Caracal Daily | May 30
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Happy Wednesday.
Here’s today’s Caracal Daily:
*** Globalization + Geopolitics ***
Life on Ukraine’s front line: ‘Worse than hell’ as Russia advances Reuters
AP: Ukraine’s Zelenskyy is expected in Normandy for commemorations of 80 years since D-Day, Macron says
AP: Sweden to donate $1.23 billion in military aid to Ukraine
Blinken Signals US may allow Ukraine to strike inside Russia with American weapons: WSJ reports it is the first time a top Biden administration official has publicly indicated that the US is considering the policy shift.
Pentagon opens ammunition factory to keep arms flowing to Ukraine: A plant still under construction in Mesquite, Texas, will soon turn out 30,000 artillery shells each month, roughly doubling current US output. NYT
Russian gains push White House to revisit some red lines: President Biden is considering escalating US support for Ukraine with two tough new countermeasures. David Ignatius
US warns Europe to get serious about China’s aid to Russia: Politico reports that Beijing’s leadership is determined to back Moscow “to the hilt,” says State Department No. 2 Kurt Campbell.
British army will be too small to help fight Russia, European generals fear: The Times reports despite pledges to increase defence spending, military personnel numbers have fallen to their lowest since the Napoleonic wars.
NATO has just 5% of air defences needed to protect eastern flank: FT repots a lack of systems required in case of war lays bare vulnerabilities, according to alliance’s own assessments.
Police raid EU Parliament offices in ‘Russiagate’ probe: Politico reports the investigation centers on claims MEPs were paid to promote Russian propaganda via the Voice of Europe website.
AP: US pledges $135 million in aid to Western-leaning Moldova to counter Russian influence
How the far right is winning over young Europeans: Rightwing populist parties are making inroads into a demographic fed up with economic insecurity and immigration policy. FT
UK votes: A new YouGov poll finds Keir Starmer’s opposition Labour Party extended its poll lead over the Conservatives even as Rishi Sunak’s party unveiled a series of pledges intended to build momentum early in UK election campaigning. Labour is 27 points ahead of the Tories, 47% to 20%.
The British election is becoming an episode of mob justice: A punishment beating is on the cards for the Conservatives. Economist
Where will the UK election be fought and won? The FT has identified four crucial battlegrounds where parties will vie for victory ahead of the vote on July 4. FT
Incompetence or opacity: the choice facing British voters: The first week of the election campaign points to a failure of political competition. Economist
+ There are 35 days until the UK general election.
The ‘boomer election’: Britain’s Conservatives make a play for older voter: Politico reports a national service for teenagers and generous pension promises comprise the party’s core voter strategy.
Keir Starmer must put AUKUS defence pact before Brussels: The security partnership with the US and Australia is too important to be sacrificed in a post-election love-in with the EU. Iain Martin
Bloomberg: France envisions AI tent big enough for US, China and French startups
Volcano erupts in Iceland, spewing lava 150 feet into the air: NYT reports guests staying at the Blue Lagoon spa and surrounding hotels were ordered to evacuate hours before the eruption occurred.
BBC: Gaza war could go on for rest of 2024, says Israel PM's aide
Saudi Arabia eyes a future beyond oil: The kingdom is trying to juggle its still-vital petroleum industry with alternative energy sources like wind and solar as it faces pressure to lower carbon emissions. NYT
Bloomberg: Xi hosts Arab leaders as China’s ‘soft power’ expands in Mideast
+ Beijing summit to be attended by UAE, Egypt heads of state
+ Talks seen focusing on investment links, need to end Gaza war
Xi's top job is to keep the Party going: He knows that about 12 million graduates are set to enter China’s workforce this year. In April, the revamped youth unemployment level excluding students was 14.7%, vs. 5% for the overall Chinese urban workforce.
How China spies: The intelligence community has its work cut out to counter CCP espionage. Spectator
Blacklisted Chinese companies rebrand as American to dodge crackdown: WSJ reports firms tagged as military entities use new names and licensing deals to try to keep their businesses going in US.
Pandas will return to the National Zoo.
Analysis: 1950 map foreshadows today's battle lines over Taiwan: The Korean War and Battle of Lake Changjin hold lessons for Xi Jinping. Nikkei
In Asia, Pentagon chief Austin seeks to reassure allies and cool China tensions: TST reports US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin, who will be in Singapore for the annual Shangri-La Dialogue security meeting this week, and then briefly in Cambodia, will also seek to cool tensions with China when he meets his counterpart on the sidelines of the meeting.
US, Japan to hold first weapons cooperation meeting in June: Nikkei reports in Tokyo, officials will discuss boosting Patriot missile output and ship repairs.
JPN v CHN: Japanese fighter jets have scrambled to intercept a Chinese surveillance and strike drone seen operating for the first time north of Okinawa.
