Global strategy group

Liberal, Democratic Party-aligned strategists, pollsters, and think tank experts spent six months coming up with the “ultra MAGA” label that President Joe Biden has begun to deploy against Republicans ahead of a difficult midterm election. The Washington Post reported Friday: Biden’s attempt to appropriate the “MAGA” brand as a political attack was hardly accidental. It arose from a six-month research project to find the best way to target Republicans, helmed by Biden adviser Anita Dunn and by the Center for American Progress Action Fund, a liberal group. The polling and focus group research by Hart Research and the Global Strategy Group found that “MAGA” was already viewed negatively by voters — more negatively than other phrases like “Trump Republicans.” In battleground areas, more than twice as many voters said they would be less likely to vote for someone called a “MAGA Republican” than would be more likely. The research also found that the description … [Read more...] about Report: Liberals Spent Six Months Coming Up with ‘Ultra MAGA’ Attack Line

Bovine tuberculosis is a serious problem for UK farmers, deserving the highest standard of evidence-based management. The government's TB-control policy for England includes licensing farmers to cull badgers. As scientists with expertise in managing wildlife and wildlife diseases, we believe the complexities of TB transmission mean that licensed culling risks increasing cattle TB rather than reducing it. Even if such increases do not materialise, the government predicts only limited benefits, insufficient to offset the costs for either farmers or taxpayers. Unfortunately, the imminent pilot culls are too small and too short term to measure the impacts of licensed culling on cattle TB before a wider roll-out of the approach. The necessarily stringent licensing conditions mean that many TB-affected areas of England will remain ineligible for such culling. We are concerned that badger culling risks becoming a costly distraction from nationwide TB control. We recognise the … [Read more...] about Culling badgers could increase the problem of TB in cattle

Ahead of Tuesday’s meeting of the India, U.S., Australia and Japan Quad grouping in Tokyo, China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi has hit out at the U.S. Indo-Pacific strategy and accused Washington of trying to sow discord in the region. Speaking to reporters following talks on Sunday with visiting Pakistani Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou, Mr. Wang said the strategy was “concocted by the United States under the banner of ‘freedom and openness’” and Washington was “keen to gang up with ‘small circles’ and change China’s neighbourhood environment.” His comments came just ahead of Tuesday’s Quad meet in Tokyo to be attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Some Chinese officials have called the group a “small circle” and part of an attempt to create “an Asian NATO”, a charge that its members have rejected pointing to the group’s varying cooperation and India not being a treaty ally of the U.S.. Mr. Wang also took aim at the new … [Read more...] about China’s Wang Yi slams U.S. Indo-Pacific strategy ahead of Quad meet

Endy Bayuni (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta   ● Thu, May 19, 2022 2022-05-19 02:17 0 02c2f042c5018a82e8094ec75262fb2f 1 Academia ASEAN,Joe-Biden,US,Kamala-Harris,summit,China,Indo-Pacific,outlook,strategy,South-China-Sea,Quad,investment Free The United States and ASEAN may have many things in common when it comes to the future of the Indo-Pacific, even on security issues, but they differ on how to deal with China. While Washington is trying to build alliances in the region to contain the rise of China, ASEAN has accepted China’s growing power and tries to include, rather than exclude, Beijing in the emerging regional architecture. There is one problem, though. China has not fully subscribed to the geographical definition of the Indo-Pacific region, suspecting that this framework is tailored to suit the US agenda. Besides, China does not have direct access to the Indian Ocean. But then, neither does the US for that matter, but this has not stopped it from … [Read more...] about ASEAN-US: On the same page, but not in the same boat on Indo-Pacific

Kevin Chen and Quah Say Jye Singapore   ● Fri, May 27, 2022 2022-05-27 01:35 0 02c2f042c5018a82e8094ec752eb6ed3 2 Academia digital-transformation,ASEAN,economic,community,policy,action,globalization,blueprint,regional Free Just over a year ago, ASEAN released its mid-term review of the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) Blueprint 2025. The review reported that 54.1 percent of the document’s line items had been completed, with another 34.2 percent in progress. The grouping was lauded for having made “notable advancements” towards economic integration, though it also encouraged to “accelerate [its] pace of implementation”. Reading the review in May 2022, this observation appears more like a warning. Amidst geopolitical competition between the United States and China, the economic fallout from COVID-19 and the Russian invasion of Ukraine, some observers have claimed that the post-1990s era of globalization is over. Global share of trade to gross domestic … [Read more...] about ASEAN must move more boldly on economic integration

