A Four Star Hack | Kim Jong-unbelievably Soft Skin | The China Cold War

SEASONED NUTS: QUOTABLE
 

“He who has learned to disagree without being disagreeable has discovered the most valuable secret of negotiation.”

“Negotiation is not an act of battle; it’s a process of discovery. The goal is to uncover as much information as possible.”

― Chris Voss, Never Split the Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It (A book we heavily recommend checking out from the library)

 
 
 
IN A NUTSHELL: MUST READ
 

Japan Feels The Need: Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is in a really tough spot. He’s caught between trying not to make his peaceful nation (Japan) look too militaristic, and still defend it from increasingly powerful neighbors (China and North Korea) while appeasing a (US) president who’s demanding he keeps purchasing US military equipment. So far Abe’s been treading water pretty well, but he’s convinced that despite a pacifist constitution and culture, and the protection afforded by its alliance with the United States, Japan needs to take its defense more seriously. On Tuesday Abe told a panel of national security experts: “The most important responsibility of the government is to protect the people and their peaceful lives. Under the drastically changing security environment, in order to duly fulfill this responsibility, we have to fundamentally strengthen our preparedness… on our own.”

Abe’s preparedness plan calls for buying up to 100 F-35s over the next five years, which will make President Trump happy, and to retrofit the flat-top deck of the ship Izumo to withstand the heat generated by F-35Bs when they take off and land. Critics immediately said the latter move would make the Izumo an aircraft carrier, Japan’s first since WWII, and revive memories of Japan’s militaristic past. The Defense Ministry insisted the two Izumo-class ships in the fleet will not be carriers but “multipurpose escort ships.” Others argued the new plans weren’t ambitious enough, given the threats from China and North Korea and Abe’s domestic challenges, including declining recruitment and a growing shortage of military personnel in a country with a shrinking population. Daily Pnut is not persuaded that the F-35 airframe will enable the US or Japan to have air and military dominance. The F-22 and F-35 are paragons of military contractor culture gone wrong and imperils our national security while enriching Lockheed Martin.

 
 
 
MIXED NUTS: QUICK TAKES ON WORLD NEWS
 

Moove Over Minister: Elections have consequences. After voters in several of India’s recent state elections defeated the ruling party, the holders of two unique ministerial jobs were ousted. India’s only dedicated “cow minister” was dumped, ending a controversial tenure during which hundreds of the sacred animals starved to death or were poisoned in state-run shelters whose job was to protect them, not to mention many gruesome cow-theft lynchings of beef eaters. Also losing his job, so sad, was India’s happiness minister, who by the way is accused of murder. (Guardian)

Westonnen And The Chocolate Factory: Streets in Heaven may be paved with gold, but in Westonnen, Germany, they’re paved with chocolate. The DreiMeister chocolate factory had a “small technical defect” involving a storage tank, which caused a lot of milk chocolate to flow out onto a chilly street and quickly harden. (Guardian)

Dōmo arigatō, Mr. Boris: During coverage of a Russian youth forum dedicated to robotics, a state-owned news channel praised a “hi-tech robot” named Boris that had learned to dance, and not that badly. They should have saved some praise for Show Robots, the company who made the costume that the real “Boris” was wearing. (Guardian)

A Four Star Hack: Chinese state hackers are being blamed for the security breach at Marriott’s Starwood chain hotel reservation system, which exposed personal information of about 500 million guests worldwide. The New York Times was first to report the story, saying: the “discovery comes as the Trump administration is planning actions targeting China’s trade, cyber and economic policies, perhaps within days….those moves include indictments against Chinese hackers working for the intelligence services and the military, according to four government officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity. The Trump administration also plans to declassify intelligence reports to reveal Chinese efforts dating to at least 2014 to build a database containing names of executives and American government officials with security clearances.” (NPR)

Kim Jong-unbelievably Soft Skin: Despite South Korea’s robust beauty industry, one company’s decision to market beauty masks bearing the image of North Korea’s Kim Jong-un was a face too far. More than 25,000 masks had already been sold online and in stores before a public outcry caused the product’s removal from shelves. The company’s promotional video on Instagram touting the product as a “nuclear bomb erupting on your face” didn’t help. (NYT)

– “More than 200 women accuse famous Brazilian spiritual healer of sexual abuse: Prosecutors received flood of complaints against João Teixeira de Faria in country’s first major #MeToo scandal” (Guardian)

 
 
 
NUTS AND BOLTS: SHOULD READ
 

Bad CFO, Bad CFO, Whatcha Gonna Do?: Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou was granted bail Tuesday and released after three days of hearings in a Canadian court. While she awaits her extradition hearing to the US for sanctions violations charges, she will live in one of her two Vancouver homes, surrender her passports, wear a GPS ankle bracelet, pay for a 24-hour security detail and a driver, and put up the equivalent of $7.5 million dollars. Meng’s arrest nearly two weeks ago set China’s hair on fire, and it wasn’t about laws or sanctions or justice. It’s about national pride. Whatever the Trump administration thinks it has on Meng, for the Chinese the storyline is about a ruthless runner attempting to trip a competitor at the Tech Olympics, and it’s only spurred them to compete even harder. An editorial writer for China’s state-run newspaper summed up the collective view, saying the US “is trying to do whatever it can to contain Huawei’s expansion in the world simply because the company is the point man for China’s competitive technology companies.”

