Global Street Smarts.
Happy Monday.
Here’s today’s ITK Daily.
To be ITK, know this:
US evacuates embassy personnel in Sudan: WSJ reports dozens of American government personnel were evacuated after the security situation in the capital in Sudan grew too dangerous for the US to maintain a presence there.
WP: Embassies rush to evacuate in Sudan’s chaos, but thousands of foreigners remain
+ Britain and France were among the nations that also moved to evacuate their diplomats on Sunday. Sudanese nationals continued to flee as fighting in the capital, Khartoum, stretched into a second week.
Russian mercenaries closely linked with Sudan’s warring generals: But the Wagner Group and its backers in the Kremlin have much to lose if they back the wrong side. WP
+ Wagner operatives have been present in Sudan since 2017, according to Suliman Baldo, founder of Sudan Transparency and Policy Tracker. The group had originally come to provide military training and dealt with both the military and the RSF, Baldo said.
Wagner Group surges in Africa as US influence fades, leak reveals WP
+ The Wagner Group is moving aggressively to establish a “confederation” of anti-Western states in Africa as the Russian mercenaries foment instability while using their paramilitary and disinformation capabilities to bolster Moscow’s allies, according to leaked secret US intelligence documents.
+ Prigozhin entities have not only accelerated operations in Africa over the past year, according to the assessments, but appear to be operating with expanded ambition and authority — “shifting his approach from taking advantage of security vacuums to intentionally facilitating instability,” according to one of the documents.
Russia running the UN Security Council is going about how you’d expect: The Security Council’s presidency is rotated on a monthly, alphabetical basis, and April has put the Kremlin at the head. Politico
+ Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov is scheduled Monday to chair a Security Council meeting on defending the principles of the UN Charter — a pact designed in part to prevent wars.
+ Russia’s turn at the presidency is the result of long-set rules: The Security Council’s presidency rotates each month among the 15 members based on where their countries’ names fall on the English alphabet.
+ The country that holds the presidency can heavily shape the month’s agenda by picking themes to emphasize. But, generally speaking, council presidents do convene meetings on subjects they don’t like when other members request it.
Chinese diplomat draws ire from Baltic nations over statehood remarks: Beijing’s ambassador to France questioned the legitimacy of countries formerly in the Soviet Union. FT
+ “These ex-Soviet Union countries do not have effective status under international law because there is no international accord to concretise their status as a sovereign country,” Lu Shaye said during an interview with French news channel LCI.
+ China disowns ambassador's remarks questioning Ukrainian independence: BBC reports on Monday, China's foreign ministry said it respected the independence of all post-Soviet republics.
+ On Monday Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning rejected Mr Lu's position, saying Beijing respected the sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity of all countries and upheld the purposes and principles of the United Nations Charter.
Europe has to be much clearer when it comes to China: While business leaders still salivate at the size of the Chinese market, the EU will struggle to wield a credible geoeconomic policy. Martin Sandbu
+ The steady stream of European leaders visiting Beijing recently comes with a risk. Europe’s eagerness must make it look increasingly in China’s eyes like a demandeur — the party in diplomatic relations that cannot wait for the other to propose something, but has to come asking. But what exactly is Europe asking for?
+ It is clear enough where China’s interests lie. Politically, it wants to split a west brought closer together by Vladimir Putin’s assault on Ukraine. Economically, it wants to prevent any EU moves to restrict its market access. In a mix of both, it wants to increase Europe’s economic dependence on China.
+ Many European business leaders still salivate at the size of the Chinese market, and most political leaders’ visits to Beijing are transparently sales pitches.
+ It is time for Europe to learn that what is good for VW is not necessarily good for Europe.
Lawmakers war-game conflict with China, hoping to deter one: AP reports it’s April 22, 2027, and 72 hours into a first-strike Chinese attack on Taiwan and the US military response. Already, the toll on all sides is staggering. It was a war game, but one with a serious purpose and high-profile players: members of the House select committee on China. The conflict unfolded on Risk board game-style tabletop maps and markers under a giant gold chandelier in the House Ways and Means Committee room.
China’s game plan for a Taiwan invasion is not a secret: Two impressive sets of exercises by Beijing’s military, and reports that US officials think Taipei’s missile defenses are weak, make for a scary scenario. James Stavridis
India, once the jewel in our empire, has the power to shape the world: Set to become the most populous country on earth, it is emerging as a vital counterweight to China. Matthew Syed
+The future will thus depend on a leader capable of marrying a broad national identity — encompassing all the peoples of India — with a sufficiently strong state to continue the process of modernisation.
+ Admittedly, this will not be easy. Combining diversity and unity is a trick at which only a few nations have succeeded, and even in the West we are seeing its limits with the failures of multiculturalism.
