Tag: India

Henry Huiyao Wang: A Xi-Trump-Putin summit in Shenzhen could kick-start peace in Ukraine

CCG’s President says there will be no diplomatic masterstroke in Ukraine’s absence, but serious consideration of a ceasefire can lay the groundwork for peace

[from the Center for China & Globalization, 31 October 2026]

Below is the latest opinion column by Henry Huiyao Wang, founder and President, Center for China and Globalization, published in the South China Morning Post.

At the recent Valdai Discussion Club, I asked Russian President Vladimir Putin if he would be open to meeting Chinese President Xi Jinping and U.S. President Donald Trump at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum in Shenzhen. I also asked, more broadly, what role China could play in promoting peace in Ukraine, mediating and contributing to peacekeeping.

Putin was receptive, warmly welcoming the idea of a China-hosted meeting. Trump, too, has expressed a willingness to meet Xi and Putin. These expressions of openness offer an opportunity we must seize in pursuit of peace.

Some in the United States and Europe question the value of such a summit. They may fear restoring Putin’s standing or normalising the conflict without yielding any real progress towards an end to the war. That risk is still real but these largely Western fears must be tempered by the very real, very human cost of letting the war continue unabated.

From the very beginning of the war, I have been arguing that China has a constructive role to play. In March 2022, less than three weeks into Russia’s invasion, I wrote an article in The New York Times titled “It’s Time to Offer Russia an Offramp. China Can Help With That.”

In August last year, I extended that train of logic in Foreign Policy, where I proposed a seven-party format for peace negotiations and suggested that a peacekeeping force include troops from European and BRICS countries. A meeting of the three leaders in Shenzhen could help lay the groundwork for these broader diplomatic and peacekeeping efforts.

Without Ukraine’s participation, such a meeting is unlikely to produce a diplomatic masterstroke that ends the war. But the three leaders need not put the war to rest at a table in Shenzhen to make progress. Serious consideration of a ceasefire along the current line of contact—an approach Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has supported—could give peace efforts fresh momentum, leaving the final status of disputed territories for subsequent negotiations.

Further agreement could be sought on the protection of nuclear facilities, or a mutual end to strikes on energy infrastructure, new prisoner exchanges or improved humanitarian access. Of course, issues of sovereignty, security guarantees, Russia’s security concerns and Europe’s security commitments would remain. But these need not all be resolved at once before a ceasefire can begin.

Already, years of war have inflicted immense suffering on both Russia and Ukraine. Neither side achieved its objectives, and both need a dignified way out that protects their core interests. Thus, we must open a path towards peace without requiring either side to concede defeat. China could help bridge this gap by bringing Xi, Trump and Putin together in Shenzhen to explore how a ceasefire and wider negotiations involving Ukraine might work.

The United Nations could stand at the core of such an arrangement by monitoring any ceasefire and preventing a return to fighting by physical peacekeeping if the parties are so inclined.

For a broader negotiation on settlement, I find myself returning to a seven-party format that would bring together the five permanent members of the UN Security Council—China, France, Russia, Britain and the U.S.—alongside Ukraine and the European Union. An understanding reached in Shenzhen could give momentum to this broader negotiating process and free up the Security Council for action.

A peacekeeping force composed entirely of NATO or European troops might be unacceptable to Russia. Yet a mission without European participation would struggle to reassure Ukraine and its neighbours. Any workable arrangement would need to address both concerns.

In my Foreign Policy article, I proposed a peacekeeping force drawing troops from five European countries—Germany, France, Britain, Poland and Italy—and five members of the BRICS grouping, such as China, India and Brazil. And while the exact formulation, from the composition and mandate to the terms of deployment, would need to be negotiated with the consent of Russia and Ukraine, and the agreement of the contributing countries, the core idea remains sound.

As a permanent member of the UN Security Council and the largest contributor of peacekeeping personnel among the five permanent members, China is well positioned to help. Its distinctive role in the global economy and dialogue with Russia, Ukraine, the U.S. and Europe, give it channels through which to coax the parties towards peace. But this process must begin somewhere, and that somewhere could be Shenzhen.

Nor should APEC be the end of the diplomatic effort. With an understanding reached by the leaders in Shenzhen, the Security Council may pick up the momentum by advancing ceasefire and peacekeeping proposals. The Group of 20 could then join the effort to rally support from major economies with an interest in maintaining the deal. Each would play a different role and would not be tasked with settling the entire conflict.

China’s role in the Saudi Arabia-Iran rapprochement in 2023 showed Beijing’s ability to open a door after years of enmity. The Ukraine war is different, and there can be no guarantee of a similar outcome. But diplomacy must begin somewhere, particularly when fighting has brought such destruction.

The central question is whether such a meeting could help bring the war to an end. In that light, any gain in prestige for an individual leader is almost irrelevant. And if the three leaders could agree on practical steps towards peace, they would give the United Nations and the wider international community a material basis upon which peace could be built.

India in Transition: “The Rain that Chases Rhinos”: Community Crisis Communication in the Eastern Himalayas  

[by Mirza Zulfiqur Rahman, Center for the Advanced Study of India]

In the plains of Assam, different kinds of rain are often distinguished through vivid local expressions that reflect their intensity and impact on everyday life. One such term is “sagoli-kheda-borokhun” (the rain that chases goats). It refers to a light shower, enough to send goats hurrying into their sheds while people continue with their daily activities. As the rainfall intensifies, it may be described as “goru-kheda-borokhun” (cow-chasing rain), followed by “manuh-kheda-borokhun” (people-chasing rain), when even humans seek shelter from the downpour. At the extreme end of this scale of vernacular expressions of rainfall intensity lies “gor-kheda-borokhun” (the rain that chases away rhinos), evoking a deluge so intense that even Assam’s iconic one-horned rhinoceroses would retreat and look for shelter. With rapid urbanization and changing rainfall patterns, such beautiful expressions of rain have lost continuous usage, especially among the younger generation, who no longer name types of rains.

These expressions reveal the richly textured ways in which communities inhabiting the water-abundant landscapes of Northeast India have understood and interpreted rainfall. Their environmental imagination is shaped not only by the rains themselves but also by the sounds, movements, and rhythms of the ecosystems around them. Among the most evocative signs of the approaching monsoon was the chorus of frogs inhabiting the “pukhuris” (ponds), “khaals” (natural drainage channels), and “beels” (wetlands). Their persistent croaking, described locally as the rhythmic “tur-tu-rai” of an assembled army of frogs, would fill the night air. Hearing this familiar symphony, people would often remark that the rains were on their way.

In today’s times, such soundscapes have diminished considerably and the traditional knowledge of being able to predict rains by observing sounds and signs in nature have not been passed on. The familiar chorus of frogs on humid nights has grown noticeably quieter as ponds have deteriorated, wetlands have been drained, and traditional water bodies have gradually disappeared from the landscape. Here, I look at the languages and imaginations of communities, and how these interact with the annual rains and storms along the Eastern Himalayas, how they keep record of the changes in the climate patterns in their community lives through their vernacular depictions of storms and rains, and how the current climate crisis has clouded their traditional communication methods.

