Author: Sanjh Vishwakarma

President Ebrahim Raisi of Iran has said that his country’s foreign policy is well-rounded since it is based on convergence, economic multilateralism, and ties to the major economic hubs in Asia.

After returning to Iran on Wednesday night, Raisi said, “The trip to Indonesia, considering that this country has a privileged position in the Southeast Asian region and its regional arrangements, was an important one and had many dimensions.”

During his tour, Raisi stated, “Iran and Indonesia signed 11 cooperation documents in the fields of economy, trade, energy, culture, and science and technology.” “We seek to develop relations with economic poles in Asia, including China, Russia, India, and Indonesia.”

The President also made a point of bringing up the nations’ mutually beneficial tariff trade agreement

The trip marked the culmination of 17 years of discussions between the two governments on this topic, which began before this one.

The president also announced a new agreement for immediate upstream and downstream energy cooperation between the two countries.

“During this trip, we witnessed the deep affection of the dear Indonesian people for the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution, including in the Islamic Centre of Jakarta,” Raisi said of the cultural agreements.

“The two countries have common views on regional and extra-regional issues, including Palestine, Afghanistan, and Myanmar,” he said of the bilateral talks on foreign policy.

After attending a meeting between economic actors from Iran and Indonesia, the president said, “The issues raised in this meeting will be the attention of the authorities of the two countries and we are trying to remove the existing obstacles in the way of expanding economic and commercial cooperation as soon as possible.”

Raisi praised the people and government of Indonesia for the warm welcome, and he voiced his hope that future visits and delegation exchanges between the two countries would help strengthen connections across a range of issues, protecting both countries’ and the region’s best interests.

Dianne Feinstein’s future dispute is pointless. Both sides of the debate over whether she should resign or finish her term are missing the point.

Some Californians feel our senior U.S. senator should resign immediately so Gov. Gavin Newsom may pick a healthy and youthful lawmaker who can attend all votes. Others believe Feinstein was elected and should decide when to resign.

This is a fake choice. It’s simple to satisfy everyone. We can guarantee California’s Senate representation while Feinstein stays in the world’s allegedly finest deliberative legislature.

Artificial intelligence.

Yes, AI technology can do a senator’s job better than Feinstein, who turns 90 next month, or many of the other senior senators.

We could construct a Feinstein-based AI, DiFi, that is moderate and maddening.

AI could perform all senatorial duties.

Fundraising? DiFi might reach more people faster without airplane emissions and send less obnoxious email spam.

Legislation? An algorithm might offer rational gun-control legislation faster than Feinstein, which red state senators ignore.

Party-line voting? So simple your 12-year-old could design an AI to achieve that in minutes.

DiFi AIs can solve political issues that Feinstein cannot.

With some speech software, the AI could make Feinstein’s rambling, repetitious committee statements.

Why stop at formal duties? DiFi AIs can solve political issues that Feinstein cannot.

The AI saves Gov. Newsom from the delicate politics of choosing will replace Feinstein if she dies or retires early.

In 2024, three Democratic candidates to succeed Feinstein will raise tens of millions of dollars to fight each other—money that donors may use to defeat Republican senate candidates in battleground states. Democrats should support DiFi AI to avoid costly infighting.

A historic DiFi AI might also boost democracy. Currently, we can only vote for living representatives. A DiFi AI would let Californians keep Feinstein, or her algorithmic essence, in office when she dies.

In this culture, knee-jerk objections to having the dead represent the living are simply overlooked. The US kills so many people before their time—endless wars, gun violence, misinformation-fueled epidemic responses—that the dead require more representation.

Californians wouldn’t mind ghosts ruling. Today’s voters govern less than those who voted for 1978’s Proposition 13 by electorates that are essentially deceased. Changes are considered politically impossible.

Technical issues would arise. The Senate’s archaic rules prohibit replacing a human senator with an AI. Senators might easily amend those regulations. Senators are conceited and self-important. Also old: Senate members average 64. An amendment allowing them to serve after death may pass bipartisanly or unanimously.

Public dialogue may benefit from AI-filled Senates. Since people and media can’t call or text human senators, AI senators would be a click away. Unlike elderly senators, AI politicians can adjust to fresh facts.