+ I dearly hope that India succeeds. A vibrant India would be a huge blessing not just for the wonderful people of that nation but the wider world. It would thwart the ambitions of China, particularly in the Indo-Pacific, and send a wider message about the possibilities of democracy.
Shifting production from China is impossible, says shipping boss: Beijing’s world trade dominance will make cutting it out of global supply chains a tough task. FT
France’s struggle to deliver a second nuclear era: An ambitious reactor construction program aimed at reducing carbon emissions is running into the realities of skilled worker shortages. FT
VW's battery plant deal changes Canada's auto sector. Whether it's worth $13B in subsidies is debatable: Government support for Volkswagen's massive new plant in Ontario is unprecedented. CBC
+ The automaker is pledging to spend $7 billion to build a massive, sprawling complex the size of 350 football fields, "or 210 soccer fields," as Volkswagen executive Frank Blome joked. Once it's completed by 2027, the factory will have the capacity to crank out 1 million batteries per year.
+ It will instantly become the largest manufacturing facility in Canada, employing 3,000 people directly, and ten times that indirectly across the region, officials trumpeted at the launch event, where it was pitched as a clear win for Canada over other jurisdictions.
The new Washington consensus: Yesterday’s US economic orthodoxy is today’s heresy. Edward Luce
+ The goal of integrating China has been replaced with a debate about how to dis-integrate China.
+ The new Washington consensus is different to the old in three key respects.
+ First, Washington is no longer the uncontested Rome of today’s world. It has competition from Beijing.
+ Second, the new consensus is geopolitical. It does have economic tools, such as reshoring supply chains, prioritising resilience over efficiency, and industrial policy. But these are largely means to a national security end, which is to contain China.
+ The third difference is that the new consensus is as pessimistic as the old one was optimistic. In that sense it is less intuitively American than what it replaced.
+ Biden himself focuses more on competition than cajoling. His aim is not to decouple from China but to create what Jake Sullivan, the US national security adviser, calls a “small yard” with a “high fence”.
+ That means America will continue to trade with China except in goods that can be used to upgrade China’s military, which means high-end semiconductors and anything that boosts China’s AI ambitions
+ The middle way between the old Washington consensus and the new is to preserve what was good about the old, rather than to throw out the baby with the bathwater.
+ The future has yet to be written. No power will be its sole author. But America still has an outsized say on whether the script will be dark or light.
For saner politics, try stronger parties: Well-intended reforms have made the national parties weak and ineffective—and unable to resist their most extreme elements. WSJ
+ Paradoxical as it may sound, the decline of the parties has led to more ferocious partisanship.
+ The decline of the parties is particularly evident at the state and local level. As political debates have become more nationalized in the modern media age, the resources the parties do retain increasingly flow up to Washington and not down to local parties.
+ Polls show that, in the aggregate, Republicans and Democrats are more moderate than the activist voices currently at the forefront.
Inside the final days before Biden announces his reelection bid: The last-minute scramble as Biden looks to release a video Tuesday officially declaring his 2024 candidacy. WP
Why Biden world cares — a lot — about when he announces his reelection: While the political world waits on a public decision, few outside Washington are clamoring for it. Politico
Will Biden face a Democratic challenger? Ross Douthat
Another Biden-Trump presidential race in 2024 looks more likely: Biden’s impending campaign entry and Trump’s lead in the Republican field mean they could square off again. WSJ
+ A Wall Street Journal poll released last week found Biden at 48% and Trump at 45% in a hypothetical head-to-head matchup, a lead within the poll’s margin of error. In testing a potential field of 12 competitors for the Republican presidential nomination, the poll found that Trump had the support of 48% of GOP primary voters, followed by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis at 24%. No other Republican candidate was in double digits.
Chris Christie doesn't want to hear the name Trump: My very strange and angry breakfast with the former governor. Mark Leibovich
+ “A whopping two-thirds of Republican primary voters say they stand behind former President Donald Trump and dismiss concerns about his electability, despite his recent criminal arrest and the other legal investigations into his past conduct,” a new national NBC News poll finds.
Small towns chase America’s $3 trillion climate gold rush: The Inflation Reduction Act demands a leap of faith from communities that are committing local resources in hopes of attracting new industry. WSJ
Inside the struggle to make lab-grown meat: Companies in the emerging field have long been able to grow small amounts of meat from cells, but producing greater volumes at low cost is proving much more difficult. WSJ
+ Prospects for lab-grown meat to land on American dinner plates got a boost last fall when the Food and Drug Administration for the first time declared cultivated chicken, grown by Upside Foods, safe to eat.
+ Upside says lab-grown meat has the potential to feed an expanding global population, while saving animals from slaughter and exacting a smaller environmental toll on the planet than traditional meat.
+ CEO Uma Valeti says the work to produce lab-grown meat is like ‘putting a man on the moon.’
