 was half what it was in 2015. Contestants at the Winter Olympics in Beijing last year performed under blue skies and with a view of distant peaks.

This should provide not only inspiration but an invaluable model for the current possessors of the world’s filthiest air, the countries of South Asia. The region has nine of the world’s ten most polluted cities, with devastating consequences for their citizens. In Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Pakistan air pollution kills over 2m people a year. Output lost to pollution-related illness or deaths is estimated to have cost India alone $37bn, or 1.4% of gdp, in 2019. And despite growing public anger over this catastrophe, none of the countries has introduced effective pollution controls.

New analysis by the World Bank suggests that is mainly because they are trying to do so, as Beijing formerly did, on too small a scale. Most of the toxic brown haze choking South Asia’s cities comes not from local cars and waste dumps but from brick kilns, stubble-burning and other pollution sources far away.

The best way to reduce it, as China has shown, is to model pollution, share data and plan controls over the vast expanse in which the smog circulates. That way the most cost-effective solutions, such as regulating brick-kilns, can be prioritised over more expensive or growth-dampening ones, like closing power stations. The Bank has mapped six of these so-called airsheds in South Asia. Huge areas, they span states and municipalities; four of the six cross national borders. One stretches from eastern Iran via western Afghanistan into Pakistan; another from northern India to Bangladesh.

It is not easy to imagine India and Pakistan, let alone the mullah-rulers of Afghanistan and Iran, exchanging data and best-practice on airborne particulates. Riven by its violent history, South Asia is one of the world’s least integrated and most divided regions. Its officials refer to the smog clouds puthering to and fro across their disputed borders as “environmental terrorism”. This must change. South Asian governments will not otherwise be able to tackle the enormous economic and environmental problems they increasingly face.

To meet the aspirations of their 2bn people, all the countries need sustained and rapid economic growth, which their estrangement impedes. Trade within the region is minuscule and one of its biggest missed opportunities. And air pollution is only one of the cross-border environmental blights it faces. Global warming is redesigning the waterways that cross South Asian frontiers, making severe droughts and flooding likelier on either side. It will increasingly also send refugees across them. To grow faster and prepare for such crises, South Asian countries must learn to co-operate. In their common need to abate the smog killing their citizens, they have both a compelling incentive and a political opportunity to begin that process. ■

[gamegill]

Need for Tackling Development from a Different Perspective — Global Issues

Opinion by Shiraz Ali Shah, Khusrav Sharifov (peshawar, pakistan) Monday, February 13, 2023 Inter Press Service PESHAWAR, Pakistan, Feb 13 (IPS) – Last year’s devastating floods in Pakistan cost the country more than US$30 billion, about 6.4 trillion rupees. The entire Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP) for 2021-2022 was valued at 900 billion rupees. This means that the floods wiped out…

[cryptosecrets]

Need for Tackling Development from a Different Perspective — Global Issues

Opinion by Shiraz Ali Shah, Khusrav Sharifov (peshawar, pakistan) Monday, February 13, 2023 Inter Press Service PESHAWAR, Pakistan, Feb 13 (IPS) – Last year’s devastating floods in Pakistan cost the country more than US$30 billion, about 6.4 trillion rupees. The entire Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP) for 2021-2022 was valued at 900 billion rupees. This means that the floods wiped out…

[myrefersofficial]

Global Issues We Must Acknowledge In 2023

In 2022, there was a significant and sudden decrease in worldwide collaboration. The invasion of Ukraine by Russia violated the United Nations Charter and put the lives of millions in danger. It also expedited a series of interconnected global issues and cascaded one into another in food, fuel, and energy. 

The pandemic caused by COVID-19 continued to wreak havoc worldwide, and fresh research revealed just how catastrophic the pandemic has been, even beyond the disastrous effects it has had on our health. The spread of false information and disinformation posed direct and immediate dangers to the well-being of communities and political institutions. 

After hitting record levels in 2022, concentrations of greenhouse gases continued to grow. Additionally, scores of natural disasters, including significant floods and hurricanes, contributed to the need for humanitarian assistance. The global economic crises have nearly completely wiped out humanity by penetrating families and personal finances. 

