The United States and China have been locked in a technology cold war for several years. The COVID-19 pandemic, which originated in the Chinese city of Wuhan, is now pressuring Washington to make even stronger moves against Beijing by fueling anti-China sentiment among U.S. voters and legislators alike. But the White House’s latest attempt to increase export […]

As governments around the world explore ways to emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic, easing the economic pain caused by lockdowns without causing even more damaging public health crises, they will be looking at the experience of other early outbreak countries to guide their actions. While best practices are emerging, recovery strategies will be tailored to […]

The culture secretary is to order social media companies to be more aggressive in their response to conspiracy theories linking 5G networks to the coronavirus pandemic. Oliver Dowden plans to hold virtual meetings with representatives from several tech firms next week to discuss the matter. It follows a number of 5G masts apparently being set […]

It started with an unsubstantiated rumor. “You can laugh now,” Johnny Carson said on The Tonight Show on December 19, 1973, “but there is an acute shortage of toilet paper.” There wasn’t—but it didn’t matter. The broadcast sent America into a mass panic. Millions of shoppers swarmed into grocery stores and began hoarding toilet paper. Ex nihilo, […]

During the epidemic, the dead were cremated immediately, without ceremonies and without specifying the cause of death. Now family members are waiting to bury the urns containing the ashes of their loved ones. About 45,000 urnes will be distributed in Wuhan alone. The number of coronavirus deaths in China is deliberately underestimated. In the days […]

The South African government’s recently announced austerity budget is no longer tenable as the calls for fiscal stimulus increase alongside growing COVID-19 concerns. The high incidence of HIV and chronic lung diseases in South Africa, especially among the country’s poorer and uninsured populations, could allow for the virus to spread quickly. Such a widespread outbreak […]

HIGHLIGHTS At present, the new coronavirus will not have a huge effect on China’s technology sector beyond the temporary extension of the Lunar New Year holiday, since Wuhan and Hubei province are not a critical node in the country’s overall technology sector. Nevertheless, the virus will have an impact on Wuhan’s fiber optics industry, which […]

The Iraq War devastated so many lives. Its wreaked havoc on individuals stateside and not directly involved with the fighting. Its effects continue to reverberate across the globe. War and conflict carry unimaginable costs that defy putting figures to the human ravages and sufferings. But there are unfathomable consequences… The environment and climate change. Military […]

HIGHLIGHTS Tech billionaire Peter Thiel sparked a debate this summer when he declared Google’s artificial intelligence work in China bad for U.S. national security. AI fundamentally is a military technology; at best Google is ill-informed of Beijing’s intent if it thinks its work with China is benign, Thiel and others argue. Thiel’s argument raises important […]

A new study outlines a method for detecting a speculative phenomenon that has long captured the imagination of sci-fi fans: wormholes, which form a passage between two separate regions of spacetime. Such pathways could connect one area of our universe to a different time and/or place within our universe, or to a different universe altogether. […]