I profit. Sen. Feinstein doesn’t talk to me or many reporters, but with some guidance from an AI-savvy friend, I recently asked Open AI’s GPT-4 multimodal model to pretend it was a 90-year-old California senator facing questions from a “provocative California columnist” about whether she should resign and who should replace her.

Major events are influencing the 21st century. The Ukraine issue, which dominated the G7 conference in Hiroshima, may appear less important to someone in a different country. Most see this as a neighborhood dispute Europe must resolve. It does not control worries or relationships.

The European crisis affects India, Africa, and Latin America. Nation-building is their first priority. They’re not interested since they have to deal with war’s collateral damage.

Geography matters. East-West and North-South binaries are intriguing, but proximity and neighborhood matter more. Hyper-globalization has made us more local.

Social media, technology, politics, and other forces have pigeonholed us. India appreciates Europe’s struggles, but the 2020s began with Chinese assault, the Wuhan virus, and Kabul’s capitulation.

Social media, technology, politics, and other forces have pigeonholed us.

Second, the UN voted against the Ukraine war. Few of the 140 nations who voted and denounced Russia sanctioned Russia. The list of nations that received pandemic vaccines first may be useful. It may reveal Russia’s sanctioned nations. It will teach you about globalization, hierarchy, and unhappiness. World War II and globalization winners punish Russia today. Challenges to the status quo are legal.

India is frequently thoughtlessly described as undecided. India is not hesitating. Like other nations, it will prioritize. Value-based frameworks are unsustainable as European leaders visit China.

Self-interest and the necessity for profitable commercial partnerships drive nations. Same in India. Trade continues where the economy needs it while facing the Chinese in the Himalayas. Interest trumps distance.

The pandemic, the Doha Agreement’s repercussions and Afghanistan’s abandonment, Chinese assault on India’s frontiers, and new sanction regimes’ effects on the “Global South” form the third lesson. Medical equipment and vaccinations were stolen during the COVID-19 pandemic, leaving treatment gaps.

Self-interest and the necessity for profitable commercial partnerships drive nations.

No superpower, great power, or huge power existed throughout the epidemic. Only self-interest existed. Because it was convenient for higher authorities to depart, the Afghan people were deceived and abandoned. Chinese territorial advances have prompted a variety of self-serving responses from democracy defenders.

Simply said, there is no morality. Only vicious national self-interest survives. Two performers exemplified this technique in the 1960s and 1970s, one in the 1980s and 1990s, and numerous fresh voices in the current century.

Nations must correct their self-perceptions to have a meaningful international conversation. In this perspective, framing the Global South as a viable bridge actor between contending viewpoints has appeal.

However, the phrase “Global South” hides the group’s heterogeneity. Few nations want to be called “southern” as they emerge and impact global systems. Brazil and India may resent this title in five years.

The tidy concept of the Global South ignores the fact that internal changes will soon outweigh external ones. Over the next decade, how the South organizes will have a greater influence on the global balance of power and the new international order than the West. A Global North-South East and West will develop this century.

LLPs will shape politics, and governments will collaborate on specific concerns, goals, and outcomes.

Future foreign engagements will operate as limited liability partnerships (LLPs), like law firms. LLPs will shape politics, and governments will collaborate on specific concerns, goals, and outcomes.

With the new LLP geopolitical ethos, we can focus on the narrowly defined joint interest at hand and develop strategic, if transactional, connections. Realistic and rough. Though we don’t like it, it’s here to stay.

Wonky eyeballs reveal it. A woman looks out the window onto a dark street in the Instagram shot.

Home invasion captions follow. She’s nervous. She also appears odd—not human.

AI political campaign. National has posted four AI-generated photographs on social media in the past month.

The memes show a false ram-raid with zombie-like nurses under balaclavas. A Fast and Furious cast mockup is hazardous for a party that sued Eminem for copyrights.

AI will change political communications worldwide.

In recent weeks, the Republican Party released a 30-second YouTube clip depicting a nightmarish America after a Joe Biden re-election.

All parties will likely employ AI to write speeches, media releases, translate pitches, or target voters.

Political campaigns often utilize misleading commercials, but phony imagery worries some politicians.

Computer-generated content is worrying experts and operatives.

Some political experts Stuff talked to worried about the potential to confuse or terrify voters with phony crime pictures or attack candidates with synthetic media.

