What's happening outside of the Middle East
A disruptive week in South Asia, and Bolsanaro faces consequences
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Followups on A6 topics
US says it will not back unplanned Rafah offensive
US Rejects Putin’s Latest Call for Ukraine Negotiations
Biden’s age become focus of US election coverage
A6 - Where the World Happens
Imran Khan’s party nabs surprise win in Pakistan
Pakistan’s election was a mess, but the result will be seismic.
A series of independent candidates affiliated with Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party won the most seats in the country’s legislative branch, although not enough to win a majority.
The results are astonishing because Khan himself has been in jail since August and last week was sentenced to seven years in prison for a fraudulent marriage with his wife Bushra Bibi (also given a seven-year sentence).
Prior to that, he was sentenced to 10 years in prison for leaking state secrets, which came a day after being given a 14-year term for corruption.
Khan’s team used artificial intelligence to address their supporters after the victory, saying they must “now show the strength of protecting your vote” while acknowledging the winning candidates must form a coalition to govern.
The election was marred by accusations of vote rigging after the country’s entire mobile network was shut down on voting day, which the government said was to prevent terrorist attacks. To be fair, an explosion in an election office the day before killed 22 people.
Violent protests erupted on Friday amid slow vote counting after workers for Khan’s party accused the government of vote rigging. Two people were killed by friendly fire when rocks struck them.
Khan has spent the past two years railing against the military he accuses of removing him from office in 2022 (a charge they deny), which has fueled suspicions of corruption ahead among the general public.
The military is remarkably powerful in Pakistan, making it easy to understand why the average voter would believe they tip the scales of democracy. (I am not familiar enough with Pakistan to comment on whether it is a valid concern.)
Demolition of a mosque and Muslim school prompts violence in India
The destruction of a mosque and Muslim education center sparked a wave of violence in Northern India that resulted in the government shutting off the internet.
Two people have died with over 100 injured, and authorities have issued a “shoot-at-sight” order against protesters while imposing a curfew on the city.
The conflict arose after construction workers arrived to raze the two buildings, which officials said were illegally built on public land.
Protesters said police shot live ammunition to disperse the crowd, an accusation authorities deny.
The incident comes amid the backdrop of rising Hindu nationalism under the Bharatiya Janata Party and its powerful leader, Narendra Modi.
One defining feature of his administration has been an encroachment on the rights and properties of India’s Muslim minority.
Most notably, India stripped Kashmir of its semi-autonomous status in 2019, a decision that the Supreme Court upheld in December, 2023.
The decision means that unelected officials from the federal government will run the Muslim-majority region, and it will no longer have a constitution.
Bolsonaro surrenders passport amid coup probe
One remarkable divergence of the past few years has been how Brazil has handled its version of January 6 (January 8, 2023) when compared to the United States.
Jair Bolsonaro, the former President of Brazil, surrendered his passport to authorities so he could not flee during a probe into whether he will be charged with attempting a coup.
The investigation included searches on 33 people associated with Bolsanoro, including four arrests.
Federal police in Brazil said they are “investigating a criminal organization that attempted a coup d’état and the abolition of the democratic state of law to obtain advantages of a political nature by maintaining the then-president of the republic in power.”
Bolsanaro, who was often compared to Donald Trump while he was in office, followed the same game plan in 2022 as Trump used after the 2020 US election. He routinely sowed doubt about the viability of the voting system and refused to concede defeat following the election.
On January 8, 2023, a mob of supporters attacked Brazil’s legislative building and briefly took it over before police regained control of the situation and made over 150 arrests.
It’s fairly remarkable how similar the two events were, with the notable difference that Bolsonaro was in Miami during the Brazil attack.
Since then, Bolsonaro has been banned from running for office until 2030, whereas Donald Trump could very easily become the next President of the United States.
Sam Altman is trying to raise US$7 trillion for semiconductors
Sam Altman, who became a household name as the CEO of OpenAI, with its famous language learning model ChatGPT, is trying to raise US$7 trillion to boost global chip manufacturing capabilities.
The size of the raise is unheard of. The Softbank Vision Fund was considered too large at US$200 billion and struggled through years of losses before notching a gain in 2023.
If government sovereign wealth funds are included, the largest fund in the world is Norway’s at US$1.5 trillion. China’s sovereign wealth fund, which finances everything from banks to overseas investments for the world’s second-largest economy, is US$1.35 trillion.
The total revenue from chip sales is not expected to surpass US$1 trillion until 2030.
The point is, US$7 trillion feels absurd, and it obviously faces many hurdles to becoming a reality.
However, if the world continues on the current AI trajectory, it must dramatically ramp up its capabilities to develop semiconductors.
One of the reasons that stocks for companies like Nvidia and TMSC have spiked is because they are the only companies capable of producing chips that can meet AI standards. There is a clear demand that the supply cannot yet satisfy.
Senegal protesters clash with security forces over presidential election delay
A student was killed in violent protests in Senegal after the government postponed elections, which caused concerns that the recent coups in western Africa had spread to the country.
The government decided to push the vote to December, less than three weeks before the planned election on February 25, which was particularly concerning because the leader, Macky Sall, had reached his constitutionally mandated term limit.
Additionally, parliament passed the delay after forcibly removing the opposition from the chamber.
Sall said he postponed the election because of “concerns” about some of the candidates in the election.
Senegal is one of the region’s most stable countries and has developed a well-functioning democracy. However, there have been seven coups in Senegal’s backyard in the past four years, including its direct neighbors in Mali and Guinea. Nearby Niger and Burkina Faso also experienced recent coups.
Climate Change: Barclays to stop directly financing new oil and gas projects
The British bank Barclays said on Friday that it would no longer directly finance new oil and gas projects, planning to redirect that money towards companies working towards decarbonization.
The decision does not come in a vacuum, as the bank has faced intense criticism for its record of actively pursuing fossil fuel programs. It was once Europe’s largest funder of the fossil fuel industry and is still the biggest in Britain.
Beyond protesters, it was starting to face heat from activist investors, which may be why it made the shift.
So, while not a seismic victory, its still positive to have one of the largest financiers of greenhouse gases slow down.
Kevin’s Article: Chinese Court Sentences Australian Writer to Death for Espionage After He Blogged About State Affairs
From the first three paragraphs:
A court in China handed down a suspended death sentence to Yang Hengjun, an Australian writer whose blogs were often critical of the Chinese government and who was detained in 2019 and charged with espionage.
The death sentence can be commuted to life in prison after two years, but Yang has been in poor health while in detention and his family fears he will die in prison, especially after a cyst was found on his kidney. Yang denies the charges against him, details of which are not public.
The Australian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Penny Wong, expressed her outrage in an official statement, saying she was “appalled” by the death sentence and “Australia will not relent in our advocacy for justice for Dr Yang’s interests and wellbeing.”
What I am reading
Which came first: Black holes or galaxies?
Auspicious but unlucky: The perils of a lunar new year dragon baby boom