US officials say Meng’s arrest is unrelated to either the trade war, or the fact that Huawei is a “national champion” in China, one of a handful of global telecom companies developing patented innovations that will set the global technical standards for the emerging fifth generation, or 5G, of cellular technology. But as an academic in Shanghai put it: “Whether in the [Chinese] government or among the people, they will attach more importance to Huawei’s development and support it more now. In U.S.-China trade negotiations, this will just make China more determined to promote high-tech development.” However Meng’s case resolves, it has become illustrative of deeper issues — competition, national security, international influence — all of which are now intertwined with ongoing trade battles and virtually every dealing between Beijing and Washington.

Additional reads: “Meng Wanzhou: Trump could intervene in case of Huawei executive.” And: “China may have detained second citizen, says Canada foreign minister. Michael Kovrig, who works for thinktank, being held in Beijing. Move follows arrest of Chinese Huawei executive in Canada.”

 
 
 
NUTS IN AMERICA
 

Once You Start Down The Dark Path, Forever Will It Dominate Your Destiny, Consume You It Will.: President Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen used to say he’d take a bullet for his boss. The disgraced attorney appeared in a New York court Wednesday to receive his 36 month sentence for various crimes related to special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia probe. This time he said the president had caused him to “follow a path of darkness rather than light”. Cohen told the court his blind loyalty to the president has caused him to ignore “my own inner voice and my moral compass.” However the judge called Cohen’s crimes a “veritable smorgasbord of fraudulent conduct”, adding “Each of the crimes involved deception and each appears to have been motivated by personal greed and ambition.” (BBC, NYT)

Cop-out: There’s a national shortage of police officers. Agencies that slowed or froze hiring during the recession are now struggling to build their ranks back up in the middle of a hot job market. Officers are retiring faster than they can be replaced. New Haven, Connecticut is worse off than others, with a department shortage of at least 100 officers. Suburban police departments can offer better pay and are luring away New Haven’s midlevel officers. (NPR)

– “A Chinese Tycoon Sought Power and Influence. Washington Responded.: Ye Jianming courted the Biden family and networked with former United States security officials. Today, his empire is crashing down in court.” (NYT)

– “The Costs of Confederacy: In the last decade alone, American taxpayers have spent at least $40 million on Confederate monuments and groups that perpetuate racist ideology” (Smithsonian Mag)

 
 
 
LOOSE NUTS: FASCINATING NEWS
 

– Aeon is one of our favorite publications. Here are a few of their essays they published recently that we enjoyed: “Attention is not a resource but a way of being alive to the world” “The broad, ragged cut: Aptitude and IQ tests are used to distinguish those young people who deserve a chance from those who do not. Do they work?” And “The bad news on human nature, in 10 findings from psychology” (Aeon)

– “Word processor pioneer Evelyn Berezin dies aged 93: Evelyn Berezin called the device the Data Secretary when, in 1971, her company Redactron launched the product.” (BBC)

Facebook Flies Too Close To The Social Media Sun: “Bereaved mother criticises Facebook over baby ads: The mother of a stillborn child has called on tech companies to rethink how they target ads after she was inundated with baby-related promotions.” (BBC) and “Facebook among firms named on Myanmar human rights ‘dirty list’: Forty-nine companies accused of human rights and environmental abuses” (Guardian)

– “Christmas pet adoption ban at German shelters: A dog is for life, not just for Christmas – so the famous slogan goes.” (BBC)

-”Explore the IS Tunnels: How the Islamic State group destroyed a mosque but revealed a 3,000-year old palace” (BBC)

– “Love Is Not a Permanent State of Enthusiasm: An Interview with Esther Perel” (New Yorker)

– “YouTube Rewind 2018 becomes site’s second-most disliked video” (BBC)

– “End the Innovation Obsession: Some of our best ideas are in the rearview mirror.” (NYT)

 
 
 
LAST MORSELS
 

“The fastest and most efficient means of establishing a quick working relationship is to acknowledge the negative and diffuse it.” ― Chris Voss

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