Egyik 19

.

Europe

Greece
July 17, 2024  Greece is close to purchasing up to twenty F-35s, with deliveries starting in 2028 for training purposes. The $3.47-billion deal would include initial technical support, pilot and engineer training on the Lightning II, and simulators for ongoing training. 'Lockheed Martin expects the NATO members and other partners in Europe to have about 500 F-35s by the decade’s end'. (Source: nationalinterest)

Romania
July 17, 2024  Putin will freak: New F-35 fighters are headed to closer to Russia's doorstep. 'Lockheed Martin expects the NATO members and other partners in Europe to have' about 500 F-35s by the decade’s end. NATO member Romania is reported to be close to signing a government-to-government agreement with the United States. Bucharest has expressed interest in acquiring thirty-two F-35s in a deal worth $6.5 billion, which also includes logistics and training services, as well as flight simulators and ordnance for the aircraft. The first delivery is expected by 2030. Meanwhile, Romania has procured thirty-two second-hand F-16s from Norway, which will join seventeen it previously acquired from Portugal in 2016. Last month Bucharest indicated that it would donate a U.S.-made MIM-104 Patriot air defense system to Kyiv. It is one of five such anti-aircraft platforms that have been pledged by NATO members. (Source: nationalinterest)
by Suciu, a Michigan-based writer with over 3,200 published pieces over a twenty-year career in journalism.

European Parliament
July 17, 2024 4:31 pm CET  In a vote Wednesday, members of the European Parliament condemned Viktor Orbán’s visit to Russia at the beginning of July - as part of what he called a “peace mission” to discuss with Putin conditions that could bring an end to Russia’s war on Ukraine - passing a resolution that provided a commitment by the Parliament to maintain its support for Ukraine. Some 495 MEPs voted in favor of the pro-Ukraine resolution, with 137 voting against. Orbán’s main opponent in Hungary, Magyar, along with fellow EU lawmakers from his Respect and Freedom Party, voted against the resolution. He called the decision a punishment against Hungary in a Facebook post. Magyar, who sits as an MEP in the European People’s Party, added that his party also opposes the cordon sanitaire against Orbán’s newly formed far-right Patriots for Europe group. According to his post, he informed the head of the EPP Weber of his positions, which Weber apparently took note of. (Source: politico)

Dombass
July 17, 2024, 12:51 PM  Western media only started to have a substantial presence in Ukraine in December 2021, on the eve of the full-scale invasion. Before that, much of the reporting was done by correspondents based in Moscow, who usually spoke only Russian and were heavily exposed to Russian narratives. The Washington Post did not open a Kyiv bureau until May 2022 - and sent its former Moscow correspondent to report on Ukraine. Similarly, the New York Times only opened an office in Ukraine in July 2022, headed by the paper’s veteran Moscow correspondent, Kramer, whose coverage of the war since 2014 had outraged Ukrainians. The newspaper’s reference to Russia’s hybrid attack as a “civil war” (later corrected) and Kramer referring to Russian-occupied territories as “separatist zones” echoed Kremlin language, reminding some Ukrainians of the Times’ sordid history of misreporting genocides and Soviet atrocities. Another widespread adoption of Kremlin talking points on Ukraine was the Western media’s myopic fixation on right-wing extremism that was supposedly out of control in Ukraine - a claim that has been solidly 'debunked' but that would be used by Russian President Putin to justify his full-scale attack in 2022. Western willful ignorance was particularly evident concerning the so-called Donetsk People’s Republic and Lugansk People’s Republic. From their creation in 2014 to their end in September 2022, these were Russian proxy regimes. Yet many in the West - including governments, diplomats, academics, and journalists - treated them as statelets set up by supposed eastern Ukrainian “insurgents.” Only in January 2023 did the European Court on Human Rights put an official end to this pretense, establishing that Russia had effective control over these fake republics since the day they were created. (Source: foreignpolicy)
by Kazdobina, a senior fellow in the security studies program at Ukrainian Prism; Hedenskog and Umland, analysts at the Swedish Institute of International Affairs’ Stockholm Centre for Eastern European Studies.
A comment: "It is entirely true that the secession of the DPR and LPR was armed and managed by the Russians, but there was broad support among the population outraged by the violent overthrow of Yanukovich. This is almost a mirror image of Maidan -- a movement built on billions of dollars of U.S. funding and CIA planning and at least manipulated (Nuland-Pyatt phone call) if not managed by the U.S. - which doesn't mean there wasn't broad support for that in the West of Ukraine and in Kyiv - there was. The conflict was created by outside powers on both sides for their own purposes, using Ukrainians as instruments. That's the reality of this ugly war. It is pure propaganda (or deluded consumption of propaganda narratives) to believe that the Russians were doing it, but we were not. It's a standard Cold War playbook".