Water-Abundant Worlds

The Himalayan river-systems and the plains they nourish have always been regarded as a water-abundant environment, with monsoons, storms and rains forming an essential part of the lives and imaginations of communities living there. Nation-state borders, which straddle river-systems and regions across the Himalayas, bring in an additional layer of complexity to the various discourses of climate change disasters and patterns in the region, which are already exacerbated by infrastructural interventions on the river systems.

The languages and imaginations of Himalayan communities through which they describe the monsoons, climate change, storms, and rainfall patterns in their daily lives and natural environment, and how they are shaped by the interventions and narratives deployed by the nation-state in the Eastern Himalayas serve as critical crisis communication, often proving more useful and timely than government communication. The monsoon rains that stream in from the Indian Ocean currents and extend up to the heights of the easternmost fringes of the Himalayas bring most of the Himalayan river-systems to life. The monsoon clouds, after they enter Northeast India, play a veritable ping-pong between the low-lying rolling hills of the Patkai ranges and the towering eastern Himalayan mountain ranges, and the rains and storms that ensue from this match nourish the various communities, sustain the forests, and shape the landscape. This interaction forms an archive of climate disasters in the region.

Modern meteorological forecasting methods have greatly improved with scientific progress and modelling and availability of long-term data. However, from my research, it has been evident that the medium-range and long-range predictions of storms and rainfall patterns have low reliability at the local level, meaning state-led communication methods are not effective or timely. There are externalities of data collection challenges and reliability of what actually constitutes long-term data and the rapid infrastructure push and anthropogenic changes in the context of the fragile and ever-crumbling-and-forming Eastern Himalayas.

Bordoisila is the personified name given to an annual spring storm that ravages the foothills of the Eastern Himalayas, often spanning across Assam, Meghalaya, Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, and Bhutan. The community memory of Bordoisila is archived over time through stories of the storm returning to “her maternal home,” Assam, to celebrate Bohag Bihu, the mid-April spring festival, and accounting for the ferocity and devastation it regularly brings along, as well as the variation in timing of the storm’s arrival and when “she returns” after celebrating. Communities provide token offerings of festive food and clothing to Bordoisila, imploring the storm to pass by gently in “her path.” The variation in timing and ferocity of the storm is recorded in recent community memory as the personified storm managing to come home early this year as “she got to leave early from her workplace.” Originating in the Chotanagpur plateau and gathering force from the Bay of Bengal, she again returns in an angry mood as if “she was not treated well by her mother” with festive goodies and good food.

Personified Storms

Over years of research in the region, I have noted that communities rarely rely on modern meteorological forecasting information for the stormy season. They know it only by community memory and their sense of the ferocity of the storm when it passes by—among a series of spring storms—and declare that “she has finally arrived” and “she will soon return after celebrating Bihu.” It is along the trail of Bordoisila that the first wave of floods also arrives in Assam, and the traditional knowledge repository known as “Dakor Boson,” a collection of vernacular prose and poetry sayings, depicting how the coming monsoon and the ensuing agricultural cropping cycle will span out. The first floods were always celebrated with the Bihu dance, and the storm Bordoisila is revered despite its ferocity, as it brings the rain and nutrient-rich silt to nourish the overall landscape. However, with climate change and anthropogenic interventions, the language of climate crises has changed from a sense of celebration and reverence to utter despair.

Over the past several decades, Northeast India has witnessed profound shifts in its monsoon patterns. Periods of unusually intense rainfall have triggered devastating floods, while prolonged dry spells have brought drought-like conditions to many areas. In response to persistent droughts, communities across Assam have continued to observe customs such as frog-marriage ceremonies, invoking these creatures regarded as messengers of the rain-gods, to restore the rains through their renewed croaking. In Meghalaya, rainfall that used to last nine nights and days in a continuous rhythmic pattern, known as “slap-khyndai-miet-khyndai-sngi,” has, over recent years, lost its original community language emphasis, as such long-enduring rainfall patterns have diminished greatly.

Among the Idu-Mishmi of eastern Arunachal Pradesh, traditional ritual specialists are called upon to communicate with rain spirits, seeking their intervention both when the rains fail to arrive and when incessant downpours raise fears of catastrophic flooding. The Idu-Mishmi term for rain, “ayyo or ayyoyo,” carries deep cultural significance within these practices. Jibi Pulu, an Idu-Mishmi community leader and environmental activist, points to how different kinds of rainfall were once understood to perform distinct ecological functions in the forests of the Dibang Valley. Certain rains signaled the shedding of leaves, others supported flowering cycles, while some heralded the arrival of migratory birds that seasonally visited the region’s rich forest ecosystems. However, he observed that such patterns have become increasingly difficult to anticipate, as deforestation, climate change, and human intervention have disrupted environmental rhythms that earlier generations could interpret with a high confidence.

Many Idu-Mishmi elders similarly attribute the growing unpredictability of rainfall and the increasing occurrence of extreme floods on the Dibang River and its tributaries to a deterioration in the relationship between people and the natural world. They regard practices such as the indiscriminate slaughter of animals and the growing trend of winter picnics on dry riverbeds (where meals are prepared directly on the exposed riverbed) as acts that offend river spirits. In their understanding, these transgressions disturb the balance between humans and the spiritual forces inhabiting the landscape, contributing to erratic weather patterns and destructive flooding events. Some historic flooding events are referred to by communities with names of where such flooding originated, such as the “China-paani” of the year 2000 and the recent episodes of “Bhutan-baanpaani” along the Bhutan–Assam border. This vocabulary has expanded to include specific dam-induced floods such as Ranganadi-floods in Assam.

Culturally Grounded Approaches

The diverse linguistic expressions, traditional knowledge systems, and lived experiences through which indigenous communities across Northeast India understand rainfall, storms, climate variability, and recurring flood events deserve to be documented, connected, and amplified within broader conversations on environmental democracy and transboundary cooperation. Bringing these perspectives together can help foster more inclusive dialogues across the Eastern Himalayas and the Patkai mountain ranges, enabling local communities to participate meaningfully in decision-making processes concerning ecology, environmental governance, infrastructure development, disaster preparedness, crisis communication, and other issues that directly shape their everyday lives and livelihoods. For generations, communities have relied on close observation of their surroundings to interpret changes in weather and rainfall patterns, rhythms of rivers, and flood cycles.

As environmental transformations become more pronounced and traditional indicators grow increasingly uncertain, their ability to understand and articulate these changes offers valuable insights into the realities of climate change on the ground. Recognizing and engaging with such lived experiences, local knowledge, and environmental imaginations is, therefore, essential to strengthening civil society participation and building more democratic, responsive, and culturally grounded approaches to environmental governance in the region. Modern meteorological forecasting methods need to learn from traditional wisdom and social innovation and the vast archive of knowledge which have recorded past disasters and also can predict future ones. The rapid pace and scale of transformation along the Eastern Himalayas are rendering traditional knowledge systems incapable of providing climate solutions.