YouTube, the jewel of the internet: As other platforms fall into disrepute, one deserves praise as a cultural resource. Janan Ganesh
+ "It has a greater trove of content than Netflix, HBO, and Amazon Prime combined and squared."
What happens when quants go ‘Mad Men’: The increasing use of data analytics in online advertising may have led to the growth in disinformation. FT
Meet the Gen Z brand whisperers: ‘I come in, and I’m like, don’t make some weird old-ass campaign!’ Guardian
Bed Bath & Beyond files for bankruptcy: WSJ reports years of losses and a failed turnaround plan left the retailer struggling to stock stores. The company expects all its retail locations to eventually close.
'Alarming and amazing all at once': TED Talks tackles AI with wonder and warnings in Vancouver: Creators and doubters among many speakers addressing artificial intelligence at the annual conference. CBC
+ Of the nearly 80 people who delivered talks at the conference, at least a fifth directly addressed developments in AI and its potential to uplift life on the planet with medical, environmental or communications breakthroughs — and also disrupt through misinformation, or worse.
+ Ina Fried, a journalist based in San Francisco, who is the chief tech correspondent for Axios and has covered the industry for 25 years, said generative AI has captured the world's attention through ChatGPT, but the technology is poised to take many more forms — something humans should be optimistic about.
Tim Marshall: The author who made geography the stuff of bestsellers: He left school at 16, and became Sky News’s diplomatic editor — but writing books has taken his career into space. The Times
National Geographic Traveller Photography Awards 2023 – the winners: The best mages from the magazine’s annual competition, with categories for travel, wildlife, urban settings, people, food, landscape, and portfolio. Guardian
Scottish island for sale, amenities not included: Reaching Barlocco Island is challenging, and staying there for any length of time is even more so. Still, dozens are vying for the 25 acres of nature. NYT
+ For sale: An uninhabited, 25-acre island with pristine views of the Scottish coastline. No one in sight for miles. Just you and the birds, all for at least 150,000 British pounds, or about $186,000.
Tartan’s journey from the Highlands to high fashion: A true folk fabric or a fantasy of a Scotland that never was? FT
+ “A good tartan is the solution to everything,” writes Trisha Telep in The Mammoth Book of Scottish Romance, a compilation of mythical and magical stories. “It tells you where you are, where you belong, who your friends and family are . . . ”
+ Tartan was once best known for its links to the Scottish clan system, in which each family or landlord had its own pattern (or sett, as it’s properly called), usually named for the family or place. In fact, you can still have one of your own if you want to create and formally register it.
+ By the mid-18th century the kilt was so much a symbol of Scottish patriotism and rebellion against English oppression that wearing of Highland dress was actually banned by law for a time.
+ Tartan’s once dangerous and seditious reputation had morphed into a mass-produced, globally consumed textile, and Scotland’s heritage industry had truly begun.
+ ‘Tartan’ is at the V&A Dundee from April 1st to January 14 2024, vam.ac.uk/dundee
Meet the 13-year-old Canadian skateboarder who's grinding her way to Paris 2024: Toronto's Fay De Fazio Ebert has rare gifts of skill, power, flow — and a 'natural fire.' CBC
+ With a little more than a year to go before the 2024 Summer Olympic Games in Paris, Fay De Fazio Ebert is in prime position to represent Canada on the world's biggest sporting stage.
+ "Skateboarding, like diving, like gymnastics is one of those body-weight sports where with a low centre of gravity you can do a lot of these moves at a young age. So young skateboarders can get really, really good."
Who’s winning the NBA playoffs? The Kentucky Wildcats: Kentucky hasn’t won many NCAA tournament games lately, but a record number of John Calipari’s former players are in the NBA playoffs. WSJ
+ Calipari has always been frank about holding two goals as a college head coach: to win, and to get his players where they want to go.
3-star U: Which schools are best (and worst) at developing NFL Draft talent? The Athletic
+ The magnetic attraction of elite prospects to Alabama, Ohio State, Georgia and Clemson, recent fixtures on the sport’s biggest stage, is undeniable. And while choosing those schools might mean reaching the Playoff, it does not correlate with a significantly higher chance of reaching the NFL.
+ Urban Meyer (Florida and Ohio State) and Jimbo Fisher (Florida State and Texas A&M) each have their thumbprints on two programs that have been more than sufficient with five-star talent development.
+ None of Georgia Tech’s 14 four-star signees from 2009 through 2019 were drafted.
+ Five-star prospects are almost universally special talents who often have NFL-ready physiques that test a program’s ability to not screw up the possibility of a game-changing impact player.
+ Four-star prospects are big talents who are far from a guarantee but can still develop into big-time NFL prospects.
+ The ACC has turned a higher percentage of four- and five-star prospects into draft picks than any other power conference.
Enjoy the ride + plan accordingly.
-Marc
Marc A. Ross | Chief Communications Strategist @ Caracal
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