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Skyline von Bangkok Skyline von Bangkok. Panorama von Chinatown. Bangkok, Changwat Bangkok, Thailand, 26.01.2024
Thailand set to hand out $13 billion to citizens
Thai Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin announced Monday that citizens will be able to register for a digital wallet handout starting in August that will give about $275 each to 50 million people. It’s the latest in a series of populist policies put forward by the ruling Pheu Thai party, which cut a deal with the military to take power last year.
The idea is to offer folks an incentive to download the new digital wallet. Digital currencies are issued by a country’s central bank and function just like the fiat money you use every day. There are pilot programs in the EU, China, India, Saudi Arabia, and many other countries.
The government claims this handout, equivalent to roughly 66% of the average monthly income in Thailand, will help grow the economy by about 1.6%. The program is restricted to Thais who earn less than $23,000 a year (about three-quarters of the population) and they’ll have to spend it in small shops near their homes. But the Bank of Thailand has concerns – as do many economists, as it will push the debt-to-GPD ratio past 66% and increase the fiscal deficit.
That may be a risk Srettha is willing to run, considering his approval rate hovers around 12.85%. His efforts to pass popular policy, including a recriminalization of cannabis, and legalization of same-sex marriage, have done little to erase the stain Pheu Thai acquired by siding with the military to push out the Move Forward party, who won the largest share of seats in 2023. We are watching whether handing out cash can reverse his slide.A police officer stands guard as preparations for the Republican National Convention are underway in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, U.S., July 14, 2024.
Will Project 2025 become Trump’s 2.0 playbook?
As the Republican National Convention kicks off today, there are three big things to watch: how the party responds to the assassination attempt on Donald Trump, who the former president picks as his running mate, and the GOP’s platform for his potential second term.
If you’re curious about his potential VP pick, GZERO has broken down all of the top contenders in our Veepstakes series. As for his platform, the prominent conservative think tank Heritage Foundation has some ideas. Having shaped policies of Republican administrations since the Reagan administration, the Heritage Foundation has crafted a 900-page policy plan called Project 2025.
What is it? On its surface, Project 2025 is a transition plan so the right can hit the ground running in the case of a Trump 2.0. “Project 2025 is not a road map to what Trump will do, but rather a menu of what the far right would like to see him do,” says Eurasia Group’s US director Clayton Allen.
But John McEntee – once a Trump White House adviser – has said he was working to integrate Project 2025 with the Trump campaign. “There will need to be coordination and the president and his team will announce an official transition this summer, and we’re going to integrate a lot of our work with them.”
Among a multitude of recommendations, it proposes making it easier to fire federal workers and replace them with loyal appointees, criminalizing pornography, eliminating the Department of Education, ending diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, restricting access to abortion pills, and limiting climate protections.
It gives legal rationale to erase the Justice Department’s independence from the president, saying that it requires a “top to bottom” overhaul and that the Trump administration should “conduct an immediate, comprehensive review of all major active FBI investigations and activities and terminate any that are unlawful or contrary to the national interest.”
It also proposes the removal of any and all “immigration violators,” ending no-fault divorce, and ending diversity, equity and inclusion programs and the “toxic normalization of transgenderism.”
So, will these and other Project 2025 policies be part of Trump’s plan if he returns to the White House? For now, Trump says “no” and has tried to distance himself from the plan, saying “I know nothing about Project 2025,” on Truth Social. “Anything they do, I wish them luck, but I have nothing to do with them.”
Many on the left accused Trump of lying, but the former president may purposely be steering clear of policy matters while campaigning. “Putting out specific policy proposals when you are the opposition candidate does little more than give your opponent specific points to attack you,” says Allen. “Trump wants the election to be a referendum on Biden, not his own policy ideas.”
The project has been a godsend for the Biden campaign, giving it fodder to support its main campaign messages that Trump is a threat to the norms of democracy, abortion access, and extremely far-right on social issues. The Democratic National Committee is launching billboards in 10 cities in battleground states linking former President Trump to Project 2025, and Biden’s campaign is seeking influencers to raise the alarm on social media. It is a welcome distraction from the headline-dominating calls for Biden to step down but also spreads the unrealistic fear that everything in the 900-page proposal will come to fruition.
But Project 2025 may be more of a paper tiger. “[It] was crafted by a group taking a maximalist rather than a realist approach to agenda setting,” Allen says, noting that it’s more likely to motivate the Democratic base than anything else.
That’s not to say that Project 2025 won’t have a strong influence on Trump, should he return to the Oval Office. The first day of the RNC is jam-packed with the Heritage Foundation presenting its agenda, and many of Project 2025’s main crafters are Trump allies who are likely to have powerful, policy-shaping roles in his administration.
