ITK Daily | November 15

Happy Tuesday.

Here’s today’s ITK Daily.

To be ITK, know this:

Bloomberg: Biden, Xi chart path to warmer ties with Blinken China visit

+ Two leaders agree nuclear weapons can’t be used in Ukraine

+ China cut most US contacts after Pelosi's visit to Taiwan

+ "I absolutely believe there need not be a new cold war." -- Biden after meeting Xi at the G20 summit in Bali.

+ Secretary of State Antony Blinken now plans to travel to China early next year, a significant sign of warming relations.

Surrounded by threats, Japan rethinks decades of military dependency: As it pushes to significantly increase defense spending and develop more of its own hardware, the country may nudge the balance of power in Asia. NYT

+ Japan's governing party is pushing to increase the nation’s defense budget drastically, develop more military hardware domestically and redefine what it can do with those weapons under the pacifist Constitution in place since the end of World War II.

+ A growing piece of Japan’s self-reliance is the development of domestically manufactured missiles that could be used to defend against foreign attacks or that might even be able to reach targets inside enemy territory.

+ The governing Liberal Democratic Party has proposed that Japan increase its defense budget to 2 percent of economic output over the next five years — up from about 1 percent — a goal that would align with members of NATO.

Book to read: Asia's Reckoning: China, Japan, and the Fate of US Power in the Pacific Century - Richard McGregor

How North Korea became a mastermind of crypto cyber crime: Cryptocurrency theft has become one of the regime’s main sources of revenue and underlines the lack of regulation of digital assets. FT

+ According to a UN panel of experts monitoring the implementation of international sanctions, money raised by North Korea’s criminal cyber operations are helping to fund the country’s illicit ballistic missile and nuclear programs.

+ Crypto analysis firm Chainalysis estimates that North Korea stole approximately $1bn in the first nine months of 2022 from decentralized crypto exchanges alone.

House of Commons committee will probe China’s alleged interference in 2019 election: Global News reports Canadian Members of Parliament have agreed to probe allegations that China covertly funded 2019 election candidates in an attempted campaign of foreign influence.

+ “The briefings from CSIS are alarming in terms of the sophisticated campaign by the Chinese communist regime to subvert Canadian democracy,” said Conservative MP Michael Cooper.

CNN: CIA Director Bill Burns met with Russian counterpart Monday

CIA chief meets with Russian counterpart in Turkey: WSJ reports that William Burns warns Russia against the use of nuclear weapons, risks of escalation.

Burns is Team Biden's MVP.

AFP: Russia bans entry to 100 Canadians including Jim Carrey

As Ukraine retakes Kherson, US looks to diplomacy before winter slows momentum: American arms are flowing, but officials in Washington question how much territory either side can win. WSJ

+ US military support for Ukraine this year, now nearing $19 billion, has far outstripped European assistance.

+ Officials in some European countries, particularly in the east and north, have said that publicly pressing for talks could hurt Ukraine’s efforts and play to Russia’s aims of dividing the alliance.

Megalopolis: How coastal west Africa will shape the coming century: By the end of the century, Africa will be home to 40% of the world’s population – and nowhere is this breakneck-pace development happening faster than this 600-mile stretch between Abidjan and Lagos. Howard W French

+ Today, Africa has 1.4 billion people. By the middle of the century, experts such as Edward Paice, author of Youthquake: Why Africa’s Demography Should Matter to the World, believe that this number will have almost doubled.

+ By the end of this century, the UN projects that Africa, which had less than one-tenth of the world’s population in 1950, will be home to 3.9 billion people, or 40% of humanity.

+ A stretch of coastal west Africa that begins in the west with Abidjan, the economic capital of Ivory Coast, and extends 600 miles east – passing through the countries of Ghana, Togo, and Benin – before finally arriving at Lagos. Recently, this has come to be seen by many experts as the world’s most rapidly urbanizing region, a “megalopolis” in the making.

+ For context, the New York metropolitan area is the anchor of one of the first urban zones to be described this way – a region of almost continuous dense habitation that stretches 400 miles from Washington DC to Boston.

+ " Africa is unquestionably the continent that will drive the future of urbanization. And it is that strip along the coast of west Africa where the biggest changes are coming,” said Daniel Hoornweg, a scholar of urbanization at Ontario Tech University.

+ By 2050, about 40% of all the people under 18 in the world will be African, a proportion that will reach half by the century’s end.

+ “The best thing that could happen to west Africa would be if someone could convince these countries to seriously consider the experience of Asia,” said Alain Bertaud, a senior fellow at the Marron Institute at New York University.

+ “Density itself does not create prosperity,” Bertaud told me. “You will have to have lots more transportation, including new rail lines, new roads that link the coastal highway to the hinterlands and to small cities, where the cheaper land is.” He pointed out that this requires a lot of building across national borders, which is not easy in any part of the world.

Bloomberg: UK withdrawing troops from Mali peacekeeping mission

+ UK Armed Forces Minister James Heappey said the 300-strong British force that has been stationed in Mali since 2020 as part of a United Nations peacekeeping mission will leave earlier than planned.

+ The West African country’s growing reliance on Russian mercenaries is undermining stability.