Saskia Sassen speaks with a formidable energy. She engages her audience with her extensive research as she takes you through the “architecture” of globalization, the Global Street, cities and financialization. You may not make all the right connections at once but you are riveted. She was in Mumbai recently to inaugurate a workshop on Subaltern Urbanism hosted by Columbia University’s Mumbai Global Centre, with Support from the Women Creating Change Project. She is the Robert S Lynd professor of Sociology at Columbia University and co chair of the Committee on Global Thought. Author of several path breaking books on Globalisation, her five-year project with UNESCO on sustainable human settlements was published as a volume in the Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems. In an interview to The Hindu, Prof Sassen spoke on wide ranging issues related to her deep study of globalization, cities, the disconnect between the Liberal state and the middle class, the movements that are taking … [Read more...] about Why the middle class is revolting

close Video Tucker: Biden is in no hurry to fix the baby formula shortage Fox News host voices his concerns over the baby formula shortage on 'Tucker Carlson Tonight.' NEW You can now listen to Fox News articles! At a press conference back on March 24th of this year, Joe Biden announced that thanks to the regime change war he's decided to voluntarily wage in Eastern Europe, our country—the United States—will soon face food shortages. Food shortages are "going to be real," Biden said. Now, the reporters in the room dutifully transcribed the words and wrote their stories, but you may have missed it. You may not have even heard this because there weren't a lot of follow-up pieces about these man-made food shortages that Joe Biden was predicting and that's weird, if you think about it, because food shortages are inherently a big deal. You could argue they're even more significant than, say, a slap fight between actors at an award ceremony. Food … [Read more...] about Tucker: This is the cause of the baby formula crisis

If streaming was the television story of the decade, then close behind was the explosion of global content that came to American screens to help fill all that new bandwidth. Shows suddenly appeared from all over the world, most noticeably financed or acquired by Netflix but also flooding in through myriad other streaming services and cable networks. Americans will read subtitles, it turns out. (I’d prefer to think no one’s choosing the dubbed English soundtracks.) The world is a big place, with a lot of production companies, and on any given day in 2019 there were likely to be more international shows premiering in America than American-made shows. Over the years I’ve tried to sample as much of that bounty as I could, from cozy British mysteries to florid Asian soap operas and everything in between. I’ve distilled all those hours into this list of my top 30 international shows of the last decade, full of glaring omissions. The requirements for my list: scripted series produced … [Read more...] about Sacred Games Only Indian Show to Make It to NYT’s 30 Best TV Series of the Decade List

Ever since he succeeded Vittorio Colao as chief executive of Vodafone in 2018, Nick Read has sounded increasingly frustrated at the stock market's refusal - as he sees it - to value the company's prospects appropriately. Yet over the weekend came news that at least one big investor appears to have faith in his strategy. Abu Dhabi-based Emirates Telecommunications Group announced it had bought a 9.8% stake in the mobile operator, paying an estimated $4.4bn (£3.6bn), saying it had done so "to gain significant exposure to a world leader in connectivity and digital services". The company, which has just rebranded itself from the perfectly sensible Etisalat to the rather confusing e& (why do companies do things like this?), said Vodafone's strong reputation as a leading digital-first operator, its rigorous approach to corporate governance and well-regulated global footprint made it an attractive opportunity. Hatem Dowidar, its chief executive, said: "Vodafone is one of the … [Read more...] about Vodafone buys time as Middle East investor dials in 9.8% stake

“After the death of Mahatma Gandhi, there’s nobody left to talk to,” Russia’s leader Vladimir Putin sarcastically joked five years ago commenting on the violations of human rights and freedoms in the West. The Kremlin’s reaction to recent peaceful protests in Moscow has recalled Mr. Putin’s remark. “It seems that Gandhi has come back to haunt Putin,” the daily Vedomosti said. Indeed, it may be no exaggeration to say the anti-Putin protests that began in December with mass rallies and demonstrations against Mr. Putin’s return as President are increasingly reminiscent of Gandhi’s satyagraha against the British Raj. Russian protesters have been on the streets and setting up Occupy-type camps in the Russian capital, dispersing at the first police order and offering no resistance when detained. Writers and artists have organised peaceful “strolls” along Moscow boulevards in support of the protests. “Gandhi successfully used nonviolent resistance to drive the British out of India,” … [Read more...] about Experiments with Gandhi in Putin land