Tag: highlights

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Politics

Rushed Evacuation in Kabul Highlights Disconnect in Washington

Rushed Evacuation in Kabul Highlights Disconnect in Washington

Meanwhile, at the Pentagon, Defense officials said that 3,000 Marines and soldiers were on the ground in Kabul as of Sunday night to help with the evacuation, and another 3,000 were en route.

Tension had been building between the Kabul Embassy and the Pentagon, the officials said, with Pentagon officials urging a smaller footprint and the State Department seeking to keep a robust presence. During meetings and video conference calls, Pentagon officials reminded their diplomatic counterparts that American troops were leaving.

Three weeks ago, as Afghan cities began to fall to the Taliban, Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III extended the deployment of the amphibious assault warship U.S.S. Iwo Jima in the Gulf of Oman so that it would be close to the region. One week after that, he ordered the Marine expeditionary unit on the ship — some 2,000 Marines — to disembark and wait in Kuwait so that they could more easily deploy to Afghanistan.

On Sunday, the military evacuated 500 people, officials said, adding that they expected that number to go up to 5,000 a day in the coming week.

All U.S. embassies overseas have emergency evacuation plans, but Kabul posed significant hurdles. First, with some 4,000 employees, the embassy is one of the largest in the world. Shutting it down and destroying any sensitive documents and other materials takes time. Second, given that the Taliban control border crossings out of the country, the evacuation has to be done entirely by air, officials said.

Thousands of others, including dual citizens and U.S. contractors, are also in the country.

Embassy officials urged American citizens who are still in Afghanistan to shelter in place and resubmit paperwork to request help to leave instead of showing up at the airport, given reports of gunfire there.

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World News

Highlights from the heated assembly in Alaska

Highlights from the heated meeting in Alaska

Talks between the US and China got off to a bad start on Thursday. Both sides rebuked and rebuked each other in an unusual public area of ​​tension.

The meeting in Anchorage, Alaska, was the first high-level meeting between the two countries under the administration of President Joe Biden and took place in more than two years of rocky relations between the two countries.

What was originally intended as a four-minute photo shoot lasted over an hour as both sides traded barbs on U.S.-China relations for concerns from Washington’s allies. Reporters were told not to leave as both sides wanted to add their rebuttals.

At the head of the US delegation were Secretary of State Antony Blinken and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan. Chinese Foreign Minister and State Councilor Wang Yi and Yang Jiechi, director of the Central Foreign Affairs Commission of the Communist Party of China, led the Chinese delegation.

Here are some excerpts and highlights of the meeting:

On the relationship between the United States and China

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken:
I said that US relations with China will be competitive where it should be, cooperative where it can be, controversial where it has to be. I suspect our discussions here in Alaska will set the tone. Our intention is to speak directly about our concerns and priorities with the aim of a clearer relationship between our countries in the future.

… In my short time as Foreign Minister, I have to tell you that I have spoken to almost a hundred colleagues from all over the world. And I’ve just made my first trip to Japan and South Korea as I noticed. I have to tell you what I hear is very different from what you described. I hear deep satisfaction that the United States is back, that we are reconnecting with our allies and partners. I also hear deep concern about some of the actions your government is taking.

China urges the US side to completely abandon the hegemonic practice of deliberately interfering in China’s internal affairs. This is a longstanding problem and should be changed.

Wang Yi

Foreign Minister, China

China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi:
China has certainly not accepted the unjustified allegations made by the US in the past and will not accept them in the future either. In recent years, China’s legitimate rights and interests have been completely suppressed, plunging China-US relations into a period of unprecedented difficulty.

… China urges the US side to completely abandon the hegemonic practice of deliberately interfering in China’s internal affairs. This is a longstanding problem and should be changed. It’s time for it to change.

The Chinese Director of the Central Commission for Foreign Affairs, Yang Jiechi
China and the United States are both important countries and both show important responsibilities. We must both contribute to world peace, stability and development in areas such as Covid-19, restore economic activity in the world and respond to climate change.

There are many things we can do together and where our interests converge. So we need to give up the Cold War mentality and the zero-sum game approach.

… Let me say here that the United States, on the Chinese side, does not have the qualifications to say that it wants to speak to China from a position of strength. The US side wasn’t even qualified to say such things 20 or 30 years ago because that is not the way to deal with the Chinese people. If the United States is to deal properly with the Chinese side, then we will follow the necessary protocols and do things right.

The cooperation benefits both sides. This is especially the expectation of the people of the world. Well, the American people are certainly a great people, but so are the Chinese people.

