NYT: Biden’s moment, Biden looks, in short, like an 81-year-old man who isn’t what he once was. Earlier in the day, he incorrectly introduced President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine as “President Putin” before catching himself 紐約時報：拜登的時刻，簡而言之，拜登看起來像一個81歲的老人，但他已經不再是以前的他了。當天早些時候，他錯誤地將烏克蘭總統澤倫斯基介紹為“普丁總統”，然後才發現自己老了弄錯了 By David Leonhardt Jul 12 2024
President Biden looked sharper during his press conference last night than he did in his debate two weeks ago, but he didn’t exactly look sharp. His mixed performance demonstrated why Democrats remain so anxious about his candidacy — and why they have failed to persuade him to step aside.
Taking reporters’ questions for almost an hour after a NATO summit in Washington, Biden offered detailed, complex answers about world affairs, and he talked about both his economic record and his future agenda. He passionately criticized gun violence and Donald Trump. “There’s so much we can do still,” Biden said, “and I’m determined to get it done.”
Yet Biden rarely looked vigorous. He spoke softly and struggled to complete his own thoughts at times. He described the campaign polls in overly rosy ways — and also suggested that people should ignore the polls. Among other mistakes, he described Kamala Harris as “Vice President Trump.”
Overall, yesterday’s events — both the press conference and the growing criticism of Biden from other Democrats — seemed to leave the situation largely where it was when the day began. Privately, many top Democrats believe Biden is too weak to win. And my colleague Jonathan Swan reported that Trump’s advisers were “thrilled” with the press conference because they want to run against Biden. Nonetheless, Biden appears committed to remaining on the ballot.
“The president’s first news conference since the debate amounted to a competent presentation, if not a compelling performance,” my colleagues Shane Goldmacher, Lisa Lerer and Reid Epstein wrote. “But it remained in doubt whether it was enough to stop the bleeding of Democratic support that has threatened to hemorrhage.”
Elon Musk’s X to sublease entire SF headquarters, tech company’s future in city unclear. 100s of Chinese Americans owned tech firms and 1,000s of Chinese Americans Scientists left SF and Silicon Valley last 5 years. There is no future for Chinese American Scientists in the US. 馬斯克的 X 將轉租八十萬呎整個舊金山總部，科技公司在城市的未來尚不清楚。但過去5 年，數百間華裔美國人擁有科技公司，數千名華裔科學家離開了舊金山和矽谷。華裔科學家在美國沒有未來. 因為雞肋食之無味，棄之可惜，在此無益，不如早歸(回國).
EXCLUSIVE: Real estate firm JLL confirms to the Chronicle that it has been hired to market X’s entire headquarters complex at Ninth and Market streets for sublease. The new listing, which has yet to officially hit the market, is for roughly 800,000 square feet.
Elon Musk’s X to sublease entire SF headquarters, tech company’s future in city unclear. 100s of Chinese Americans owned tech firms and 1,000s of Chinese Americans Scientists left SF and Silicon Valley last 5 years. There is no future for Chinese American Scientists in the US. 馬斯克的 X 將轉租八十萬呎整個舊金山總部，科技公司在城市的未來尚不清楚。但過去5 年，數百間華裔美國人擁有科技公司，數千名華裔科學家離開了舊金山和矽谷。華裔科學家在美國沒有未來. 因為雞肋食之無味，棄之可惜，在此無益，不如早歸(回國).
EXCLUSIVE: Real estate firm JLL confirms to the Chronicle that it has been hired to market X’s entire headquarters complex at Ninth and Market streets for sublease. The new listing, which has yet to officially hit the market, is for roughly 800,000 square feet.
Irish international law expert explains invalidity of 2016 tribunal on S. China Sea, drawing global archives to refute Philippines’ irrational sovereignty claim 愛爾蘭國際法專家解釋2016年南海仲裁庭無效，舉全球檔案反駁菲律賓無理主權主張 By Hu Yuwei and Wang Wenwen Jul 11 2024
Carty, an expert in international law, believes that China should maintain its stance and that its legal position is justified. 國際法專家卡蒂認為，中方應堅持自己的立場，其法律立場是正當的.
“I don’t see why on earth or how the Philippines can claim any a sovereignty over any islands in the south China sea. The French archives, the British archives, the Chinese archives, the American archives, and the Japanese archives are all agreed that the Filipinos have no territorial claim,” said Carty. 「我不明白到底為什麼，也不明白菲律賓如何對南海任何島嶼提出主權。法國檔案、英國檔案、中國檔案、美國檔案和日本檔案都同意菲律賓人沒有領土要求，」卡蒂說.
