Today's Must-Reads - 15 May 2024

The latest news, studies, reports and articles you need to know!

Welcome to your daily dose of curated news and insights! While I can't cover everything, I've hand-picked the most important stories you should have on your radar.

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Climate Change

• Evaluating the thermal environmental alterations due to photovoltaic installations in the kushida river basin, Japan. The construction of Photovoltaic (PV) provides renewable energy, but it is also impacting the basins environment. The study simulates the annual construction status of PV installations within the research area over a time series from 2013 to 2023, and to understanding of the trends in Land Surface Temperature (LST) changes due to the PVs. The study found that the LST around PV which built from 2013 to 2023 increased by an average of 2.85 °C.

• Government mulls delaying motorbike ban as Net Zero opposition grows. A ban on petrol-fuelled motorcycles might be pushed back until 2040 as a groundswell of opposition to its Net Zero plans grows among vehicle manufacturers. All vehicles classed as “L3” and upwards, including scooters and light, medium and higher-powered motorcycles will be affected, The Telegraph reported, though No 10 has yet to sign off on the policy. Petrol-fuelled mopeds will be phased out earlier, from 2030, given they account for half of sales already, but electric motorcycles, in contrast, represented 2% of total sales in 2023.

Covid Mandates & Lockdowns

• The WHO’s Proposed Pandemic Agreements Worsen Public Health. Much has been written on the current proposals putting the World Health Organization (WHO) front and center of future pandemic responses. With billions of dollars in careers, salaries, and research funding on the table, it is difficult for many to be objective. However, there are fundamentals here that everyone with public health training should agree upon. Most others, if they take time to consider, would also agree. Including, when divorced from party politicking and soundbites, most politicians. So here, from an orthodox public health standpoint, are some problems with the proposals on pandemics to be voted on at the World Health Assembly at the end of this month.

Economy/Energy/Finance

• Median US mortgage payments have hit another record high of $2,894. Only three years ago, in 2021, these were around $1,600.

  

• UK wage growth stays high despite hiring slowdown. UK wage growth remained persistently strong in the three months to March despite a slowing jobs market, painting a mixed picture that will reinforce divisions at the Bank of England over when to cut interest rates. Despite the strength in earnings, the data also showed a softening jobs market in which vacancies continued to fall, payrolled employment was virtually flat and the number of people claiming unemployment benefits edged up. The figures will do little to resolve the divisions between members of the Monetary Policy Committee who voted last week by seven to two to hold interest rates at a 16-year high of 5.25 per cent.

• Bank of America Terminates Account of Conservative Independent Journalist Without Explanation. Independent journalist Christina Urso, known professionally as Radix Verum, has reported that Bank of America abruptly terminated her bank account. According to Urso’s posts on X, the termination came without warning or clear explanation from the bank’s risk department. She claims that despite her long-standing relationship with Bank of America, access to her funds was denied and she was informed that a check for the account balance would be mailed to her without specifying when.

Middle East

• Israel astroturfed Eurovision vote but lost anyway, govt admits. Israeli officials hyped their country’s 5th place Eurovision finish as proof of quiet global grassroots support for their assault on Gaza. Now, they admit they manipulated the results through an international propaganda blitz. “It is true that we, as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, acted among friendly audiences to increase voting,” Saranga admitted. Elsewhere, the Times of Israel acknowledged: “The truth is that there was obviously an organized, dedicated effort by Israel supporters to give their votes to Golan… and it clearly drew votes from many who don’t otherwise tune into the Eurovision each year.”

Politics

• King Charles’ first official portrait since the coronation couldn’t make him look more demonic if they tried.

  

• The Civil Service is trying to cover up the true scale of migrant crime. If a social democratic, high-trust country like Denmark can publish data on migrant crime rates, there’s no reason why Britain can’t. It was sadly predictable that civil servants would seek to block the publication of league tables showing the migrant nationalities with the highest rates of crime. It’s the classic Blob ploy; if the data gives results you don’t like, reject the data. If you attempt to access it through a Freedom of Information request, it will be refused on the grounds that it costs too much to collate. But it would surely be possible for a Minister to access it to aid their decision making – and reveal it to the public.

