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China, Russia hail unprecedented ties

Chinese premier Li Qiang, who met Russia’s Vladimir Putin in Moscow Wednesday, said the countries’ relations are at “an unprecedentedly high level.” China has sought to portray itself as a neutral peacemaker in the Russia-Ukraine conflict but has barely engaged with Kyiv, CNN wrote. However, Kyiv will likely have to turn to China if Donald Trump — who has criticized US aid to Ukraine — wins the presidential election, a foreign policy scholar told VOA, giving Beijing a chance to become “an alternative leader in global affairs.” And despite Russia and China’s close friendship, even Moscow is “finding itself a pawn of China’s geopolitical aspirations,” a UK-based security think tank argued.

Beijing, Washington spar in Pacific

Pacific Island nations are at the center of a “great game” between the US and China, an Australian think tank argued, as the two superpowers compete for influence in the region. Western powers and Beijing are vying for access to key shipping lanes and seabed minerals, according to the Lowy Institute report. It’s a “significant turnaround” for island leaders who long felt ignored by Western nations that are now striving to counterbalance China’s reach through investments and infrastructure projects, Bloomberg wrote. Eighteen new embassies have opened in the region since 2017. But this “frenetic tempo of global diplomatic outreach” may overwhelm local governments, Lowy noted, and the focus on infrastructure investments has left funding gaps in education and healthcare.

Walz makes pitch to Democrats

Kamala Harris’ running mate, Tim Walz, is gearing up to make the most consequential speech of his career on day three of the Democratic National Convention. One California Democrat said Walz has charmed the party with his “joyful attack dog” personality: Going after Donald Trump without losing his cheery demeanor. But Republicans have pounced on his tendency to make gaffes, with 50 GOP lawmakers signing a letter Wednesday saying he misrepresented his military service. His Republican rival JD Vance also slammed him after Walz’s wife clarified they had relied on IUI, not IVF, treatments to have children. But the criticism is yet to hurt his popularity, Semafor reported: Voters tend to have favorable views of him in polling compared with Vance, Harris, and Trump.

Ford ditches electric SUVs

US automaker Ford is shaking up its electric vehicle strategy by scrapping plans for its next-generation all-electric SUV fleet and replacing it with hybrid models. Ford is also reducing its spending on EVs from 40% to 30% of annual capital expenditures, the company said. The strategic shift could cost the car company around $1.9 billion, Bloomberg reported, and reflects a pitfall of the US EV market even as sales there continue to climb. “American drivers are still in love with big, gas-burning trucks and SUVs,” CNN wrote, “and automakers are as eager as ever to build them.” Ford and others are also worried a future President Donald Trump could slash tax credits for EV buyers.

Ultra-Orthodox Israelis protest

Hundreds of ultra-Orthodox Jewish men protested outside a Jerusalem conscription center Wednesday, underscoring the growing divisions in Israeli society. The country’s Supreme Court in June scrapped a decades-long exemption for 18 to 26-year-old ultra-Orthodox men to complete military service, which many in secular society saw as “an unequal sharing of the burden at a time of war and rising regional tensions,” The New York Times reported. Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant has refused to support Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s attempts to reach a backroom deal that would satisfy both the Supreme Court and the ultra-Orthodox community — “another symptom of Israel’s current political dysfunctionality” that has hamstrung Gaza ceasefire efforts, The Economist wrote.

Russians told to get off dating apps

Russia discouraged citizens from using dating apps in regions affected by Ukraine’s surprise incursion. “The enemy is actively using them to gather information,” the interior ministry warned residents and soldiers stationed in Bryansk, Kursk, and Belgorod amid Kyiv’s ongoing offensive. Both Russia and Ukraine have used dating and running apps to contact enemy troops and determine their location. The Ukrainian army has also strictly regulated the use of dating apps by soldiers, many of whom turned to them for comfort when the war began. Most soldiers have now deleted the apps, a Ukrainian army official told Le Monde, “but because of their young age, they feel the need to talk to women, which can lead to problems.”

Samuel Levine, Director, FTC Bureau of Consumer Protection will join Semafor’s editors to explore how online platforms can play a constructive role in communicating age restrictions for certain goods and services and the responsibilities and strategies of policymakers in effectively regulating social media use among young people.

RSVP for in-person or livestream.

Japan’s low birth rate hits universities

Japan is deliberating the future of its universities that have been impacted by the country’s low birth rate. They are “facing a critical limit” financially, the country’s national university association warned, as fewer children have led to declining admissions. Only 1.1 million 18-year-olds attended university in 2023 — down from a peak of 2.49 million in 1966, The Japan Times reported, and a government task force is weighing whether to consolidate, downsize, or potentially close dozens of universities, particularly private, rural schools. The task force this month recommended attracting more international students, but Tokyo’s 2003 partial privatization of dozens of national universities caused their rankings to plummet, undercutting foreign applications.

SpaceX gears up for risky mission

SpaceX is gearing up to launch what is being billed as a risky mission that could see the first spacewalk ever conducted by private citizens. The Polaris Dawn mission, backed by billionaire Jared Isaacman, will see him and three crew members lifted into space aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule, in a launch currently slated for Aug. 26. They aim to reach some of the highest altitudes ever flown by humans, high enough to hit a beltway of dangerous radiation that emanates from the sun about 600 miles above Earth. The endeavor has the potential to “move the ball further downfield,” not just for SpaceX’s technical capabilities, but also for human space exploration as a whole, a SpaceX consultant and former NASA astronaut told CNN.

Alaskan crabs endangered

Warm water in the Bering Sea near Alaska is devastating Arctic ocean life that has evolved for extremely cold temperatures. After billions of snow crabs disappeared from the sea practically overnight in 2022, scientists discovered they starved to death. Unusually hot ocean temperatures in 2018 and 2019 changed their metabolism, and there wasn’t enough food to sate their newly voracious appetites. In research released Wednesday, scientists paint an even bleaker picture: Warmer and ice-free conditions in the southeast Bering Sea are about 200 times more likely now than before the Industrial Revolution — and Alaska’s once lucrative crab fisheries will have to adapt. “We pay a lot of attention to this for good reason,” one of the scientists said, “because people’s livelihoods depend on them.”

Indigenous influencers face censorship

Indigenous influencers in Brazil are being forced to sanitize their culture to avoid social media censorship and earn a living, Rest of World reported. Two sisters who are content creators told the publication that YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok have all taken down posts of them sharing cultural rituals such as fire-starting techniques and traditional dances because they depicted nudity in their tribe. Indigenous academics are worried these community guidelines will discourage creators from making content that preserves their culture without going through the lens of outside actors. “If we take our clothes off when in our communities, then it has to be shown in the same way on the internet,” said one anthropologist.

August 22:

• Athletes competing in the Summer Paralympic Games arrive in Paris.
• Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi visits his Polish counterpart in Warsaw.
• Japan releases monthly Consumer Price Index data.

A Catalan cyborg who implanted microchips into her body to sense earthquake tremors is among the innovators showing at PST Art, an exhibition of around 70 installations opening next month in museums across Southern California. The exhibit also includes a team of NASA scientists who collaborate with visual artists to imagine new worlds. Now in its third edition, the region’s landmark arts event takes on the theme of when art and science collide. “Science is something that the entire museum sector is now looking at internationally — it really came after the Paris Accords,” Getty Foundation Director Joan Weinstein, who oversees the exhibition, told The New York Times. “The art world was late to this.”

• The Democratic ‘Godmother’ Pelosi steps into the convention spotlight.
• Europe’s chips are on the table with new TSMC factory and ‘Silicon Saxony’.
• A $5bn German scandal is driving green firms out of business.