Flagship

Blinken builds bridges on trip to China

The U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met Chinese leader Xi Jinping in Beijing for talks aimed at reducing tensions between the two superpowers. Relations between Beijing and Washington have deteriorated since a Chinese spy balloon was shot down over American waters in February, leading to Blinken canceling a scheduled diplomatic visit. The U.S. also accused China of planning to provide arms to Russia for its war in Ukraine. Ahead of meeting Xi, Blinken held talks with senior Chinese foreign policy officials, which the U.S. said had made progress in rebuilding diplomatic links, although Beijing’s top diplomat called for an end to tech sanctions and said there was “no room for compromise” on Taiwan.

But while the two governments talked, business continued to prepare for frosty U.S.-China ties. AstraZeneca, the pharmaceutical giant, has drawn up plans to hive off its Chinese operations into a separate business, to shelter the parent company against mounting tensions. It’s one of several multinational firms to be considering similar moves. The Italian government also stripped the Chinese chemical firm Sinochem of its rights as the largest shareholder in the tire manufacturer Pirelli, citing national security concerns.

Kyiv counteroffensive may pause

Ukrainian forces may temporarily pause their long-awaited counteroffensive to reevaluate tactics. Despite the Ukrainian army stepping up its attack on arms depots and other targets deep inside territory occupied by Russia, it is yet to make significant gains since the counteroffensive began earlier this month, the Institute for the Study of War said. Ukraine, however, “has not yet launched its main effort.” The fighting so far has been brutal. While both sides are suffering high casualties, Russian losses are likely “the highest since the peak of the battle for Bakhmut,” the U.K. Ministry of Defence told the Financial Times.

Questions over Greek coastguard’s account

Doubt was cast on the Greek coastguard’s claims that the migrant boat which sank last week was not in trouble. Officials say the vessel was moving steadily and not in need of rescue, refusing help. But BBC analysis of other ships’ movements suggests that the overcrowded vessel did not move for at least seven hours before it capsized. More than 500 people are still missing, including 100 children, and 78 are known to have died. Many of those feared dead are from Pakistan. Islamabad has since ordered a crackdown on people-smuggling, making 10 arrests. The prime minister’s office pledged to “intensify efforts” against “the heinous crime of human trafficking.”

Intel invests $25B in Israel plant

Intel agreed to invest $25 billion to build a new microchip manufacturing plant in Israel. The deal will be “the largest investment ever” in Israel, according to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Intel has operated in Israel since 1974, but is significantly expanding its base there, hoping to make its chip manufacturing competitive with industry leaders like Nvidia and TSMC, which have “eclipsed” Intel in recent years, according to Bloomberg. Israel, like the European Union and U.S., is offering tech firms major incentives to build chips in their territories: Intel will likely recoup 13% of its investment in government grants. Intel will also expand in Germany and Ireland, taking advantage of the government subsidies on offer.

NATO’s undersea protection agency

NATO agreed to create an international center to protect undersea infrastructure such as pipelines and data cables. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said that the cables and pipes were “critical for our modern societies” but vulnerable, particularly to potential attacks from Russia. The Maritime Centre for the Security of Critical Undersea Infrastructure will be based in NATO’s London maritime office, and will share expertise between military and civilian groups. The major Nord Stream pipelines, taking gas from Russia to Germany, were damaged last year, although leaked documents suggest pro-Ukrainian forces may have carried out the attack.

South Africans running out of water

The South African capital is running out of water, compounding the toll of persistent power cuts on the beleaguered economy. Pretoria’s water supply — like much of the country’s — depends on electricity to pump it from the source. South Africa’s central bank said earlier this year that it expects outages to occur on 250 days in 2023, meaning water supply in the most populated areas will be inconsistent at best. As the weather cools, power cuts may last longer. “I am tired of not knowing when we will have water and when we won’t,” a Pretoria homeowner told the BBC. South Africa’s economy lost $24 billion because of power cuts in 2022 alone.

EU states push for nuclear energy

European Union countries backed a plan to count nuclear energy as a low-carbon energy source. France, which gets 63% of its electricity from nuclear, pushed for the idea, threatening to block approval of EU renewable energy targets if it was not included. Nuclear power, with its small footprint and reliable output, is a useful counterpart to renewables, which are cheap, but intermittent and land-hungry. Meanwhile, OilPrice.com notes that the U.S.’s transition away from coal represents an opportunity: According to a recent Department of Energy report, 80% of retired or active coal plants could be converted to house nuclear reactors, saving around $1 billion per plant and reducing emissions by 90%.

Russia’s Cuban conscripts

Cuba “is renting soldiers to Russia,” the latest sign of the tightening bonds between Havana and Moscow, the head of an NGO focused on the Caribbean nation said. Javier Larrondo, president of Prisoners Defenders, said Russia is paying $2,000 for each Cuban soldier, of which the cash-strapped government in Havana keeps 75-95%. Soldiers are forced to sign up, according to Larrondo. Last month, Russian President Vladimir Putin offered citizenship to any Cuban immigrant in Russia who signed a one-year contract to join the country’s army. Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel has vowed his country’s “unconditional support to Russia in its clash with the West,” the Miami Herald reported.

