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TOPIC: tech

FOCUS: Russia-Ukraine War

How Russia Is Still Dodging Sanctions — With Help From Companies Everywhere

A healthy dose of cynicism and short cuts allows parts for weapons and other technology to still make their way into Russia. Independent Russian-language media Vazhnyye Istorii traces the way both Moscow and much of the rest of the world circumvent export bans.

When Western countries imposed sanctions on Russia after the invasion of Ukraine, exporting Western technologies to Russia was effectively banned — at least, on paper.

But through a web of third parties, Russia is still finding ways to dodge the sanctions and import crucial components for weapons and other technology.

In the United States, personal sanctions prohibit American citizens and companies from doing business with specific Russian people and businesses. Other sanctions prevent them from doing business with entire industries. Secondary sanctions may be imposed on non-US companies caught violating US prohibitions.

A special permit is required for any export of high-tech products to Russia. These are only issued in exceptional circumstances, if ever. The largest manufacturers of microelectronics — Analog Devices, Texas Instruments and others — have all ceased commercial activities in Russia.

Still, products made by these companies are increasingly being found in the remains of Russian drones and missiles.

Components continue to enter Russia through a chain of intermediary firms in different countries. For example, an American company can buy them from a manufacturer, then sell them to a Chinese company, which can in turn sell them to a Russian intermediary who is not formally connected with the defense complex — who will then transfer the goods to the arms manufacturer.

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This Happened - February 8: Nasdaq Opens

On this day in 1971, NASDAQ, the world's first electronic stock market was created in New York City.

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Eyes On U.S. — Something Broken In The Kingdom Of American Tech

PARIS — There’s a dual story about the U.S. tech scene circulating in the world’s media. The first is structural, about trendlines and economics as Silicon Valley’s all-powerful platforms and companies have seen their stocks tanking and announced large layoffs for the first time ever. The second storyline is about the big tech titans themselves.

No surprises, Twitter is still taking up extraordinary amounts of headline real estate. And it’s impossible to disentangle Twitter the company from its Very-Online new owner, as Elon Musk’s barrage of changes continue to cross new red-lines that could wind up threatening the viability of the company itself.

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Escape From Foxconn: Inside The COVID Lockdown Chaos Blocking China's iPhone Production

Around China, Zero COVID policy has shut down entire towns and workplaces. But in the high-tech Foxconn factory in Zhengzhou, famous for cranking out iPhones, employees were forced to work even if they tested positive. Exclusive testimony from some of those who fled Foxconn premises last week.

ZHENGZHOU — Luo, a newcomer at the Foxconn factory in this central Chinese city, was genuinely frightened when she heard her workplace would be an "experiment field" for new COVID-19 policies: Even during outbreaks, some employees won't stop their production work. Luo was chosen as one of the experiment subjects.

By the end of October, things were getting out of control at Foxconn: chaotic COVID testings, spreading infections, workers quitting their jobs. And Luo felt trapped inside the five million square meters of the Foxconn factory, China's largest producer of Apple's iPhones, which was falsely described as a COVID-free zone.

On Oct. 29, videos of Foxconn workers returning by foot to their hometowns began to spread on the internet. Some workers claimed that due to the company's chaotic quarantine system and poor logistical support, they had chosen to leave on their own and walk for several days back to small towns outside the city.

It would only deepen the delays piling up for iPhone deliveries around the world, and raise new questions about China's policy for dealing with the spread of COVID.

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In The News
Cameron Manley, Bertrand Hauger and Emma Albright

Fresh Troops Arriving As Final Battle For Kherson Appears Imminent

A missile attack early Friday kills four, as civilians try to evacuate the largest Ukrainian city under Russian occupation.

The Ukrainian military's General Staff reports that up to 2,000 Russian troops have arrived in the wider occupied Kherson region to replenish losses and reinforce units on the southern front line. These troops are believed to be made up of men called up in Vladimir Putin’s “partial mobilization,” brought in for what many believe will be a major battle for the key port city and regional capital of Kherson.

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The Kremlin has accused Ukrainian forces overnight of targeting civilians evacuating from the Russian-controlled city of Kherson, after a missile attack killed at least four.

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Future
Charles Barbour

The Laugh Frontier: Can AI Understand Irony?

Bot did you get it?

What was your first reaction when you heard about Blake Lemoine, the Google engineer who announced last month the AI program he was working on had developed consciousness?