Where does Trump overlap with Project 2025? Trump’s official policy proposal and campaign rhetoric show that the former president agrees with some, but not all, of Project 2025. Trump has frequently questioned the legitimacy of the Justice Department. In his first term, he made it easier to fire federal career senior executives and replace them with loyalists, and he has made no secret of his plans to conduct a massive crackdown on immigration.
But Project 2025’s aggressive restrictions on abortion are unlikely to jive with Trump, who, despite appointing the justices who overturned Roe v. Wade, sees abortion restrictions as a matter for invididual states to determine. That being said, campaign rhetoric can vary drastically from the policy that is implemented once in office.
“Policies on immigration and economic policies are the areas with the most widespread backing within the party and therefore the most likely to influence a second Trump administration,” says Allen. But “social policy programs are more of a wishlist and lack support from many members – and in some cases Trump himself.”
SPECIAL SURVEY: Numbers Up North
What do Americans and Canadians really think of one another? What do they make of their governments and of each other’s? Whom would they vote for in each other’s elections? Do they share concerns about key challenges like, say, artificial intelligence, and what do they think about Israel’s war in Gaza?
Ahead of our landmark US-Canada Summit earlier this week, we teamed up with the Montréal-based pollster Data Sciences to find out. Their team asked 2,340 folks on both sides of the border what they really think. Here’s a selection of key findings, by the numbers.
68: What’s the most important aspect of US-Canada ties? 68% of Americans and Canadians say it’s the economy and trade. Security and defense ties came in a close second, but fewer than half thought culture or personal ties were very important. We did not ask about hockey.
70: Things aren’t going great … Huge majorities on both sides of the border are heading into their upcoming elections – in November for the US and before October 2025 in Canada – with negative sentiments. A whopping 70% of both Canadians and Americans are “frustrated” with their federal governments.
26: Still, Canadians are keener to kick out their current government than Americans. Just 26% of Canucks would vote for the incumbent Liberals, whereas Americans are more split – 47% would vote for Trump and 45% would vote for Biden.
21: Even good-natured Canada isn’t safe from America’s partisan splits. There is a 21-point difference between the percentage of Biden voters who see Canada as a “partner” (82%) and the share of Trump voters who say the same (61%). But who, we wonder, are the 2-3% of both candidates’ voters who view Canada as an outright “enemy”? What did Canada do to hurt you?
72: The robots are coming, and 72% of Americans and Canadians are somewhat or very concerned about the rise of artificial intelligence, with almost half worried that a robot or machine could do some or most of their jobs.
25: Canadians are more pro-Palestinian than Americans. Asked whom they sympathize more with, 25% of Canadians said the Palestinians against just 16% who listed the Israelis. South of the border, the views were almost exactly flipped, with 16% of Americans saying they felt more for the Palestinians, while 29% said the Israelis.Chuck Schumer’s light-touch plan for AI
Over the past year, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) has led the so-called AI Gang, a group of senators eager to study the effects of artificial intelligence on society and curb the threats it poses through regulation. But calling this group a gang implies a certain level of toughness that was nowhere to be found in the roadmap it unveiled on May 15.
Announcing the 31-page roadmap, a bipartisan set of policy priorities for Congress, Schumer bragged of “months of discussion,” “hundreds of meetings,” and “nine first-of-their-kind AI Insight Forums,” including sessions with OpenAI’s Sam Altman and Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg.
What he delivered, however, was more of a spending plan than a vision for real regulation – the policy proposals were limited, and the approach was hands-off. The roadmap called for $32 billion over the next three years for artificial intelligence-related spending for research and innovation. It offered suggestions, such as a federal data privacy law, legislation to curb deepfakes in elections, and a ban on “social scoring” like the social credit system that China has tested.
Civil society groups aren’t pleased
The long list of proposals is “no substitute for enforceable law – and these companies certainly know the difference, especially when the window to see anything into legislation is swiftly closing,” the AI Now Institute’s Amba Kak and Sarah Myers West wrote in a statement. Maya Wiley, CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, wrote that “the framework’s focus on promoting innovation and industry overshadows the real-world harms that could result from AI systems.”
Ronan Murphy of the Center for European Policy Analysis wrote that the gap between the US and EU approaches to AI could not be more stark. “US lawmakers believe it is premature to restrain fast-moving AI innovation,” he wrote. “In contrast, the EU’s AI Act bans facial recognition applications and tools that exhibit racial or other discrimination.”
Former White House technology advisor Suresh Venkatasubramaniantweeted that the proposal felt so unoriginal and recycled that it might have been written by ChatGPT.
