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Washington Raises Stakes in War on Chinese Technology
The Biden administration is expanding its list of technology-focused sanctions on China, drawing parallels to U.S. controls targeting the Soviet Union during the Cold War – and the new U.S. sanctions are in some ways more restrictive than Cold-War era controls.
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The Promise and Peril of Guyana’s Oil Boom
Most people may not have even heard of Guyana, a tiny country on the northeast coast of South America, but the former British colony is in the midst of an oil boom of staggering proportions. The vast oil reserves discovered off the Guyana coast will soon make Guyana a major oil producer. The question is whether Guyana will escape what economists call the “Resource Curse” — the phenomenon which sees economies that are blessed with natural resources experience less favorable development outcomes than their resource-poor counterparts.
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China’s Challenge: Why the West Should Fear President Xi’s Quest to “Catch and Surpass It’ with Technology
Beijing’s bid for technological dominance is a threat to global security and liberty. The Western democracies must not shirk the task of confronting it.
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Nord Stream Pipeline Sabotage: How an Attack Could Have Been Carried Out and Why Europe Was Defenseless
Whatever caused the damage to the Nord Stream gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea, it appears to be the first major attack on critical “subsea” (underwater) infrastructure in Europe. This raises the question of the vulnerabilities of European pipelines, electricity and internet cables, and other maritime infrastructure. Europe will have to revisit its policies for protecting them.
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Magnesium Market Highlights Continuing Fragility of Global Supply Chains
Magnesium is a critical input for major and emerging economies’ economic and industrial development. It has diverse high-tech applications in a wide range of sectors, from renewable energy to aerospace, defense to transport, and telecommunications to agriculture. The problem is that for both industry and governments, magnesium supply chains are vulnerable to sudden disruptions.
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Will DHS Again Leave H‑2B Winter Industries Short Workers?
The H 2B program allows employers to hire foreign workers for seasonal or temporary nonfarm jobs. USCIS recently announced that employers had already reached the H 2B cap of 33,000 visas for the winter months before the start of the season. The H 2B program is filling jobs in relatively niche areas or positions where the shortages are most severe. DHS should immediately raise the cap to allow more H 2B workers to enter these positions.
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The “Hurricane Tax”: Ian Is Pushing Florida’s Home Insurance Market Toward Collapse
Hurricane Ian has dissipated, but it will bring even more turmoil to the Sunshine State in the coming months. This damage will be financial rather than physical, as ratings agencies and real estate companies have estimated the storm’s damages at anywhere between $30 and $60 billion. The storm is poised to be one of the largest insured loss events in U.S. history.
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The U.S. Needs to Prepare for More Billion-Dollar Climate Disasters Like Hurricane Ian
Billion-dollar disasters such as Hurricane Ian are on the rise in the United States. Officials should take swift action to reduce the damage and protect Americans.
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The Cost of Rising Temperatures
From crop damage to cooling failures at cloud-based data centers, climate change affects a wide variety of economic sectors. The study found that economies are sensitive to persistent temperature shocks over at least a 10-year time frame.
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Permanent Rupture: The European-Russia Energy Relationship Has Ended with Nord Stream
Last Monday’s blasts that tore through the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 pipelines have already blown up whatever was left of five decades of German energy policy. For Germany, abandoning the Nord Stream pipelines signified a fundamental transformation of Germany’s energy security strategy, and its approach to relations with Russia. “The Nord Stream pipeline was the last gasp of Ostpolitik and this week’s damage is likely fatal.” Emily Holland writes.
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How Can Countries Protect Critical Infrastructure from Cyberattacks?
Hacking attacks on power grids, telecom networks, or governments can paralyze entire societies. That makes them a powerful military weapon, as the war in Ukraine demonstrates. How can countries protect themselves?
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Human Trafficking’s Newest Abuse: Forcing Victims into Cyberscamming
Tens of thousands of people from across Asia have been coerced into defrauding people in America and around the world out of millions of dollars. Those who resist face beatings, food deprivation or worse.
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Pipeline Leaks Likely the Result of Deliberate Act
European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said Wednesday that all indications are that leaks from two Nord Stream natural gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea “are the result of a deliberate act.” The 1,222-kilometer-long Nord Stream 1 pipeline has been, until recently, a major source of gas for Germany. Nord Stream 2, which is 1,234 kilometers in length, has yet to go into commercial operation.
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Suspicious Leaks in Baltic Sea Nord Stream Pipelines Connecting Russia and Germany
Both Nord Stream natural gas pipelines from Russia to Germany have developed apparent leaks within hours of one another. The cause is unknown, but some sources have hinted at sabotage.
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What Many Progressives Misunderstand About Fighting Climate Change
We have gotten used to thinking that fighting for the environment must mean fighting against corporations. Indeed, some environmental activists openly say that the energy transition is an opportunity to remake society and usher in a new social order. Alec Stapp writes that such ideas “raise a question: What is the real goal here—stopping climate change or abolishing capitalism?” He adds: “In reality, the false solution to climate change isn’t geoengineering or nuclear energy—it’s the belief that we can decarbonize the economy only by upending our economic system, categorically rejecting certain technologies, and spurning private investment.”
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More headlines
The long view
New Bill Proposes Banning TikTok in the U.S.
Both the administration and Congress have moved to limit, or even ban, TikTok in the United States because of worries about China using the Chinese-owned platform to gather personal data on millions of Americans. Justin Sherman writes that “all told, it is a noteworthy piece of legislation, and it delineates between the risk of data access and the risk of content manipulation better than then-President Trump’s executive order on TikTok.”
$4.8M to Address National Cybersecurity Workforce Shortage
Oregon State University has received $4.8 million from the National Science Foundation to help the United States close a big gap between the number of cybersecurity job openings and the number of qualified applicants for those positions.
Leveraging U.S. Capital Markets to Support the Future Industrial Network
$56 trillion is nearly three times the size of the U.S. economy. This vast pool of capital in U.S. capital markets — $46 trillion in public capitalization and another $10 trillion in private money – dwarfs that of China. Tapping U.S. equity and debt markets would enable the Department of Defense to remedy current capability shortfalls, fund technological advances from leading private-sector innovators, invest in generational transformation efforts across the military services, and upgrade antiquated global infrastructure to sustain U.S. forces.
Insurance for a Changing Climate
Among the many facets of the economy being challenged and changed by warming global temperatures is the insurance industry. Damaging extreme events such as wildfires, hurricanes, and floods are happening with greater frequency and intensity, which leaves insurance companies facing larger financial risks and paying out more in claims — and it also leaves policy holders paying higher prices to insure their homes and businesses.
Batteries Are the Battlefield
The United States is one of many countries pursuing the clean energy revolution, and which have ramped up investment in electric vehicles manufacturing and renewable energy sources to power the shift away from fossil fuels. Christina Lu and Liam Scott write that this is an industry that has already been staked out by another power: China.