Russia
Jul 17, 2024  Detachment of Russia's Pacific Fleet warships has successfully navigated the Suez Canal, transitioning from the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea. Starting on January 22 of this year, the Pacific Fleet embarked on a long-range mission engaging in various combat drills and managing daily operational tasks at sea. During this period, the fleet made port calls in India, Sri Lanka, Iran, Qatar, and Eritrea. Leading this mission is the Varyag missile cruiser, the flagship of Russia’s Pacific Fleet. Also part of the Pacific Fleet is the “Marshal Shaposhnikov,” a frigate that has been modernized to carry Kalibr missiles - a family of Russian cruise missiles developed by the design bureau Novator, JSC Concern VKO Almaz-Antey. (Source: bulgarianmilitary)

North America

United States
July 17, 2024, 9:04 a.m. ET  Some attendees at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee are sporting makeshift ear bandages in support of almost-assassinated former President Trump - with one calling it “the newest fashion trend.” /photo/ (Source: nypost)

.4 8 15

.

Europe

Hungary
(Tuesday), 16 July 2024 20:38  Hungarian Prime Minister Orbán sent a letter to the European Council president, dated 12 July. The letter was divided into 10 points. Orbán said that one of the conclusions of his self-declared "peace mission" to Ukraine, Russia, China, Turkey and US presidential candidate Trump was that the EU should seek to restore diplomatic relations with Russia. “The chance for peace is diminished by the fact that diplomatic channels are blocked and there is no direct dialogue between the parties who have a leading role to play in creating the conditions for peace,” Orbán wrote. Orbán also wrote that he believed a ceasefire and peace talks were still achievable but added that “in the next two months, we will see more dramatic losses and military developments on the frontlines than ever before' if the war did not stop immediately. The Hungarian prime minister also stressed that Europe should take the lead in trying to negotiate peace between Russia and Ukraine, as the US becomes increasingly distracted as its presidential election approaches in November. “Political leadership provided by the United States is limited, due to the ongoing election campaign,” Orbán wrote. “Therefore we can expect no such proposal coming from the US in the coming months. We should consider - in the spirit of European strategic autonomy - launching a European initiative,” he added. Other Hungarian proposals included a “political offensive” in the Global South and possible talks with China – which has put forward its own peace proposal for the war in Ukraine and snubbed a high-level peace conference in Switzerland in June – on a possible “peace conference” attended by both Russia and Ukraine.   European Council President Michel issued a reply to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán today on his 'rogue' diplomacy over Ukraine. In his reply to Orbán, Michel said he had “taken note of your insights and suggestions” but wanted to 'set the record straight' on five key points. 'I cannot accept your claim that we have led a ‘pro-war policy,’ Michel wrote in the letter. 'We, the EU, reiterated our unwavering commitment to support Ukraine and its people for as long as it takes and as intensely as needed,' Michel wrote, stressing that the bloc’s position on Ukraine is agreed upon by consensus among all 27 EU member states. Michel said the EU’s rotating presidency has “no role in representing the Union on the international stage and received no European Council mandate to engage on behalf of the Union”. “I made this clear even prior to your visit to Moscow and this was subsequently reiterated by High Representative Borrell in his statement of 5 July,' Michel wrote. He also stressed the EU’s key policy line that 'no discussion about Ukraine can take place without Ukraine” and that the bloc has 'spared no effort to reach out to all partners in this regard, including China.” 'Lastly, the most direct way to peace is for Russia to withdraw all of its forces from Ukraine and respect Ukraine’s territorial integrity and the UN Charter,' he concluded. Michel had shared the letter with all EU member states and would inform his Ukrainian counterparts of the exchange of letters. Michel’s letter comes a day before EU ambassadors are expected to raise the issue informally tomorrow as part of preparations for next week’s meeting of EU foreign ministers. It also comes after the European Commission said yesterday that it would boycott informal ministerial meetings organised by the Hungarian EU presidency in response to the widely condemned solo diplomatic efforts. The Council’s legal service told EU envoys last week that Budapest’s actions could constitute a breach of the bloc’s treaties. So far, however, EU countries have failed to come up with concrete options for curbing Budapest’s actions beyond public displays of anger. But most EU member states are now ready to join a boycott of the Hungarian EU presidency led by Eastern and Northern European member states. (Source: euractiv)

France
16/07/2024 - 20:20  French President Macron accepted the resignation of Prime Minister Gabriel Attal today. Attal will lead a caretaker government with restricted powers until a new government is named. (Source: rfi)

