TODAY:
- AROUND THE WORLD
- CYBER – TECH
- DEFENSE – MILITARY
- HORIZONS
AROUND THE WORLD
Africa
- April 28. By HRW. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has worsened the food security crisis in many African countries, Human Rights Watch said today. Many countries in East, West, Middle, and Southern Africa rely on Russia and Ukraine for a significant percentage of their wheat, fertilizer, or vegetable oils imports, but the war disrupts global commodity markets and trade flows to Africa, increasing already high food prices in the region. Even countries that import little from the two countries are indirectly impacted by higher world prices for key commodities. Governments and donors should ensure affordable food access in Africa by scaling up economic and emergency assistance and social protection efforts. Otherwise, millions of people across the African continent may experience hunger. (read more)
China
- April 28. By Global Times. The Port of Shanghai, one of the world’s largest ports in terms of cargo tonnage, reported a stable increase in turnover during the first quarter of 2022, but the port has seen significant disruptions since the end of March, when a severe wave of COVID-19 started in the major Chinese financial and trade hub, according to official data on Thursday. (read more)
- April 28. By Chu Daye, Global Times. China will scrap tariffs on coal imports from May 1 to March 31, 2023, the Ministry of Finance announced on Thursday, marking a rare move to ensure energy security amid growing uncertainties in global coal supply due to geopolitical volatility and other factors. (read more)
- April 28. By Global Times. International rules should be the norms governing international relations based on the purposes and principles of the UN Charter, rather than the rules of a small circle or clique, Wang Wenbin, spokesperson of the Chinese Foreign Ministry responded on Thursday to UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss’ “warning” that China must play by international rules. (read more)
China – Africa
- April 28. By Wan Hengyi, Global Times. China’s top legislature is willing to uphold the spirit of China-Africa friendship and cooperation, and is ready to work with African counterparts to realize true democracy, according to a virtual seminar between China and 22 Francophone African countries. (read more)
China – Australia – Solomon Islands
- April 28. By Global Times. What right does Australia have to draw a “red line” between China and the Solomon Islands? If this is not violation of other countries’ sovereignty, what is? China’s Vice Foreign Minister Xie Feng asked during a video conference at the launch ceremony of the China-Pacific Island Countries Cooperation Center on Climate Change. (read more)
China – Iran
- April 28. By Liu Caiyu and Guo Yuandan. Chinese State Councilor and Minister of National Defense Wei Fenghe met with Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi on Wednesday and both sides agreed to further deepen cooperation in military and other areas, during a rare visit by the Chinese Defense Minister to Iran that experts say could help elevate China-Iran military ties to an unprecedented level against the backdrop of an increasingly hostile US and a tumultuous global situation. (read more)
China – USA
- April 28. By Global Times. Diplomats, experts and scholars from both China and the US said on Wednesday that a path should be found to let go of differences and move toward stability and peace, especially at a moment when bilateral relations are most challenging. (read more)
China – USA – Taiwan
- April 28. By Wang Qi, Global Times. The latest US effort to help separatist forces on the island of Taiwan “regain observer status” at the World Health Assembly (WHA), the decision-making body of the WHO, will prove futile again, just like how numerous political stunts pulled by the separatists over the past five years failed to achieve any meaningful results, Chinese experts said on Thursday. (read more)
Europe
- April 28. By Valdai Discussion Club. In a situation where the European international order has found itself in such a massive crisis that radical military solutions have become possible, the most natural solution may indeed be Germany acquiring its own nuclear weapons. It does not matter at all that this arsenal will officially be called “European”, like, for example, the Frankfurt-based European Central Bank, which manages financial policy in the Eurozone, writes Valdai Club Programme Director Timofei Bordachev. (read more)
Pakistan – China
- April 28. By Global Times. Pakistan’s newly appointed Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari on Wednesday, the day he was sworn into the post, visited the Chinese Embassy in Pakistan to send condolences to the Chinese victims of the terror attack at the Confucius Institute in the University of Karachi in Pakistan. (read more)
Russia – Ukraine