If, like me, you’re instinctively suspicious, it might have been something like: Is this guy serious? Does he honestly believe what he is saying? Or is this an elaborate hoax?

Put the answers to those questions to one side. Focus instead on the questions themselves. Is it not true that even to ask them is to presuppose something crucial about Blake Lemoine: specifically, he is conscious?

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In The News

Reservations For Nature, Entry Fees For Cities: Is Mass Tourism Reaching A Dead End?

July 9-10

  • In Ukraine, living with Russian troops next door
  • Hollywood’s “coming of old age” problem
  • Game-changing sand battery
  • … and much more.
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Future
Leah Henrickson and Simone Natale

Robot Artists And Us: Who Decides The Aesthetics Of AI?

Ai-Da is touted as the first bonafide robot artist. But should we consider her paintings and poetry original or creative? Is this even art at all?

Ai-Da sits behind a desk, paintbrush in hand. She looks up at the person posing for her, and then back down as she dabs another blob of paint onto the canvas. A lifelike portrait is taking shape. If you didn’t know a robot produced it, this portrait could pass as the work of a human artist.

Ai-Da is touted as the “first robot to paint like an artist”, and an exhibition of her work called Leaping into the Metaverse opened at the Venice Biennale.

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Society
Qadri Inzamam and Haziq Qadri

The Digital Tracking Of India's Sanitation Workers Is An Extra Dirty Deal

Lower-caste cleaners must wear GPS-enabled smartwatches, raising questions about their privacy and data protection.

Munesh sits by the roadside near a crowded market in Chandigarh, a city in India’s north, on a January day. She is flanked by several other women, all of them sweepers hired by the Chandigarh Municipal Corporation. She shows the smartwatch she is wearing and says, “See, I didn't even touch it, but the camera has turned on."

Munesh, who estimates she is in her 40s and, like many Indians, goes by just one name, is one of around 4,000 such sanitation workers. The corporation makes it mandatory for them to wear smartwatches — called Human Efficiency Tracking Systems — fitted with GPS trackers. Each one has a microphone, a SIM embedded for calling workers, and a camera, so that the workers can send photos to their supervisors as proof of attendance.

In Chandigarh, this project is run by Imtac India, an IT services company, at a cost of an estimated $278,000 per year. Meanwhile, sanitation workers say that the government has not invested in personal protective gear throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, and that they have long worked without medical care and other vital social services.

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Future
Nathalie Villard

The French Company Teaching The World To Code

With 43 campuses in 27 countries, Le Wagon has become the world's leading network for intensive coding education, revolutionizing how coding is taught.

It’s a December morning at a warehouse hidden in a dead end street in Paris’ 11th arrondissement. The first to arrive are the gardeners because as much as the building has kept its industrial aspect, dozens of plants occupy the space flooded with light by a gigantic glass roof. "Greenhouse effect guaranteed," says one of the gardeners, watering can in hand. And then the students arrive to sit around large wooden tables.

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Economy
Nessim Aït-Kacimi

Russian Oligarchs Turn To Crypto To Skirt Sanctions

Faced with a $32 billion drop in their wealth this year, Russian oligarchs are looking for assets to allow them to overcome sanctions that will increase with the invasion of Ukraine. Familiar with crises, they see bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies as an escape from the hegemony of the dollar, and a way to diversify their holdings.

With the European Union and the United States delivering the harshest ever sanctions on Russia following the invasion of Ukraine, ultra-wealthy Russians are turning to new tech to preserve their financial assets. Cryptocurrencies, such as bitcoin (circa $32,000) and ethereum (circa $2,470) can be seen, rightly or wrongly, as life savers during financial and geopolitical crises that threaten private assets.

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Ideas
Hannah Steinkopf-Frank

Attack Of The Visa Bots: When Hackers Make Life Hell For Immigrants

A first-hand experience of how illegal bots are making it impossible for many immigrants in France to live here legally.

-Essay-

PARIS — On a Sunday night in mid-January, I was prepared with a computer and phone to try to get a ticket for the hottest event in Paris. A cool new band concert? A Champions League soccer match? No, as an American citizen living in France, I was simply trying to get an appointment to pick up my renewed visa. When the clock hit midnight — when new slots were supposed to open up — I immediately clicked on the button to see the available times.

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