Flagship

Brazil judge threatens to suspend X

A Brazilian Supreme Court justice on Wednesday threatened to suspend X in the country if owner Elon Musk fails to appoint a legal representative for the site within 24 hours. It is the latest clash in monthslong legal wrangling between Justice Alexandre de Moraes and Musk, who has accused the judge of attacking free speech on his platform. Earlier this year, de Moraes ordered X to block accounts accused of spreading fake news and hate messages, sparking a series of legal disputes that have now culminated in de Moraes’ ultimatum. Conservative Brazilians have echoed Musk’s complaints of censorship. The platform’s suspension is looking more likely since neither Musk nor de Moraes “are willing to give in,” wrote a Metróples newspaper columnist.

Harris faces first big TV interview

Kamala Harris is set for her first major television interview Thursday since becoming the Democratic presidential nominee. It marks a high-stakes moment in her short campaign. After weeks of Republican criticism for avoiding media scrutiny, Harris will now have to open herself up to questions on CNN. It won’t be easy, argued a New York Times political reporter, who detailed his “contentious” interview with Harris last year: “She’s someone who doesn’t like feeling known, doesn’t like you assuming to have figured her out.” But the joint interview with running mate Tim Walz hasn’t dampened the criticism — a Wall Street Journal op-ed accused Harris of using Walz as a “crutch.” Still, voters remain enthusiastic, as a new poll found her widening her lead against Donald Trump.

Hong Kong convicts pro-democracy editors

Two editors of a now-defunct pro-democracy Hong Kong news outlet were convicted of sedition Thursday, in a landmark case cementing the city’s crackdown on dissent under its national security law. The US condemned the verdict as a “a direct attack on media freedom.” Once ranked among the most hospitable locations for journalists in Asia, Hong Kong has seen a steep decline in press freedom, according to Reporters Sans Frontières. Local news organizations self-censor to avoid scrutiny from authorities, The New York Times reported, and some foreign outlets have left entirely. The remaining ones are seeing a quiet battle brew between employers and journalists as they grapple with Beijing’s pressure on the media, Semafor reported.

Israel agrees to pause fighting for vaccines

Israel agreed to temporarily halt its military offensive in Gaza starting this Sunday to allow healthcare workers to vaccinate around 640,000 children against polio. The country, which has been under international pressure to address the disease’s outbreak in Gaza, emphasized that the staggered pauses over three days were not a step toward a ceasefire and that fighting would resume after the vaccines were administered. A top White House official hinted at limited progress in ongoing ceasefire negotiations, saying Thursday, “nothing is done until it is done.” Talks will be further complicated by ongoing Israeli raids in the occupied West Bank that have killed 17 people, including a Palestinian militant commander.

India mass produces new iPhones

Apple is mass producing its latest iPhones in India as the US tech giant strives to build supply chains outside China, Nikkei reported. Indian suppliers previously only received orders for lower-end or older models, but India has assembled around 18 million iPhones in the first half of 2024 alone, compared with a total of 30 million last year. The move reflects not only Apple’s attempt to navigate China’s geopolitical risks, Nikkei wrote, but also illustrates how India has emerged as “a reliable alternate destination” for manufacturers and supply chain networks, an Indian business site argued. Still, India “cannot yet fully match China’s capabilities,” one analyst countered, and the majority of new iPhones are still being made there.

US funded patents for China inventors

US government funding has led to hundreds of patents being issued for China-based inventors since 2010, a Reuters review of data found. Agencies including the Department of Defense and NASA funded research that ultimately led to more than 1,000 patents for researchers in China in strategic areas like semiconductor technology, pharmaceuticals, and biotechnology. The revelations will likely amplify calls to cancel or renegotiate the landmark US-China Science and Technology Agreement, Reuters wrote, which laid the foundation for a decades-long boom in academic exchanges between the two superpowers. But geopolitical tensions have created hostile environments for research collaboration: The US National Institutes of Health this month acknowledged that its colleagues of Asian descent were “targeted and alienated” for alleged undisclosed links to China.

German far-right party aims for state win

A far-right German party could finish in first place in state elections for the first time this weekend. Contests in Saxony and Thuringia, once part of communist East Germany, are expected to boost the AfD, known for its anti-immigration and eurosceptic stances. Anger over a recent stabbing by a suspected Syrian extremist thrust the issue of migration back into the spotlight, which analysts said could boost the AfD. The elections also saw the rise of a far-left populist party, the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance, which was only formed in January after its namesake, a well-known firebrand, broke off from her left-wing party. Both groups, however, will likely fall short of being able to form a government without the help of establishment parties.

Foreign Affairs: On the Ballot—a guide to the foreign policy issues at stake in the 2024 U.S. presidential election from the authors and editors of Foreign Affairs. Stay up to date this campaign season with weekly curated content from the definitive source on global affairs. Sign up here.

