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For decades, communist China has been wielding its influence in African countries, establishing strong financial interests and working to convince growing nations that its authoritarian communism is a better form of government than democratic models of individual liberty and economic freedom.

While not a typical kitchen-table issue for Americans, Chinas stronghold on Africa poses serious national security and economic problems for the American people and human rights issues for many Africans. Thats why our elected leaders need to be taking immediate steps to reverse this course.

US taxpayers are by far the largest contributors of humanitarian aid to the African continent, and private American philanthropic aid is enormous. Yet the Chinese Communist Partys influence means that many African rulers side with Beijing over Washington on key strategic issues in places like the United Nations -- from glossing over human rights abuses to preventing a thorough investigation of the causes of the coronavirus outbreak.

Chinas influence takes several forms. First, African nations have long needed to develop their infrastructure, including roads, buildings, and communications networks, and China is sometimes the only willing lender. That also means that Chinese state-owned companies have been the main entities doing the building.

But things get pretty nefarious after that. China has built extravagant palaces and government buildings for free in many poor countries to gain even more influence with government officials. Burundi, the worlds fifth least-developed country, got a new $22 million presidential palace. Zimbabwe is about to get a $100 million Parliament building. Liberia got $66 million in new government buildings. All this money spent in some of the worlds poorest countries didnt help struggling citizens one iota.

Beijing also helps many African leaders maintain their hold on power. Those leaders often direct Chinas no-strings-attached aid to their own birth regions, to Cabinet officials, or to other places that will ensure they stay in power.

What problems does this pose for the US?

From a national security perspective, China is our primary global adversary, and it uses its influence over African nations to constantly undermine democracy and spread the poison of authoritarianism.

America and the entire world are safer when the planet is populated with democracies, because democracies dont go to war with one another. Moreover, the US military is constantly on guard against Chinese aggression in the Pacific. With Africas huge Atlantic coastline, it would be considerably more dangerous if China developed a base of operations in the Atlantic as well.

From an economic perspective, Africa has abundant natural resources that the rest of the world needs, and China has considerable influence over the export of these resources to other nations. For example, minerals such as cobalt and manganese are critical to the manufacture of many advanced technologies. Chinese companies dominate the global supply chain of cobalt, especially in Africa. If the Chinese government sees a strategic advantage in doing so, it may try to cut off the US and the rest of the world.

From a human rights perspective, the Chinese Communist Party supports leaders who keep their people under their thumb by working with them when others wont. It encourages some of the continents most brutal dictators to maintain their authoritarian governments. Not only does China prop up these authoritarian dictators, Chinese companies also have notoriously poor labor standards in Africa and have little regard for workers welfare.

Chinas outsize influence also means that many African leaders are consistent supporters of Chinas agenda. Many of Africas 54 nations vote with China at the UN, including voting for Chinas chosen candidates to run UN agencies (like the World Health Organization). Chinese candidates at global rule-making bodies help China champion its preferred standards for emerging fields, especially in tech. If Beijing is successful, it will lock in standards that advantage its own companies in fields that will shape the global economy for decades to come.

African nations also comprised almost half of the signatories of a 2019 letter defending Chinas human rights abuses of its Uyghur Muslim population. And building momentum at the UN for holding China accountable for its lack of transparency over the coronavirus outbreak will be difficult.

For these reasons and more, its critical that the United States counter Chinas influence in Africa. Senior US officials should be regularly engaging with many African countries, negotiating free trade agreements that benefit both the American people and the citizens of these nations, and encouraging investment from US companies interested in Africa.

The US must also promote the fact that individual liberty and economic freedom are what brought much of the world out of the desperate poverty we witnessed just decades ago, and they are proven antidotes to the oppression and poverty that plague some African nations today.

Doing these things doesnt just serve the American interest, it serves the people of Africa; and the emergence of more democratically led nations in Africa serves the interest of a more peaceful, more prosperous and more stable world.

Kay C. JamesKay C. James is president of The Heritage Foundation. -- Ed.

(Tribune Content Agency)

By Korea Herald (koreaherald@heraldcorp.com)

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[Kay C. James] Why Americans should be concerned about communist Chinas outsize influence in Africa - The Korea Herald

FILE PHOTO: REUTERS/Dado Ruvic

By David M. GreenwaldExecutive Editor

Since the start of the pandemic, issues of government and health based restrictions have been framed by thoseespecially on the right, though not exclusivelyas an issue of freedom and rights. The argument goes that the individual and not the government should determine issues like masking, social distancing, and the like.

