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The World Today |  - First Harris-Trump debate
- Spain, Norway PMs in China
- Google’s next antitrust test
- US taps India for chip alliance
- Middle East outlook
- Belgrade’s “mini Russia”
- Status-obsessed economists
- Escobar hippos to be killed
- Greece curbs tourists
- Paleontologists quarrel
 A play about a Sri Lankan-Australian family wrestles with the personal and political. |
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Trump and Harris set for debate |
 Eduardo Munoz/ReutersKamala Harris and Donald Trump, neck and neck in polls, will face off in their first debate Tuesday. The moment is critical for Harris to lay out her vision given a general “sense of uncertainty” about her plans — particularly among undecided Black and Hispanic voters — Semafor’s Benjy Sarlin wrote. The vice president must walk the line between being the “adult in the room” in contrast with an often belligerent Trump, while attacking his weak spots like abortion, Bloomberg’s Timothy O’Brien argued. Despite Trump’s campaign team “virtually shouting at him” to focus on issues where he has a leg up on Harris, the former president “struggles to stay on track,” The Washington Post reported, meandering from one disconnected thought to another. |
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Spain, Norway leaders in China |
 China Daily via ReutersSpanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez and Norwegian Prime Minister Gahr Støre are in China this week hoping to fix political tensions with Beijing. China’s probe into EU pork imports — retaliation for the EU’s tariffs on Chinese EVs — is Sánchez’s primary concern as Spain is the EU’s largest exporter of pork products. He could make a breakthrough with Beijing, because unlike other EU countries, “Spain is a source of good vibes in China,” a Spanish sinologist argued. Støre, meanwhile, will press Chinese leader Xi Jinping over his support of Russian aggression, broadcaster NRK reported, and Moscow’s broader threat in the Arctic. Oslo needs Beijing’s cooperation in its goal to build “a peaceful and ecologically responsible future in the Arctic,” a China security analyst wrote. |
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Google antitrust trial begins |
 Google’s legal team. Kevin Lamarque/ReutersGoogle’s latest antitrust trial began Monday, with US prosecutors targeting its sprawling online ad business. The trial comes just weeks after a federal judge ruled that the tech giant’s search engine business violated antitrust laws. The cases are the US’ apparent attempt to catch up with the EU’s long-standing efforts to regulate anticompetitive behavior in the industry, a legal expert argued in The Conversation, but questions remain whether litigation can move “fast enough, and with enough force, to truly reshape some of the world’s largest and most dominant companies,” Politico wrote. Experts eyeing the latest trial told Digiday that the stakes are also high for the future of artificial intelligence since Google plays an outsized role in using AI tools for advertising. |
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India joins US-led chip alliance |
 The US announced it would invest in expanding India’s semiconductor industry as Washington seeks to diversify supplies of the critical technology away from China and Taiwan. Chips have “acquired unprecedented geopolitical importance,” Foreign Policy wrote, and as part of its high-profile CHIPS act, the Biden administration has looked to invest in friendly countries that can supply a large labor force of technicians and engineers. “India is a natural partner in this area,” a US government official said. But building a semiconductor ecosystem in India will be “herculean task,” DigiTimes Asia argued, given the country’s sheer size and diversity, coupled with a lack of large-scale infrastructure and skilled manpower for chip production. |
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Middle East is ‘heading for stability’ |
 Mohammed Salem/ReutersIsrael’s nearly year-long war in Gaza now looks unlikely to spark the all-out regional conflict that many feared, a leading US political scientist argued. Palestinians face a disastrous humanitarian situation and a ceasefire remains elusive, but the war is “mostly over,” Eurasia Group’s Ian Bremmer noted in an analysis, given that Israel has achieved most of its military objectives. The long-term outlook for the Middle East is “heading more toward stability than existential crisis,” he wrote. The Abraham Accords remain in place, Saudi-Israel ties are improving, and Iran and its proxies remain wary of escalation. “The most likely long-term outcome is a more arm’s length relationship with Israel by longstanding friends and partners in the West.” |
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 Vadim Morus, Russian professional skater and trainer in Serbia. Zorana Jevtic/ReutersThe Serbian capital of Belgrade has become a safe haven for tens of thousands of Russians fleeing the war. A vibrant “mini-Russia” has emerged in the city of two million people, Reuters reported, with Russian-owned clubs, art galleries, and medical practices popping up since the 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Russians are drawn to Serbia’s ancient cultural and religious ties to Moscow, but that means that those escaping the Kremlin’s politics are now often surrounded by pro-Putin Serbs. That’s why many Russian immigrants to the country have struggled to integrate, a political scientist said. |