• PACE rapporteur, ending visit to Julian Assange in Belmarsh Prison, expresses deep concern for his well-being. “As noted in the motion underlying my mandate, Julian Assange’s harsh treatment risks deterring others who wish to report truthful information pertaining to armed conflicts,” said Ms Ævarsdóttir. “Whether or not he is extradited, his prosecution and lengthy detention already risk deterring other whistle-blowers and journalists from reporting on various transgressions of governments or powerful private parties.”

• Biden’s Plan to Hit China With More Tariffs Is Mostly Symbolic. While China’s electric vehicle, solar power and battery sectors are central to Beijing’s blueprint to manufacture its way out of a housing slump, they’re not reliant on US consumers. Existing tariffs locked Chinese autos out of the US market years ago, while solar firms mostly export to the US from overseas, avoiding similar curbs. Perhaps, the real danger for Beijing is that Biden’s symbolic swing at EVs sets a precedent for countries where China does have market share, said Dylan Loh, assistant professor of politics at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.

Science

• The First Two Cells in a Human Embryo Contribute Disproportionately to Fetal Development. A research team showed that, contrary to current models, one early embryonic cell dominates lineages that will become the fetus. “They are not identical,” said Magdalena Zernicka-Goetz, a developmental and stem cell biologist at the California Institute of Technology and the University of Cambridge and study coauthor. “Only one of the two cells is truly totipotent, meaning it can give rise to body and placenta, and the second cell gives rise mainly to placenta.” The findings help elucidate what happens during the earliest periods in development.

Technology

• ‘This is my 85th job application – and so far I’ve only spoken to AI bots’. Companies including Unilever, Microsoft and Nestle have used AI to hire staff, and dozens more are said to be incorporating more automation into their hiring processes for top graduate jobs as competition grows more fierce. AI interviews cut out the need for layers of HR and offer companies facing large numbers of applicants for roles a fairer way of creating a candidates shortlist. AI interviews are proving so popular with firms for entry-level positions and graduate schemes that some students have complained of finding it increasingly difficult to secure a face-to-face interview.

• China creates its largest ever quantum computing chip — and it could be key to building the nation's own 'quantum cloud'. The new chip, called "Xiaohong," is the biggest built by China to date and is designed to improve systems that manage the behavior and interaction of quantum bits, or qubits, in quantum computers, state-owned China Daily reported. The scientists hope the chip will help to scale up existing quantum computers so they can handle more complex tasks. Quantum computers work fundamentally differently from classical computers. Unlike classical bits, which can only be represented as 0 or 1, qubits can exist in multiple states simultaneously.

Ukraine

• German mood sours on Ukrainian refugees. European countries have already suffered a massive economic blowback from their governments’ ill-thought-out Ukraine-first policy, in the form of soaring prices and creeping deindustrialisation. This has triggered an anti-establishment populist insurgency which is undermining mainstream parties across the continent — and which is expected to be the big winner in the upcoming European elections. Now, another Ukraine-related crisis may be about to explode. And the canary in the coal mine, as is often the case these days, is Germany — the EU’s former powerhouse turned, once again, sick man of Europe.

• The secret document that could have ended the Ukraine war. A few weeks after the Russian invasion of Ukraine there could have been a peaceful solution. This emerges from a draft contract that both warring parties negotiated by April 15, 2022. Accordingly, Kiev and Moscow largely agreed on conditions for an end to the war. Only a few points remained open. These were supposed to be negotiated personally by Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelensky at a summit meeting - but that never took place. Even after more than two years of war, the deal still seems advantageous in retrospect. “That was the best deal we could have had,” said a member of the Ukrainian negotiating delegation at the time. Looking back, Ukraine was in a stronger negotiating position then than it is now. If the costly war had been ended after around two months, it would have saved countless people's lives and a lot of suffering.