Mirza Zulfiqur Rahman completed his doctoral research on the Brahmaputra River Basin geopolitics from the Indian Institute of Technology, Guwahati, and is currently a Research Associate at Heinrich Böll Stiftung, India and Visiting Associate Fellow at the Institute of Chinese Studies, Delhi, India. 

All photos courtesy of Mirza Zulfiqur Rahman.

[This is the second in a multi-part series published in collaboration with the Centre of Excellence for Himalayan Studies, at the Shiv Nadar University, Delhi NCR, a research center focused on the economy, borders, identities, environment, and regional geopolitics of the wider Himalayan region including the Hindu Kush and the Karakoram.]

Digitizing Heritage: Exploring the Transformation of Culture to Data

[from India in Transition by the Center for the Advanced Study of India at the University of Pennsylvania, 1 September 2025]

by Krupa Rajangam & Deborah Sutton

“Oh that. We just took some undergraduate history students on board as interns. They provided the content and it was done.”

The co-founder of a digital heritage initiative promoting interactive user interfaces offered these opening remarks. Speaking at a Delhi-based museum, he had been asked about the information provided to users as they moved their hands across an interactive board, revealing images and narratives relating to the Indian freedom movement. His response clarified that the physical and digital components of such installations—for example, the 3D-modeling software and hardware, scanning equipment and its resolution and the user interface—were more carefully designed and calibrated than the content they provided.

Contemporary cultural heritage (CH) is rife with digital innovation. The COVID pandemic accelerated this transformation as archivists and curators worked to develop content that would reach remote, locked-down audiences. Within significant limits, digital platforms can democratize and facilitate access to materials previously inaccessible. Instead of being physically siloed, digitized material—as data components and not just content on culture—can be reproduced, combined, and circulated infinitely to achieve a reach previously considered impossible. Accessibility and malleability remain one of the great boons of digital formats. But here, we consider the information economy of CH practice as it exists—and not its extraordinary and often hypothetical potential—in two, overlapping realms of digitized CH: for-profit business enterprises and academic side-hustles, related to more mainstream academic research.

In the former, questions of what is shared are often less significant than the appeal of the format. In the latter, innovation is often the result of short-term projects that languish, abandoned after project completion, and rarely find audiences. Our research builds on our individual experiences and the findings of a scoping exercise examining a number of India-based heritage projects conducted in 2021-22. It suggests the need for more careful consideration of the implications of transforming CH materials into forms of data; the change impacts everything from how we understand “originality” to the reliance on for-profit services to deliver heritage material to the public.

As digitized representations of CH and access to such formats become more widespread, are we, as CH practitioners and academics, giving enough thought to how digital technologies are reshaping the nature of CH and its audience? Beyond questions of wider reach, are we sufficiently acknowledging how these changes challenge a continued focus on originality and notions of academy as primary controllers of access to knowledge and its validity, both in research and practice?

Digitizing for Dissemination

In 2019, one of us—Deborah Sutton—developed a software platform, Safarnama, including an app and authored experiences around Delhi’s CH. The project subsequently extended to Karachi. Generating “original” content, such as audio-visual clips and old photos, to be hosted on the app platform, was key to its attractiveness and usefulness, but permissions proved tricky. Some collaborators who were initially keen to contribute content quietly withdrew, likely due to the unfamiliar format and unknown reach. The app format also raised other questions. Would incorporating content from non-digital but published scholarship require authorial permission or only acknowledgement?

In 2020, Krupa Rajangam held a sponsored incubation at the NSRCEL, a business incubator located at the Indian Institute of Management-Bangalore, to develop a web interface that would host geo-locationed stories of marginalized histories by drawing on both historical facts and lived experiences. Corporate mentors remained skeptical of her ability to source “original” content on an ongoing basis, i.e., content that was both authenticated and validated. They repeatedly advised her to focus on the format, user experience, and appeal for “mass markets” so her prototype would find audiences. Both projects equally raised questions over who would consume the content and what constitutes the public or audience.

In a scoping exercise undertaken for the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), UK, in 2021-22, we explored a number of India-based heritage projects funded by the AHRC in partnership with the Newton Fund and Indian Council for Historical Research, since 2015 (figure 1). We were particularly interested in the digital components, which all projects included, even if only a website.

Our exploratory surveys firmly established the divergence in interpreting both CH and digital technologies, which was not surprising. Some projects defined and treated CH as fixed pre-existing material, to be interpreted and presented to audiences through digital technologies. Others re-framed digital formats of CH as components of data, assembling, manipulating, and representing extant archival and other materials. The rest generated digitized CH, effectively altering its nature. Typically, such projects dealt with more ephemeral or less conventional forms of CH.

Fundamental Transformations

Notions of originality remain central to art, architectural and art historical training, and CH practice. Digitization transforms the access and retrieval value of “original” material in physical archives, such as old maps and letters, much lauded in traditional “analog” scholarship, to use value as data. Once the end-user (audience) accesses this data (whether historical facts or stories), it becomes nothing more than bytes occupying valuable space, to be deleted once consumed rather than stored, making it easy to overlook or disregard the source and its context.

For example, in the Safarnama project, the app contained carefully collected and authenticated narratives on “partition memories” in Delhi and Karachi. However, the bite-sized media format meant that users would only explore content once, as snippets. This realization led the team to develop the software and incorporate the ability to download content, which at least meant that users could collect, organize and store (archive) the assembled media.

Digitization also takes away the materiality of the archive, making it more ephemeral. Non-digital materials through, and into which we render CH can (in endless combinations and cycles) be lost, forgotten, sold, recovered, collected, displayed, and stored. Such capacities of digital files are obvious, but maintaining access depends on varied and dynamic software ecologies for existence and sustained end-user access. Digital files created within one software-architecture can be incompatible with, and therefore rendered obsolete, by another. The ethos of software development is constant change.

In another paper, we examined questions of quantity, quality, and reusability of data related to digitization of building-crafts knowledge alongside CARE and FAIR principles of data management. The principles were proposed and adopted by an international consortium of scholars and industry, the former focused on responsible collection, use, and dissemination of data, especially related to vulnerable people and the latter on sustainable data management.

As an example, one AHRC project experimented with methods to capture detailed 3D images of heritage sites and structures in dynamic crowded environments. They used one set of methods to capture the interiors and another for the exteriors, hoping to merge both together and develop holistic imagery for audiences. This proved impossible at first due to issues of software compatibility. Once that was partially resolved, the new software couldn’t handle the sheer volume of data captured—and it was unclear where and for how long such volumes of data would be stored.

New realms of intellectual property remain fuzzy. While the content on digital platforms is governed by licensing and proprietary legal frameworks, it is often hosted on open platforms, through web repositories such as GitHub. Prima facie, such openness appears to challenge the proprietorial nature of archives and other repositories as keepers of knowledge. However, it raises a host of questions about how to maintain a critical understanding of archives.