Yang Jiechi (right), director of the Office of the Central Foreign Affairs Commission for China, and Wang Yi (left), China’s foreign minister, meet for a meeting with US colleagues at the opening session of the US-China talks at Captain Cook Hotel in Anchorage. Alaska on March 18, 2021.

Frederic J. Brown | AFP | Getty Images

At the concerns of the US and its allies

Flash:
We will also discuss our deep concerns about actions taken by China, including in Xinjiang, Hong Kong, Taiwan, cyberattacks on the United States, and economic coercion on our allies. Each of these actions threatens the rules-based order that maintains global stability.

Jake Sullivan, US National Security Advisor:
State Secretary Blinken has set out many areas, from economic and military coercion to the attack on core values, which we will discuss with you today and in the days ahead.

… We have heard each of these concerns from around the world, from our allies and partners, and the wider international community during the intensive consultations we have conducted over the past two months. We will make it clear today that our overriding priority on the United States’ side is to ensure that our global approach and approach to China benefits the American people and protects the interests of our allies and partners.

We do not seek conflict, but we welcome fierce competition and will always stand up for our principles for our people and for our friends.

I remember well when President Biden was Vice President and we were visiting China … and Vice President Biden said at the time that it was never a good bet to bet against America and that is still the case today.

Antony Blink

US Secretary of State

The:
It is also important that we all come together to build a new kind of international relationship that involves fairness, justice and mutual respect. And on some regional issues, I think the problem is that the United States has had a long history of jurisdiction and repression and has overstretched itself.

… The United States itself does not represent international public opinion or the Western world. Whether judged by population scale or by world trends, the Western world does not represent global public opinion. So we hope that when the US side talks about universal values ​​or US international public opinion, it will consider whether it feels reassured to say these things because the US does not represent the world. It only represents the United States government.

About values ​​and democracy

Sullivan:
Secretary Blinken and I are proud of the story we can tell about America here, about a country that, under the leadership of President Biden, has made great strides to control the pandemic, save our economy, and gain strength and resilience our democracy to be affirmed. We are especially proud of the work we have done to reinvigorate our alliances and partnerships, the foundation of our foreign policy.

The:
And the United States has its style, a United States-style democracy. And China has Chinese style democracy. It is not only for the American people but also for the people of the world to judge how the United States has advanced its own democracy. In China, after decades of reform and opening up in various areas, we have come a long way.

… We believe it is important for the United States to change its own image and not advance its own democracy in the rest of the world. Indeed, many people in the United States have little faith in United States democracy and have different views about the United States government in China.

flash::

One of the hallmarks of our leadership and our commitment in the world are our alliances and partnerships, which were built on a voluntary basis. And President Biden is committed to revitalizing and strengthening it. And there is another hallmark of our leadership here at home and that is an ongoing effort, as we say, to create a more perfect Union.

And that search, by definition, acknowledges our imperfections, that we are not perfect. We make mistakes. We have reversals, we step backwards. But what we have done throughout our history is to meet these challenges openly, publicly and transparently. I’m not trying to ignore it. I’m not trying to pretend they don’t exist. I’m not trying to sweep them under the rug. And sometimes it’s painful. Sometimes it’s ugly. But every time we have become stronger, better and more united as a country.

I remember well when President Biden was Vice President and we were visiting China … and Vice President Biden said at the time that it was never a good bet to bet against America and that is still the case today.

Categories
Business

$230 million spent buying and selling video highlights

$230 million spent trading video highlights

A LeBron James highlight sold for $ 200,000. A Zion Williamson edition cost a little less. The National Basketball Association has officially set its sights on the future of the trading card market, and currently this game is sold out.

The NBA has teamed up with Dapper Labs of Canada, the makers of the CryptoKitties game, to create the version of a digital collectible. NBA Top Shot is a crypto collectible that consumers can purchase as a non-fungible token (NFT). Each collectible is tied to a blockchain – a digital ledger similar to the blockchains used for digital currencies like Bitcoin. This effectively gives each NFT a unique and non-hackable Certificate of Authenticity. Even if someone makes a perfect copy of the highlight video, it is instantly recognizable as a fake.

Current “packs” for the game are only $ 9.00 – and they sell out all the time.

Caty Tedman, director of marketing and team partnerships at Dapper Labs, says Top Shots has had sales of more than $ 230 million to date, although most of that comes from dealers who exchange the collectibles after their first sale. Dapper earns revenue from fees charged through peer-to-peer transactions and from releasing new NFT packets.