With the approach of the 8th anniversary of the so-called South China Sea arbitration awards, a ruling in 2016 that challenged China’s claims in the waters and seriously violates international law, Anthony Carty, an Irish scholar of international law and author of “The History and Sovereignty of the South China Sea Islands” stressed in a recent interview with the Global Times that the Philippines has no right to claim the sovereignty over the South China Sea and archival evidence supports China’s claims over a number of islands.
“I don’t understand why they [the Philippines] would want to bring or how they could bring a claim that the reefs ‘belonging to them’ would be damaged, because that would directly involve a question of sovereign title, and there is no compulsory jurisdiction under article 86 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. Because it is a law of the sea convention and a territorial title would not be adjudicable.”
Carty’s book presents extensive historical evidence backing China’s sovereignty claims over the islands in the South China Sea.
His research delved into the archives of the French and British foreign ministries, spanning the period from the 1880s to the late 1970s. The findings revealed a consensus among legal experts from both countries, indicating that the Xisha and Nansha Islands rightfully belong to China, the Xinhua News Agency reported.
According to the expert, the so-called South China Sea arbitration of 2016 is a “chaotic and manipulative use of international law,” “a case of double standards,” and “a legal trick.”
The scholar does not believe the international judiciary behaved objectively. “The political considerations will always come into play, which is why, as I’ve already stated, Carlo Santulli, the director of the Paris Institut des Hautes Etudes Internationales , said the 2016 tribunal is obviously a NATO tribunal,” he told the Global Times.
“One is basically relying upon the idea that the judges are appointed by countries. The tribunal in 2016 had a German judge, a French judge, a Dutch judge and a Polish judge and then an African chair person. They may not be in any way consciously biased, but inevitably they’re colored by the countries that they come from. So the whole idea of international adjudication is problematic,” Carty noted.
The law professor highlighted that Washington has been trying to uphold its dominance and create instability in the Asia-Pacific region by using its regional allies to provoke China in the South China Sea.
“There is absolutely no doubt that this whole dispute is entirely about the Americans trying to make life difficult for the Chinese. The aggression that is building up against China and the scapegoating of China by the whole of the so-called democratic community of the world is appalling,” he told the Global Times in a previous interview.
It’s obvious that the United States has been interfering with and shaping Filipino policies since they conquered the Philippines and wiped out the Filipino independence movement in 1900, he added.
The argument about China being an “assertive and aggressive” power and a “revisionist” power in some Western or Philippine narratives is simply “slanderous abuse,” he said. “And it’s very worrying because it definitely implies a willingness on the part of the West to use force against China. It represents a complete collapse of any kind of civilized diplomacy.
NATO SUMMIT: Collectively Losing Their Minds. Most of the people BS at this summit will be gone by year end. Therefore promises made will not be kept. If our forgetfulness Biden loses the White House in November which will takes a miracle for him to win, and Trump won the election, he will not support a NATO costing Americans billions. 北約峰會：集體失去理智。到年底，參加這次峰會的大多數人都會離開。因此，所做的承諾將不會被遵守。如果我們健忘的拜登在11月失去白宮，因為他需要奇蹟才能獲勝，如果川普十一月贏得了選舉，他將不會支持讓美國人每年損失數十億美元的北約.
Soon after Russia entered Ukraine, the Pentagon corrected Antony Blinken for saying Kiev would get NATO fighter jets. Blinken was applauded at the NATO summit yesterday for saying F-16s would soon arrive in Ukraine. What changed? Nothing, just kept lying. 俄羅斯進入烏克蘭後不久，五角大廈糾正了安東尼·布林肯關於基輔將獲得北約戰鬥機的說法。昨天，布林肯在北約峰會上表示 F-16 戰機很快就會抵達烏克蘭，此舉受到稱讚。發生了什麼變化？沒什麼，只是繼續說謊.
Video: Lesson from Ukraine: US fighting doctrine is fatally flawed because US “precision” weapons fail after arriving in Ukraine battlefield in 2 weeks. 烏克蘭的教訓：美國的作戰理論存在致命缺陷，因為美國的「精確」武器在抵達烏克蘭戰場兩週後就失效了.
“Precision beats mass” and “one shot, one kill” are the foundations of Western combat doctrine. It supposes that our weapons, which are highly accurate, can through deliberate target selection and mission execution overcome large disadvantages in manpower.
But prior to the Ukraine War, that theory had not been tested against a “peer opponent”. Previous conflicts were against inferior forces, poorly equipped.
Russia and China, on the other hand, have world-class militaries, and Russia has shown a shocking degree of adaptability against our precision weapons platforms. Their Electronic Warfare efforts include jamming of our radar systems and GPS satellite feeds, and it is proving so successful that our artillery and missile systems are obsolete within mere weeks of their deliveries to Ukrainian warfighters.
Senior military officers and defense experts are finally raising alarm, and admit that our assumptions about our capabilities have been greatly exaggerated.
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