Digitization may, and should, transform access but should it obliterate the regimes through which the materials were generated and organized and what’s included or excluded? For example, a local coordinator of one project that engaged with artists commented that digital technologies are typically used to document technical skills as forms of intangible heritage and develop artist encyclopedias, saying that “they are hardly used to interrogate the reality that many ‘traditional’ artists hail from marginalized castes.” Similarly, the local coordinator of another project that engaged with communities living in and around a protected heritage site commented on how digital technologies often end up being used to create a record of heritage structures without any reference to their day-to-day setting.

Any and all digital enterprise in CH, we argue, needs to integrate the ambition to use digital methods to not just present but also counter and interrogate the material, its creation, and purpose. Digital platforms and web- and app-based software are now able to manipulate and re-situate information in unprecedented ways. The novelty of such formats can displace original, provocative, and timely considerations of the material. Often, we are so taken by the visual and structural attributes of these formats, that we accept it at face value and lose sight of the tone and content of heritage as a curated message about the past and the present.

Alongside this, digital augmentations and iterations of CH, including storage, have significant financial and infrastructural implications. The creation and maintenance of digital platforms requires either developing “in-house” digital specialization or, more commonly, reliance on private, for-profit platforms. Paying for external provision introduces complexities. Funders, including the AHRC, struggle to devise guidance or policy in relation to software licensing. However, a persistent challenge to projects, and partnerships between academic and non-academic partners, is devising data and software strategies that subsist beyond the life of the funded-research project. Often, the adverse effects of the paucity of longer-term planning around IP issues, sustainability, and data archiving falls disproportionately on the non-academic stakeholder.

While digitization foregrounds the potential and promise of complete openness and equity, maybe this is lost in practice. Or digitization may merely mark the displacement of one set of ethics with another. There is a need for more careful consideration of the implications, complexities, and risks of taking CH materials out of boxes and off shelves and transforming and generating it into data files, which are, in turn, dependent on digital platforms to provide end-user access. However, the question remains of whether heritage-related disciplines are adequately prepared and willing to confront such new ways of working, which have begun to dislodge some of the privileges extant in current forms of research and practice.

Krupa Rajangam is nearing the end of her tenure as a Fulbright Fellow at the Historic Preservation Department, Weitzman School of Design, University of Pennsylvania. Her permanent designation is Founder-Director, Saythu…linking people and heritage, a professional conservation collective based in Bangalore, India.

Deborah Sutton is a Professor in Modern South Asian History at Lancaster University.

World-Watching: USDA GAIN Reports from 19 August 2025

[from the United States Department of Agriculture, Foreign Agricultural Service: Global Agricultural Information Network (GAIN)]

Australia: Stone Fruit Annual

Stone fruit production in Australia is forecast to decline in marketing year (MY) 2025/26, primarily due to the Bureau of Meteorology’s (BOM) projection of a wetter-than-average spring. If realized, these conditions are expected to negatively affect both yields and fruit quality. Cherry production is forecast to fall by ten percent, while peach and nectarine production is expected to drop by seven percent. Growing conditions to date have been favorable, with excellent winter chill hours supporting strong bud burst and production potential. However, the anticipated shift to wet spring weather is likely to undermine these early-season advantages. As a result, cherry exports are forecast to decrease by nine percent and peach and nectarine exports by seven percent. Imports, though starting from a low base, are projected to rise modestly in MY 2025/26.

Read the full article [archived PDF]

Chile: Stone Fruit Annual

Post projects exports of Chilean cherries to grow significantly in the coming years, driven by strong international demand, particularly from China. Post estimates cherry production in marketing year (MY) 2024/25 to reach 730,000 metric tons (MT), a 6.7 increase over MY 2024/25. Chilean cherry exports will increase by 7.2 percent reaching 670,000 MT. In MY 2024/25, Post estimates nectarine and peach production to total 205,000 MT, a 3.4 percent increase over MY 2024/25. Peach and nectarine exports will increase by 3.4 percent totaling 146,000 metric tons. This growth reflects the continued expansion of nectarine planting, which offsets the decline in fresh peach area planted.

Read the full article [archived PDF]

China: Call for Domestic Comments on 30 National Food Safety Standards

On August 1, 2025, the Chinese government announced a public comment period for 30 national food safety standards, open until September 26, 2025, via the national standards management system. The standards have not yet been notified to the WTO. This report includes an unofficial translation of the announcement and the list of standards, and stakeholders are advised to review the regulations for potential market or regulatory impacts.

Read the full article [archived PDF]

China: New CCP Regulation Expands Anti-Corruption and Frugality Measures

On May 18, 2025, the Chinese Communist Party and State Council issued a revised regulation on “Strict Economy and Opposing Waste by Party and Government Organs.” The regulation bans drinking alcohol at public receptions and events and discourages other forms of consumption that could be seen as extravagant. The FAS China offices are monitoring the potential impact on high-value U.S. agricultural products.

Read the full article [archived PDF]

China: Revised National Food Safety Standard for Paddy Rice Notified

On July 25, 2025, China notified a National Food Safety Standard for Paddy Rice to the WTO under G/TBT/N/CHN/2091. This national food safety standard includes mandatory requirements for quality, testing, inspection, packaging, and labeling of domestic and imported commercial paddy rice. This report provides an unofficial translation of the notified standard. Comments may be submitted to the China’s TBT National Notification and Enquiry Center at tbt@customs.gov.cn until August 24, 2025.

Read the full article [archived PDF]

Guatemala: Retail Foods Annual

Guatemala boasts a young population with a median age of 26 years and a growing middle class, driving increased demand for modern retail formats. However, traditional markets and informal retail remain prevalent across the country. In 2024, the United States exported $1.9 billion in agricultural and related products to Guatemala, with $886 million attributed to consumer-oriented goods. Key export categories included red meats, poultry, dairy products, fresh fruits, and processed vegetables.

Read the full article [archived PDF]

India: Cotton and Products Update

FAS Mumbai estimates MY 2025/26 India cotton production at 24.5 million 480-lb bales from 11.2 million hectares, down two percent from the previous estimate as farmers shift to higher-return crops like paddy, pulses, and cereals; kharif sowing decreased 2.4 percent from last year (as of August 1). An eight percent increase in the minimum support price (MSP) for medium- and long-staple cotton, effective October 1, is pushing fiber prices higher, encouraging mills to increase imports. Mill consumption is forecast at 25.7 million 480-lb bales, supported by steady yarn and apparel demand in key export markets and a potential export surge following ratification of the U.K.-India Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA).