Psychologist and AI analyst Paul Duignan said AI will speed up political speech. “We are about to take a pipe, hook it up to the political system, and flood it with so much copy that sounds credible but could be completely untrue,” he told Stuff.

The Government’s Independent Electoral Review Panel is investigating AI before October’s election.

Most Parliamentary parties have pledged not to employ AI-generated phony photos in social media campaigns.

“The Labour Party hasn’t used AI images in any of our designs or advertising in this campaign, and we don’t intend to,” said campaign manager Hayden Munro.

Chris Hipkins wants Labour to run a trustworthy campaign.

The Green Party exclusively uses stock photos or their own. “We won’t use AI at all, especially to depict people in content,” a spokeswoman stated.

David Seymour’s party stated ACT hasn’t utilized AI images and isn’t exploring it.

Te Pāti Māori did not react to a request for comment, although its official socials show no examples.

National is unapologetic. Using AI to produce stock photos, a spokeswoman claimed. It’s an innovative social media strategy. We responsibly use all social media.”

The party didn’t answer queries concerning AI-generated image policies.

National’s AI attack advertisements also confused Leader Christopher Luxon.

“No, not that I’m aware of,” Luxon replied Tuesday.

“I don’t know about the topic, in the sense that you’re making an accusation that we’re using it, and I’m not sure that we are.”

After winning the May 14 general election, the progressive Move Forward Party (MFP) agreed a manifesto with seven other parties that includes ambitious promises but does not include a disputed royal insult legislation.

The MFP, led by 42-year-old businessman Pita Limjaroenrat, won a predicted 152 House of Representatives seats. At a news conference in Bangkok yesterday, the MFP revealed a 23-point pact to secure the support of the seven parties that have joined its alliance to elect Pita as prime minister in July.

The treaty codifies MFP extremism. It wants to write a new, democratic constitution, decentralize administrative power, and end peacetime military conscription.

The alliance will legalize same-sex marriage, restructure the police, military, courts, and public service, and “cancel monopolies and support fair competition in trade in all industries.”

Strangely, a progressive alliance wants to reinstall marijuana manufacturing and sales limitations that were lifted last year following de facto legalization.

According to Reuters, Pita claimed the partnership was “about shared values and commonalities and shared agenda and accountability” at the news conference. “All parties can propose policies but must not violate this agreement through ministries.”

The accord does not contain the MFP’s most contentious commitment to modify Article 112 of the Thai criminal code. The lese-majeste statute criminalizes royal criticism and carries a 15-year sentence. It has been used to stifle criticism of the monarchy’s involvement in Thai politics and the money and power it sustains.

The MFP’s campaign platform included the youth-led mass demonstrations in late 2020 and early 2021, against whose leaders the lese-majeste statute was eventually used. First-time voters and other young Thais, fed up with military rule and state-enforced royal respect, supported it strongly.

The coalition pact’s lack of a lese-majeste policy may disappoint MFP supporters, but it’s likely a political necessity. The MFP’s eight-party coalition—Pheu Thai Party, Prachachat Party, Thai Sang Thai Party, and four smaller parties—holds 313 House members. This majority falls short of the 376 parliamentary votes needed to elect Pita prime minister in July. Thus, the party must persuade regressive conservative legislators or military-appointed Senate members to back its prime ministerial nominee.

Given the MFP’s policy platform, that will be difficult without the lese-majeste reform vow and nearly impossible with it. While open debate of the monarchy and its role in Thai politics has increased in recent years, it remains taboo throughout much of the country’s political spectrum.

Thai conservatives reject any revisions to Article 112, and the most extreme royalists are already trying to use it to exclude Pita and the MFP from establishing the next administration.

Yesterday, ultra-royalist activist Suwit Thongprasert petitioned the Election Commission to dissolve the MFP, saying that its lese-majeste attitude was an effort to overthrow Thailand’s constitutional monarchy. With such legal hurdles, even MFP coalition partners have hesitated to endorse any palace attack.

“The missions of the MFP-led government must not affect the democratic system with the king as head of state and the revered status of the king who cannot be violated,” a source close to coalition negotiations told the Bangkok Post yesterday.

Pita told Reuters yesterday that his party’s Article 112 change will not hinder Senate backing. “We have a team to explain how to amend it so it cannot be used as a political tool… this will ease senators’ concerns,” he told reporters. It’s unclear, but lese-majeste would make it more harder.