That issue has been amplified severalfold with the issue of vaccinations and whether or to what extent government and/or employers can mandate them.

In this piece I will argue that, while there are issues of freedom and rights embedded into this debate, for the most part and this extends well beyond the realm of COVID, we have misconstrued the issue of freedom way too narrowly.

When people yell freedom in this society, most often they are thinking along narrow self-interested lines. I want the freedom to do what I want.

The problem is that the government cannot operate along those lines of freedom. The government generally thinks not in terms of freedom but in terms of rights. Allowing someone to exercise their rights is relatively straightforward. Where government exists, however, is at the point where rights conflictgovernment has a responsibility to arbitrate and weigh on situations where my rights conflict with yours.

Many people yelling freedom forget this fact. The government has the obligation in my view of not only arbitration in the conflict of rights, but ensuring that the laws, to the extent possible, offer equal protection.

We may often think of freedom versus safetythe but reality is that safety is another way of designating other peoples rights. You may have the right to run down the street. But when you run into the street, you are putting other peoples rights in jeopardynot only their freedom of movement but also their freedom to live.

So the government preemptively steps in to create a set of rules that we follow. So we have traffic laws that prescribe and proscribe movements and govern when and where pedestrians can cross roadways and which laws that drivers have to obey to create as safe of an environment as possible.

What determines those laws? In part, community standards. But in part, a risk assessment.

Let us use speed limit as a case example here. In most places there are laws governing the maximum speed. Those laws generally allow people to drive at a faster rate of speed on the open road than on narrow and crowded city streets where there are more likely to be pedestrians and traffic controls.

Speed limits are limits on freedom. Thats one way to look at it. But another way is it is the governments decision to arbitrate between competing rights. My freedom of movement is circumscribed by your need to be able to safely move from point A to point B.

How does the government determine speed limits? A lot of it is based on risk assessment. The faster you go, the more freedom you have to determine your own safe rate of speed. But we know from studies, the faster you go the more likely driver error or roadway conditions are to create hazards, and so we weigh freedom against risk and arrive at a somewhat subjective limit for upper speed. That can vary state to state and also by location, but at the end of the day, risk assessment guides it.

In general, in the non-economic realm, I tend to be more libertarian. In fact, I generally consider myself a civil libertarian. I oppose government limits on free speech, think that most drugs should be legalized and, if not, decriminalized. I think things like sex work should be legalized but regulated.

I am more libertarian on things like gun laws than many on the left.

But I have a hard time understanding the freedom dimension to reasonable regulations with regard to COVID.

The problem again with COVID is that regulations are not about individual liberty exclusively. For example, if COVID were such that the precautions only impacted your own healththen by all means take whatever risks you want.

Let us take smoking as a good example here. If someone wants to smoke, that puts their health at risk. I am fine with that (we can debate the extent to which society should have to pay the bill for cancer treatment or the extent to which it is fair that we have to pay higher health insurance premiums to mitigate that risk, but thats a slightly different question).

But most places determined that you may have the right to smoke by yourself outside, but smoking can also impact others. Second hand smoke poses a health risk, and so most indoor places in most states have now forbidden ityou used to be able to smoke on planes, in restaurants, at bars, now you cant.

Wearing a mask is pretty much the same issue. When you dont wear a mask, you actually put other peoples health at risk, not your own.

Government therefore has a compelling interest in mandating masks to prevent disease spread.

I have heard people argue that if you want to live in fear, thats fine, but they dont choose to. But the mask issue is more complicated. If it again were merely about you avoiding getting sick if you didnt wear a mask, there would be a more compelling argument. But the mask issue is actually the opposite, it prevents you from spreading the virus to others. Thats a little different.

Vaccination, of course, is more complicated. You are not talking about a temporary and passive use of masks. You are talking about whether the government has an interest to compel an individual to inject something into their body.

I would argue that they dont.

However, freedom to act is not freedom to live without consequences or choices.

