Preview: Foreign Affairs Magazine- NOV/DEC 2023

Image

Foreign Affairs November/December 2023: The new issue features  new essays by today’s leading policymakers and thinkers, including U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan on the future of American foreign policy, former U.S. Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Michèle Flournoy on how artificial intelligence will transform the military, and scholars Henry Farrell and Abraham Newman on the convergence of economic and national security

The Sources of American Power

A Foreign Policy for a Changed World

By Jake Sullivan

Nothing in world politics is inevitable. The underlying elements of national power, such as demography, geography, and natural resources, matter, but history shows that these are not enough to determine which countries will shape the future. It is the strategic decisions countries make that matter most—how they organize themselves internally, what they invest in, whom they choose to align with and who wants to align with them, which wars they fight, which they deter, and which they avoid.

The Dysfunctional Superpower

Can a Divided America Deter China and Russia?

By Robert M. Gates

The United States now confronts graver threats to its security than it has in decades, perhaps ever. Never before has it faced four allied antagonists at the same time—Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran—whose collective nuclear arsenal could within a few years be nearly double the size of its own. Not since the Korean War has the United States had to contend with powerful military rivals in both Europe and Asia. And no one alive can remember a time when an adversary had as much economic, scientific, technological, and military power as China does today.

Research Preview: Nature Magazine – Oct 26, 2023

Image

nature Magazine – October 26, 2023: The latest issue cover features  a map of Mexico based on data that reflect the nation’s genetic diversity, the initial results of the Mexican Biobank project.

How the current bird flu strain evolved to be so deadly

Genetic changes to avian influenza viruses have led to spread among many wild species, creating an uncontrollable global outbreak.

This is the largest map of the human brain ever made

Researchers catalogue more than 3,000 different types of cell in our most complex organ.

Anti-obesity drugs’ side effects: what we know so far

Recent studies evaluate risks associated with drugs such as Wegovy and Mounjaro.

Preview: MIT Technology Review – November 2023

ND23 cover image: a heron plucks a pink plastic fish from a landscape contaminated with plastic trash

MIT Technology Review – November/December 2023: The Hard Problems issue features the Intractable problem of plastics; Fixing the internet; Exploring what it would it take for AI to become conscious. Also, there are so many urgent issues facing the world—where do we begin? Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Jennifer Doudna, and others offer their ideas.

Think that your plastic is being recycled? Think again.

Kid surrounded by bins and scattered plastic containers proudly holds up a toy figure constructed by plastic parts

Plastic is cheap to make and shockingly profitable. It’s everywhere. And we’re all paying the price.

Plastic, and the profusion of waste it creates, can hide in plain sight, a ubiquitous part of our lives we rarely question. But a closer examination of the situation can be shocking. 

Indeed, the scale of the problem is hard to internalize. To date, humans have created around 11 billion metric tons of plastic. This amount surpasses the biomass of all animals, both terrestrial and marine, according to a 2020 study published in Nature

Currently, about 430 million tons of plastic is produced yearly, according to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)—significantly more than the weight of all human beings combined. One-third of this total takes the form of single-use plastics, which humans interact with for seconds or minutes before discarding. 

Minds of machines: The great AI consciousness conundrum

"'

Philosophers, cognitive scientists, and engineers are grappling with what it would take for AI to become conscious.

David Chalmers was not expecting the invitation he received in September of last year. As a leading authority on consciousness, Chalmers regularly circles the world delivering talks at universities and academic meetings to rapt audiences of philosophers—the sort of people who might spend hours debating whether the world outside their own heads is real and then go blithely about the rest of their day. This latest request, though, came from a surprising source: the organizers of the Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS), a yearly gathering of the brightest minds in artificial intelligence. 

Politics: The Guardian Weekly – October 27, 2023

Image

The Guardian Weekly (October 27, 2023) – The new issue features International security corespondent Jason Burke traceing the possible route to a wider war or, in the other direction, to at least a pause in hostilities.

Elsewhere, Ruth Michaelson and Julian Borger hear from terrified Gazans who have been pushed south, while Emma Graham-Harrison, Julian and Ruth consider the likely consequences of a “victorious” Israeli ground offensive.

There’s also a report on rising antisemitism against Jewish people across Europe since the 7 October Hamas terror attack on Israel and the subsequent Israeli bombardment of Gaza. And in the Opinion section, Jonathan Freedland and Nesrine Malik offer powerful perspectives on the conflict.

With much attention ranged on the Middle East, the war in Ukraine has fallen a little from the spotlight. Pjotr Sauer reports from Belgrade, where some young Serbs have been signing up to fight for Russia despite the risk of prosecution at home.

Tributes were paid this week after the death of Sir Bobby Charlton, the former Manchester United and England footballing legend. The Observer’s former football correspondent Paul Wilson remembers a player who became virtually synonymous with the English game.

Arts/Books: Times Literary Supplement – Oct 27, 2023

Image

Times Literary Supplement (October27, 2023): The new issue features ‘Tomorrow becomes today’ – J.G. Ballard’s prescient vision; Revolutionary Paris; The modern novel; Germany from the ashes and Oh, what a lovely war!….

Travel Tour: Autumn In The Scottish Highlands

TRACKS – Travel Documentaries (October 24, 2023) – It’s Autumn in the beautiful highlands of Scotland, where the dramatic wilderness and spectacular wildlife thrive. Discover the secret wild places and the unexpected animals that living in the lovely cool season, as they face challenges while starting to prepare for the winter months ahead.

#autumn #fall #scotland #highland

News: U.S. Concerns Over Israel Objectives, Macron Visits Jordan And Egypt

The Globalist Podcast (October 25, 2023) – We discuss the relationship between the US and Israel, French president Emmanuel Macron’s proposition for an anti-Islamic State coalition and Germany’s newest political party.

Plus: China’s bizarre propaganda TV series ‘When Marx Met Confucius’.

The New York Times — Wednesday, Oct 25, 2023

Image

As Gaza Barrage and Deaths Surge, Angry Accusations Fly at U.N.

Mourning relatives killed in an airstrike on Tuesday in Khan Younis, in the Gaza Strip, after an Israeli aerial bombardment that Israel said was the heaviest of the war, and that Gazan officials said was the deadliest.

Israel said it struck more than 400 targets in Gaza in its broadest single-day assault of the conflict. Palestinian officials said more than 700 were killed, the highest one-day toll of the war.

The ‘Devil’s Playground’ of Urban Combat That Israel Is Preparing to Enter

The aftermath of an Israeli strike in the Nuseirat market in central Gaza on Monday.

A ground invasion in Gaza could produce some of the fiercest street-to-street fighting since World War II.

‘I Went Through Hell,’ Freed Israeli, 85, Says of Subterranean Captivity in Gaza

Yocheved Lifshitz, a grandmother and Israeli peace activist, was kidnapped, beaten and held in tunnels built by Hamas for 17 days.

Cohen Denounces Trump During Courtroom Face-Off

Michael D. Cohen accused his onetime boss, Donald J. Trump, of manipulating his net worth as Mr. Trump stared blankly ahead. It was their first interaction in five years.