China + Japan have agreed to resume regular talks between their ruling parties for the first time in six years, officials from Japan's coalition government said on May 29.
World’s largest nuclear plant sits idle while energy needs soar: Japan had big plans for nuclear power before the 2011 tsunami. Now a debate over restarting its biggest facility will test if it can turn away from costly imported fuels. Bloomberg
North Korea launches waste-filled balloons to taunt the South: WP reports the balloons carried trash and “filth,” according to South Korean authorities. They were a reaction to balloons previously sent by activists from the South.
Perfect AI not realistic, policymakers need to pursue ‘next best option’: President Tharman: Regulators cannot realistically expect artificial intelligence (AI) to deliver only good as AI development has far outpaced public policy, but they need to go for the “next best option” and maximize the good while minimizing the bad, President Tharman Shanmugaratnam said on May 29. TST
+ Avoiding all risks would stop AI innovation, which has the potential to improve lives, he told an audience of tech industry players, including professionals and world leaders.
+ President Tharman was speaking at the opening gala of the Asia Tech x Singapore conference.
DW: India heat wave: Delhi posts national record temperature
Polls closed in South Africa’s general election, the country’s most closely contested in three decades. Final results are expected by Sunday.
Party of Mandela projected to lose absolute majority for first time: WSJ reports polls indicate that the African National Congress, in power in South Africa for 30 years since the end of apartheid, could capture as little as 40% of the vote.
UN projections suggest that by 2060, Sub-Saharan Africa will account for nearly a quarter of the world's population (24.4%). This is almost the same as the current combined populations of all high-income countries and China.
President Javier Milei will pitch investing in Argentina to Apple, Alphabet, and Meta this week in California, building on an unprecedented wave of international recognition in a bid to fortify his political strength at home.
Bid to 'privatize' Brazil beaches sparks outcry: AFP reports a proposed constitutional amendment that could see Brazil's famed beaches fall into private hands has outraged environmentalists and citizens in a country that prides itself on open access to its vast shores.
Colombia’s parliament voted overwhelmingly to ban bullfighting.
Mexico is about to elect its first female president. Her job: Save the nation: Presidential candidate Claudia Sheinbaum has a commanding lead in polls, buoyed by a popular incumbent and promises to bring a national crime wave under control. WSJ
Eight organizations to join Canada's voluntary AI code of conduct: More organizations including Mastercard, Salesforce, and Lenovo, commit to the responsible development and management of advanced generative artificial intelligence systems. News Release
Sunk at the pier: Crisis in the American submarine industrial base Jerry Hendrix
Setting a global standard for safe AI adoption Gaurav (GP) Pal
*** US Politics + Elections ***
Pew: More than half of Americans are following election news closely, and many are already worn out
Referend-him! The "not it" election: Bruce Mehlman's Q2 slide deck looks at the state of the US race and the policy implications of Trump 2.0 vs Biden 2.0. Deck
The Trump train is still on track: Why is stopping the former president proving so difficult for Biden? Edward Luce
Inside Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s growing alliance: Donald Trump is weighing an advisory role for the Tesla leader in the event the former president reclaims the White House. WSJ
Democrats plan $100 million push on abortion rights to win House: WSJ reports House Majority PAC’s new fund will be spent in swing districts for advertising and voter mobilization.
Crypto super PACs get $25m boost: Politico reports Ripple Labs’ announcement follows a surprising month of Washington wins for crypto firms and investors.
TikTok offered an extraordinary deal. The US government took a pass: The app’s executives proposed giving the Biden administration control over its US operations and a kill switch if things went south. The administration declined, setting up an existential legal fight. WP
AI is shockingly good at making fake nudes — and causing havoc in schools: Several states have passed laws penalizing the dissemination of nonconsensual AI-generated deepfake nudes, but when the deepfakes are discovered, what happens next in schools varies depending on the state. Politico
+ Congress has dithered in how to stop them, and even though 20 states have passed laws that penalize the spread of nonconsensual deepfakes, their results vary widely.
White House to support new nuclear power plants in the US to fight climate change: FC reports the move is aimed at helping the nuclear power industry combat rising security costs and competition from cheaper plants powered by natural gas, wind, and solar.
Nuclear energy’s bottom line: The United States used to build nuclear-power plants affordably. To meet our climate goals, we’ll need to learn how to do it again. Rogé Karma
Chicago to offer most generous subsidies in US to save its downtown: WSJ reports local politicians and developers struggle to revitalize the city’s office district.
The rise in the work-from-home share accounts for more than half of the rise in overall interstate US migration since 2019, and states with greater WFH opportunities experienced more out-migration.