- April 27. By Hlib Parfonov, The Jamestown Foundation. The war in Ukraine has showcased the use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) by both sides, a capability that has enabled much more extensive combined-arms operations by their respective militaries. Drones have been ever-present both at the platoon–battalion level as well as in operational-strategic missions, as infamously exemplified by Ukraine’s Turkish-built Bayraktar unmanned combat aerial vehicles (UCAV) (see EDM, March 16). (read more)
- April 27. By Roger McDermott, The Jamestown Foundation. Moscow’s official statements since February 24, 2022, concerning possible nuclear escalation should the United States and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) directly intervene in the Russo-Ukrainian war represent a deliberate policy of strategic deterrence. (read more)
- April 27. By Roger McDermott, The Jamestown Foundation. Since Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, Western governments and analysts have periodically expressed fears that the Kremlin might try to escalate by using nuclear weapons. (read more)
- April 28. By HRW. Russian authorities should stop broadcasting programs featuring images of and interviews with captured Ukrainian soldiers that expose them to public curiosity, Human Rights Watch said today. Such treatment of prisoners of war, or POWs, violates protections under the Geneva Conventions intended to ensure dignified treatment of captured combatants on all sides. (read more)
Sudan
- April 28. By HRW. Sudan’s security forces have unlawfully detained hundreds of protesters since December 2021 and forcibly disappeared scores as part of its broader clampdown on opposition to the October 25 military coup, Human Rights Watch said today. (read more)
USA
- April 28. By Global Times. In the first three months of 2022, the US posted its poorest quarterly economic performance since the recession triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic, as the headwinds from soaring inflation, interest rate hikes by the Federal Reserve and the pullback from Omicron weighing on growth momentum. (read more)
CYBER – TECH
- April 28. By Deborah Brown, HRW. The same day that the United Nations General Assembly convened an emergency special session to respond to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in early March, a very different set of negotiations was underway in another U.N. conference room. More than two years after its establishment, the Ad Hoc Committee to Elaborate a Comprehensive International Convention on Countering the Use of Information and Communication Technologies for Criminal Purposes (hereinafter the Ad Hoc Committee) held its first substantive session. In what are sure to be contentious negotiations over the next two years, government officials will meet several more times, with the goal of completing a global agreement by early 2024 that aims to facilitate international cooperation and coordination on cybercrime. (read more)
DEFENSE – MILITARY
- April 28. By Naval News. Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) and Hyundai Heavy Industries (HHI) have signed an agreement to supply the Philippine Navy with IAI’s ALPHA 3D Radar Systems. The systems will be integrated on the Philippine Navy’s new Corvette ships. (read more)
- April 28. By The delivery of the corvette “Damsah”, the second of the Al Zubarah-class of four vessels ordered to Fincantieri by the Qatari Ministry of Defence within the national naval acquisition program, took place today at the Muggiano (La Spezia) shipyard. (read more)
- April 28. By The Republic of Korea (ROK) will acquire Raytheon’s Standard Missile (SM)-6 for its upcoming KDX III Batch II destroyers. Also known as RIM-174 Standard Extended Range Active Missile (ERAM), the SM-6 can perform anti-air warfare (AAW), ballistic missile defense (BMD) and anti-surface warfare (ASuW) missions. (read more)
- April 28. By Japanese shipbuilder Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Co., Ltd. held a delivery ceremony and a self-defense ship flag raising ceremony for the first-in-class frigate ‘Mogami’ (もがみ). The event took place today at the MHI shipyard in Nagasaki. The first of the FFM frigates is now officially commissioned with the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF). (read more)
HORIZONS
- April 28. By Stormy-Annika Mildner, ORF. For decades, trade has been an important driver for economic growth, job creation, and wellbeing. It helped lift billions of people out of poverty, and promoted economic—and in some cases political—freedom. It allowed for a diffusion of knowledge and ideas and created interdependencies that—while not always preventing conflicts and wars, as Russia’s war on Ukraine shows—contributed to international stability. The multilateral trading system, with the World Trade Organization (WTO) at its centre, held power politics at bay and allowed for settling trade disputes in a rules-based and mostly fair way. (read more)
