CHINA WATCHChina’s Long-Arm Policing Overseas Published 19 January 2022 Just around Christmas last year, China’s global hunt for “fugitives” hit a new milestone. Since its launch in 2014 as part of Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption campaign, 10,000 are claimed to have been successfully returned from over 120 countries around the globe under Sky Net (and junior

ARGUMENT: Countering DisinformationHow to Support a Globally Connected Counter-Disinformation Network Published 19 January 2022 From undermining democracy to inciting genocide, the global dangers of disinformation on social media are now well known. Kevin Sheives writes that despite countless calls for better legal regulation or intensified content moderation, the efforts of governments and social media companies

EXTREMISMPolarization: Parties Lead and Voters Follow Published 19 January 2022 Party polarization tends to come before voter polarization, according to new research. “People often rely on political parties as a source of information, so it makes sense to expect them to follow the lead of parties and other political elites,” says one researcher. Party polarization tends

AVALANCHESimulations Can Improve Avalanche Forecasting Published 19 January 2022 Currently, avalanche forecasts in Canada are made by experienced professionals who rely on data from local weather stations and on-the-ground observations from ski and backcountry ski operators, avalanche control workers for transportation and industry, and volunteers who manually test the snowpack. But simulated snow cover models

MICROCHIPSReasserting U.S. Leadership in Microelectronics By Adam Zewe Published 19 January 2022 The global semiconductor shortage has grabbed headlines and caused a cascade of production bottlenecks that have driven up prices on all sorts of consumer goods, from refrigerators to SUVs. The chip shortage has thrown into sharp relief the critical role semiconductors play in

ENERGY SECURITYA Global Energy Grid Based on 100% Renewable Energy Published 19 January 2022 Researchers are working to build an industrial scale prototype of a next generation HVDC technology that could pave the way for a global electricity grid, based on renewable energy. Researchers at the Birmingham Energy Institute are working with the C-EPRI Electric Power Engineering Ltd (C-EPRI), to

CHINA WATCHSecurity Flaws in China’s Mandatory Olympics App for Athletes By Jeffrey Knockel Published 18 January 2022 Athletes arriving at the Winter Olympics in China will have to install a Chinese-made app, called MY2022, on their smartphones, and fill in detailed information about themselves. China says that app, which the athletes will have to carry

CRISIS & PUBLIC HEALTHPublic-Health-Crisis Lessons from the Pandemic Published 18 January 2022 “Just as the emergency department in a hospital is in a constant state of preparedness and response to the needs of their patients on an individual level – and on a mass casualty level in disasters – public health professionals in emergency preparedness

CHINA WATCHEnvisioning the Overthrow of China’s Xi Jinping By Natalie Liu Published 18 January 2022 On 14 October 1964, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev was deposed. Members of the Politburo, led by Leonid Breshnev and Alexei Kosygin, informed Khrushchev that he was being replaced, and he was escorted to a villa in a secluded area on

WATER SECURITYSafe Drinking Water Remains Out of Reach for Many Californians Published 18 January 2022 An estimated 370,000 Californians rely on drinking water that may contain high levels of the chemicals arsenic, nitrate or hexavalent chromium. Researchers say that Californians impacted by unsafe drinking water from other compounds for which data are not as widely available.