MY THOUGHTS on News.

Previously posted on my Facebook Page.

New York Times: “Treasury chief Janet Yellen, after meetings with Chinese officials, said the two sides would pursue more frequent communication despite deep differences.” Differences are givens. After all, East per China and West per America are worlds apart, not just in political brawn but mostly in cultural psyche. No way to bridge that gap. But there is a middle ground: Trade. As the universe gets more connected in mutual (economic) needs, both worlds can’t afford to fight. 🇺🇸☮️🇨🇳

New York Times: “German Businesses Bet Big on China, and They’re Starting to Worry.” Mainly because Chancellor Olaf Scholz is no Angela Merkel. To date, China stays as Germany’s top trading partner, owing to Merkel’s shrewd shuffling of trade cards with Beijing, “fiscalizer” diplomacy with Moscow, and cordiality with Washington. Germany's economy has grown by 34 percent since the start of Merkel's tenure — 15 percentage points more than its nearest EU rival, France.

     Angela Merkel visited China 12 times during her 16-year tenure, forging a friendship with the Chinese people, thereby fortifying Berlin’s stature in the E.U. as its major power. Germany as well had fine relations with Russia as Moscow’s top fuel buyer before Scholz sat in 2021. Scholz failed to capitalize on what Merkel left him; instead the new Chancellor opted to ride with a Washington-styled hawkish tact, upping instead Berlin’s Defense budget over economic rebound. True, several well-known German businesses were taken over by Chinese investors. Among them was EEW Energy from Waste, the manufacturer of plastic processing machinery Krauss Maffei, and the industrial robotics manufacturer Kuka. In 2016, 68 German companies were bought by Chinese operations. Yet some 5,000 German companies operate in China today. (Visual credit: United World International.) 🇨🇳🏦🇩🇪

New York Times: “Germany Adopts a More Muscular Security Plan.” Her critics say Angela Merkel “underspent” for NATO and thumbs-down her friendship with Vladimir Putin. Yet when there’s no war, I am for it. With Merkel as Chancellor, Germany loomed as Europe’s most powerful over the U.K. and France. She knew how to roll the dice. Under Olaf Scholz: Berlin aims for a €60 billion Defense budget, augmented by military aid to Ukraine vs. Russia. I thumb-down it. 🇩🇪🇩🇪🇩🇪

New York Times: “Putin Met With Mercenary Leaders He Had Called Traitors.” The Kremlin’s disclosure of the meeting with Yevgeny Prigozhin and Wagner’s commanders hinted at the power they wield “...but left many questions unanswered.” First, who funded Wagner’s failed putsch? Then reports said Prigozhin was in Belarus, Russia’s closest ally in the region. Now he’s in Moscow. What’s going on? Who knows. Unless Jack Ryan does his thing. Uh huh. ☮️🇷🇺☮️

Rolling Stone: “How a Rabidly Anti-Gay Preacher Inspired a Pro-Anal Sex TikTok Jam.” And adds: “Since `One Margarita,’ a remix of a Sister Cindy speech, went viral, the campus evangelist is more famous than ever. Students aren’t sure that’s the best thing.” A lot of stuff are going on online, especially with the advent of AI. “Pro-anal sex TikTok jam,” LOL! I don’t what that is but I am not hyped up to know or listen/watch an “anti-gay preacher” either. Waste of time. 😏📲😟

New York Times: “Group Accuses Ukraine of Using Prohibited Land Mines.” And adds: “Human Rights Watch found evidence in May that Ukrainian soldiers had fired 15 rockets at Russian forces, each containing hundreds of small antipersonnel land mines.” Let’s put it this way. Washington is top military aid giver to Kyiv. But the U.S. is not a signatory to the Ottawa Treaty or Mine Ban Convention, adopted in 1997. But Ukraine is a signatory. War is doom. 

