Mediaboss Marketing

00Author: Murray Hiebert, Bower Group Asia

COVID-19 has been tough on the health and economies of Southeast Asia, but the regions fledgling quasi-democracies are also under threat. Efforts to control the virus are giving authoritarian rulers the perfect cover to adopt draconian levers to rein in their opponents and critics.

In Thailand, Prayut Chan-o-cha a general who seized power in a 2014 coup and then became prime minister through carefully orchestrated elections in 2019 took advantage of an existing emergency decree to impose sweeping control measures in March. As COVID-19 continues to spread, the control measures grant him the authority to censor or shut down media if deemed necessary.

For example, a 42-year-old Thai artist was arrested after posting online that he had arrived from Spain and exited Bangkoks main international airport without any screening. He was charged under the Computer Crimes Act and could be punished for up to five years in prison because his post created panic for the public and eroded their confidence in Suvarnabhumi airport in the words of the Ministry of Digital Economy and Society.

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, best known for his brutal war on drugs, signed a law in late March granting himself special temporary power for three months. On 1 April, he ordered the police and the military to shoot violators of his enhanced community quarantine if they were unruly or threatened law enforcement officers. Three days later, a man in his early 60s, apparently drunk, was shot dead after allegedly threatening police at a checkpoint with a scythe.

In April, the Philippine police arrested seven activists distributing food assistance north of Manila and charged them with violating emergency laws. They were indicted with inciting sedition after anti-government newspapers were found in their vehicle. In early May, ABS-CBN the countrys largest television broadcaster was forced off the air in a move many observers interpreted as Dutertes attempt to further muzzle the media at a time when unbiased reporting on COVID-19 outbreak was needed.

In Myanmar, the military appears to be taking advantage of COVID-19 by leveraging the power it retained during reforms that gave rise to a quasi-civilian government. In late March, the military set up a powerful 10-member COVID-19 taskforce to investigate cases of the virus and suppress disinformation by punishing those who create panic among the people. This taskforce, made up of senior military officers and cabinet ministers appointed by the military, was created two weeks after the government had established a COVID-19 committee led by State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi.

The military taskforce runs parallel to the civilian government and ensures that the military retains a high profile as the country prepares for elections before the end of the year. The military also arranged facilities in key cities to quarantine people infected by COVID-19 and sent military helicopters to deliver medical supplies to remote regions of the country.

In Cambodia, where Prime Minister Hun Sen cracked down on opposition political parties and shrunk the countrys political space ahead of 2018 elections, the National Assembly passed a state of emergency law granting Hun Sen greater power in handling the pandemic. Between January and April, Human Rights Watch documented the arrest of at least 30 people on charges of spreading fake news, including commentaries on the governments handling of the pandemic.

No opinion polls in Southeast Asia have measured public perceptions about the more authoritarian measures governments introduced to tackle the pandemic. A Gallup poll of Thai attitudes toward the governments overall handling of the virus in late April found 81 per cent disapproval the highest among 18 countries. In contrast, 80 per cent of people in the Philippines approved of their governments handling of the virus, in line with Dutertes approval ratings during his war on drugs.

Interestingly, the poor rating of the Thai government seems to be due to perceptions of officials not going far enough rather than being too draconian. Veteran politicians criticised Prayuts administration for not using hard measures earlier to control the virus.

There is no evidence that the use of tough policies in Cambodia, the Philippines, Thailand or Myanmar are producing a more effective pandemic response. Any public health practitioner would immediately tell you that responding to a public health crisis requires eliciting the willing cooperation and support of the people, says Robertson. Using power to arrest, quarantine and curfew violators is an exercise that resembles emptying the ocean with a bucket. Advances toward democracy in Southeast Asia that came at immense cost are at risk of being steadily eroded away.

Murray Hiebert is Head of Research at Bower Group Asia and Senior Associate of the Southeast Asia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), Washington DC. He is author of Under Beijings Shadow: Southeast Asias China Challenge (Forthcoming: August 2020).