All in all, the MFP’s decision to defer lese-majeste reform to retain the rest of its platform that won it the May 14 election is unsurprising. Even if Pita’s prime ministership doesn’t change Article 112, this isn’t the end. Since 2020, the lese-majeste provision and maybe the monarchy’s rights and prerogatives are being openly contested for the first time in decades. Thai politics may evolve in the future years to allow such a policy.

Imran Khan, the former Prime Minister of Pakistan, continued his legal struggle on Tuesday before a court in Islamabad, the capital city. The judge gave him protection from arrest until the beginning of the next month in numerous instances where he faces terrorist accusations for inciting violence.

This new development comes at a time when the authorities have been tightening their grip on followers of Khan, who is now Pakistan’s most prominent opposition leader. After Khan’s arrest earlier this month, thousands of people participated in violent rallies and carried out attacks on public property as well as military sites.

After only a few days, the violence calmed after Khan was released as a result of an order from the Supreme Court of the country. During the confrontations with the police, ten persons lost their lives.

Former Prime Minister Imran Khan is suing in Islamabad.

Khan, who was removed from office in April of the previous year as a result of a vote of no confidence in Parliament, has been leading a campaign against the government of his replacement, Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif, asserting that his removal was unconstitutional and calling for early elections.

Since then, the former cricket star turned Islamist politician, who is now 70 years old, has had more than a hundred judicial proceedings brought against him. He is being accused of fraud that allegedly took place when he was in government, and he has been charged with terrorism in eight separate instances because of the violent demonstrations that were staged by his followers and the opposition party that he leads, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf.

Khan and his wife traveled to the adjacent city of Rawalpindi to appear before the National Accountability Bureau to answer questions in a separate graft investigation after the court in Islamabad on Tuesday gave Khan protection from arrest on terrorist allegations until the 8th of June. The protection from arrest was given on the same day.

The couple is accused of taking a gift of property in exchange for delivering advantages to a real estate magnate in exchange for accepting the donation of property to create a private university. Khan has stated that he and his wife, Bushra Bibi, were not involved in any illegal activity, although he continues to refute the allegations.

After another local government election, Armagh, Banbridge, and Craigavon has changed.

Sinn Féin is the largest party with 15 seats, up five from 2019. Armagh, Banbridge, Craigavon, Lurgan, and Portadown DEAs gained a seat.

Despite gaining two seats, the DUP is currently the second-largest party in the borough. Armagh and Lurgan received them.

The Ulster Unionists lost four candidates, including Sam Nicholson in Armagh. Jill Macauley and Louise McKinstry were the two councillors that lost. Ewan McNeill, Jim Speers’ successor, also lost the election.

The SDLP lost five councillors. After party losses, Thomas O’Hanlon in Armagh is the only councillor. Ciaran Toman, Declan McAlinden, Eamon McNeill, and Grainne O’Neill lost.

Robbie Alexander won Craigavon for the Alliance Party. No drama there—all three other candidates had excellent first preference counts.

Keith Ratcliffe’s 2,000-plus first choice vote earned the TUV a seat in Cusher, which Independent Unionist Paul Berry won on the first count.

All councillors returned in Lagan River.

Unionists have 21 councillors (including Independent Paul Berry) and nationalists 16. Alliance, typically moderate, has four councillors.

Affirming efforts to strengthen partnerships between G7 members and emerging and developing nations in the so-called Global South, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida held bilateral talks with his counterparts from India, Indonesia, and Brazil on the sidelines of the Group of Seven summit in Hiroshima on Saturday morning.

According to the Japanese government’s Foreign Ministry, Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida recently met with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. During their conversation, Kishida emphasized the significance of respecting the U.N. Charter values of sovereignty and territorial integrity, and the two leaders pledged to collaborate in order to achieve peace.

Kishida Reaffirms Ties to World’s Southern Nations

India is now serving as president of the Group of 20, which is comprised of the world’s 20 largest economies. Kishida and Modi both reaffirmed that the G7 and G20 will work together to solve a variety of challenges that are now affecting the global community.

During this time, Kishida and Indonesian President Joko Widodo, who presides over the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) at the present time, reached a consensus on the significance of maintaining an international order that is free and open and is founded on the rule of law.