The year 2023 will mark the halfway point to the year 2030. During that time, there will be a series of important reviews to determine where we stand with ambitious global agreements on topics such as sustainable development, climate change, gender equity, financing, natural disasters, and universal health coverage, to name only a few.

To make the most of the chance, we must conduct an open and honest evaluation of our current situation. However, when taken as a whole, these reviews will present an opportunity to build political momentum, make bold new commitments, and form inclusive coalitions. 

Top 5 Global Issues To Consider In 2023

#1 Worsening Climate Crisis

Worsening climate crises is one of the major global issues of the world. At COP 27 in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, new finance mechanisms, including a “loss and damage” facility for countries currently suffering from climate change, were agreed upon, advancing climate justice. In 2022, this and the Secretary-Early General’s Warnings for All project addressed climate change’s disproportionate impact on developing nations. 

Despite conflicts between developed and developing nations, countries at COP 15 on biodiversity resolved to safeguard at least 30% of the world’s lands, inland waters, coastal areas, and oceans by 2030. The World Meteorological Organization’s Provisional State of the Global Climate predicts rising emissions this year. 

Climate adaptation must be prioritized after 2022’s natural disasters, especially Pakistan’s flooding. At COP 28, governments are anticipated to agree to a new global adaptation objective. COP 28 will conclude the first Paris Agreement Global Stocktake. Member States had until COP 28 to settle key features of the “loss and damage” facility negotiated this year. 

#2 COVID-19’s After Effects 

The Omicron variety caused a global COVID-19 pandemic in 2022, with over 300 million cases. The global issue of epidemic has killed 6.6 million people. COVAX, the UN-led global initiative to expedite equitable access to COVID-19 vaccinations, showed new expressions of solidarity, but vaccine access remains shamefully unequal.

72.8% of high-income and 28.9% of low-income countries had gotten at least one dosage by December 2022. COVID-19 also hurts immunization initiatives. Immunization coverage fell from 86% in 2019 to 81% in 2021. In 2022, Mpox spread to almost 80,000 cases. Policymakers, healthcare providers, and others battled health misinformation.

Countries started negotiating a new pandemic treaty this year to improve pandemic preparedness and response. Global health funding also improved this year. A Pandemic Fund helps low- and middle-income countries prepare for pandemics. In 2023, countries will negotiate a pandemic pact for May 2024. 

In May, countries agreed to significantly increase the proportion of flexible and predictable financing available to the World Health Organization, and a global pledging conference for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB, and Malaria raised more than $15.6 billion, the largest amount ever raised by a multilateral health fund.

#3 Controlled Global Development

Throughout the past two generations, the global GDP has quadrupled, practically every country has become richer, and more than a billion people have escaped extreme poverty. The Covid-19 outbreak, the Russia-Ukraine war, and the spike in global inflation have all contributed to a reversal of that progress that mutually reinforced one another. 

As a result of the erosion of economic and political gains, billions of people will be in a more precarious position in 2023. There will be a reduction in the size of the global middle class, followed by increased political instability within nations. There is far too much riding on the outcome to go with any other option.

#4 Acute Food Shortages

According to the 2022 Global Report on Food Crises, the number of people experiencing food insecurity is at an all-time high. Acute food insecurity affected up to 193 million people worldwide in 2021, representing an increase of about 40 million individuals compared to the previous year’s total. Shortage of food is one of the major global issues throughout the world. 

The causes include “economic shocks,” such as a surge in the price of food on a worldwide scale. Domestic food price inflation also skyrocketed in countries with low per capita incomes. There is little doubt that international collaboration will be tested in new ways, and the sense of urgency required to reach the deadlines set for 2030 will become even more apparent. 

#5 Cyber Security Threats

The World Economic Forum’s Global Risks Report 2022 highlighted cybersecurity vulnerabilities as a potential concern. It is the increasing adoption of digital technology, partly prompted by COVID-19. The likelihood of cyberattacks occurring in several “advanced economies” has recently increased. 