Continue reading here:
COVID-19 threatens democracy in Southeast Asia - East Asia Forum

Washington, May 24 (Xinhua) David Litt, a former speechwriter for Barack Obama, when the latter was President of the United States, has said the spread of COVID-19 which has so far claimed nearly 100,000 lives in the US, is a failure of democracy at the root.

Its become commonplace to refer to COVID-19 as the worst public health crisis of our lifetimes. But what has cost the United States so many lives and jobs during the pandemic is not, at root, a failure of public health. Its a failure of democracy, Litt wrote in an article published by Time magazine this week.

Poll after poll has shown that a clear majority of Americans trust, want our leaders to heed the experts advice. Yet that hasnt happened. We were far too slow to implement social-distancing guidelines a delay epidemiologists found is responsible for 90 percent of U.S. coronavirus deaths, he said.

Now were acting far too quickly to reopen the economy, he added.

Dozens of U.S. states have rolled out reopening plans in late April, with Georgia, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas among the first to allow certain nonessential businesses to resume operations.

The writer pointed out that lower-income and non-white Americans are those most likely to suffer from the U.S. governments flailing response to the coronavirus.

Citing a report analyzing the changes in the U.S. political map in recent years from the University of Chicagos Law Review, Litt said Americans political power has been further diminished.

As we battle the coronavirus, American lives depend on a successful government response. But with rare exceptions, House Members jobs do not, he said.

In early March, for example, as the virus was spreading, the first 15 U.S. states to report cases of the coronavirus accounted for 56 percent of Americas population but only 30 percent of Americas senators. No wonder the Senate was initially slow to act, he said.

So as of Friday night, the United States has reported over 1.6 million cases of COVID-19, according to Johns Hopkins University.

Furthermore, Litt said the corporations increasing clout with policymakers has pushed the U.S. government into acting more slowly and reopening more quickly than the American people believe is safe.

That capitalistic influence has more influence on policymaking than the peoples welfare, in Litts view, is no surprise.

From the way we manage elections to the way we fund campaigns, from the congressional districts we draw to the lobbyists we include in the policymaking process, the story is the same, he said.

The American republic is a government of fewer people, by fewer people, for fewer people than at any time in the past half-century. And We, the People, are suffering because of it, Litt concluded.

(David Litt is the author of Democracy in One Book or Less: How It Works, Why It Doesnt, and Why Fixing It Is Easier Than You Think as well as Thanks, Obama: My Hopey, Changey White House Years. )

Read the original post:
Rapid spread of COVID 19 in the US reflects failure of democracy, says Obamas speech writer - NewsIn.Asia

Slowing researchers down with encumbered IP was especially problematic now that the entire world had joined the race to build a useful quantum computer, he said.

Quantum computers harness the strange way matter behaves at the atomic and sub-atomic level, to perform computations that are difficult or impossible for regular computers.

In its report, the CSIRO's strategic consulting arm, CSIRO Futures, estimated that quantum computers, together with related quantum technologies such as quantum sensing and quantum telecommunications, should create a global industry that's conservatively worth $86 billion a year by 2040.

Professor Michelle Simmons says her project to build a quantum computer in silicon can be like the tortoise: slow and steady.Louie Douvis

If it plays its cards right, Australia could have a $4 billion-a-year share of that, CSIRO Futures predicted.

To do that, the Australian quantum technology industry needs to move fast, said Michelle Simmons, Scientia Professor of Quantum Physics in the Faculty of Science at the University of New South Wales. She is trying to build a scalable quantum computer from silicon: a project she likened to being the tortoise in the fable about the hare and the tortoise.

"It's moving incredibly fast out there, and we have to move. Speed is absolutely critical," she said.

But encumbered IP, said Professor Biercuk, is the enemy of speed. His company, Q-Ctrl, only exists because the University of Sydney let him have most of the IP he created, without encumbrance, he said.