Kishida remarked, “It’s important to cooperate with a wide range of partners to deal with the challenges facing the international community,” while Lula confirmed his determination to further enhance relations between Brazil and Japan. The conversation took place with Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

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Friday, China’s top political advisor Wang Huning met with prominent members of the China Islamic Association and congratulated them on the organization’s 70th anniversary.

Wang, a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and the chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, met the association’s members at an anniversary celebration held in Beijing.

He posed for a photo with all the representatives in attendance and extended greetings to Islamic figures and all Chinese Muslims.

Wang lauded the association’s efforts to guide Islamic figures and Muslims along a path of socialist society adaptation and active participation in socialist modernization. The association has contributed its wisdom and fortitude to the nation’s prosperity and revitalization, he added.

Wang urged the Islamic community in China to guide Islamic personages and Muslims in continuing the fine tradition of patriotism, to foster in them a growing sense of identity with the motherland, the Chinese nation, the Chinese culture, the CPC, and socialism with Chinese characteristics, and to foster a strong sense of community for the Chinese nation.

He also urged the association to promote the localization of Islam in China, the cultivation of religious personnel, and the lawful administration of religious affairs.

Comedians are used to improvising. Li Haoshi’s off-script performance in Beijing last Saturday prompted a police probe, millions of dollars in fines, and increased concern about free expression in China.

Li, known as House, said that seeing his dogs chase squirrels reminded him of the People’s Liberation Army slogan, which President Xi Jinping has often cited: “Fight and win, and maintain excellent conduct.”

An audience member released the audio recording on social media, inciting conservative and nationalist pundits.

Chinese authorities replied promptly. The Beijing Municipal Bureau of Culture and Tourism penalized Li’s management business $2.1mn and stopped its performances in Beijing and Shanghai indefinitely.

China’s free expression is shaken by military slogan punchline.

The agency stated the “severely insulting” remark broke rules against “hurting national feelings” or “damaging national honour.” “We will never allow any company or individual to wantonly denigrate the glorious image of the People’s Army on the capital stage [and] hurt the deep feelings of the people towards their army.”

Beijing police are investigating 31-year-old Li. His management business canceled his contract and is disciplining upper management who approve stuff before performance. Recently, comedy and music shows across have been canceled.

The Nationalist Global Times called stand-up comedy a western performance art with a “red line.”

The daily said in an editorial that it should respect the Chinese audience’s degree of acceptability and honor social consensus, goodwill, and Chinese rules.

Xi, the most powerful Chinese leader since Mao Zedong, is accused of restricting free speech and intolerance of dissent under the incident.

Over the past decade, stand-up comedy has expanded. State media reported 180 comedy clubs in 2021, up from 10 in 2018.

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Human Rights Watch China analyst Maya Wang said the art genre gave young Chinese “pockets of freedom” but will “eventually meet the Chinese government’s iron fist”.

“Little bubbles where people gasp for air,” she continued.

Two anonymous Chinese comedians told the Financial Times that the experience illustrated how dangerous their art had become.

“Many colleagues are worried about losing their jobs and are looking for jobs outside of stand-up comedy,” claimed one Shanghai lady. “How much room will we have left for jokes?”

Manya Koetse, a Sinologist and editor-in-chief of the Chinese social media tracker What’s on Weibo, said the show had burst online—some messages had hundreds of millions of hits—because it touched both patriotism and amusement.

She noted a longstanding discussion about a 2021 legislation requiring “entertainment industry leaders to promote a love for the motherland.”

One Chinese researcher who advises the government on social issues called Li’s use of a PLA motto “impossible for officials to let go” since it sparked a surge of complaints to Beijing, Shanghai, and other hotlines and explicitly referenced Xi.

It also occurred during heightened tensions between Beijing and Washington over Taiwan, which the Chinese Communist Party claims as part of China and may use the PLA to seize.

“Laughing at the heroes who defend the country at this time is a big problem,” added the scholar, who requested anonymity. “The punishment will be lightning-fast and powerful.”

Another Beijing comic claimed public performances were becoming “impossible”.

“What are sensitive subjects? China never concluded. She stated party officials decide, not the government or CCP. “This does not represent the masses, and the performer cannot predict the thoughts of an official.”