“I find it fascinating,” said Tom Richardson, professor of digital media in Columbia University’s sports management program.

“It’s a nice development and good to see that people are still making collectibles during this time,” added Lars Rensing, CEO of the blockchain service provider Protokol. “It’s a new step into the future.”

The game has also become a new source of income for the NBA. And again it’s sold out.

In the new trading card model

Top Shots emerged from a licensing agreement that the NBA and its players’ union signed with Dapper Labs in 2019. The NBA did not provide any official commentary on this story, but Richardson, who was once head of publication for the National Football League, says the league can generate 10% to 15% of the revenue of a company that uses its intellectual property.

The NBA licenses the reels to dapper laps, which digitizes the footage and leaves a limited amount available to create scarcity. Some NFTs offer highlights in different angles and digital graphics. One is currently listed for over $ 240,000.

Mark Cuban, owner of Dallas Mavericks, compared Top Shot to the old-school model of trading cards, where consumers can have fun trading and collecting rare items – just without the risk of damage or theft. “And value is still determined by the same laws of supply and demand,” he wrote in January.

“Let Mark Cuban do it in a good, sensible, and easy-to-understand way,” said Richardson, also SVP of strategy at Mercury Intermedia. “So if enough people wanted the same Zion Williamson highlight, this NFT, and bid on it, they got up to $ 100,000, that’s supply and demand. Someone thought it was worth $ 100,000.”

The bet for dealers is that in 2051 a LeBron James NFT could be worth what a 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle card is worth today – one of those rare cards that recently sold for $ 5.2 million. And just imagine what a rare Michael Jordan rookie highlight NFT would sell in 30 years.

“We think it could be a 100 year old product,” said Tedman of Dapper Labs. “When you think about what the rookie cards are going to be worth today in the future, especially those from this point of view of the product. Everyone who participates now is really stepping onto the ground floor.”

By using the blockchain, says Richardson, Dapper overcomes a major challenge with digital assets, namely the ease of copying them infinitely many times without friction.

“One of the things that defined the digital age is that we have moved from a world of scarcity to a world of abundance with all kinds of media resources and products,” he added. “But what the trading card business is about is a physical scarcity of cards. That’s why (Dapper) created these NFTs with the idea of ​​scarcity combined with authenticity due to the way the blockchain works.”

With this asset, Dapper is positioning itself to benefit from a digitally controlled generation that values ​​digital assets as much as physical ones.

“The new generation is more digital,” said Rensing. “I think it will stay because it’s a solution that will also attract new fans and digital natives.”

Mobile game is coming this year

Earlier this month, Dapper raised $ 250 million and is now valued at $ 2 billion, in part thanks to Top Shot’s sudden popularity, according to digital asset research and news agency The Block.

With the funds, Dapper Cotinin will expand its blockchain flow. Tedman, one of the developers at Top Shot, said they now have around 350,000 registered users, claiming that Flow could better handle the capacity of a high-quality marketplace, which was causing problems with its CryptoKitties product.

“With this, we can reach a scale that other blockchain projects have not yet reached,” said Tedman. She said that of the $ 230 million in sales to date, 95% of consumers in the market who buy, sell and trade.

She said the company released 5,000 new packs of highlights this week as a stress test for Flow, and 90,000 people lined up to buy. The packs sold out quickly.

“They come in, collect, assemble what they think are good collections, buy and sell,” said Tedman. “It’s almost like putting together trading cards with the stock market. That is a game in itself before we release the mobile game.”

This mobile game, slated to launch this year, will allow consumers to create NBA-like rosters by purchasing NFT Moments and then entering online tournaments – and potentially winning rarer NFTs that can add in value.

“It can be an opportunity to have fun with your interest and love for a sport – basketball in this case – combined with your interest in new technology and financial experiences like cryptocurrency and NFTs,” said Richardson.

Saum Noursalehi is the CEO of the software company tZERO, a company that symbolizes the assets of private or public companies and builds the platform on which the assets can be traded. He sees a bright future for sports leagues using NFT licensing agreements and suggests that this is a model of how blockchain technology can be used to track and trade other types of assets.

Blockchain technology “will change the way we trade value today, how we trade assets,” said Noursalehi.

Tedman added, “We’re just getting started. We have a lot of big plans that we can’t wait to put in front of people.”

Let the new games begin as the digital age continues to take shape. However, participation in Dapper’s NBA Top Shot competition is currently sold out.