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 Harvard Department of Economics. Harvard UniversityIn a thoughtful critique of his profession, Harvard economist David Deming argued in The Atlantic that status-obsessed economists are having less of a meaningful impact on society. He cited a recent paper that found that the recipients of major economic prizes have collectively spent half of their careers at just eight elite institutions, and that Nobel Prizes in economics are nearly five times more concentrated than those in chemistry, physics, and medicine. “By our own metrics, the marketplace of ideas in economics is becoming less efficient and fair,” Deming wrote: The lack of funding for empirical research in economics departments has resulted in scholars focusing on research that gets them tenure, but has “little effect on the real world.” |
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|  September 24, 2024 | New York City | Request Invitation Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Director-General, World Trade Organization will join the stage at The Next 3 Billion summit — the premiere U.S. convening dedicated to unlocking one of the biggest social and economic opportunities of our time: connecting the unconnected. |
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Escobar’s ‘cocaine hippos’ to be culled |
 Vanessa, a hippo at Pablo Escobar’s Colombian estate. Wikimedia CommonsA growing herd of feral hippopotamuses brought to Colombia by drug lord Pablo Escobar will be culled. Escobar was killed by police in 1993, but not before importing four hippos to his estate in the west of the country. At up to five tons each, they were too difficult to rehome, and so were left alone. But in Colombia’s rich jungle, and with no predators, they thrived and bred: There are now at least 169. The hippos are famously aggressive and several attacks have been reported. Experts fear their numbers could increase tenfold in the next decade, and a court has ruled they should be euthanized. Not everyone is pleased, though, as Escobar’s estate and its hippos are a significant tourist draw. |
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Greece tries to limit tourism |
 Greece became the latest European country to take steps to curb tourism. Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis announced a fee of up to €20 ($22) for cruise ship passengers to disembark at popular islands, and limits on short-term rentals such as Airbnb. Spain and Italy have already imposed measures to limit the impact of visitors, such as fees to enter Venice and public drinking restrictions on “party” islands like Ibiza. Greece, though, is more tourist-dependent than either country, with the sector accounting for 25% of its GDP, and skeptics warned that authorities could be biting the hand that feeds. Mitsotakis acknowledged the concerns, saying: “It is very dangerous to present Greece as a place that is not welcoming to tourists.” |
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Bitter fight between paleontologists |
 Various fossils from the Tanis site. Taylor Mickal/NASAA site in the US state of North Dakota that may hold evidence of the day the dinosaurs were killed is also at the center of a poisonous academic dispute. “Tanis” contains fossils of fish apparently killed in a violent flood, which some scientists think was caused by the Chicxulub asteroid. A New York Magazine article follows two paleontologists’ race to publish research claiming to show the impact occurred in the spring. One accuses the other of plagiarizing his work; the other accuses the first of faking his data. The fundamental takeaway, the author says, is that “the field of paleontology is mean.” One professor calls it “a snake pit of personality disorders.” |
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|  September 10: - China’s legislative body convenes to review a range of bills.
- Artificial intelligence experts gather in Saudi Arabia for a summit.
- Pulitzer Prize-winning author Elizabeth Strout publishes a new novel, Tell Me Everything.
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|  S. Shakthidharan/CarriageworksAn epic, multigenerational saga about a Sri Lankan-Australian family makes its US stage debut this month. “I put my soul on a plate,” playwright S. Shakthidharan told The New York Times. His own family emigrated to Australia in 1984 to escape Sri Lanka’s bitter civil war, leaving his mother with memories too painful to talk about. Counting and Cracking spans half a century, is performed in English, Tamil, and Sinhalese, and features 19 actors from around the world. For Shakthidharan, it marks years of attempting to understand the island’s painful history as well as his family’s story, resulting in a play in which “the personal and political are inextricably entwined,” The Times wrote. |
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Welcome to my geopolitics blog site. This is a Hawaii Island news site focusing on geopolitical news, analysis, information, and commentary. I will cite a variety of sources, ranging from all sides of the political spectrum.