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A girl waits for customers while selling meat to feed the birds, as a form of charity to bring good luck and ward off adversity, along Ravi Bridge in Lahore, Pakistan.
Hard Numbers: Pakistan’s well-fed predators, Russia’s cool prices, Biden’s unrealistic budget, Telegram’s big moment
20: What can 20 Pakistani rupees ($0.07) buy you? A defense against misfortune sounds like a bargain. That’s the price you’ll pay for a packet of scrap meat to throw to predatory birds in Lahore. The practice is an age-old tradition that has survived despite intensifying efforts by the authorities to stamp it out. Wildlife experts say it encourages overpopulation and aggression in the bird populations, but a local rickshaw driver tells Reuters he does it anyway to “keep his life safe.”
0.6: New data from Russia this week will show consumer prices rose just 0.6% in February. Annual inflation is likely even lower than the last reading of 7.5%. That’s not stellar, no, but for a sanctions-wracked economy where inflation hit nearly 18% after invading Ukraine, it’s another sign the West hasn’t really crippled the Kremlin’s war machine. Vladimir Putin, for his part, is confident enough in the inflation numbers to uncork $126 billion in social spending ahead of his “election” this weekend.
7.3 trillion: Speaking of spending, US President Joe Bidenunveiled a $7.3 trillion budget proposal on Monday featuring massive new social spending financed by tax hikes on corporations and the mega-rich. Non-partisan analysts say the math is “unrealistic,” and it has zero chance of passing a GOP-run House anyway. But it’s not meant for Capitol Hill; it’s meant for the campaign trail, where Biden is trying to convince American voters that “Bidenomics” is a win. Polls show skepticism, despite improving economic data.
900 million: Social media apps owned by “China,” Mark Zuckerberg, or Elon Musk may get all the attention these days, but the messaging app Telegram has quietly hit 900 million regular users (nearly 3X that of X) and is mulling an IPO. The freewheeling Dubai-based platform, created by Russian-born entrepreneur Pavel Durov, has emerged as a major free speech hub, particularly in Russia, but it has also drawn criticism for allegedly allowing criminal activity and “misinformation.”
Illustrative photo of medical syringes and small figurines of people waiting in line for the Covid-19 vaccine booster, in front of the European flag displayed on a computer screen.
What We’re Watching: European omicron wave, Bolsonaro on Telegram, Chinese blind date
Omicron to sweep Europe. The World Health Organization reports that Europe will soon be the latest region to face a “west-to-east tidal wave” of the omicron COVID variant, on top of continuing infections with the delta variant. A senior WHO official predicts that “more than 50 percent of the population in the region will be infected with omicron in the next six to eight weeks.” Beyond the public health and subsequent economic impact of this event, governments across Europe must manage the political fallout. The most impactful example will come in France, where President Emmanuel Macron faces center-right and further-right challengers in his bid for re-election in April. The latest pandemic wave will also create challenges for Germany’s brand-new coalition government and maybe for Hungary’s Viktor Orbán, who’s expecting an especially tough fight for re-election this spring.
Bolsonaro hearts Telegram. Jair Bolsonaro mastered the use of social media to motivate his core supporters during his campaign to win Brazil's presidency in 2018. But since then, Bolsonaro has faced an uphill climb with Big Tech and the Brazilian courts, both of which are cracking down hard on the misinformation the president regularly amplifies. For months, Bolsonaro has been telling his fans to get off Facebook, Twitter and especially WhatsApp, which is used by almost all Brazilians with a smartphone. Now, Bolsonaro — perhaps fearing he'll be banned over misinformation from all Meta-owned platforms ahead of the October presidential election — wants his fans to flock to Telegram. Why? First, the app gives him more freedom to say what he wants and to as many people as he wants. Second, the Brazilian courts can't shut it down because Telegram has no legal office in the country. But so far only half of Brazilians use it, so he needs to build a big following fast in order to wage social media war on former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, his likely rival who is currently way ahead in early polls.
The longest blind date in history? In the Chinese city of Zhengzhou, there’s a young woman we know only as Ms. Wang. We know she’s young — she’s posted photos of herself on social media — but her parents are reportedly concerned she isn’t yet married, so they arranged some blind dates for her. That’s how she met a man online who presents himself as an excellent cook. He invited her to his apartment to demonstrate these culinary talents and, not having read Signal’s coverage of our parent company Eurasia Group’s #1 top geopolitical risk for 2022 — and therefore underestimating the potentially serious impact of China’s “zero-COVID” policy in the age of omicron — Ms. Wang accepted the invitation. Then she got stuck at his apartment when local authorities suddenly ordered a total lockdown of his neighborhood. Ms. Wang has reported that the situation is “not ideal,” though the man has cooked for her for several days. She has not (yet) offered reviews of his meals, but she has noted publicly that “he doesn’t speak much.” We’ll be watching to see if either of these kids finds love in the future — and if they’ve learned anything about staying current on latest news and views from Signal.
Are online extremists moving underground?
One result of the law enforcement crackdown on pro-Trump Capitol rioters following the events of January 6 is that many right-wing extremists have left public social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter for encrypted apps like Telegram and Signal. But renowned tech journalist Kara Swisher isn't all that concerned. "The white supremacist stuff, it's like mold. They thrived in the light, actually." Now that these groups no longer have such public platforms, their recruiting power, Swisher argues, will be greatly diminished. Plus, she points out, they were already on those encrypted apps to begin with. Swisher's conversation with Ian Bremmer was part of the latest episode of GZERO World.