"Russia defaulted on its foreign debt for the first time since 1918, pushed into delinquency not for lack of money but because of punishing Western sanctions over its invasion of Ukraine."

wsj.com/articles/sanct… 1/ "Russia missed payments on two foreign-currency #bonds as of late Sunday, according to holders of the bonds. The day marks the expiration of a 30-day grace period since the country was due to pay the equivalent of $100 million in dollars and euros to #bondholders."

"... it points to an important lesson for the United States as it vies with #China for influence across the Pacific: you have got to show up. And the United States has not."

nytimes.com/2022/06/27/opi… #SolomonIslands #diplomacy 1/ "We get it. The #SolomonIslands is small, remote and economically insignificant. But if all countries like us are dismissed as such, China will pick us off one by one with its promises of business projects and development aid."

"The killings last Monday, which led Pope Francis, himself a Jesuit, to bemoan #Mexico’s unrelenting violence, underscore how Mexican #organizedcrime groups rule over huge swaths of the country’s territory."

wsj.com/articles/killi… 1/ "Last year, U.S. Northern Command chief Gen. Glen VanHerck told a congressional committee that about one-third of Mexico’s territory is effectively run by organized crime groups. Mexico’s government denied the claim."

"Across #China, the police are buying technology that harnesses vast #surveillance data to predict #crime and #protest before they happen."

nytimes.com/2022/06/25/tec… #Panopticon #Bentham #startups 1/ "The latest generation of technology digs through the vast amounts of data collected on their daily activities to find patterns and aberrations, promising to predict crimes or protests before they happen."

"It’s too soon to say whether #climatechange is directly to blame for causing severe #heatwaves in these four powerhouse economies — which also happen to be the top emitters of heat-trapping gases — at roughly the same time, just days into summer."

nytimes.com/2022/06/24/cli… 1/ "While #globalwarming is making extreme heat more common worldwide, deeper analysis is required to tell scientists whether specific weather events were made more likely or more intense because of human-induced warming."

“'Every piece of real estate in #Bangladesh is populated, and this entire area is underwater,' said Sheldon Yett, the United Nations Children’s Fund representative to the country, referring to the northeast."

nytimes.com/2022/06/24/wor… #Sylhet #FinnegansWake 1/ "But this year, the #rains have been especially intense, a harsh reminder that #climatechange is bringing more extreme weather around the world."

"In a 2011 Times Op-Ed, Warren #Buffett decried the treatment of #carriedinterest, which allowed him to report a lower tax rate than his secretary. A minimum tax on millionaires was proposed shortly thereafter & dubbed the '#BuffettRule.'”

nytimes.com/2021/04/23/bus… #PrivateEquity 1. "The #carriedinterestloophole might finally disappear. Profits earned from funds owned by real estate investors & mgrs of #privateequity & #venturecapital firms are taxed as #capitalgains at about 20%, instead of as regular income, which is taxed at more than double that rate"

"Each day, the government reports more than 300,000 new infections, a world record, & #India is now seeing more new infections than any other country by far, almost half of all new cases in a global surge."

nytimes.com/2021/04/24/wor… #CovidIndia 1. "Millions of people refuse to even step outside — their fear of catching the virus is that extreme. Accounts from around the country tell of the sick being left to gasp for air as they wait at chaotic hospitals that are running out of lifesaving oxygen."

"Ms. Khan, a law professor & a former staffer at the #FTC who President Biden nominated to the agency in March, warned of the cascading power of tech companies that has allowed them to easily expand their reach across markets."

nytimes.com/2021/04/21/bus… #BigTech 1/ "In a 2017 Yale Law Journal article titled 'Amazon’s Antitrust Paradox,' she questioned the bias of #antitrust experts toward #consumerprices as the key metric for antitrust violation."

"Plans for the elitist, money-grabbing league were unveiled Sunday night, triggering universal condemnation and galvanizing #fans against the 12 owners who proposed the tone-deaf breakaway."

bostonglobe.com/2021/04/21/spo… #johnhenry #LIVERPOOL #Boston 1/ "The #SuperLeague collapsed under the weight of its own greed less than 48 hours after it was introduced, & Henry posted an apology video hours later in which he said, “The project put forward was never going to stand without the support of the fans....'"

"The post resonated at a time when weary people across the world are experiencing #ennui, 3dread & more work-related #stress during the coronavirus pandemic."

nytimes.com/2021/04/21/bus… #socrates #soul #zombies 1/ "Since he described his epiphany a week ago, his post has been liked over 200,000 times. It has received more than 10,000 comments from readrs describing how their own brushes w death had led them to step back from work & take stock of the way they had been livng their lives."

"As damaging as #H5N8 has been to birds, it had never infected people. Until February."

nytimes.com/2021/04/21/sci… #pandemics #risk 1/ "The Russian health authorities also tested about 200 of the people involved in the cleanup of the farm in #Astrakhan, using nasal swabs and later blood tests for antibodies. They reported that for the first time, #H5N8 had jumped to people."

"A lethal, fast-paced second wave of the coronavirus pandemic has brought #India’s health care systems to the verge of collapse & is putting millions of lives & livelihoods at risk."

nytimes.com/2021/04/20/opi… #CovidIndia 1/ "The newspapers & social media are scrolls of horror & failure of the health system. There are reports of lines of ambulances with patients waiting outside the largest Covid facility in #Ahmedabad in the western state of Gujarat because ventilator beds & oxygen had run out."

"despite over 80,000 infections worldwide (most of them in China), the world still doesn’t have a clear picture of some of the most basic information about this outbreak."

nytimes.com/2020/02/28/opi… #pathogen #management #bigdata #DataAnalytics 1/ "In recent days the #WHO has complained that China has not been sharing #data on infections in health care workers. Earlier this month, the editors of the journal #Nature called on researchers to 'ensure that their work on this outbreak is shared rapidly and openly.'”

"Restrictions imposed to control the virus — & public panic — have transformed #Italy’s commercial & financial capital in a way some Milanese fear will result in a deep & lasting economic blow."

washingtonpost.com/world/europe/i… #Milan #ItalyCoronavirus 1/ "Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte this week said the economic blow to Italy could be 'very strong.'”

"A team of scientists on Wednesday reported that the #fossil belonged to a 160,000-year-old #Denisovan, a member of a lineage of mysterious, #Neanderthal-like humans that disappeared about 50,000 years ago." nytimes.com/2019/05/01/sci… #Sapiens #Tibet 1. "The new fossil demonstrates that #Denisovans were remarkably hardy, able to endure harsh conditions on the Tibetan plateau, at an elevation of 10,700 feet, with only simple stone tools."