Read the full article [archived PDF]

Japan: Stone Fruit Annual

Japan’s fresh cherry production for the 2025/26 marketing year (MY) is projected to be 12,500 tons. This forecast is a result of production losses caused by high temperatures during the pollination period in the country’s largest cherry-producing region. While this represents an 8.7 percent increase compared to the previous year’s historically poor harvest, it is expected to be a low yield year with a 25 percent decrease from the average production year. Due to the poor domestic production, demand for U.S. cherries is expected to remain strong for the 2025/26 MY, continuing the trend from the previous year. For peach production in Japan, the absolute number of fruits is anticipated to be equivalent to the previous year; however, the total production volume by weight is forecasted to decrease by approximately 10 percent because of high temperatures and low rainfall during the critical fruit growing period.

Read the full article [archived PDF]

Nicaragua: Nicaragua Peanut Report Annual

Nicaragua’s peanut farmers are expected to reduce harvested areas by at least five percent in marketing year (MY) 2025/26 in anticipation of lower prices due to increased Brazilian peanut production. FAS Managua expects farmers to be more rigorous in selecting production areas based on historical yields in MY 2025/26, excluding marginal lands with less fertile soil. Even with fluctuating market prices and adjustments to planted areas, Nicaragua is expected to remain a stable peanut producer in the region, with exports of shelled peanuts exceeding 70,000 metric tons annually.

Read the full article [archived PDF]

For more information, or for an archive of all FAS GAIN reports, please visit gain.fas.usda.gov.

World-Watching: India: Building an Export-Oriented Apparel Sector

[from ICRIER, 28 July, 2025]

The Kotak-ICRIER Centre of Excellence for Agriculture Policy, Sustainability, and Innovations (KICEAPSI) is delighted to present its Agri-Food Trends and Analytics Bulletin (AF-TAB), Volume 5, Issue 1, on “Building an Export-oriented Apparel Sector.” [archived PDF] Amidst an evolving geopolitical landscape and shifting global trade patterns, India’s textiles and apparel (T&A) sector stands at a crucial juncture. The country has a rich cultural heritage in textiles and is one of the few nations with the entire T&A value chain, yet its export share in apparel market remains low and stagnant over the last two decades, at least. With China gradually vacating the export market space and global buyers looking to diversify sourcing, India must act swiftly.

This AF-TAB issue explores this window of opportunity through three interesting articles. The first article, ‘India’s Apparel Sector and the Window of Opportunity’, examines India’s stagnant export performance and the structural constraints that have prevented it from capturing a larger global share. It highlights how fragmentation, poor logistics, and high input costs weigh the sector down, despite strong domestic potential. The second article, ‘Missing the Closet: Is India Exporting What the World Wears?’ analyses India’s export basket against global demand trends. It reveals a mismatch between what India produces–largely cotton-based basics and what the global markets demand—man-made fibres (MMF)-based, fashion-forward garments. This misalignment is most visible in key markets like the U.S. and EU. The third article, ‘PM MITRA Parks—Can They Lift Apparel Exports?’, evaluates the government’s flagship scheme designed to address these inefficiencies. While PM MITRA is a much-needed step to create scale, plug-and-play infrastructure, and attract investment, its success depends on timely execution, policy alignment, and strategic targeting.

Read the bulletin [archived PDF].

“De-Globalization?”

The classic study of the “swirl of processes and events” that ended previous globalization episodes is the theme of Princeton Professor Harold James’ 2002 book, The End of Globalization: Lessons from the Great Depression.

“Globalization” is here. Signified by an increasingly close economic interconnection that has led to profound political and social change worldwide, the process seems irreversible. In this book, however, Harold James provides a sobering historical perspective, exploring the circumstances in which the globally integrated world of an earlier era broke down under the pressure of unexpected events.

James examines one of the great historical nightmares of the twentieth century: the collapse of globalism in the Great Depression. Analyzing this collapse in terms of three main components of global economics—capital flows, trade and international migration—James argues that it was not simply a consequence of the strains of World War I, but resulted from the interplay of resentments against all these elements of mobility, as well as from the policies and institutions designed to assuage the threats of globalism.

Could it happen again? There are significant parallels today: highly integrated systems are inherently vulnerable to collapse, and world financial markets are vulnerable and unstable.

While James does not foresee another Great Depression, his book provides a cautionary tale in which institutions meant to save the world from the consequences of globalization—think WTO and IMF, in our own time—ended by destroying both prosperity and peace.

Legitimate fears about “globalization reversal” have been well put by Zakaria:

Davos, Switzerland —

President Trump’s speech here at the World Economic Forum went over relatively well. That’s partly because Davos is a conclave of business executives, and they like Trump’s pro-business message. But mostly, the president’s reception was a testament to the fact that he and what he represents are no longer unusual or exceptional. Look around the world and you will see: Trump and Trumpism have become normalized.

Davos was once the place where countries clamored to demonstrate their commitment to opening up their economies and societies. After all, these forces were producing global growth and lifting hundreds of millions out of poverty. Every year, a different nation would become the star of the forum, usually with a celebrated finance minister who was seen as the architect of a boom. The United States was the most energetic promoter of these twin ideas of economic openness and political freedom.

Today, Davos feels very different. Despite the fact that, throughout the world, growth remains solid and countries are moving ahead, the tenor of the times has changed. Where globalization was once the main topic, today it is the populist backlash to it. Where once there was a firm conviction about the way of the future, today there is uncertainty and unease.

This is not simply atmospherics and rhetoric. Ruchir Sharma of Morgan Stanley Investment Management points out that since 2008, we have entered a phase of “deglobalization.” Global trade, which rose almost uninterruptedly since the 1970s, has stagnated, while capital flows have fallen. Net migration flows from poor countries to rich ones have also dropped. In 2018, net migration to the United States hit its lowest point in a decade.

The shift in approach can best be seen in the case of India. In 2018, Prime Minister Narendra Modi came to Davos to decry the fact that “many countries are becoming inward focused and globalization is shrinking.” Since then, his government has increased tariffs on hundreds of items and taken steps to shield India’s farmers, shopkeepers, digital companies and many others from the dangers of international competition. The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative recently called out India for having the highest tariffs of any major economy in the world.

Indian officials used to aggressively court foreign investment, which was much needed to spur growth. Last week, with India’s economy slowing badly, Jeff Bezos announced a $1 billion investment in the country. (Bezos owns The Post.) But the minister of commerce and industry scoffed at the move, saying Amazon wasn’t “doing a great favor to India” and besides was probably engaging in anti-competitive, “predatory” practices. Often, protectionist policies help favored local producers. Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad recently criticized some of Modi’s policies toward Muslims. The Indian government effectively cut off imports of Malaysian palm oil. In a familiar pattern, one of the chief beneficiaries was a local billionaire long associated with Modi.

The Economist notes that Europe, once one of the chief motors for openness in economics and politics, is also rediscovering state intervention to prop up domestic industries. And if you think the Internet is exempt from these tendencies, think again. The European Center for International Political Economy tracks the number of protectionist measures put in place to “localize” the digital economy in 64 countries. It has been surging for years, especially since 2008.

It’s important not to exaggerate the backlash to globalization.