SKorea trials four-day work week

Workers at a South Korean province will be trying to work less next year. Employees at more than 50 organizations across Gyeonggi Province will be able to choose either a four-day week every fortnight or shortened hours every week, Yonhap News Agency reported. The four-day week is gathering momentum, with proponents saying it reduces stress and burnout without significant costs to productivity — a six-month trial in the UK found a “host of benefits in employee wellbeing,” ITN reported, and campaigners hope the new Labour government will introduce changes. Most of the firms that took part in the UK trial are sticking to the shorter hours, although some returned to five days after their staff reported being exhausted trying to condense their work into four.

Neolithic builders understood science

A Neolithic tomb that predates the earliest Egyptian pyramid by more than a millennium suggests that its builders understood sophisticated scientific concepts. The Menga dolmen in southern Spain was built around 3,600 BC and consists of 32 stones, the largest weighing more than 130 tons — three times as much as the heaviest stone at Stonehenge. A new analysis of the sandstone used to form the roof suggests it may be the first documented arch in human history, and demonstrates that its builders had an elevated understanding of geology, one researcher told New Scientist. “When you put all this together — you know, engineering, physics, geology, geometry, astronomy – it is something we can call science.”

Americans say they need $2.5m to be rich

The average American believes they need $2.5 million to be wealthy, a recent poll found. The figure differs starkly across generations: Baby Boomers — those born between 1948 and 1964 — think they need $2.8 million to be considered wealthy, while Gen Zers, who are still in their twenties, say $1.2 million would be just fine, according to brokerage firm Charles Schwab. Being merely “financially comfortable” would require significantly less, the survey found — on average $778,000, down from a million last year. Americans also believe they need to save $1.5 million for retirement, but few are set to reach that figure. In better news, people are optimistic about improving their financial situation: 29% of younger citizens think they are on track to be wealthy.

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.

Weapons lab

Around 50 surveillance towers to control migration along the US-Mexico border on Arizona are built by an Israeli company, Elbit Systems, with technology tested and deployed in the Palestinian territories. It’s another instance of “what happens in Palestine doesn’t stay there,” Antony Loewenstein, author of The Palestine Laboratory: How Israel Exports the Technology of Occupation around the World, told The Border Chronicle Substack. He argued that while Israeli firms have long used the West Bank and Gaza as a testing ground for developing new surveillance and weapons technology that they then export globally, the war in Gaza has further boosted the country’s military tech industry. At global arms fairs, Israeli companies are touting new forms of weapons that have been “battle-tested” in Gaza since Oct. 7, according to Loewenstein.

The CEO of Elbit has acknowledged that growing global conflicts have expanded his company’s portfolio, and projected that its revenue would hit $7 billion in 2025, instead of 2026 as earlier thought. Loewenstein said that the global success of these companies shows that “Israel sells itself not just as a model technologically but also as a model ideologically.”

Sobering reality

Kweichow Moutai, one of China’s largest alcohol distribution companies, is almost exclusively known for its báijiǔ liquor. So the company made waves on Chinese social media this month when it announced it would invest more than $105 million into semiconductor research. These are “tiny numbers” for a company with a $250 billion market cap, the ChinaTalk Substack wrote, but it’s not branching out just to make headlines.

Kweichow Moutai is a state-owned enterprise (SOE), with the Guizhou provincial government owning a majority stake. “In an age where Xi Jinping bans extravagant party banquets and instead pushes a tech self-reliance narrative at every opportunity, alcohol and consumer goods don’t look good,” ChinaTalk argued. Other SOEs are also diversifying into high-tech sectors to score points with authorities during company evaluations, which often determine managers’ promotions.

Game on

German regional public broadcaster SWR is fighting climate change misinformation — but the battle isn’t raging on social media, but in a virtual reality headset. The broadcaster this month unveiled GreenGuardiansVR, a video game where players target and attack climate change-denying villains. “Young people in particular are put off by bad news and dystopian predictions,” said one of the developers, and SWR hopes to “counteract” that narrative and spark critical thinking.

But it has drawn the ire of German right-wing commentators who criticized SWR for using public funds to develop the game. “This has to be one of the dumbest exercises in climate propaganda ever attempted, by anybody, anywhere,” argued the Eugyppius right-wing Substack.

August 30:

• India releases GDP data for April to June.
• Disney and DirecTV renew their NFL distribution deal.
• US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin hosts Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov at the Pentagon.

Magnificent, wild, and under threat: The plight of the Earth’s salt marshes has inspired a new performance installation in Venice. Theater maker Sophie Hunter is putting the wetlands center stage in Salt of the Earth, which reworks the Bible story of Lot’s wife, who was turned into a pillar of salt for looking back at her homeland. Hunter is delivering an “urgent plea,” The Guardian wrote: Salt marshes sequester more carbon than forests by area, but more than half of the coastal wetlands have been destroyed or degraded. “These liminal intertidal spaces have often been associated with outcasts,” Hunter said. “How can we shift our perception to realizing how much value they have on so many levels?”

• China’s Xi meets top White House official as countries try to ease tensions.
• Ukraine pushes US for support on long-range missile strikes against Russia.
• German officials look to push social platforms on image verification.