New fraud in psychological science

A famous psychological study about “nudging” people to behave more honestly almost certainly contains fraudulent data. The 2012 research found people were less likely to cheat if they signed an honesty pledge at the top, rather than the bottom, of a form. But analysts writing in the blog Data Colada found that the data had been altered. One of the authors has been placed on leave. Another study in the same paper also contained fraudulent data. “That’s right,” said the bloggers. “Two different people independently faked data for two different studies in a paper about dishonesty.” One author is the best-selling pop-psych writer Dan Ariely. A combination of fraud and poor statistical practice means that almost all famous counterintuitive psychological findings should be treated with skepticism.

Elemental fails to catch fire for Pixar

Pixar’s Elemental recorded the studio’s lowest-ever opening weekend earnings. The movie took an estimated $29.5 million in domestic ticket sales. The only Pixar film to earn less than that on its debut was the 1995 classic Toy Story — but adjusted for inflation, Toy Story’s take would be worth $60 million today. The critical reception has been mixed, too. Pixar changed cinema, both technically and creatively: It took risks on weird ideas, like a rat becoming a chef, or a musicals-loving post-apocalyptic robot. But those ideas ossified somewhat into a formula. And during the pandemic it released films straight to streaming, which “possibly chang[ed] consumer habits,” according to The Hollywood Reporter. Its two post-pandemic efforts, Turning Red and Lightyear, also failed to spark either at the box office or among the critics.

• Pakistan’s former Prime Minister Imran Khan is due to appear before an anti-graft agency in Islamabad on corruption charges.
• The Paris Air Show, the world’s top aerospace exhibition, begins.
• The Rembrandt museum in Amsterdam opens a pop-up tattoo studio to offer designs inspired by the Dutch master painter.

I’m not saying it was aliens … but it was aliens

It’s easy to laugh at an alleged whistleblower’s claims that the U.S. government possesses alien spacecraft. But, the math-and-science writer Dynomight says, our a priori beliefs should be that alien contact is pretty likely: The galaxy has lots of planets and is very old. There’s been plenty of time for probes to reach us. And we should take the many eyewitness accounts of hard-to-explain phenomena seriously.

But contrary to the common saying, evidence of absence — to the well-trained mind — is, in fact, absence of evidence. There are cameras everywhere now, and yet: “We get grainy videos … but never close-up HD,” Dynomight says. “There are many opportunities for a smoking gun, but we never get one.” Instead, we get “billions of guns that failed to smoke.”

A toaster, but, like, a toaster that changes history

The tech pioneer Marc Andreessen wrote a piece recently about why we don’t need to worry about artificial intelligence killing everyone. Flagship’s Tom, who wrote a book about people who do worry about AI killing everyone, found that piece profoundly depressing, because it didn’t engage with any of the actual (and, to Tom’s mind, not crazy) concerns those people have.

Dwarkesh Patel, a tech podcaster and like Tom a fan of Andreessen’s, wrote a response. It’s worth reading in full, but the really key point is this: You can’t have it both ways. If (as Andreessen says) AI will save the world, will cure cancer, will stop climate change — then presumably it’ll be powerful and you’ll be giving it stuff to do. You can’t say “AI will be just like a toaster” on the one hand and “AI will make everything we care about better” on the other. Toasters just make toast.

I’ve got a plan, and it’s as hot as my pants!

Today in news to make you feel old: Blackadder, the brilliant, seminal, hilarious BBC sitcom that launched the careers of half the British character actors you see in Game of Thrones or Harry Potter, is 40 years old. The idea of a sitcom that tells historical stories and features Samuel Johnson, Elizabeth I, and Field Marshal Haig, might not sound promising, but it was a work of genius.

Ed West, himself British and rather more than 40 years old, sings its praises: “History is funny because people’s behaviour is often quite irrational, or spiteful, or motivated by petty reasons that contrast with their high-minded principles,” he says. “No doubt we will seem the same to future generations, too.”

A modern retelling of Charles Dickens’ David Copperfield won the prestigious Women’s Prize for Fiction. Demon Copperhead by U.S. writer Barbara Kingsolver is a novel about the country’s opioid crisis. Like Dickens, Kingsolver offers a critique of institutional poverty, zooming in on the failures of foster care and Big Pharma in a story set in southern Appalachia. The book “brings you closer to the suffering from the opioid crisis than any account in a medical journal can manage,” wrote Richard Smith, chair of the Point of Care Foundation, in the BMJ.

• Kenyan tea-pickers are destroying tea-picking machines, in an old-fashioned Luddite backlash against encroaching tech.
• The CEO of a leading fintech firm told Reed Albergotti how he believes AI will change online shopping and make it more “emotional.”
• China’s Cuban spy base is just one piece of a much bigger plan, Jay Solomon reported.