As a 2019 report by DHL demonstrates, globalization is still strong and, by some measures, continues to expand. People still want to trade, travel and transact across the world. But in government policy, where economic logic once trumped politics, today it is often the reverse. Economist Nouriel Roubini argues that the cumulative result of all these measures — protecting local industries, subsidizing national champions, restricting immigration — is to sap growth. “It means slower growth, fewer jobs, less efficient economies,” he told me recently. We’ve seen it happen many times in the past, not least in India, which suffered decades of stagnation as a result of protectionist policies, and we will see the impact in years to come.

Nevertheless, today, nationalism and protectionism prevail.

This phase of deglobalization is being steered from the top. The world’s leading nations are, as always, the agenda-setters. The example of China, which has shielded some of its markets and still grown rapidly, has made a deep impression on much of the world. Probably deeper still is the example of the planet’s greatest champion of liberty and openness, the United States, which now has a president who calls for managed trade, more limited immigration and protectionist measures. At Davos, Trump invited every nation to follow his example. More and more are complying.

“The world is de-globalizing. Trump set the example.” The Washington Post, Fareed Zakaria

Students should sense that while history does not repeat itself, it sometimes rhymes and this is a major danger. It also might imply that coping with climate change will be all the harder because American-led unilateralism everywhere would mean world policy paralysis.

Movies and Chemistry: Keeping the Enchantment of Education

Several movies give you an “enchanting” back door or window into chemistry so that you can “beat” the tediousness of regular education and come into the field and its topics via these movies:

I.

The Man in the White Suit is a 1951 British comedy classic with Alec Guinness as a genius research chemist. He fiddles with his flasks and polymer and textile chemistry experiments until he invents a fabric that shows no wear and tear “forever.” This would seem like a great boon to humanity in its clothing needs but the chemist (“Sidney Stratton”) finds that both labor and management reject his discovery violently as it threatens jobs and profits. Textile or fabric polymer chemistry is at the heart of the plot.

Cry Terror! is a taut 1958 crime thriller movie with James Mason and Rod Steiger. The plot involves the terrorist threat of exploding a domestic airliner with a hidden RDX cache (a TNT successor) unless the demanded payment is made.

RDX was used by both sides in World War II. The U.S. produced about 15,000 long tons per month during WWII and Germany about 7,000 long tons per month. RDX had the major advantages of possessing greater explosive force than TNT, used in World War I and requiring no additional raw materials for its manufacture.

Semtex is a general-purpose plastic explosive containing RDX and PETN. It is used in commercial blasting, demolition, and in certain military applications.

A Semtex bomb was used in the Pan Am Flight 103 (known also as the Lockerbie) bombing in 1988. A belt laden with 700 g (1.5 lb) of RDX explosives tucked under the dress of the assassin was used in the assassination of former Indian prime minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1991.

The 1993 Bombay bombings used RDX placed into several vehicles as bombs. RDX was the main component used for the 2006 Mumbai train bombings and the Jaipur bombings in 2008. It also is believed to be the explosive used in the 2010 Moscow Metro bombings.

Traces of RDX were found on pieces of wreckage from 1999 Russian apartment bombings and 2004 Russian aircraft bombings. Further reports on the bombs used in the 1999 apartment bombings indicated that while RDX was not a part of the main charge, each bomb contained plastic explosive used as a booster charge.

Ahmed Ressam, the al-Qaeda Millennium Bomber, used a small quantity of RDX as one of the components in the bomb that he prepared to detonate in Los Angeles International Airport on New Year’s Eve 1999-2000; the bomb could have produced a blast forty times greater than that of a devastating car bomb.

In July 2012, the Kenyan government arrested two Iranian nationals and charged them with illegal possession of 15 kilograms (33 pounds) of RDX. According to the Kenyan Police, the Iranians planned to use the RDX for “attacks on Israeli, U.S., UK and Saudi Arabian targets.”

RDX was used in the assassination of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafic Hariri on February 14, 2005.

In the 2019 Pulwama attack in India, 250 kg of high-grade RDX was used by Jaish-e-Mohammed. The attack resulted in the deaths of 44 Central Reserve Police Force personnel as well as the attacker.

Semtex was developed and manufactured in Czechoslovakia, originally under the name B 1 and then under the “Semtex” designation since 1964, labeled as SEMTEX 1A, since 1967 as SEMTEX H, and since 1987 as SEMTEX 10. Originally developed for Czechoslovak military use and export, Semtex eventually became popular with paramilitary groups and rebels or terrorists because prior to 2000 it was extremely difficult to detect, as in the case of Pan Am Flight 103.

The Russian apartment bombings were a series of explosions that hit four apartment blocks in the Russian cities of Buynaksk, Moscow and Volgodonsk in September 1999, killing more than 300, injuring more than 1,000, and spreading fear across the country. The bombings, together with the Invasion of Dagestan, triggered the Second Chechen War. The handling of the crisis by Vladimir Putin, who was prime minister at the time, boosted his popularity greatly and helped him attain the presidency within a few months.

The blasts hit Buynaksk on 4 September and in Moscow on 9 and 13 September. On 13 September, Russian Duma speaker Gennadiy Seleznyov made an announcement in the Duma about receiving a report that another bombing had just happened in the city of Volgodonsk. A bombing did indeed happen in Volgodonsk, but only three days later, on 16 September. Chechen militants were blamed for the bombings, but denied responsibility, along with Chechen president Aslan Maskhadov.

A suspicious device resembling those used in the bombings was found and defused in an apartment block in the Russian city of Ryazan on 22 September. On 23 September, Vladimir Putin praised the vigilance of the inhabitants of Ryazan and ordered the air bombing of Grozny, which marked the beginning of the Second Chechen War. Three FSB agents who had planted the devices at Ryazan were arrested by the local police, with the devices containing a sugar-like substance resembling RDX.

II.

The movie Khartoum (1966) has General Charles Gordon traveling to Sudan in 1884 to quell the “mad mullah” the Mahdi. (Osama bin Laden of his day).
At the train station where General Gordon starts his trip, there’s a railway ad sign that promotes the use of “Wright’s Coal Tar Soap.”

This gives us a sign of the rise of the modern chemical industry.

III.

Think of “Sherlock Holmes” in terms of all the movies and TV series or the original stories and books:

Holmes has to explain to Watson how he survived the assassination attempt on him by Moriarty, “the Napoleon of Crime” who threw him off the Reichenbach Falls. Holmes explains that he faked Moriarty out and clung to a bush or something and was (obviously) not killed.

Holmes tells Watson what he does when he returns to civilization and travels and studies for some three years:

“I then passed through Persia, looking in at Mecca, and paid a short but interesting visit to the Khalifa at Khartoum, the results of which I communicated to the Foreign Office. Returning to France, I spent some months in a research into the coal-tar derivatives, which I conducted in a laboratory at Montpellier, in the south of France.”

The context implies the year 1894.