Attacks caused by malware and ransomware saw increases of 358% and 435%, respectively, in the year 2020. It is due to several factors, including inadequate governance and improved means of assault. Attacks on computer networks have weakened public trust. As nations increasingly rely on digitization, their cybersecurity measures must maintain pace.

Conclusion

To make the most of the chances available in 2023, it will be necessary to take a straightforward and truthful look at the areas in which the world has veered off course without allowing oneself to become disheartened by the magnitude of the problem. As the humanitarian, health, and climatic crises continue to worsen, global leaders will have to choose solidarity.

Governments must take action for people and the earth in ways that have never been done before. The globe will continue to struggle with the widespread ramifications of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and COVID-19’s long tail in 2023, and these crises will impact the whole world. In this regard, 2022 has established several solid bases.

[creatiview]

[ad_1] EXPERT PERSPECTIVE — The COP27 conference in late November put climate change back on the agenda. The summit ended with an historic agreement to establish a loss and damage fund to support countries already ravaged by the effects of climate change. However, there was little progress on other areas such as reducing emissions. COP27 came after another year in the wake of climate disasters. From heatwaves in Europe to catastrophic flooding in Pakistan to the worst drought in the Horn of Africa in 40 years, climate disasters caused billions in damages and economic losses and killed thousands in 2022. Beyond immediate human costs and physical destruction, climate change is set to exacerbate geopolitical tensions in various ways. Experts say displacement and food insecurity from climate disasters will magnify migration and refugee crises and political unrest. Climate-induced changes to the physical environment will open new points of conflict, such as with resource scarcity and the opening of new strategic waterways in the Arctic.  Recently, climate discussions have also begun to better acknowledge national security risks in the clean energy shift needed to combat climate change. Ongoing trade tensions and decoupling trends have exposed how current green energy supply chains can be dominated by adversaries, seen in the US solar industry’s reliance on Chinese solar panels and Beijing’s significant control of rare earths production.  BACKGROUND US federal agencies released climate adaptation and resilience plans in October 2021, as part of the Biden administration’s approach to climate change. The plans include efforts to safeguard federal investments like military installations from climate hazards, develop more resilient supply chains, and expand knowledge on how climate change impacts specific agency missions.  The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law allocates funding to make US infrastructure more resilient to the impacts of climate change. The legislation makes a key investment of over $50 billion to protect infrastructure from wildfires, heat and floods, along with $4.5 billion for drought preparedness. The Inflation Reduction Act will allocate $369 billion to build the clean energy industry, with $270 billion delivered as climate tax incentives. The law is considered the most important climate legislation in US history. The Office of Management and Budget says the Inflation Reduction Act could cut social costs of climate change by $1.9 trillion by 2050. THE EXPERTS The Cipher Brief tapped Secretary General of the International Military Council on Climate Security and Senior Strategist at the Center for Climate and Security Sherri Goodman, Principal at KJM Analytics and former CIA Senior Executive Karen Monaghan and Co-Founder and Chairman of Silverado Policy Accelerator Maureen Hinman, who was also a presenter on the state of climate and national security risk at this year’s The Cipher Brief Threat Conference. Sherri Goodman, Secretary General of the International Military Council on Climate Security, Senior Strategist, Center for Climate and Security Sherri Goodman serves as Chair of the Board at the Council on Strategic Risks, whose Institutes include the Center on Climate & Security and the International Military Council on Climate Security. She is also Vice Chair, Secretary of State’s International Security Advisory Board, and Senior Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center’s Polar Institute and Environmental Change and Security Program. She served as the first US Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Environmental Security. Karen Monaghan, Principal, KJM Analytics LLC Karen Monaghan is a former senior executive with the CIA, where among her positions she served as the National Intelligence Officer for Economics. She has served as a consultant to Deloitte since 2018. Maureen Hinman, Co-Founder and Chairman, Silverado Policy Accelerator Maureen Hinman formerly served as Director

