Flagship

W. House readies Mideast push

The U.S. outlined responses both to an Iran-backed group’s attack on its soldiers and Israeli settler violence in the West Bank, moves aimed at grappling with the widening Middle East conflict as well as domestic opprobrium. Washington is readying strikes against Iranian targets in Iraq and Syria, CBS News reported, while U.S. President Joe Biden unveiled sanctions against Israeli settlers accused of violence against Palestinians in the West Bank, an announcement The New York Times characterized as “a forceful gesture aimed in part at Arab American voters in the United States who have expressed fury about the president’s backing of Israel’s war in Gaza.” The decisions came as Hamas offered positive signals about a temporary truce tied to a hostage deal.

India unveils election budget

India’s interim budget unveiled Thursday focused on shoring up infrastructure and downplayed social spending, a move analysts said indicated Prime Minister Narendra Modi was “much more confident” his Hindu nationalist party will win a third term in elections this year. Modi boasts among the highest approval ratings of any world leader — averaging 77%, according to one measure — and he likely got a boost from the inauguration of a controversial Hindu temple​​ built over a demolished mosque in northern India. Ultimately, the interim budget was “a platform to signal intent,” a senior Nomura economist wrote in India’s Economic Times. “The government has signaled confidence.”

Cancer rates on the rise

The World Health Organization predicted that annual cancer diagnoses will rise 77% by 2050. The largest increase in terms of absolute numbers will be in richer nations, where populations are older — cancer is overwhelmingly a disease of aging — but the largest relative increase will be in poorer countries, as life expectancy improvements and growing incomes mean greater obesity levels and tobacco and alcohol use. Diagnosis and treatment disparities will mean the burden on developing nations will be disproportionate, although the incidence of any particular cause of death going up necessarily means other causes of death must go down: People living long enough to die of cancer means they have not died of anything else.

US EV sales reach record

Every sixth car sold in the U.S. in 2023 was electric or hybrid, up 25% from the previous year. Falling prices, greater choice, and more widely available infrastructure drove the increase. Tesla “played a significant role” in the price declines, the Energy Information Agency said, with an average Tesla costing 29% less between June 2022 and December 2023. Globally, sales of electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles rose 31% in 2023, although that’s down from the 60% jump in 2022 from 2021. Demand may be slowing somewhat as consumers wait for better, cheaper models which will soon be available as the tech improves, Reuters reported.

China changes gears on EVs

Beijing is heavily betting on new battery technology to power its increasingly dominant electric-vehicle industry. China is projected to reach its goal of having half of all car sales be electric vehicles by 2026. But the EV boom has left an underdeveloped recycling program unable to process thousands of batteries teeming with potentially toxic chemicals. The solution for many Chinese EV giants is switching to sodium-ion batteries, which do not require critical but scarce and toxic minerals like lithium and copper. BYD — the world’s largest EV producer — this month started building a $1.4 billion plant dedicated to sodium-ion batteries, while CATL, a Chinese company that is the world’s biggest battery producer, is also scaling up mass production.

Lunar New Year weather woes

Major snow and rain storms are forecast to hit central and eastern China at the peak of the Lunar New Year travel season. Authorities had predicted 9 billion trips would take place, making it China’s busiest-ever holiday travel season, but several provinces have already started to shut down highways and high-speed train routes, according to Jiemian News, a Beijing-based business-focused outlet. Like other parts of the world, China has been facing extreme weather patterns in recent years that scientists attribute to climate change. After one city in northeast China recorded the country’s lowest temperature in modern history, the country then went on to mark its hottest summer ever.

The case against the ‘Asian century’

Migration from India and China undermines the “Asian century” argument touted by many analysts that the two countries will inevitably dominate global geopolitics, a new opinion piece argues. Increasing illegal migration into the U.S. from India and China as well as data suggesting skilled workers and the very rich are moving away from the two countries indicates their upward swing is not assured, Sadanand Dhume, a South Asia expert, wrote in The Wall Street Journal. The reasons for the migration vary: In China, a crackdown is largely to blame; in India, it’s poor governance and pollution. “Thriving nations typically attract capital and talent,” Dhume noted. “They don’t drive them away.”

French farmers suspend strike

French farming unions suspended their protests and lifted road blockades after winning concessions over environmental regulations and market competition, the first easing of what had been widening demonstrations by the continent’s agriculture industry. Farmers in both western and eastern Europe had been demonstrating against what they argued were overbearing European Union rules as well as over varying domestic issues. Concessions in Brussels and Paris may help blunt their anger, though unease among Europe’s agricultural sector runs deep. While France’s biggest farmers’ union called off its protests, its head told Reuters: “Expectations are huge and beyond what one can imagine.”