There is clear evidence that Mr. Holmes was deeply involved in the research of coal-tar derivatives as early as 1889 when the events of the Copper Beeches matter were transpiring.

We are told that on an evening in 1889, Mr. Holmes was seated in 221B Baker Street at the deal table loaded with retorts and test tubes. He was settling down to one of those all-night chemical researches in which he frequently indulged.

The research work was interrupted by a message of distress from Violet Hunter. Watson found that there was a train the next morning, and Holmes tells Watson:

“That will do very nicely. Then perhaps I had better postpone my analysis of the acetones as we may need to be at our best in the morning.”

It is clear that Holmes was engaged in coal-tar research long before his visit to Montpellier in the south of France.

The quotation from the Copper Beeches story refers to acetones, not to coal-tar derivatives.

“In the fractional distillation of coal-tar, the distillate separates into five distinct groups or layers, depending upon the stage of the process and the amount of heat applied. Category-one of the five includes benzene, toluene, xylenes and cumenes.

Acetones [dimethelketone-CH3COCH3] may be derived from the oxidation of cumene. And cumene [isopropylbenzene-C6H5C(CH3)2] is derived by distillation from the coal-tar naphtha fractions.”

Cumenes are derived from coal-tar, and acetones are derived from cumenes. Thus, a study of the acetones is, necessarily, research into coal-tar derivatives.

The rise of chemical engineering and organic chemistry are at the heart of the Sherlock Holmes stories.

Thus we can “climb” into chemistry via these books and movies and keep a feeling of enchantment as a kind of educational “shoehorn.”

From ASEAN and G20 to APEC, as World Leaders Meet in Person Again, 3 Reasons to Root for Multilateralism

By Wang Huiyao | Founder of the Center for China and Globalization (CCG)

Over the past two weeks, Asia has played host to the most intense sequence of multilateral summits since the pandemic began, as national leaders gathered for meetings organized by ASEAN, the G20 and APEC. Although overshadowed by geopolitical tensions, the meetings marked a welcome return to in-person summit diplomacy, and the better-than-expected outcomes show hope yet for multilateralism.

The conclaves began in Phnom Penh with the annual summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. At the first of such in-person events in almost three years, ASEAN leaders took the positive step of agreeing in principle to admit East Timor as the 11th member of the organization.

As leaders moved on to Bali for the Group of 20 summit, expectations were low after ministerial meetings in the run-up had failed to produce consensus. Earlier in the year, given fractures in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, there was a question mark over whether the G20 could even go ahead or survive in its existing form.

In the end, the summit surpassed expectations by producing a joint declaration after intense negotiations, with leaders finding the compromises necessary to unite in declaring that “today’s era must not be of war” and pledging to uphold the multilateral system.

The summit also saw a positive face-to-face meeting between China’s President Xi Jinping and U.S. President Joe Biden, their first as leaders, signaling a willingness to halt the downward trajectory of China-U.S. relations.

In Bangkok, the 21 leaders of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum also pledged to uphold and strengthen the rules-based multilateral trading system. Importantly, the group agreed on a multi-year work plan for an Asia-Pacific free trade area.

Reflecting on these three summits, three takeaways give reason for cautious optimism that multilateralism can yet be revived and play a major role in solving our challenges.

First, and perhaps most obviously, the return of in-person summit diplomacy is a welcome uplift for global cooperation. Virtual formats played a useful interim role at the height of the pandemic but were never a substitute for getting leaders in the same room. That is especially when it comes to interactions on the sidelines, often as important as the main event.

China’s return to diplomacy at the highest level was a further boost, both for the nation and the rest of the world.

In addition to Xi’s highly anticipated meeting with Biden, the Chinese leader met over a dozen other leaders at the G20 and APEC summits, including a warmer-than-expected first meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and his first meeting with an Australian prime minister since 2016.

Leaders got to meet their new counterparts for the first time or build on existing relationships, which can only help global cooperation.

The second takeaway is that as grave as our challenges are, the threat of escalating conflict and severe economic pressures on all nations seem to be focusing minds and increasing the willingness to engage and cooperate—out of necessity if nothing else.

The G20 summit was the second major one this year to surpass expectations after the 12th World Trade Organization Ministerial Conference in June surprised observers by agreeing on a plan to reform the organization and its dispute settlement mechanism. The G20 statement reiterated support for this WTO reform plan, which will be critical to get the free trade agenda back on track and provide a much-needed boost for the global economy.

Third, and perhaps most significantly for the long term, the recent summits marked an acceleration of the trend towards multi-polarization in international diplomacy, and in particular, the rising influence of non-aligned “middle powers” to shape multilateral outcomes.

The middle powers represented at ASEAN, the G20 and APEC have huge stakes in avoiding a bifurcation of the global economy that might result from a new cold war. They don’t want to be forced to pick sides and many show a growing willingness and ability to build bridges and restore positive momentum for multilateralism.

Indonesia is a prime example. The country’s strategic heft and non-aligned credibility make it well-placed to bridge different camps. President Joko Widodo made a big political bet on the success of the G20 and has won praise for the deft diplomacy that kept the organization alive and got it to a joint statement.

The Indian delegation reportedly also played a big role in achieving consensus on language in the statement, with the BRICS group (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa)—as well as Indonesia—turning out to be crucial swing voters in securing the joint statement. One Indian official said it was “the first [G20] summit where developing nations shaped the outcome.”

There is scope for this trend to continue next year as middle powers continue to rise in stature, and India and Indonesia take over the presidency of the G20 and ASEAN, respectively. Brazil will host the G20 the year after.

Over in Sharm el-Sheikh at the COP27 UN climate summit, another middle power—the host Egypt—also won praise for helping to shepherd a historic financing deal for poor countries affected by climate change. But the ultimate failure to reach a commitment to phase down fossil fuels was a sobering reminder of the huge difficulties that remain in forging the global consensus needed to overcome our shared challenges.

World-Watching: How the G20’s Succession of Developing Country Presidencies Could Help Re-shape the Global Economy

[from Asian Development Bank Institute]

Indonesia’s Group of 20 (G20) presidency in 2022 marks the start of three successive years in which the annual forum of the world’s largest economies will be hosted by developing countries, to be followed by India in 2023 and Brazil in 2024.

In this podcast, Pramod Bhasin, Chair of the Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations (ICRIER), discusses India’s G20 presidency countdown and policy imperatives. He also describes the outlook for Indonesia, India, and Brazil’s G20 presidencies and their potential significance for the global economy.

[Archived podcast MP3]

Read the transcript. [Archived PDF]

View the full playlist of audio insights into ADBI’s ideas for developing Asia and the Pacific.