The government in my view, does have a compelling interest in regulating who can operate in the public realm and create increased levels of risk. Therefore the government I think has the ability to regulate who can enter public buildings, it has the ability to regulate who can go to restaurants, bars, and gyms, and it has the ability to weigh your freedom to not vaccinate against societys freedom to incur undo risk at entering the public realm.

Bottom line, I think the government does have the right to place restrictions on those who CHOOSE not to vaccinate. They are making a choice.

I have seen people say that they can choose not to wear a mask or not vaccinate and if I dont like it, I can choose not to leave my home.

Sorry, but we both have equal freedoms here. Our rights conflict. And there when rights conflict, the government has the duty to arbitrate those conflicts and they do so by managing risk. Right now in the middle of a pandemic, the government interest in protecting health and safety outweighs other factors.

When that risk is reducedas we have seen at various timesgovernment can and will remove those restrictions.

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Commentary: We Have Misconstrued Freedom in the Fight against COVID - The Peoples Vanguard of Davis

GM Jan-Krzysztof Duda won the 2021 FIDE World Cup on Thursday, beating GM Sergey Karjakin convincingly in his white game, thereby avoiding a tiebreak. The 23-year-old Polish grandmaster finished the tournament undefeated and takes home $88,000.

Karjakin won $64,000 for coming second and, like Duda, he qualified for the 2022 FIDE Candidates Tournament.

GM Magnus Carlsen also won his second game against GM Vladimir Fedoseev to score 2-0 and come in third in the tournament, earning $48,000. Fedoseev won $40,000 for fourth place. (Mentioned prizes are after a 20% cut from FIDE.)

"I never really experienced anything like this before, at least in classical chess," was the first thing Duda said in his interview with FIDE after winning the World Cup. It seems like his country never experienced it either.

By reaching the final, Duda had already made history for Polish chess two days ago. The last time a Polish player qualified for the Candidates tournament was Miguel Najdorf in 1953.

Actually winning the tournament is a whole different matter, and can be considered the best-ever achievement by a Polish player in the history of the game. His win was widely reported in Polish media and he immediately undertook a number of interviews.

"Im very happy that chess has become popular in Poland recently," said Duda. "I am just happy to play chess, promote [it] in my country and worldwide. Im extremely happy."

The opening was another Queen's Gambit with 4...c5 and 5...cxd4, a topical line that we also saw Karjakin playing against Fedoseev in the semifinals.

"He played this against Fedoseev but I expected him to play even more solid, like the Queen's Gambit," said Duda. "I checked this line a little bit but OK, I thought, in general, I would press against this isolani pawn."

Duda had already faced it against GM Alexander Grischuk earlier in the tournament, where he played 9.Bd3. This time, he chose 9.Rd1.

Duda: "The important thing is not to play 9.Bd3, a move I have played a dozen times and which is the most stupid move order!"

Taking on f6 and d5 felt like "very simple play" to Duda, who could play for two results after that. "I was totally in control and a bit more active," he said.

It was also a very welcome type of position for him, in a situation where both players were exhausted after three weeks of top-level chess.

"To be honest, in this game I was missing a lot of stuff so it's pretty lucky I had such a position that I didn't need to calculate that much," said Duda.

His idea to keep the king in the center was nice as well and made a lot of sense when the queens got traded quickly. Visually, it seemed Black was close to equality but in fact, he was in trouble, as Duda showed with energetic play on the kingside combined with the great find 25.Rd7!.

For a brief moment, it looked like he was perhaps letting his opponent slip away when Karjakin's 26...Na5 allowed the simple tactic 27.Rxd8, immediately spotted by our commentator GM Vishy Anand. However, by then virtually everything was winning and just a minute later Karjakin resigned anyway.

Asked if he can see himself fighting in 2022 for the world championship, Duda replied: "Yeah, why not. If I will have such a good form like here, I'm probably unstoppable in such case!"

Duda's win has the whole chess world impressed, including the world champion himself, who, after Karjakin, was the first to congratulate the winner.

Carlsen started his post-game interview by congratulating Duda once again, saying: "First of all, huge congratulations to Duda for winning the World Cup. Considering the line of opponents that he beat in the last four rounds, never losing a game, and obviously never being in a must-win or desperate situation is a massive achievement. So he's a richly deserved winner."

Although he couldn't win the only trophy that is missing on his mantle, Carlsen did leave the World Cup quite satisfied. It always works wonders to your mood if you can finish an event with a win, let alone two.