An AI law is unlikely this year
Adam Conner, vice president of tech policy at the Center for American Progress, said that while the roadmap has some areas of substance, such as urging a federal data privacy law, “most sections are light on details.” He called the $32 billion spending proposal a “detailed wish list” for upcoming funding bills.
It was a thin result for something that took so long to cook up, he said, and “leaves little time on the calendar this year for substantive AI legislation, except for the funding bills Congress must pass this year and possibly the recently introduced bipartisan bicameral American Privacy Rights Act data privacy bill.” This means any other AI legislation will likely have to wait until next year. “Whether that was the plan all along is an open question,” Conner added.
Danny Hague, assistant director of Georgetown University’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology, agreed that it’s unlikely anything comprehensive gets passed this year. But he doesn’t necessarily see the report as a sign that the US will be hands-off with legislation. He said the Senate Working Group likely realizes that “time is limited,” and there are already “structures in place — regulatory agencies and the congressional committees that oversee them — to act on AI quickly.”
Jon Lieber, managing director for the United States for Eurasia Group, said he didn’t understand why an AI Gang was necessary at all. “I’m confused why Schumer felt the need to do something here,” he said. “This process should have been handled by a senate committee, not the leaders office.
Such a soft line from Congress means that until further notice, President Joe Biden — who has issued an executive order, export controls, and CHIPS Act funding to create jobs, secure tech infrastructure, and directed his agencies to get up to speed on AI — might just be the AI regulator in chief.
Benny Gantz, leader of Blue and White party, speaks during an election campaign rally in Ramat Gan, near Tel Aviv, Israel, February 25, 2020.
Is Israel’s government about to fall apart?
National Unity Chair Benny Gantz, a key figure in Israel’s war cabinet and major rival for the premiership, has threatened to resign if Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu does not deliver a post-war plan for the conflict in Gaza by June 8.
Gantz has offered his own six-point plan, which calls for securing the return of hostages, ending Hamas’ rule, demilitarizing Gaza, and establishing an international administration of the region. The ultimatum has exposed a rift within Israel’s three-man war cabinet, composed of Gantz,Netanyahu, and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, who also opposes Israel reoccupying Gaza after the war ends.
“If you choose the path of fanatics and lead the entire nation to the abyss, we will be forced to quit the government,” Gantz told Netanyahu, who responded that Gantz’s “washed-up words” would mean “defeat for Israel.” Netanyahu is facing mounting pressure to end the conflict, with the latest protest in Tel Aviv coming just hours after Gantz’s ultimatum. Police used water cannons to disperse crowds that were demanding an end to the conflict and new elections.
What would an election bring?
A poll published this weekend by Israel’s Channel 12 puts Netanyahu’s job approval rating at 32%, and 35% among right-of-center Likud voters. Gantz garners a 35% overall job approval rating, and 42% among center-left voters. Another survey published by Maariv has Gantz leading Netanyahu for prime minister, 45% to 38%.
In the meantime, Netanyahu is unlikely to bend, and the Rafah offensive is likely to intensify. He also will be even more beholden to the far-right elements in his coalition to fend off potential challenges from Gallant and Gantz.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) talks to reporters after surviving a vote to remove him from the Speaker’s position, Washington, DC, May 8, 2024. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) introduced a motion to vacate the Speaker’s office, which was defeated by a motion to table the issue immediately afterward.
Vibes-based lawmaking isn’t helping us!
With so many problems in the world right now, it seems odd to spend time trying to solve ones that don’t exist.
But that’s exactly what happened this week when House Speaker Mike Johnson proposed a new law to crack down on non-citizens voting in US federal elections.
The legislation, known as the SAVE Act, would outlaw non-citizen voting – which is already illegal – and require proof of citizenship in order to register to vote.
Now, some people, mostly Republicans, say it’s not unreasonable to expect adults to produce ID before making a decision about who should lead the “free world.” Others, mostly Democrats, point to evidence that voter ID requirements – particularly for passports or birth certificates – tend to suppress eligible voter turnout, particularly for minority voters. There are fair arguments on both sides.
The Supreme Court, for its part, has struck down a state-led requirement for citizenship documents, and a North Carolina court is weighing the issue of voter ID more broadly as we speak.
But leave all that aside for a moment. There’s a more fundamental problem with Johnson’s bill. It’s aimed at ghosts.
Asked about the scale of the problem of non-citizen voting, Johnson said:
“The answer is that it’s unanswerable.”
“We all know intuitively,” he explained, “that a lot of illegals are voting in federal elections.”