for Environment and Natural Resources at the Office of the United States Trade Representative. She was also the US Department of Commerce’s senior industry trade specialist on international policy development and interagency advocacy for the US environmental technology industry. Expert Perspective The Cipher Brief: How are we doing in bringing sustainability to our security policies? Monaghan: We’re making progress on green energy initiatives and climate change initiatives as a country, but I don’t think we’re any much different. I don’t think we’ve kind of melded the two. I think we understand the implications of climate change, extreme weather, but I don’t think it rises to the level of urgency that we might think it should. There’s a lot of talk about urgency if there’s some big hurricane or whatever, but then it kind of falls off the radar. Climate change, pandemic, it’s an actorless threat, and it’s a lot harder to pin it on an enemy. That’s kind of how we still think in terms of national security. “Who’s the adversary?” I think we’re getting there, but I think we still have a ways to go. Goodman: I’d say there’s a greater recognition of the security implications of climate change today than there was decades ago because lives and livelihoods are being lost on a daily basis. Societies like Pakistan are being destabilized with every increasing catastrophic flood event that mixes in with the other instabilities in society, in a weak governing system that already had inequities in food and water distribution, that’s nuclear armed, that’s subject to a lot of outside influences, taking advantage of vulnerable populations. We now see that climate change is a threat multiplier in every region of the world and that it magnifies all the existing security threats we face. It makes things more complicated in this world of cascading and compound risks. Hinman: We are starting to ask the right questions about what the inherent security risks are to shifting to a clean energy matrix. For a very long time, climate change security risk discussions have been limited to how changing weather and climatic events might act as an accelerant to existing global risks by increasing the likelihood of things like energy and water shortages or crop collapse. We are now pivoting toward the essential questions of the security risks posed by the transition and clean energy system. Those questions include: What are the systemic geopolitical risks of clean energy technologies? What are the acute technology and supply chain risks for clean energy? What are the systemic vulnerabilities of the clean energy economy? And finally, what types of alliances must we foster today to anticipate and short-circuit the risks of tomorrow? The Cipher Brief: How has the Ukraine war impacted the shift to clean energy? Monaghan: The Russian invasion of Ukraine on the one hand has raised issues about, or prompted some to say that this could accelerate a transition. Even the IEA said that. But I think a lot depends on what this winter looks like for Europe. I mean, already we’ve seen demand for coal increase. There have been public calls in a number of countries for more investments in fossil fuels to heat, and not so many calls for investments in sustainable energy, like solar power, for a variety of reasons. Even before the invasion last year, coal use globally was already surging to record levels. 80 percent of the world’s energy is still derived from fossil fuels. I think we have a long way to go. I think when you have something kinetic going on, that kind of rises much higher in the national security realm. Goodman: ​​​Although there’s still some near term needs, there’s a pledge in the EU to go completely off Russian oil and to move off Russian gas as well and, at the same time, to accelerate the energy transition. So I think Putin’s energy strategy, if you have an energy strategy in this war, has backfired on him in the sense that the Russian economy is deeply dependent on its exports of oil and gas.