Apart from the result, the way Carlsen won was quite similar to yesterday's game, with another exchange sacrifice followed by domination on the board.

"It's kind of funny that the exchange sac happened on the same square, so f5, then f4, and sort of the same bishop," said Carlsen. "But the theme here was that once I give up this exchange I just gain control over all the key squares so even though it probably doesn't have to collapse immediately it should be winning."

The intrigue started much earlier, with Carlsen spending five minutes and 31 seconds on his second move (after 1.e4 c6).

As it turned out, that think, and what came out of it, was about fighting spirit.

Carlsen: "What was happening is that he plays everything so it's hard to prepare for. I was just deciding whether I should play a quiet game or where we go for a position where we play for three results and finally I decided that I played enough quiet games in this tournament when I was up 1-0 so I thought let's just play and we'll see."

The opening went well for the world champion, but he felt he played inaccurately and let his opponent back in the game a little bit while keeping the advantage. However, when he got a passed pawn on d6 it already looked bad for Black and the sac on f5 was a nice killer, although Carlsen did miss a quicker win soon after itbut then we wouldn't have seen that second, complete domination on the board.

"At the end, I was just very happy to find this idea with 47.Bg4, caging in the rook, so I didn't even have to calculate any lines," said Carlsen.

Where Candidates winner GM Ian Nepomniachtchi had joked about Fedoseev's lack of space the other day, Carlsen's second GM Peter Heine Nielsen noted it got even worse the next day.

Carlsen noted himself that this was the first tournament since August 2019 that he won rating points8.4, to be precise. As reported earlier, he is the only 2800+ player right now. The last time that that was the case was in October 2013.

The Norwegian GM was happy with 11/14 score, his third place, and the over-the-board practice he wanted, in light of the upcoming world championship match.

Carlsen: "I've gotten to a point where I don't think it's like win or bust every time. Especially in such a format, I don't think you have that sort of mentality."

Finals | Results

The FIDE World Cup takes place in the Galaxy Leisure Complex in Sochi, Russia, until August 6, 2021. Each round consists of two classical games and, if necessary, a rapid/blitz tiebreak on the third day. The open section began round two with 128 players and the women's section, 64.

Previous reports:

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Duda Wins FIDE World Cup, Carlsen Third - Chess.com

Life is like a game of chess which teaches men to be wise and an expert strategist. Someone who is great at forming and executing strategies will always have an edge over others with the same skill set. A person who is excellent at formulating strategies for achieving goals analyzes all potential risks and meticulously works his way towards great success.

A combination of brilliant planning and flawless execution is the key to success. Apoorva Ganapathy, a highly talented software engineer from Sagar, a city located in the Indian state of Karnataka, is a true exemplar of how chess as a game can stimulate progress in life. Apoorva is a passionate and spirited IT professional with over 15 years of demonstrated history in exceeding the expectations of high priority clients including Royal Mail, Tech Target, AIG Insurance, Hyatt Hotels, Mastercard, AT&T, SiliconLabs, and others while working on 18 crucial projects. His ex-employers include MindTree, Sapient, Artyllect, and Intel. He holds an MS in Computer Science from Manipal University and BE in Computer Science from Dr. Ambedkar Institute of Technology Bengaluru. He is also a certified AEM, TOGAF, AWS and PMP professional making him a highly effective architect capable of delivering robust and scalable solutions.

Since his childhood, Apoorva had deep interest in the game of chess. He comes from a family of chess enthusiasts and learned to play chess at a tender age of five. His parents, uncle and aunt also loved chess and under their able guidance, Apoorva quickly rose to the top of the chess world, winning the under-8 state title and represented Karnataka at multiple national competitions. Apoorva competed in over 250 state chess tournaments and over 25 national tournaments. He won over fifty awards in various age groups and open categories making his family proud. After moving to Bengaluru, where his father worked with a national textile corporation, Apoorva won the under-15 State Chess Championship twice in a row, and also won the under-19 State Championship.

Lack of financial resources never disrupted his dream of being a chess prodigy, and he worked hard towards his goal.

Coming from a family of limited means, he couldnt afford an expensive international level coaching to further hone his skills. However, lack of financial resources never disrupted his dream of being a chess prodigy, and he worked hard towards his goal. Apoorva commuted to chess tournaments by bus and often had to walk about 4 kilometres burdened with a glistening yet heavy trophy while returning home.