     Major powers, which are also past and current manufacturers of landmines, are not parties to the “Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on Their Destruction,” which prohibits anti-personnel landmines. These include the United States, China, and Russia, plus India and Pakistan. More than 150 countries have joined this treaty. ☮️☮️☮️

New York Times: “No One Can Stop Rupert Murdoch. That’s Increasingly a Problem.” And adds: “Why nobody can rein in the increasingly erratic patriarch of the Fox Corporation.” With average daily viewership of 1.1 million (#1) and $13.974 billion revenue in 2022, it is hard to buy the pitch that Rupert's handling of Fox is "erratic." Or probably it is son Lachlan running the Conservative TV roost now? Fox is a problem because Left/Liberal network can't beat it, that’s the story. 📺🐺📺

New York Times: “Number of Migrants at the Border Plunges as Mexico Helps U.S. to Stem Flow.” The cooperation of Mexico + U.S. legislation on one page are the only remedies to unabated illegal border crossings. That’d mean a crackdown on narcopolitics (drug cartels juice, up front) and a more focused Merida Initiative implementation. This means President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador gains stronger economic leverage but it’s all on the negotiating table, of course. 

     Before this, a total of approximately 3,700 encounters at the southern border is reported per day. In April alone, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection had 211,401 encounters, up almost 10 percent from the previous month and up nearly 20 percent from April 2021. These numbers are only the documented/reported apprehensions though. More are unaccounted for, mostly those that are facilitated by the cartel that are “invisible” from law enforcement radar. 🗽🏃‍♀️🏃

New York Times: “What to Know About Limiting Your Child’s Screen Time.” Free software from Apple and Google helps mom/dad oversee how kids use tech. Won’t be that easy. U.S. teenagers spend 7 hours, 22 minutes per day in front of screens. That’d be 43 percent of waking hours. By comparison, that's 24 minutes more than the global average of 6 hours 58 minutes. Take that cellphone away? Depression heightens. And a parent could be charged for “child abuse.” 📱👶📲

New York Times: “One Last Job? 60-Somethings With Mob Ties Charged in Jewel Heists.” And adds; “Four older men with extensive criminal records, including killings and a jailbreak, were charged in two brazen armed robberies in Manhattan.” Perfect for a Netflix series? Three seasons at least? I bet these AARP dudes are now awaiting Hollywood agents to buy their story, if they haven’t already. I’d like my forever idol Nic Cage to be in this kickass series, if ever. 💎🧰💎

MY THOUGHTS on News.

Previously posted on my Facebook Page.

New York Times: “NATO’s Welcome Party for Sweden Is Back on Ice.” After the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Warsaw Pact, NATO’s counterpart, disbanded as well. "We believe that the eastward expansion of NATO is a mistake and a serious one at that," Boris Yeltsin told reporters in Helsinki in 1997, with then U.S. President Bill Clinton present. The two signed a statement on arms control. Hence, what is the point of NATO expansion? Or even its existence? 

       NATO members Hungary and Turkey are against Sweden’s inclusion. Finland was accepted last April. Pre-Feb 2022, the Kremlin has openly expressed objection to NATO expansion in Ukraine and Eastern Europe. But a war would somehow justify expansion, isn’t it? Mutual trust is imperative in global peace. Mere presence of NATO, with nearly half of its $2.1 billion 2023 budget shouldered by the U.S., UK, and Germany, continually poses suspicion, intrigue, and animosity. Anyhow, U.S. Congress approval of $113 billion total aid ($50+ billion in military/arms handout already sent) to Ukraine shows that America is willing to spend gargantuan taxpayer money to keep NATO alive. (Visual credit: Popular Mechanics.) 

       Meanwhile, in other news, NATO sec-gen Jens Stoltenberg (short-lived ex-PM of Norway) wants us to believe that Sweden will get into the military alliance. Maybe. If so, that’d be the “trade off” for the thumbs-down on Ukraine. At least, Sweden is not Eastern Europe (but close). ☮️☮️☮️

New York Times: “Biden Says Ukraine Is Not Ready for NATO Membership.” Ahead of the NATO summit this week, President Biden said it was `premature’ to allow Ukraine to join the alliance as the war with Russia continues. Inconsistencies and contradictions punctuate the President’s policy playbook but I dearly hope this one stays. Ukraine out of NATO or NATO’s non-expansion to Eastern Europe is a precondition to end of war. ☮️☮️☮️

