The World Today for March 27, 2023

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Legion of Doom

RUSSIA

The prime minister of Poland, Mateusz Morawiecki, is worried. He didn’t like the implications of Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s recent three-day visit with Russian President Vladimir Putin. “The Chinese president’s visit to Moscow makes us anxious,” Morawiecki said during a press conference in Warsaw with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, according to the Moscow Times. “This China-Moscow axis is dangerous.”

The prospect of an alliance between China and Russia – two massive, powerful autocracies with statist economies and a lack of respect for human rights – has long been a nightmare for American and European strategic thinkers. Now, as Russia fights a bloody war in Ukraine, that alliance might have come to pass.

China is not yet shipping heavy weaponry to Russia, wrote Bloomberg. But it is sending non-lethal, so-called dual-use items that can be used for both civilian and military purposes. Still, Russia is now more dependent on China as a customer for energy exports that are propping up the Russian economy in the wake of Western sanctions, CNN reported.

The origins of Russia’s disaffection with the US and Europe are obvious. The collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s and the expansion of NATO in the years since then have long angered Russia’s leaders. The West’s military aid to Ukraine in the last year, however, brought US-Russian relations to a new low, as Reuters noted.

China’s reasons for linking up with Russia – historically not China’s friend – are more complex. At the heart of China’s concerns is Taiwan. The island has been independent since 1949 – but officials in Beijing view it as a breakaway province. Coincidentally, China’s plans for Taiwan echo Russia’s aim of invading Ukraine to reintegrate the former Soviet republic into Russia. When the Chinese look to the future, they don’t like the idea of fighting the kind of proxy war with the West that Russia is now waging.

“Why does the US ask China not to provide weapons to Russia, while it keeps selling arms to Taiwan?” Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang said recently, according to the Christian Science Monitor. “Why does the US talk at length about respecting sovereignty and territorial integrity on Ukraine, while disrespecting China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity on China’s Taiwan question?”

One might argue that the US pushed China, Russia, and, additionally, Iran together into a “legion of doom,” as Politico wrote. Others, however, might contend that China is happy to watch the US and Russia spend blood and treasure while biding its time, ABC News added.

It’s hard to tell who is ganging up on whom.

THE WORLD, BRIEFLY

The Name Game

INDIA

India’s parliament expelled opposition leader Rahul Gandhi from the legislature over the weekend, after a court convicted and sentenced him to two years in prison in a case linked to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s last name, the Wall Street Journal reported.

The case against Gandhi stems from remarks he made on the campaign trail in 2019, in which he referred to “thieves” having the surname Modi. The individuals the speech went on to include were fugitive diamond tycoon, Nirav Modi, the disgraced former chief of the Indian Premier League, Lalit Modi, and the prime minister himself.

The prime minister is not related to the two other individuals, according to the Associated Press.

But a lawmaker from Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) complained that Gandhi’s comments had defamed everyone with the Modi surname.

In its ruling, the court found that the opposition leader had been previously warned by India’s Supreme Court to be careful in his statements. Gandhi’s supporters countered that the comments were made to highlight the issue of corruption in India.

Gandhi plans to appeal the verdict.

Under parliamentary rules, a legislator forfeits their seat if convicted of a crime and sentenced to two or more years in prison.

The decision will prevent Gandhi from running for office for six years unless a higher court overturns the verdict or reduces his sentence to less than two years.

Gandhi’s opposition Congress party criticized the move as an attempt by the Modi administration to stifle criticism. Political analysts noted that the disqualification leaves the BJP open to accusations that it is trying to suppress anti-government voices ahead of next year’s elections.

Meanwhile, the BJP is under pressure from the opposition to probe allegations of stock-price manipulation and fraud involving the Adani Group, which had collaborated extensively with the government on modernizing airports, ports, and other infrastructure.

Orchestrated Dissent

HONG KONG

Dozens marched in the streets of Hong Kong on Sunday to protest a land reclamation plan, the first demonstration in the nearly three years since China imposed a strict national security law in the semi-autonomous city following mass protests, Reuters reported.

The rare protests took place under police supervision, with demonstrators required to wear numbered lanyards and barred from wearing masks. Authorities granted organizers a “no-objection” letter on condition they ensured the demonstrations would not violate national security laws, including seditious displays or speech.

Around 80 people participated, according to organizers.

Sunday’s march targeted a proposed plan by Hong Kong’s government to build six public facilities, including a rubbish processing project, in the eastern district of Tseung Kwan O, the South China Morning Post wrote.

City officials said the project aims to “support the daily needs of the community,” but added that it would review the possibility of reducing the scale of the land reclamation.

While some protesters welcomed the chance to express their frustration, others lamented the restrictions imposed by authorities, including limiting rallies to 100 participants.

Hong Kong’s Basic Law – the city’s mini-constitution – guarantees public assembly.

In 2019, the city was gripped by months of anti-government and anti-Beijing protests over a now-withdrawn extradition bill. In response, mainland China imposed a controversial national security law in 2020 that allowed authorities to stifle freedoms and arrest scores of opposition politicians and advocates.

Western governments have criticized the legislation as a tool of repression. Beijing countered that it has helped restore stability to the financial hub.

Symbolic Expulsion

JORDAN

Jordanian lawmakers voted this week to recommend the expulsion of the Israeli ambassador in protest against comments by Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich about Palestinians, Al Jazeera reported.

Last week, Smotrich caused a furor during a private memorial service in France, where he said that Palestinians were “an invention” from the last century and that people like himself and his grandparents were the “real Palestinians.”

The minister added there was “no such thing as Palestinians because there’s no such thing as the Palestinian people,” according to the Times of Israel. Smotrich’s comments came as he was standing by a map of “Greater Israel” that included the occupied Palestinian territory and parts of Jordan.

The incident sparked outrage from a number of Middle Eastern nations including Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, which like Jordan, have diplomatic relations with Israel.

In response, Israel’s foreign ministry sought to ease tensions by saying that it respected Jordan’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. The two countries signed a peace treaty in 1994 following the Arab-Israeli war that began in 1948.

Meanwhile, analysts said the expulsion of Israel’s ambassador to Jordan would require approval from the Jordanian government, which is unlikely to happen.

They added that such votes are symbolic and common during times of heightened tensions between Jerusalem and Amman.

DISCOVERIES

The Beautiful Mind

The recent mapping of a tiny insect’s brain just showed how complex the mind is, regardless of size or species, according to New Atlas.

Researchers at the University of Cambridge and Johns Hopkins University unveiled the first complete, high-resolution brain map – known as a connectome – of a larval fruit fly.

They explained that it is one of the most complex and intricate connectomes of any animal brain ever constructed, adding that it brings us one step closer to understanding consciousness.

The research team wrote in their study that the mapping took around 12 years to complete. The high-resolution imaging shows more than 3,000 neurons and around 548,000 connections between them.

To achieve this, the team used electron microscopy to visually slice the larvae’s brain into thousands of sections. While the electron microscope recorded an image of each slice, the imaging alone still took a day for each of the 3,016 neurons.

The final result displays every neuron and connection, as well as provides unique insights into thought processing and behavior, such as how the busiest circuits led to and from the brain’s learning center.

The new wiring map is the fourth complete connectome to date: Previous ones include the simpler brains of the microscopic roundworm Caenorhabditis elegans.

Scientists noted that the findings pave the way for a revolutionary new frontier of artificial intelligence and neuroscience developments.

Scientists are now planning to map the brains of adult flies and mice, but the prospect of a complete human connectome – a very ambitious endeavor – remains elusive, the authors added.

Click here and here to see the mind’s complexity.

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