London loses crown of biggest European stock market to Paris: Bloomberg reports It’s another symbolic sign of Britain’s shrinking place in the wake of Brexit, and the continental rivals that will step into position. The French stock market is now worth $2.823 trillion, narrowly edging out the UK at $2.821 trillion, according to data compiled by 彭博资讯 .

+ In 2016, British stocks were collectively worth $1.5 trillion more than France.

Chile’s millennial first lady wants to end the job for good WP

+ Irina Karamanos, the partner of Chilean President Gabriel Boric, announced that she would be stepping down from the role — a job she didn’t seek; a job she doesn’t believe should exist.

+ The concept of a first lady is an American one, dating back to Dolley Madison, the wife of the fourth president, who helped furnish the White House and hosted social affairs for politicians of both parties.

Turkey blames Kurdish militants for Istanbul bomb attack: FT repots police arrest at least 46 people, including the suspected bomber.

Candidates Matter - Election 2022: Outcomes + Implications by political pro Bruce Mehlman . Deck

Why can’t pollsters reach Gen Z? Traditional wisdom and poor polling methods fail to reach young people. What needs to change? The Verge

+ As recently as 2014 and stretching back decades, youth voter turnout sat around 20 percent year over year. But that changed in 2018 when youth turnout spiked 16 percent, up to 36 percent total.

+ Americans received more than 6 billion robocalls in October alone, including nearly 25 million political robocalls and 1.29 billion political robotexts, according to RoboKiller, an app that blocks spam calls and texts.

+ Unlike corporate marketing firms, political pollsters run on much tighter budgets with even greater demand for accurate data returns, making experimentation to reach younger audiences far more difficult.

+ “Polls are often wishcasting operations at this point. Pollsters are going to have to do a lot of soul-searching about how to stay relevant in this field.” -- Rodericka Applewhaite, communications director for the Michigan Democratic Party

Nancy Pelosi told CNN she’d announce a decision on a re-election bid before the caucus’s Nov. 30 leadership elections.

Investigators see ego, not money, as Trump’s motive on classified papers: WP reports a review by federal agents and prosecutors found no clear business interest in the former president's decision to keep classified documents at Mar-a-Lago, people familiar with the matter said.

Today: Trump is expected to announce his 2024 presidential campaign at 9:00 pm ET.

Mile high mushrooms: Colorado became the second state after Oregon to decriminalize psilocybin mushrooms.

Tony Blair's former spin doctor Alastair Campbell's political podcast is a hit: The ex-New Labour impresario debates current affairs with former Tory MP Rory Stewart each week, winning fans with their podcast's nuanced and courteous tone. Le Monde

Final preparations underway for NASA's Moon rocket launch: AFP reports after two failed attempts this summer, NASA - National Aeronautics and Space Administration was busy Monday completing final preparations for the launch of its new mega Moon rocket, now scheduled for early Wednesday from Florida.

35-year-old Canva founder Melanie Perkins got rejected by 100 VCs. Now her $26 billion design startup is ready to take on 微软 and 谷歌 : Perkins, who is Australian, founded the design platform with zero Silicon Valley connections. It's now the world's most valuable startup founded and led by a woman. Fortune

YouTube is introducing a “Live Q&A” feature that will help creators field questions from livestream viewers.

Twitter may have lost more than a million users since Elon Musk took over.

亚马逊 is going to fire 10,000 people.

For a semiconductor plant, the average per square cost is $5,000.

宝马 will invest 10 billion yuan ($1.40 billion) to expand the production of electric vehicle batteries in China.

How 苹果 stores went from geek paradise to union front line: Store employees helped create some of the most valuable square footage in the US. Now they feel more like regular salespeople—so they’re unionizing. Bloomberg

FTX + VCs: Venture investors will likely lose nearly $2 billion they invested in FTX.

The crypto meltdown could have been so much worse: By putting off demands from cryptocurrency entrepreneurs and Wall Street, Washington protected the financial system. Annie Lowrey

+ The central problem is that cryptocurrencies remain little more than speculative assets, and the crypto markets are little more than a casino, rife with fraud.

+ Yet the FTX debacle has thus far had no evident impact on the stock market, nor has it had any effect on the stocks of publicly traded financial firms.

Brian Eno reveals the hidden purpose of all art NYT Magazine

Blur to reunite for one-off Wembley show next year: Guardian reports the band will headline at the London stadium on 8 July for their 35th anniversary, supported by Slowthai, Self Esteem, and Jockstrap.

CANMNT's Qatar World Cup hype video YouTube

USMNT to feature rainbow crest for parts of Qatar World Cup: WSJ reports the national federation said it would display the logo in all areas controlled by US Soccer but stopped short of planning to use it during matches.

National Football League (NFL) aims to grow its international business to $1 billion annually.

A soccer Super League will happen soon.

Cuba calls up MLB baseball stars for first time: AFP reports Cuba on Monday called up two baseball players that have defected to the United States for the first time to a pre-tournament squad ahead of next year's World Baseball Classic. Andy Ibanez and Yoan Lopez both play in Major League Baseball having defected from the communist-run island nation in 2014.

Paris 2024 chooses symbol of French Revolution as Olympic mascot: Organizers have chosen the Phrygian cap, or rather a pair of them, to embody the spirit of the Olympic and Paralympic Games to be held in the French capital.

Enjoy the ride + plan accordingly.

-Marc

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