Emerging Risks

General Sir Nick Carter speaks out after deadly attack and attempted ‘hijack’ of two ships

"We state this clearly: ANY foolish act against Iran will be met with a DECISIVE response. Don't test us," Iran said in reply.

'Tucker Carlson Tonight' host calls out media covering for China. #FoxNews #Tucker Subscribe to Fox News! https://bit.ly/2vaBUvAS Watch more Fox News Video: http://video.foxnews.com Watch Fox News Channel Live: http://www.foxnewsgo.com/ FOX News Channel (FNC) is a 24-hour all-encompassing news service delivering breaking news as well as political and business news. The number one network in cable, FNC has been the most-watched television news channel for 18 consecutive years. According to a 2020 Brand Keys Consumer Loyalty Engagement Index report, FOX News is the top brand in the country for morning and evening news coverage. A 2019 Suffolk University poll named FOX News as the most trusted source for television news or commentary, while a 2019 Brand Keys Emotion Engagement Analysis survey found that FOX News was the most trusted cable news brand. A 2017 Gallup/Knight Foundation survey also found that among Americans who could name an objective news source, FOX News was the top-cited outlet. Owned by FOX Corporation, FNC is available in nearly 90 million homes and dominates the cable news landscape, routinely notching the top ten programs in the genre. Watch full episodes of your favorite shows The Five: http://video.foxnews.com/playlist/longform-the-five/ Special Report with Bret Baier: http://video.foxnews.com/playlist/longform-special-report/ Fox News Primetime: https://video.foxnews.com/playlist/on-air-fox-news-primetime/ Tucker Carlson Tonight: http://video.foxnews.com/playlist/longform-tucker-carlson-tonight/ Hannity: http://video.foxnews.com/playlist/longform-hannity/ The Ingraham Angle: http://video.foxnews.com/playlist/longform-the-ingraham-angle/ Fox News @ Night: http://video.foxnews.com/playlist/longform-fox-news-night/ Follow Fox News on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FoxNews/ Follow Fox News on Twitter: https://twitter.com/FoxNews/ Follow Fox News on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/foxnews/

It is increasingly common to see scientists dropping off social media. The pattern is the same each time: they tweet an observation, or comment in an interview on some evidence from their field of study. Someone takes exception; outrage spreads. Their timeline becomes a torrent of hostility, and to escape the abuse they delete their accounts. This is hardly unique to academics. Twitter is a bear pit. But for researchers, talking to the public is part of the job. Funders expect it. A public health crisis demands it. Yet the conversation does not always run smoothly. We have calls for Covid scientists to resign. One expert’s bio says simply: "I block." How did it come to this? My own brush with the Twitter pile-on happened in November when my research team, which specialises in national studies of suicide, released the first pandemic suicide rates for England. Against expectations, we found no rise. Over the following week I received hundreds of angry tweets: insults, abuse, a few implied threats. Colleagues were astounded: surely our findings were good news? The answer, for some, was no. Suicide had become a political issue in the pandemic. Claims of a “suicide epidemic”, blamed on lockdown, were everywhere. One notorious tweet reported a “200 per cent rise” and was reposted 31,000 times in a single day. Our findings were inconvenient. [See also: How Google quietly funds Europe’s leading tech policy institutes] The attacks came from Covid-deniers, libertarians, anti-vaxxers. We were wrong, they said, and what’s more, we knew we were wrong. We were up to something. Several insisted there were fatal flaws in the study. It’s tempting to shrug and move on. But to treat such abuse lightly is to normalise it, and harassment of researchers on whose independence we rely in a crisis should never be normal. Some find it too much and withdraw, yet if researchers give up on public dialogue, the stage is cleared for charlatans, and we all lose. To characterise it as igronance – the pitchfork mob at midnight – is too simplistic. Public outrage at scientists is a social phenomenon, powerful enough to have shaped the course of a pandemic. It needs to be understood. Hostility to “the elite” isn’t new. It has been a tool of populist leaders for centuries. What’s more recent is the cynical denigration of experts – a word that now carries a pejorative sense. To be an expert, to some, is to be out of touch, or worse, hiding the truth, in the pay of the powerful. This hostility comes today from a sense of being excluded, a belief that the decisions affecting us all are the preserve of people who know almost nothing of our real lives. Fed by social media, this suspicion has become one of the dominant political forces of our time. Twitter helps to breed such suspicion because it creates equivalence, real or not. I’m entitled to my opinion, say the keyboard warriors, and so they are. My opinion is based on 30 years of study, says the expert, but that’s exactly what you’d expect from the elite. Twitter also provides a level of anonymity that allows aggression to flare unchecked by social norms, just as being contained and anonymised by a car creates road rage. Resign, sack, arrest, imprison – these words reverberate across social media. No disagreement is too trivial to end with insults and accusations. When facts are agreed upon socially, confirmation bias takes hold. People follow, like, and retweet content that confirms what they already believe. Truth becomes subjective, and people talk of “my truth” when they mean “my experience”. On Twitter, they may hear of a treatment successfully tested in trials and say: it didn’t help me. Who can blame them for putting their experience first? [See also: Who is behind the online abuse of black England players and how can we stop it?] Experience is valuable. In health research, subjective experience used to be dismissed as anecdote. Now it is vital evidence, a driver of “personalised” care in a system that trumpets patient autonomy. In my own field the narratives of bereaved families, so tragic and compelling, have given suicide prevention its high profile, overturning decades of stigma. Individual experience now sits alongside population data, enriching large-scale studies. They are not in opposition. Both are needed, and both come with uncertainty. Experience can vary, and data can change. Uncertainty is the stuff of academic life. Can Twitter ever be mature enough to discuss uncertainty, and to see the difference between belief, opinion and evidence – between subjective experience and subjective truth? It’s not there yet. [See also: How to end the poison of online racism] Academics should be thinking about what they can do to help improve the dialogue on social media. Zero tolerance of abuse is essential. So too is engaging with the public on their terms, and valuing their experience. Experts are often in a bubble of their own – we don’t know what the public believes about our subject, and we don’t engage in a two-way dialogue. When I look at who I follow, they are all like me. This dialogue is important to reassure the public that expertise can be independent of government pressure or commercial funding. We need to explain uncertainty, and convince the public that when we speak about a research field, we have the expertise to do so – that we are not using academic titles as a smokescreen for private opinions which are no more valuable than anyone else’s. We’ve seen this in the pandemic, it diminishes us all. The public, too, has a responsibility to make this dialogue work. Interpreting evidence should be something everyone can do, as important as numeracy or grammar; we should consider teaching the basics of sampling, bias and small numbers in schools, as skills for life in the age of social information. Most of all, though, the public should recognise that academics are supposed to challenge commonly held beliefs. It’s how knowledge advances, for public benefit. It should be encouraged, not cancelled.