An unpleasant experience, not adversities, shifted his focus from chess to technology. Upon returning home unexpectedly to fetch something he had forgotten, Apoorva was surprised to see his mother crying over their empty food stores, confused how she would provide dinner to her children. Witnessing the helplessness of his mother, Apoorva resolved that he will ensure that his mother will never have to face any financial constraints. Apoorva continued playing chess for a bit longer, but he shifted his focus towards shaping his future. He was a successful scholar during his educational career and participated in several national university level championships as the captain of the engineering colleges team. To encourage collaborative learning, he actively conducted peer-to-peer tutoring, highly interactive seminars, and even delivered lectures. He even pursued his passion by coaching young learners in the fine gameplay of chess.

Apoorva Ganapathy now works at Adobe as a Senior AEM Engineer and lives in the United States with his lovely and supportive wife, Megha Hegde, and their talented and intelligent son, Aryan. He has authored 25 scholarly articles on topics such as Artificial Intelligence, Content Management Systems, Deep Learning, Cryptocurrency, Blockchain, Cyber Security, Robotic Process Automation, Internet of Things (IOT), and both Virtual and Augmented Reality. He is a published author with his articles featuring in some of the most revered scientific journals. His article AI Fitness Checks, Maintenance and Monitoring on Systems Managing Content & Data: A Study on CMS World discusses about the various factors concerning the use of AI in server maintenance and how the various aspects work to monitor and maintain systems managing content and data. Another of his article Speech Emotion Recognition Using Deep Learning Techniques evaluated deep learning methods for speech emotion detection with accessible datasets, tracked by predictable ML methods for SER.

Apoorvas life has been deeply impacted by his passion for chess. Traits and skills such as foresightedness, deep analysis, strategy formulation and execution and most importantly, improvisation and adaptability have substantially supported him is reaching his life goals.

Find Apoorva Ganapathy on Google Scholar and LinkedIn

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Chess is far more than a game to kill time. It provides and strengthens a number of highly valuable mental traits that are useful in the course of...

GM Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu won his first Titled Tuesday on August 3, with a score of 9.5/11. He won on tiebreaks over GM Oleksandr Bortnyk and GM Dmitry Andreikin, who also scored 9.5/11. In fourth place was GM Samvel Ter-Sahakyan with the best tiebreaker score of players on 9/11.

473 titled players played this week in Titled Tuesday. The tournament was the typical 11-round Swiss with a 3+1 time control.

Live broadcast of this week's tournament, which aired only at Twitch.tv/ChesscomEvents, hosted by WFM Alessia Santeramo.

July had been dominated by three tournament victories for GM Hikaru Nakamura, but this Tuesday he was playing in the Chessable Masters rapid tournament. Most other strong TT regulars, like Bortnyk and Andreikin, were playing here, but Praggnanandhaa edged them all out to win the event.

The last perfect player this week was IM Minh Le with 7/7. After a round-eight draw, he found an unusual mate-in-one against Bortnyk in round nine. It wasn't the easiest one to see, a so-called "model mate" where Black's only two remaining pieces both contributed.

Unfortunately for Le, he lost in round 10 to GM Jose Martinez after missing a stalemate opportunity.

Meanwhile, Andreikin miraculously saved a draw against Pragnanandhaa after losing his queen in the early middlegame.

Those results put Martinez in the lead entering the final round, but he fell to Bortnyk after time trouble cost him a large advantage.

It wasn't quite enough for Bortnyk to claim the tournament, however, as Praggnanandhaa beat Le to jump into first place.

August 3 Titled Tuesday | Final Standings (Top 20)

(Full final standings here.)

Praggnanandhaa won $750 for first place, with Bortnyk earning $400 for second and Andreikin $150 for third. Ter-Sahakyan took home $100 for fourth place. By a quarter-point of tiebreaks, GM Valentina Gunina edged out IM Bibisara Assaubayeva for the $100 prize for the top woman player.

Titled Tuesday is a Swiss tournament for titled players held every week on Chess.com. It starts at 10 a.m. Pacific time/19:00 Central European every Tuesday.

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Praggnanandhaa Wins August 3 Titled Tuesday - Chess.com