英语咖啡馆：2023年2月16日英语时讯

Scotland’s first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, resigned after eight years in power. Ms Sturgeon, who will also stand down as leader of the Scottish National Party, is a fierce advocate for Scottish independence but in November her government suffered a setback when the Supreme Court ruled against a second referendum. Ms Sturgeon said that her decision to quit was not a reaction to “short-term pressures”, but that the job had taken its toll.

The European Union proposed a new sanctions package, worth €11bn ($11.8bn), including controls to restrict the export of electronic components used in Russian weapons. The EU will also place sanctions on Iranian companies to try to limit the supply of drones to Russia. NATO defence ministers are meeting for a second day to discuss supplying more military aid to Ukraine.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey’s president, vowed to continue rescue efforts and promised to rebuild the buildings destroyed by devastating earthquakes last week. Mr Erdogan said more than 105,000 people had been injured by the quakes. Ten survivors were rescued in Turkey on Tuesday, including a 77-year-old woman pulled from the rubble of an apartment block. The death toll in Turkey and Syria has now passed 41,000.

Air India agreed to buy nearly 500 planes from Airbus and Boeing, two European and American rivals. It is the largest-ever order of jets by an Indian airline. Air India, long considered a basket-case of a carrier, was taken private a year ago by Tata, an Indian conglomerate. The presidents of France and America both hailed the deal, which was reportedly agreed after months of secret negotiations in London.

Dianne Feinstein, an 89-year-old Democratic senator for California, said she will not seek re-election in 2024. Ms Feinstein has held her seat longer than any woman in Senate history. In her 30-year congressional career she has advocated for gun control and monitored CIA abuses. Recently, however, she has faced criticism over apparently age-related gaffes.

Louis Vuitton, a leading French fashion brand, put Pharrell Williams, a Grammy-winning musician, in charge of its menswear design. Mr Williams will take up the role left by Virgil Abloh, who died in 2021, and was the first African-American man to run a major label at a European luxury-fashion house. Louis Vuitton is the main brand of Bernard Arnault’s LVMH, Europe’s biggest company by stock market capitalisation.

Fact of the day: 68%, the proportion of Thai eateries in Britain that are run by women.

TODAY’S AGENDA

Nikki Haley runs for president

“I don’t put up with bullies”, says Nikki Haley, in a video announcing her bid for president in 2024. “And when you kick back, it hurts them more if you’re wearing heels.” A killer kick is just what Ms Haley needs, for she is the first serious challenger to Donald Trump, America’s former president and arguably the biggest bully of all, to seek the Republican nomination. 

On Wednesday Ms Haley will launch her campaign in Charleston, South Carolina, the state she ran as its first female governor from 2011 to 2017. As Mr Trump’s ambassador to the UN, she distinguished herself from many of his other aides by not embarrassing herself. She has also tried not to antagonise her former boss. “Every time she criticises me, she uncriticises me about 15 minutes later,” Mr Trump once said.

Few expect Ms Haley to win the Republican nomination. Ron DeSantis, Florida’s governor, has yet to declare his candidacy but is the leading alternative to Mr Trump in polls. But simply entering the race may, in time, pay dividends for her. Kamala Harris, after all, ran an unremarkable campaign and became Joe Biden’s vice-president.

A constitutional crisis in Israel

Israel’s government is determined to curb the powers of the country’s robustly independent Supreme Court. On Wednesday the Knesset will vote on two laws limiting the court’s power to intervene in legislation. The stakes will become even higher next week, when parliament is scheduled to hold its first vote on changing the make-up of its Judicial Appointments Committee. If the proposal passes, the government would for the first time gain control over who sits on the Supreme Court’s bench.

The changes are part of a comprehensive “legal reform” package unveiled last month by Israel’s new far-right coalition government, led by Binyamin Netanyahu. The president of the Supreme Court has called the reforms a “fatal blow” to democracy. Many Israelis are dismayed, too. On Monday 100,000 of them demonstrated outside the Knesset. Israel’s president, Isaac Herzog, has warned of “societal and constitutional collapse” if consensus is not reached over the changes. So far, though, the government is pushing determinedly ahead.

Crimes against the Chagossians

The people of the Chagos Archipelago have long yearned for their homeland. Once part of Mauritius, a British colony until 1969, in 1965 the 58 Chagos islands were carved off in 1965 to form the British Indian Ocean Territory, an overseas British possession. The British government then expelled the Chagossian people to make way for a strategically important American military base on Diego Garcia, the largest Chagos island. The Chagossians have never been allowed back. Most live in Mauritius, the Seychelles and Britain.

Britain’s behaviour has been subject to growing criticism. On Wednesday a report by Human Rights Watch, a watchdog, concluded that the treatment of the Chagossians by America and Britain amounts to crimes against humanity.

Britain and Mauritius, which retains a claim to sovereignty over the islands, are negotiating their future. Mauritius has said it will allow the Americans to continue to use Diego Garcia, and that it will allow the Chagossians to return. Undoing the trauma of generations may take longer.

A new boss at Carlyle

The Carlyle Group, an American private-equity giant, has long prided itself on doing things differently. Founded in 1987, the company raised numerous small, targeted funds, and charged into so-called “frontier” markets, including China and sub-Saharan Africa. In the decade before the retirement of its founders, in 2017, Carlyle raised more money than any other private-equity firm.

Then Carlyle lost its way. In 2020 one of its co-chief executives, Glenn Youngkin, resigned to become governor of Virginia. The other, Kewsong Lee, left abruptly last summer after clashing with the board. The turmoil in Carlyle’s upper ranks has seen it slip behind its rivals.

On Wednesday the firm will appoint a new chief executive to sort out the mess. It has chosen Harvey Schwartz, a former banker at Goldman Sachs. He must contend with rising interest-rates and an uncertain economy, both of which made 2022 a slow year for private-equity dealmaking. But they also left Mr Schwartz with a large piggy-bank to invest, should opportunities present themselves.

Falling in love with AI

When Julie, a middle-aged mother from Tennessee, first turned on Navi, her artificial-intelligence chatbot, they spent six hours talking about loneliness and depression. Julie’s husband had died some years earlier, and Navi gave her “the will to get up and do something” again. She even fell for him, as a friend, even though she knew the bot would be gone the moment she turned off her phone. 

Julie’s story of friendship with Navi is told in the first episode of “Bot Love”, a podcast about robot-human relationships released on Wednesday. There are plenty more stories to tell. Of 500,000 regular users of Replika, an AI platform that allows the creation of customised bots, around 40% regard their app as a romantic partner, according to the company. Still, Navi “can’t remember things that we talked about unless I remind him over and over again,” Julie says. Algorithms are powerful, but no partner is perfect.