Scientists discovered that natural gas deposits deep within the Siberian permafrost increased the release of methane following a heatwave in the summer of 2020.

As Britain’s small fleet, headed by HMS Queen Elizabeth, cruises towards the South China Sea, there remains a question over the nature of China’s geopolitical ambitions. When Xi Jinping came to power in 2013 it was assumed that China would follow the relatively unthreatening path begun by Deng Xia...

  Iran is finally making serious mistakes. Let us hope they will amount to a critical mass enough to convince

Iran’s goal is to keep these groups armed and ready to support its activities, such that they can be operationalized or used as leverage and tools for Tehran’s regional project.

Iran on Sunday issued a formal denial that it was behind the major Thursday night drone attack on the Mercer Street oil tanker off Oman

Iranian officials have warned of historic drought while experts blame years of poor water management.

House Republicans have released an addendum to their Origins of COVID-19 report released last year, concluding that evidence points to a leak from a Chinese lab.

Hezbollah is expanding its missile capability — what are Israel's options?

UN Ambassador Gilad Erdan warned the United Nations that if UNIFIL did not take action to restrict Hezbollah, it would drag the entire region into a regional war.

To preserve peace in the Taiwan Strait, Robert D. Blackwill and Philip Zelikow propose the United States make clear that it will not change Taiwan’s status, yet will work with allies to plan for Chinese aggression and help Taiwan defend itself.

Their purpose is unclear, but the Americans are worried | China

Several Israeli officials including FM Yair Lapid and DM Benny Gantz relayed the message to US counterparts

Defense minister says Jewish state reserves the right to take independent steps against Tehran's nuclear program, says deal with world powers must be improved

'Iran remains the most serious threat Israel faces'

The president's pressure on Ukraine is far more serious than Trump’s efforts to get the country to investigate Hunter Biden.

Russia is on the fast track to developing a range of autonomous weapon systems in a challenge to US military dominance, a Pentagon report found.

Yale’s Stephen Roach, who served chairman of Morgan Stanley Asia, believes Beijing’s crackdown against U.S.-listed China stocks have major market implications.

Prime Minister Naftali Bennett blamed opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu for the advances in Iran's nuclear program, soon after the news of Iran’s uranium metal enrichment was published.

Senior diplomat cautions that Tehran could take advantage of lull in talks, until Iran's new president installed, to advance program

The roots of the woke revolution

the economic crisis took a dangerous turn as the country’s soldiers are also finding it hard to feed their children. Lebanon’s Army Chief

***

The persistent violence against Palestinians in Jerusalem and an Israeli desire for a revanche may rekindle hostilities.

"This line by Washington, which blatantly violates international law, will continue to come up against unwavering opposition as far as protecting Russia's legitimate interests goes," the Russian Foreign Ministry said.

Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov levelled a raft of allegations at the West on Friday, including that Russia's rivals are meddling in its upcoming elections.

The window to prepare for war in the western Pacific is closing quickly. The United States must build and prepare naval forces that can deter or defeat China.