SOUTH AFRICA — CORRUPTION THREATENS DEMOCRACY WITH OWN ARAB SPRING, WARNS FORMER PRESIDENT "When [President Cyril Ramaphosa ] delivered his state of the nation address in February, he said in one hundred days there must be a comprehensive social compact to address these matters," former President Thabo Mbeki told a gathering of ANC loyalists. " Nothing has happened … nothing ." National context: South Africa is grappling with a 45 percent unemployment rate (when those who have stopped looking for work are included in the numbers). It's worse for those under 24: Nearly 64 percent are without work. South Africa is also the most unequal industrialized country, three decades after the end of apartheid. Presidential context — Ramaphosa corruption scandal: The president on Friday responded to questions from South Africa's anti-corruption watchdog about the alleged theft of up to $4 million in bundles of cash from his private farm, something that was never reported to police, denying wrongdoing. Analysis of President Ramphosa's "Farmgate" scandal , from Jason Burke, The Guardian. MYANMAR — DEMOCRACY ACTIVISTS EXECUTED: The country's military junta executed four activists — Myanmar's first known judicial killings since 1988 . The dead include Phyo Zeya Thaw, a hip-hop artist who became an MP, and Ko Jimmy, a veteran activist also known as Kyaw Min Yu. CHINA — BELT AND ROAD STALLS: China's Belt and Road Initiative investments in Russia have fallen to zero for the first time, with investment shifting to the Middle East . In addition, there's lower productivity from existing investments. Beijing's flagship New Silk Road project aimed to boost freight trains running from China to the EU via Russia. "The Ukraine war has completely totaled the China-Europe rail express phenomenon for now," Jacob Mardell of the Mercator Institute for China Studies told my colleague Leonie Kijewski. Risky business: Connections had been expanding by more than 20 percent a year in recent years, but in the first half of 2022, that growth slowed to 2.6 percent , as traders seek to avoid the legal trouble they would face if transporting goods through the Silk Road's northern route ( Russian railways are under EU and U.S. financial sanctions ). The "Middle Corridor" alternative takes longer and crosses more borders: It runs south of Russia, from China to Kazakhstan, across the Caspian Sea, and then through Azerbaijan, Georgia, Iran and Turkey. DIPLOMACY — CHRONIC AFRICA SHORT-STAFFING: Robbie Gramer and Amy Mackinnon report that in the most egregious case, the U.S. Embassy in Niger, for example, had over half its posts vacant in recent months. The problem is most acute in Africa's Sahel region: A scene of terrorism, violent extremism and military coups. Sen. Jim Risch, the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, characterized the situation as a "persistent and acute understaffing of career foreign service positions." Context: While President Joe Biden has announced plans to host leaders from across the continent for the U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit in December, neither he nor Vice President Kamala Harris has visited Africa. The administration has not published an Africa strategy. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov is not shy to dive into that vacuum: He's this week on a four-country Africa tour and is blaming the West for the continent's food shortages . CONGRESS MEETS WORLD SHOULD PELOSI STAY OR SHOULD SHE GO TO TAIWAN? Air raid drills took place Monday in Taipei , coinciding with concerns over a forceful Chinese response to a planned visit to the island by Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Reality check: China's harassment of Taiwan is not new, and not caused by Pelosi. If a mere visit by Pelosi would provoke a military response by Beijing, then it's Beijing rather than Pelosi that is the problem. The U.S. doesn't typically negotiate around these sorts of threats: So why would it be any different this time? Pelosi vs. Beijing, again: Picking fights with Beijing was how Pelosi kick-started her congressional career. She has decades of form as a harsh critic , and is not afraid to undertake stunts on the ground. In 1991, "on a congressional delegation to plead for the release of some Chinese dissidents, she ducked away from an organized museum tour, feigning a headache, to unfurl a banner stating, "To Those Who Died For Democracy In China," Pelosi's actions drew a sharp rebuke from authorities. The takeaway: Pelosi doesn't have much to lose when it comes to her approval ratings (languishing at around 30 percent). Given that and her history with Beijing, she isn't likely to be bullied by the White House or the Chinese Communist Party into abandoning this trip. CHIPS-PLUS ACT: The Senate will likely end debate today on the CHIPS-Plus bill, which aims to provide a $280 billion subsidy package for domestic semiconductor chip manufacturing and U.S. high-tech research. STILL WAITING: — Congress still hasn't voted to add Sweden and Finland to NATO. — The American Innovation and Choice Online Act, sponsored by Sens. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa.), which aims to rein in Big Tech, still lacks 60 votes in the Senate despite winning majority support in the Senate Judiciary Committee in January. INTERVIEW — SETHURAMAN PANCHANATHAN Panchanathan was confirmed unanimously by a Republican-controlled Senate in 2019 as director of the National Science Foundation, which has a $9 billion budget and is the only federal agency charged with advancing all fields of scientific discovery and technological innovation. The interview has been edited for length and clarity. Do you have enough money to maintain global leadership — to compete with China? I fundamentally believe that if you have good ideas, you garner appropriate investments. (But) we leave a number of proposals unfunded, even though they have been ranked as competitive. So there is an opportunity — we should not let those idea be invested in by a competitor, whoever that might be. We don't want that to go to waste: so there is more investment and more resources needed to do that. What matters most to NSF's success? The most important foundation of my vision for the agency is partnerships. Partnerships of every type, every kind, every mode, industry, venture capital, economic development ecosystem, cities, states, K to 12, community college, universities, international partners, partnership of every kind, catalyzed by federal resources. I picked up the phone and talked to every leader of every agency. And our values: We live by our values, our values of openness, transparency, reciprocity, research, integrity, respect for intellectual property. That's what brings us together and how you find that there are a lot more per capita innovative mindsets here than anywhere else in the globe. What worries you? Science is about questioning: Why are we resisting this process of questioning? We also don't do a good enough job of explaining what makes science possible. Look at your phone: In that phone are 1000s of NSF projects, and they don't happen magically. Science is exciting, it's infectious, and that's an infection I want to spread to everybody. I want people in schools to have what I call 'STEM spark' — that moment where science lights up. I had my STEM spark when Apollo 11 landed on the moon. Elon Musk sparks excitement — is that the sort of science excitement you want? He called me when we had this telescope that fell in Puerto Rico, a fantastic velocity telescope, called Arecibo, something that you've seen in James Bond movies. He said: "How can I help?" Because he was excited by the potential of exploration of the telescope for what it can do to understand the universe and beyond. I am thrilled to hear from innovators like Elon. What's one underrated big idea in your mind? The big idea is unleashing every bit of talent in this nation. I don't think we have taken full advantage of the talent of this nation. I mean, every day I wake up thinking it's a missed opportunity. What book most shaped your conception of the future? There are many, many books — I look for nuggets of unbelievable ideas. For the moment, the book I'm finding very valuable is Jumpstarting America . It gives reinforcement to my thinking that, yes, there are many places of innovation and potential in America. That potential is just ripe and rich and ready to launch. I get excited by the book because we can make it real.
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