*** Disruption + Innovation ***
AI hype: Nobel Laureate Paul Romer says runaway confidence in AI risks repeating the mistakes of the crypto hype bubble of only two years ago.
AI products like ChatGPT much hyped but not much used, study says: BBC reports researchers surveyed 12,000 people in six countries, including the UK, with only 2% of British respondents saying they use such tools on a daily basis.
+ But the study, from the Reuters Institute and Oxford University, says young people are bucking the trend, with 18 to 24-year-olds the most eager adopters of the tech.
Google research shows the fast rise of AI-generated misinformation: Artificial intelligence has become a source of misinformation with lightning speed. CBC
Mapping AI’s rapid advance: Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt weighs in on where AI is headed, when to “pull the plug” and how to cope with China. Noema
How AI made Mark Zuckerberg popular again in Silicon Valley: After some trying years during which Mr. Zuckerberg could do little right, many developers and technologists have embraced the Meta chief as their champion of “open-source” artificial intelligence. NYT
PricewaterhouseCoopers became ChatGPT enterprise's biggest customer and will also start reselling OpenAI's service to large businesses.
Vox Media just signed a deal with OpenAI that will include content from The Verge showing up in ChatGPT.
The Atlantic announces product and content partnership with OpenAI.
The media bosses fighting back against AI — and the ones cutting deals: As OpenAI and other tech firms make advances, the media industry is split between pushing back and making deals. WP
Here are the companies OpenAI has made deals with to train ChatGPT: In the past month, OpenAI has partnered with Reddit, News Corp., Vox Media, and the Atlantic as it looks for data to train ChatGPT. Here are the deals announced so far. FC
Alpha School, a private school powered by AI, is expanding to Texas.
Fortune: Sanofi’s CEO is giving OpenAI access to its data in the hope of developing drugs more quickly
A tech ethicist on how AI worsens ills caused by social media: The only cure is to impose change on AI firms’ incentives, argues Tristan Harris. Economist
Google AI’s hilariously bad answers aren’t the big problem: When a search engine is ridiculously wrong, we can deal with it. But AI’s subtler mistakes and general sloppiness are a more serious long-term problem. FC
I’ve read over 100 AI requests for proposals from major companies. Here’s the matrix of guardrails and obligations that is emerging May Habib
Hackers are using AI to find software bugs - but there is a downside: Artificial intelligence models similar to ChatGPT are able to identify errors in computer code, letting people claim rewards for finding them - but others are using the same tools to report bugs that don't actually exist. Alex Wilkins
Reuters: US court to hear challenges to potential TikTok ban in September
Bloomberg: In China’s tech sphere, everything eventually descends into a price war
Bloomberg: Amazon's $10 billion satellite venture enters factory mode
Bloomberg: YouTube is coming for all of your devices
Sony Music in talks to buy Queen’s music catalogue for $1bn: FT reports the Japanese group creates financial partner as it seeks to purchase British rock band’s songs.
WSJ: Netflix is teeing up music-competition shows. Think ‘Love Is Blind’ meets ‘The Voice.’
Why Dave & Buster’s is transforming its arcades into casinos: The $2 billion eatertainment chain’s betting gambit marks a new era of casino-fying everything. Bloomberg
Sales of SUVs hit a new record in 2023, making up half of all new cars sold globally.
Bloomberg: Ferrari on track to make its first EV a success, CEO says
+ Vehicle to be unveiled next year will be unique: Vigna
+ Supercar maker is building factory for EVs, hybrids in Italy
A $25,000 electric Jeep headed to US, Stellantis CEO says: WSJ reports Carlos Tavares, CEO of the brand’s parent Stellantis, says it already sells affordable EVs elsewhere in the world at a profit.
Elon’s orbit: Musk’s galaxy of companies is under threat as Tesla spirals. These people keep the system running. Bloomberg
WSJ: ConocoPhillips to acquire Marathon Oil for $17.1 billion
Nikkei: BHP walks away from $49bn Anglo American deal
CNBC: McDonald’s exec says average menu item costs 40% more than in 2019
*** Culture ***
Centre Pompidou will start purchasing original comic artworks, says president: In an interview with Le Monde, Laurent Le Bon, the president of the arts center in Paris, states that he would like to have the museum purchase original comics.
Is the quiet luxury era over? New jewelry is going big and bold: The statement piece has been making a not-so-stealthy comeback. Bloomberg
*** Sport ***
99 days until the NFL opener.
Vincent Kompany has signed in as new FC Bayern manager on contract valid until June 2027.
Premier League to use AI and ‘force fields’ to cut offside delays: Officials hope new semi-automated system will cut delays in offside decisions by 31 seconds next season with 3D graphics being shown to fans in stadiums. The Times
Enjoy the ride + plan accordingly.
-Marc
Marc A. Ross | Chief Communications Strategist @ Caracal