And at the same time, that posed a shock to Europe. If it’s a cold winter in Europe, there could be some hardship in terms of energy supplies. And European countries have asked their citizens to conserve and to be more energy efficient, which we all should. We always forget that efficiency is the fourth fuel in the process. Efficiency is always the cheapest fuel. The less you need, the more you have to do other things. So I think ironically, Putin’s war has helped us to accelerate into the energy transition because now one can more clearly see the promise of electrification of vehicle fleets of cars, and we can more clearly see the promise of a distributed energy grid so that you’re not as vulnerable to attacks on a big centralized grid. Hinman: Many have been operating on the false premise that the clean energy transition can be executed effectively with renewable energy sources alone. The Ukraine war and energy crisis have completely unraveled that notion. While it has been painful, and the human costs of this unconscionable war have been dear, ultimately, the lessons learned about the vulnerabilities in green energy transitions and systems may lead to a more effective and secure clean energy system in the long-term. These lessons include a renewed understanding of the necessity for clean baseload technologies, like nuclear reactors, and a better understanding of the risks of supply chain disruptions to energy systems. As ever, we need energy that is secure, sustainable, and resilient. The Cipher Brief: China suspended climate talks with the US in August over US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan. The two sides later decided at COP27 to restart dialogues on climate. With this in mind, how does climate fit into US-China relations? Monaghan: I think part of the reason the US was interested in restarting talks is not just because the need for China to address its emissions issue, but because so many of the other issues that we’re dealing with China on are so tense — trade issues, the whole chips and semiconductors issue, and tensions over Taiwan after a number of visits by political leaders in the US. I think both the US and China were looking for an avenue to be constructive on. I’m not optimistic that they’re going to make a lot of progress. The fact that they’re actually going to continue to talk is progress, and is an important development. Again, I think part of it is to balance out some of the other really deep tensions, especially on semiconductors and the bans against Chinese technology in US manufacturing. It’s sort of almost at a state of war. We’re declaring war against the Chinese economy. So, let’s have a nice conversation about something that we can agree on that needs to be done. Goodman: There are really three specific ways China could cooperate now that would make a difference. The first is China could join the global methane pledge, and that would help us tackle the most potent greenhouse gas. Second, one of the other achievements or steps towards achievements at COP27 was some new creative ways of climate financing and recognizing that the way in which multilateral institutions like the World Bank and the IMF have typically granted loans for projects incurs too much debt. They’re rethinking about how to finance or to provide some loan forgiveness in that. China could be part of that and be part of promoting new creative ways of climate financing. And then third is promoting global trade in green technologies. In the energy transition, the US and China stand to gain a lot economically from the energy transition, from the growth in renewables, and both economies have slightly different strengths in that. China has traditionally had more strength in manufacturing. The US has traditionally had more strength in entrepreneurship and innovation in the actual technology development. That will matter in making more technologies green and making renewable technologies available to a wider global market at a price that those who are still living in energy poverty can afford.

Hinman: I think the most important thing that the US can do to accelerate results from US-Sino climate talks is to develop a set of strategic economic policies to create incentives for China to meet its commitments under the Paris Accords and build ambition in the future. A Carbon Border Adjustment (CBA) policy in the United States could go a long way to create market incentives for China to decarbonize. More critically, I think the United States needs to remain clear-eyed about the moral risks of trading away human rights to meet climate goals. Despite public pressure to provide an exception for solar panels, the Department of Homeland Security has been formidable in defending our values by continuing to halt solar imports from Xinjiang. The US cannot enter a meaningful climate dialogue from a position of strength if the CCP sees that we’re willing to trade our morals for cheap solar panels fabricated in concentration camps. The Cipher Brief: What are some risks we face in building out green energy supply chains? Goodman: In critical mineral supply chains — for things like cobalt, and lithium, and other rare earth minerals — China is one of the world’s major global producers of those minerals. The US and others are now trying to expand the places in which those minerals can be mined and accessed to friendlier countries from Australia, to Chile, to Canada. Even in the US, we’re looking at doing more mining. But it’s not just the mining, it’s the whole supply chain. It’s the processing, the extraction, and the various segments of the critical mineral supply chain that need to be knit together in a way that reduces the risks of any one point of it being too overly concentrated.  Monaghan: The raw materials needed for green energy projects are often found in parts of the world that are inhospitable. There’s a high concentration that are only in a few countries, many of whom are rivals, many of whom have been wooed, particularly by China, over the last decade. We’re playing catch up in the United States to start wooing these countries, and encouraging them to produce these raw materials and provide open access on the global market.  Let’s just take a mining company, for example, in the DRC. It may be a national mining company, but China does the development. China’s funding the extraction and/or the refining. It’s marketed through a global minerals trading company such as Glencore. It’s very concentrated in a few hands. Add onto that, in some of these countries you have active sort of civil war situations such as the DRC.  For all that we’re going to need to build in terms of batteries and whatever, it’s not that there’s not enough minerals. They’re actually in fewer hands than you would realize. I wouldn’t be surprised, for example, if we had an OPEC of green energy minerals, at some point. Countries and companies get together and form some kind of a cartel. Ten years ago, we were all talking about the death of OPEC. Well, now it’s in some ways more powerful than ever. Ten, fifteen years ago, most people would’ve said, “Oh, OPEC’s a thing of the past” because of fracking in the United States. Things change. When you have tightness in the fossil fuel market, those who didn’t have as much power ten, fifteen years ago, all of a sudden emerge more powerful again. Hinman: The most immediate issue with clean energy is where we are sourcing our technologies and upstream mineral supply chains. Two critical security risks emerge here: First, we should be worried about sourcing energy and grid technologies from adversaries. I am always concerned about the potential for national champions or state-owned enterprises programming in kill switches to the energy critical technologies they sell us. Second, the increasing concentration of mineral processing and critical componentry to a single point of failure in the supply chain is an extreme risk we have been living with for some time.  For the past twenty years or so we were able to squeeze so