Otters fight climate change

Hungry sea otters could be an important ally in the fight against coastal erosion caused by climate change, a new study found. By eating shore crabs — which munch on vegetation keeping sandy banks intact — the otters slowed erosion by up to 90% in a California estuary. Coastal erosion threatens salt marshes globally: The world lost 561 square miles of salt marsh between 2000 and 2019, equivalent to twice the size of Singapore. But researchers said a boom in otter populations could slow erosion by 20 centimeters a year. “It’s almost like, wherever they go, they’re protecting vegetation,” the study’s lead author said.

Dating apps’ decline

The dating-website industry is in decline. The share price of Match Group, which owns Tinder and other huge dating apps, is down 40% in the last year, and a 2023 survey found that 79% of college students don’t use them even once a month. Tinder, originally intended to facilitate hookups, is trying to pivot to focusing on love matches now that Gen Z — with its aversion to drink, drugs, casual sex, and other enjoyable things — is its primary market. Others are moving toward arranging group IRL meetups rather than one-on-one dates, to take the pressure off. Bustle.com quoted one TikToker saying, “If you met your partner on a dating app two years ago, you caught the last chopper out of ‘Nam.”

February 05 | Washington D.C.
Principals Live with Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi
RSVP

An exclusive 1:1 interview with Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi on competing with China, the Democratic foreign policy argument, and the Select Committee’s focus for 2024.

Feb. 2

• Thailand’s prime minister visits Sri Lanka to sign a free trade agreement.
• The International Court of Justice rules on Russia’s request to throw out a genocide case brought by Ukraine.
• The U.S. celebrates Groundhog Day.

Rojak is a colloquial Malay word for “eclectic mix,” and is the name for a Javanese dish that typically combines sliced fruit and vegetables with a spicy dressing.

Apple’s packaging genius

Since it launched the Macintosh in 1984, Apple has used a “deep understanding of human psychology” to design its packaging and optimize the box-opening experience, Trung Phan writes in SatPost, a newsletter about tech and business. That satisfying “whoosh” sound — resulting from the base of an iPhone box dropping down as the top is pulled up, slowed by a light pull of friction — plays on a psychological phenomenon called synesthesia, defined as the blending of a person’s senses.

That experience speaks to the emphasis Steve Jobs, Apple’s late former chief executive, and the company’s ex-head designer Jony Ive put on marketing and packaging: Ive once said he wanted the unboxing process to be a “ritual.” According to a 2012 book about the company, Apple has a “packaging room” where employees experimented with hundreds of prototypes to perfect the consumer experience and give the user a high-tech feeling — all before the phone is ever turned on.

China loves Taylor Swift

In 2023, Chinese music streamers listened to a lot of Taiwanese songs, Taylor Swift, and K-pop. In particular, the placement of K-pop girl group (G)I-dle in the top 10 list from NetEase Cloud Music, one of China’s biggest music streaming platforms, follows “a patchy history impacted by geopolitical tensions,” Jake Newby’s wrote in Concrete Avalanche, his great newsletter about music from China. (Swift was the only Western artist on the list.)

Taiwanese rock band No Party for Cao Dong and the “King of Mandopop” Jay Chou also charted high on streaming services’ end-of-year lists, while Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok, singled out the popularity of traditional instruments as an area that saw a spike in interest. For a deeper understanding of the best Chinese music of 2023, Substack Rojak recommends Newby’s nearly two-hour DJ set on the ChinaTalk podcast.

Modi’s reshaping of Indian society

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s inauguration of the Ram Temple last month has the potential to alter the landscape of Indian society for generations, Rohan Venkataramakrishnan writes in India Inside Out. Modi was responsible for presiding over the consecration ceremony, and the deliberate infusion of Hindu symbolism with Indian statehood builds on the narrative that Modi is “God’s gift to India,” as one minister said.

Modi has been compared to India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, for the influence they have both had over Indian society, beyond the political sphere. In Modi’s case, analysts have described the temple as a sign of Modi’s “electoral kingship.” The question, as Venkataramakrishnan puts it, is whether that stature will “reflect the nature of India’s prime ministerial candidates from hereon out? Is the state irrevocably changed?”

A new K-pop girl group is challenging the stereotype that you have to be “young and pretty” to make it in the industry. K-pop stars are often in their teens or early 20s when they debut, but the average age of the members of Golden Girls is 59.5. The members were all popular solo singers in the 1980s and ‘90s, but were brought together as a group under the same company that manages the mega-popular groups Twice and Itzy. The company’s founder, 52-year-old J. Y. Park, is himself a performer and said he wants to market Golden Girls like any other group and “bring diversity to the music industry by introducing an older generation of artists,” Korea JoongAng Daily wrote.

• Nigeria’s ‘japa’ economy is spurring a battle for the remittances market.
• What’s happened one year after Balloongate.
• In response to Roe v. Wade, France moves towards enshrining abortion rights in its constitution.