"In the few cases where we have had some tangential IP that was owned by the university, the negotiations around that took years. The company literally moved from being nothing other than the paper certification of "Q-Ctrl Pty Ltd", to having customers and products, in the time that we were just trying to negotiate that one licence," he said.

But if this past week's news is any measure, then the Australian quantum industry is indeed moving quickly.

On Friday, the ANU start-up Quantum Brilliance, which is trying to build a scalable, room-temperature quantum computer out of artificial diamonds, said it had partnered with Pawsey Supercomputing Centre in Western Australia to help Pawsey's customers prepare themselves for quantum computing.

The same day, the University of Sydney announced that one of its researchers, Dr Benjamin Brown from the School of Physics, had developed a new way to correct errors in quantum computers, using time as the "third dimension" in traditionally two-dimensional error-correction algorithms.

Due to their highly sensitive nature, quantum computers tend to make a lot of errors, and correcting such errors efficiently is expected to be crucial if scientists are to have any chance of building a quantum computer that is powerful enough to do something useful.

See more here:
Unis warned to keep their snouts out of the Quantum Computer trough - The Australian Financial Review

Total is stepping up its research into Carbon Capture, Utilization and Storage (CCUS) technologies by signing a multi-year partnership with UK start-up Cambridge Quantum Computing (CQC). This partnership aims to develop new quantum algorithms to improve materials for CO2 capture.

Totals ambition is to be a major player in CCUS and the Group currently invests up to 10% of its annual research and development effort in this area.

To improve the capture of CO2, Total is working on nanoporous adsorbents, considered to be among the most promising solutions. These materials could eventually be used to trap the CO2 emitted by the Groups industrial operations or those of other players (cement, steel etc.). The CO2 recovered would then be concentrated and reused or stored permanently. These materials could also be used to capture CO2 directly from the air (Direct Air Capture or DAC).

The quantum algorithms which will be developed in the collaboration between Total and CQC will simulate all the physical and chemical mechanisms in these adsorbents as a function of their size, shape and chemical composition, and therefore make it possible to select the most efficient materials to develop.

Currently, such simulations are impossible to perform with a conventional supercomputer, which justifies the use of quantum calculations.

Read this article:
Total partners with Cambridge Quantum Computing on CO2 capture - Green Car Congress

A physicist at the University of Sydney has achieved something that many researchers previously thought was impossible. He has developed a type of error-correcting code for quantum computers that will free up more hardware.

His solution also delivers an approach that will allow companies to build better quantum microchips. Dr. Benjamin Brown from the School of Physics achieved this impressive feat by applying a three-dimensional code to a two-dimensional framework.

"The trick is to use time as the third dimension. I'm using two physical dimensions and adding in time as the third dimension," Brown said in a statement. "This opens up possibilities we didn't have before."

"It's a bit like knitting," he added. "Each row is like a one-dimensional line. You knit row after row of wool and, over time, this produces a two-dimensional panel of material."

Quantum computing is rampant with errors. As such, one of the biggest obstacles scientists face before they can build machines large enough to solve problems is reducing these errors.

"Because quantum information is so fragile, it produces a lot of errors," said Brown.

Getting rid of these errors entirely is impossible. Instead, researchers are seeking to engineer a new error-tolerant system where useful processing operations outweigh error-correcting ones. This is exactly what Brown achieved.

"My approach to suppressing errors is to use a code that operates across the surface of the architecture in two dimensions. The effect of this is to free up a lot of the hardware from error correction and allow it to get on with the useful stuff," Brown explained.

The result is an approach that could change quantum computing forever.

"This result establishes a new option for performing fault-tolerant gates, which has the potential to greatly reduce overhead and bring practical quantum computing closer," saidDr. Naomi Nickerson, Director of Quantum Architecture at PsiQuantum in Palo Alto, California, who is not connected to the research.

Continue reading here:
Quantum Physicist Invents Code to Achieve the Impossible - Interesting Engineering