This vibes-based intuition parrots a longstanding talking point of GOP boss Donald Trump, who has complained – falsely – that voter fraud cost him the popular vote in 2016 and the election itself in 2020. With just six months until his rematch with Joe Biden, Trump and his allies are keen to seed the idea that voter fraud – particularly among the rapidly rising undocumented migrant population – will decide the outcome. With 60% of Republicans worried about the credibility of the electoral system, Trump knows his audience.
But the question for Johnson is not unanswerable. The answer is that there is, in fact, no evidence for these claims.
In 2017, for example, the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU looked closely at the 2016 election, a contest in which Donald Trump claimed he had lost the popular vote because 3-5 million illegal immigrants had voted for Hillary Clinton.
After reviewing 23 million voter names, in 42 precincts, in 12 states, how many instances of non-citizen voting did the Brennan study find?
Thirty. That’s 0.0001% of the votes.
It turns out non-citizens, in perpetual danger of deportation, aren’t eager to write their names down on a voting register, leaving indelible evidence of a federal crime.
This tracks with other studies of voter fraud, nearly all of which show that it’s exceedingly rare. The state of Georgia, for example, conducted a review of its voter rolls in 2022 and found that of the four million votes cast by Georgians in the midterms of that year, there were 17 instances of voter fraud.
That’s not to say there aren’t real concerns about the election. How might AI distort voter perceptions of the candidates? Will foreign powers try to sway voters’ choices? Will election workers be safe? Nearly 40% of them say they have experienced threats, violence, or harassment, in part by people riled up with false narratives about fraud.
But instead of addressing those serious worries, the Speaker of the House is proposing to Make Illegal Things Illegal Again™, based on information he does not have, about a phenomenon that doesn’t exist.
This kind of vibes-based lawmaking isn’t going to SAVE us from anything.
Participants in a rally to mark an attack on an SPD politician stand on Pohlandplatz. After the brutal attack on the SPD politician Ecke, a 17-year-old turned himself in to the police.
Latest attack on a German politician stokes concern ahead of elections
Last week, the top European Parliament candidate of the governing Social Democrat Party was beaten unconscious in the eastern city of Dresden while campaigning. A Green Party operative was assaulted there as well. Several teens with ties to far-right ideologies are suspected in both cases.
Statistics show rising violence against German politicians. In 2023, there were nearly 2,800 physical or verbal attacks, twice as many as in 2019, when a neo-Nazi assassination of conservative lawmaker Walter Lübcke stunned the country.
Last year’s violence included about 500 attacks on politicians from the far-right Alternative for Deutschland, or AFD, and more than 1,200 on members of the center-left Green Party.
Why now? The problem has deep roots, according to Jan Techau, a Berlin-based Europe expert at Eurasia Group. Establishment parties’ long-standing failure to address big issues like immigration, schooling, or the economy, he says, opened the way for more radical and violent forces on both the left and right. “What we see is an overall more charged, political atmosphere where this kind of violence becomes more legitimate.”Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky addresses Ukrainian people with Orthodox Easter message, as Russia's attack on Ukraine continues, at the Saint Sophia cathedral in Kyiv, Ukraine April 23, 2022. Picture taken April 23, 2022.
Hard Numbers: Ukraine’s bloody Easter Sunday, China on the dark side of the moon, Afghanistan loses last woman diplomat, Madonna’s massive show
3: On Sunday, Ukraine marked its third Orthodox Easter under Russian attack, as Moscow’s forces targeted villages in the East with a drone barrage that killed six people. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky (of Jewish descent) asked his compatriots to be “united in one common prayer” on the steps of Kyiv’s St. Sophia Cathedral.
1,500: “Pink Floyd” 用中文怎么说? China launched a mission to the literal dark side of the moon on Friday to extract surface samples in the South Pole-Aitken Basin, a vast depression over 1,500 miles wide. It is the first of three unmanned lunar launches Beijing plans for this decade, culminating in an assessment of the feasibility of a permanent lunar base.
0: Afghanistan now has no female diplomats in its foreign ministry following the resignation of Zakia Wardak, who resigned after reportedly being detained in India on gold smuggling allegations. She was appointed in 2021, before the Taliban takeover,and denies the allegations.
1.6 million: Over 1.6 million people turned out to see Madonna play in a free open-air concert on Rio’s Copacabana Beach on Saturday night. And it wasn’t just Cariocas — the city’s airport handled over 170 additional flights to accommodate pop fans from all over the world.35: Panamanians elected José Raúl Mulino, the stand-in for former President Ricardo Martinelli, to be their next leader on Sunday, with 35% of the vote. The race had been in uncertain territory until Friday morning, when the Supreme Court decided to allow Mulino to run despite not having been made a candidate through a primary election process. Read more from GZERO here.