“2022 Monkeypox Outbreak: Situational Awareness” with Syra Madad [Zoom]

[from Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center, part of Harvard University]

Thursday, July 21, 2:30-4:00 PM EDT

RSVP (Required)

The 2022 Monkeypox outbreak continues to expand with case counts mounting in many countries. This seminar will cover where we are in the global fight against monkeypox, where we may be headed as a nation, and what we need to do right now to mitigate the growing threat of monkeypox. Join Belfer Fellow Dr. Syra Madad in conversation with Kai Kupferschmidt, Dr. Krutika Kuppalli, Dr. Anne Rimoin, Dr. Boghuma Kabisen Titanji, and Dr. Jay K. Varma.

About the Speakers

Dr. Anne Rimoin is a Professor of Epidemiology at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health. She is the Gordon-Levin Endowed Chair in Infectious Diseases and Public Health. Dr. Rimoin is the director of the Center for Global and Immigrant Health and is an internationally recognized expert on emerging infections, global health, surveillance systems, and vaccination.

Rimoin has been working in the DRC since 2002, where she founded the UCLA-DRC Health Research and Training Program to train U.S. and Congolese epidemiologists to conduct high-impact infectious disease research in low-resource, logistically-complex settings.

Dr. Rimoin’s research focuses on emerging and vaccine-preventable diseases. It has led to fundamental understandings of the epidemiology of human monkeypox in post-eradication of smallpox, long-term immunity to Ebola virus in survivors and durability of immune response to Ebola virus vaccine in health workers in DRC. Her current research portfolio includes studies of COVID-19, Ebola, Marburg, Monkeypox and vaccine-preventable diseases of childhood.

Boghuma Kabisen Titanji (MD, MSc., DTM&H, PhD) is a Cameroonian born physician-scientist and Assistant Professor of Medicine at Emory University in Atlanta. She obtained her MD from the University of Yaoundé I in Cameroon and worked for two years after graduation as a medical officer, before pursuing post-graduate research training in London, United Kingdom. As an awardee of the prestigious Commonwealth Scholarship program, she obtained a Masters Degree in Tropical Medicine and International Health from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, a diploma in Tropical Medicine and Hygiene from the Royal College of Physicians and a Ph.D. in Virology from University College London. Dr. Titanji joined Emory University School of Medicine in 2016 where she completed a residency in Internal Medicine, on the ABIM research pathway and a fellowship Infectious Diseases. She has three parallel career interests: translational and clinical research in HIV and emerging virus infections, science communication, and global health. Her clinical focus is general infectious diseases and people with HIV. Her current research focuses on chronic inflammation as a mediator of cardiovascular disease in people with HIV. She is passionate about leveraging translational research to improve the care of people with HIV, global health equity and using science to influence health policy through science communication and advocacy.

Jay K. Varma, MD is a Professor of Population Health Sciences and Director of the Cornell Center for Pandemic Prevention and Response at Weill Cornell Medicine. Dr. Varma is an expert on the prevention and control of diseases, having led epidemic responses, developed global and national policies, and led large-scale programs that have saved hundreds of thousands of lives in China, Southeast Asia, Africa, and the United States. After graduating magna cum laude with highest honors from Harvard, Dr. Varma completed medical school, internal medicine residency, and chief residency at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine. From 2001-2021, he worked for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention with postings in Atlanta, Thailand, China, Ethiopia, and New York City. From April 2020 – May 2021, he served as the principal scientific spokesperson and lead for New York City’s COVID-19 response. Dr. Varma has authored 143 scientific manuscripts, 13 essays, and one book.

Kai Kupferschmidt is a science journalist based in Berlin, Germany. He is a contributing correspondent for Science where he often covers infectious diseases. Kai received a diploma in molecular biomedicine from the University of Bonn, Germany and later visited the Berlin Journalism School. He has won several awards for his work, including the Journalism Prize of the German AIDS Foundation. Together with two colleagues he runs a podcast on global health called Pandemia [German]. He has also written two books, one about infectious diseases and one about the science of the color blue.

Krutika Kuppalli, MD, FIDSA is a Medical Officer for Emerging Zoonotic Diseases and Clinical Management in the Health Emergencies Program at the World Health Organization where she currently supports activities for the Monkeypox outbreak and COVID-19 pandemic. She completed her Internal Medicine residency and Infectious Diseases fellowship at Emory University, a Post-Doctoral Fellowship in Global Public Health at the University of California, San Diego and the Emerging Leader in Biosecurity Fellowship at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. Dr. Kuppalli currently serves on the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene (ASTMH) Trainee Committee and is the Chair of the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) Global Health Committee.

Dr. Kuppalli was previously awarded the NIH Fogarty International Clinical Research Fellowship and conducted research in Southern India to understand barriers to care and how emerging infections impacted persons living with HIV/AIDS. She was the medical director of a large Ebola Treatment Unit in Sierra Leone during the 2014 West Africa Ebola outbreak, helped lead the development and implementation of pandemic response preparedness activities in resource limited settings, and has consulted on the development of therapeutics for emerging pathogens. Her clinical and research interests focus on health systems strengthening in resource limited settings, research and clinical care for emerging infections, outbreak preparedness and response, and policy. She has worked in numerous countries including Ethiopia, India, Sierra Leone, Uganda, and Haiti.

During the COVID-19 pandemic Dr. Kuppalli served as a consultant for the San Francisco Department of Health and helped develop and operationalize a field hospital. She served as an expert witness to the U.S. Congress, Financial Services Committee Task Force on Artificial Intelligence (AI) about how digital technologies may be leveraged for exposure notification and contact tracing to improve the pandemic response. She also collaborated with the Brennan Center for Justice to develop guidelines to inform “Healthy in-person Voting” in advance of the 2020 U.S. election and testified before the U.S. House Select Subcommittee regarding these recommendations. Prior to her position at WHO, she was the medical lead for COVID-19 vaccine rollout at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) and helped coordinate vaccine education events for the staff and community and oversaw the reporting of adverse vaccine events.

Since joining WHO in August 2021, Dr. Kuppalli has been part of the WHO headquarters incident management team (IMST) for COVID-19, the clinical characterization and management working group for COVID-19, the COVID-19 therapeutics steering committee, and is the technical focal point for the post COVID-19 condition (Long COVID) steering committee. She is a member of the secretariat on the scientific advisory group on the origins of emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases (SAGO) which was convened by the Director General to understand and investigate the origins of SARS-CoV-2 and other novel pathogens. More recently since the development of the multi-country monkeypox outbreak she has been part of the IMST at WHO as one of the clinical management focal points. In this capacity she was part of the WHO core group that helped write the recently published Clinical Management and Infection Prevention and Control guidelines for Monkeypox and advising on the clinical endpoints for the global CORE therapeutics protocol.

Dr. Kuppalli is recognized as a scientific expert in global health, biosecurity and outbreak response. She was recognized by NPR Source of The Week early in the pandemic as an expert to follow and named to Elemental’s 50 Experts to Trust in a Pandemic. She has been a frequent contributor to numerous domestic and international media outlets including The New York Times, NPR, Reuters, The Washington Post, Vox, Stat News, San Francisco Chronicle, Forbes, NBC Bay Area, BBC News.