New York Times: “How South Korea Puts Its Food Scraps to Good Use.” And adds: “When wasted food rots in landfills, it pollutes soil and water — and warms the planet.” Copy-paste the quoted lines and read up. Facts: How much food is wasted every year in the world? About 1.3 billion tons or a third of all food for human consumption. In the United States? Each year, 119 billion pounds that equates to 130 billion meals and more than $408 billion thrown away each year. 🍲🇰🇷🍲

New York Times: “Thompson Twins Are Ready for the N.B.A., but Not to Split Up.” Check `em out since they are Top Ten draftees: Amen, 4th; Ausar, 5th. Twins are not rare in the NBA though. Next season there could be as many as six pairs of identical twins in the roughly 500-player NBA, including Brook and Robin Lopez, Marcus and Markieff Morris, and Cody and Caleb Martin. Why don’t the All-Stars weekend feature a 2-on-2 contest of twins? Cool? 🧑🏀🧑

Rolling Stone: “Music Made With AI Will Be Eligible for Grammys, But Only Humans Will Be Awarded.” Absurdly funny! Will there be a remake of “Mr Roboto,” uh huh? Seriously, it'd be weird to yell up the stage “...and the winner for Record of the Year is ‘Prozac is my Ding-a-ling.’ AI #45$zz4!w and AI.7ytpz, composers; Pasckie Pascua, performer.” Why don't they just quit all these surreal award-giving nonsense? Who are judging, anyways? AIs too? 🎼🤖😐

Time: “The Price of Cocoa is Soaring. Blame Russia.” What has Moscow got to do with cocoa? What about importers who control price levels to ensure profit? The Ivory Coast and Ghana are the world’s two largest producers of cocoa, more than 50 percent. And while the U.S. and European countries are the top importers, both African countries’ top trading partner is China. This fact: China is the largest foreign investor in Africa over the last 10 years. ☕💰☕

New York Times: “Lithium Scarcity Pushes Carmakers Into the Mining Business.” And adds: “Ford, General Motors and others are striking deals with mining companies to avoid raw material shortages.” Top lithium-producing countries in 2022: Australia, Chile, and China. The United States is a distant #9. But then, EVs account for only 1 percent of 250 million vehicles sold in the U.S. last year. China is #1, a whopping 30 percent! Next are European countries. 

       Apparently, climate change market influencers in America are not doing a fine job. 🚕🔋🚗

Associated Press: “USAID says it’s horrified by conditions in Ethiopia after massive theft of food aid.” No brainer in poorer countries where leadership corruption is an institutionalized murk. Yet this brings back to the U.N. Oil-for-Food Program scandal in 1996. Some 2,400 companies–including giants Chevron, BNP Paribas, GlaxoSmithKline, and Roche–paid kickbacks and illegal surcharges to win lucrative contracts in Iraq while the country was under UN economic sanctions. 

       The scandal allowed Saddam Hussein to pocket $1.8 billion at the expense of Iraqis suffering under UN economic sanctions that time. And of course those businesses involved gained as well. 🍅💰⛽️

Time: “Confidence in Science Fell in 2022—Especially Along Political Lines.” And adds: “A partisan divide in views of both science and medicine emerged during the COVID-19 pandemic.” Americans believe in science but not necessarily its findings, says a new Pew Research report. Questions asked in the study pertain to GMOs, vaccines, climate change. Some 71 percent think that investment in science ultimately pays off. But people gotta argue the politics of stuff first.  🔭👎🔬

Rolling Stone: “Everything We Know About Olivia Rodrigo's New Album 'Guts'.” Olivia’s dad is Filipino; mom, German/Irish ancestry. The Pinay blood got me interested in her music, hoping to hear glimpses of her mother’s cultural roots. But nope. She’s very American as Taylor Swift, In-N-Out Burger, and Disneyland. Which isn’t bad. She is born and bred in the United States. Though I hope she eats adobo and pinakbet, and knows some Filipino language or dialect. 👩‍🎤🇵🇭👩‍🎤