much efficiency out of the global economy that we forgot to account for the risk of handing one party a critical node in the energy supply chain. The upside of recent supply chain disruptions is that everyone understands this now, but it will take time to turn this ship and diversify supply chains. I’m concerned whether we have enough runway to execute on this transition in time to deter conflict in East Asia in particular. Cipher Brief writer Ethan Masucol contributed to this report. Read more expert-driven national security insights, perspective and analysis in The Cipher Brief [ad_2] Source link

[brookstonalmanac]

Events 5.26 (after 1940)

1940 – World War II: Operation Dynamo: In northern France, Allied forces begin a massive evacuation from Dunkirk, France. 1940 – World War II: The Siege of Calais ends with the surrender of the British and French garrison. 1942 – World War II: The Battle of Gazala takes place. 1948 – The U.S. Congress passes Public Law 80-557, which permanently establishes the Civil Air Patrol as an auxiliary of the United States Air Force. 1966 – British Guiana gains independence, becoming Guyana. 1967 – The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band is released. 1968 – H-dagurinn in Iceland: Traffic changes from driving on the left to driving on the right overnight. 1969 – Apollo program: Apollo 10 returns to Earth after a successful eight-day test of all the components needed for the forthcoming first crewed Moon landing. 1970 – The Soviet Tupolev Tu-144 becomes the first commercial transport to exceed Mach 2. 1971 – Bangladesh Liberation War: The Pakistan Army slaughters at least 71 Hindus in Burunga, Sylhet, Bangladesh. 1972 – The United States and the Soviet Union sign the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. 1981 – Italian Prime Minister Arnaldo Forlani and his coalition cabinet resign following a scandal over membership of the pseudo-masonic lodge P2 (Propaganda Due). 1981 – An EA-6B Prowler crashes on the flight deck of the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz, killing 14 crewmen and injuring 45 others. 1983 – The 7.8 Mw  Sea of Japan earthquake shakes northern Honshu with a maximum Mercalli intensity of VIII (Severe). A destructive tsunami is generated that leaves about 100 people dead. 1986 – The European Community adopts the European flag. 1991 – Zviad Gamsakhurdia becomes the first elected President of the Republic of Georgia in the post-Soviet era. 1991 – Lauda Air Flight 004 breaks apart in mid-air and crashes in the Phu Toei National Park in the Suphan Buri Province of Thailand, killing all 223 people on board. 1998 – The Supreme Court of the United States rules in New Jersey v. New York that Ellis Island, the historic gateway for millions of immigrants, is mainly in the state of New Jersey, not New York. 1998 – The first "National Sorry Day" is held in Australia. Reconciliation events are held nationally, and attended by over a million people. 1998 – A MIAT Mongolian Airlines Harbin Y-12 crashes near Erdenet, Orkhon Province, Mongolia, resulting in 28 deaths. 2002 – The tugboat Robert Y. Love collides with a support pier of Interstate 40 on the Arkansas River near Webbers Falls, Oklahoma, resulting in 14 deaths and 11 others injured. 2003 – Ukrainian-Mediterranean Airlines Flight 4230 crashes in the Turkish town of Maçka, killing 75. 2004 – United States Army veteran Terry Nichols is found guilty of 161 state murder charges for helping carry out the Oklahoma City bombing. 2008 – Severe flooding begins in eastern and southern China that will ultimately cause 148 deaths and force the evacuation of 1.3 million. 2020 – Protests triggered by the murder of George Floyd erupt in Minneapolis–Saint Paul, later becoming widespread across the United States and around the world. 2021 – Ten people are killed in a shooting at a VTA rail yard in San Jose, California, United States.