European Parliament
July 16, 2024 7:59 PM GMT+2  The European Parliament's organising body will discuss how the institution will engage with Hungary while it holds the EU's rotating presidency, the head of the bloc's legislature said today. Metsola, president of the EU Parliament, said the legislature's conference of presidents - the body that oversees relations with member countries - had already discussed how to interact with Hungary in the wake of the EU criticism, and would do so again. A group of 63 European lawmakers, said today Orbán had deliberately implied he was acting on behalf of the entire EU when he visited Moscow and Beijing. "Attacks from pro-war European politicians only strengthen Hungary's resolve for its peace mission, emphasizing that peace, not war, is key to a great Europe," Hungary's Foreign Minister Szijártó said in a statement posted on X today by Orbán's spokesperson. (Source: reuters)

16/07/2024 19:49  ’Far-right’ candidates bidding to become vice-president of the European Parliament were voted down on Tuesday as part of centrist parties’ coordinated efforts to build a firewall against the radical right-wing. 'The hard-right' European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group of Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni did manage to secure two vice-presidents - one more than in the previous mandate. The two newly-formed radical ’right-wing’ groupings were blocked - neither Patriots for Europe, led by the French National Rally's Bardella, or the Europe of Sovereign Nations (ESN) of Alternative for Germany (AfD) will be represented in the European Parliament's bureau, which shapes the parliament's rules and budget. Patriots for Europe had fielded two candidates, former Frontex chief Leggeri from National Rally and Dostálová of Czechia’s ANO party, formerly part of the liberal Renew Europe group. The Europe of Sovereign Nations (ESN), had presented Polish lawmaker Zajączkowska, who hails from the Confederation party. "The fact of going against the will of the Europeans, a will democratically expressed by millions of European voters, represents a huge assumption of responsibility, as well as a lack of respect,"  Borchia, a Patriots MEP hailing from Italy's League, told. Fourteen vice-presidencies up for grabs.  (Source: euronews)
See also: 16 July 2024 "Parliament’s new Vice-Presidents elected" (Source: europarl)

Tuesday 16/07/2024  The European Parliament overwhelmingly re-elected Maltese conservative Metsola as speaker on Tuesday, in the first crunch vote on the EU’s top jobs after elections in June. "Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, who has outraged his EU counterparts by visiting Russia and China, was due to address the parliament but his speech was postponed, officially because of a busy voting schedule'. Current speaker Metsola (EPP) won another two-and-a-half-year mandate after receiving 562 votes out of the 699 MEPs who took part. The refusal of some MEPs to cooperate with the 'far-right' and von der Leyen’s fate are closely linked. A new group known as Patriots for Europe, created by Orbán and including France’s 'far-right' National Rally, is now parliament’s third-biggest faction, vying for two vice-president spots as well. That group includes controversial figures such as Italian general Vannacci, author of a book 'featuring homophobic, misogynistic and anti-migrant' remarks. Patriots MEPs could be excluded from leading parliamentary committees next week. Patriots spokesman, de Mendoza, argued that a 'cordon sanitaire' employed by mainstream political parties to block the 'far-right' was “undemocratic.” (Source: thearabweekly)

Russia
16.07.2024  "It will be impossible to resolve the conflicts that are multiplying and without getting to the root causes and restoring faith in our ability to join forces for the common good and justice for all," Lavrov said during a UN Security Council debate on "the parameters of a just world order." Lavrov accused the US of long "declaring its own exceptionalism" before adding: "This also applies to Washington's attitude towards its allies, from whom it demands unquestioning obedience, even to the detriment of their national interests." The Russian diplomat said the West is "aggressively dismantling" the global system that was originally built based on its models to contain Russia, China and other countries whose independent policies are seen as a challenge to its hegemony. "Washington has done everything to blow up, including literally, by organizing terrorist attacks on the Nord Stream gas pipelines, the foundations of mutually beneficial energy cooperation between Russia, Germany and Europe," he added. The foreign minister also accused the US of holding "the entire West at gunpoint" and expanding its trade and economic war against those it deems undesirable. He claimed it "unleashed an unprecedented campaign of unilateral, coercive measures that are hitting Europe first and are leading to a fragmentation of the world economy." (Source: aa)

Ukraine
July 16, 2024  As Ukraine and its Western allies formulate a strategy to end the war, leaders should remember what matters most in Ukraine: sovereignty. The top priority for Ukraine and its allies should be achieving terms that minimize risks to Ukraine’s sovereignty by creating a durable, sustainable peace: long-term military aid and multilateral security guarantees, Ukrainian military neutrality, and a rebuilding effort alongside economic integration with the West. 'First, long-term military aid offers the best protection for Ukrainian sovereignty. Western aid and training after the 2014 invasion were enough to prepare Ukraine to deliver a shocking failure to Russia in its 2022 assault on Kyiv. The United States and its European allies should enshrine consistent aid to Ukraine in domestic legislation.' The bilateral security deals Ukraine has negotiated with at least thirteen countries, including the recent one with the United States and the European Union’s (EU) multi-year Ukraine aid fund, are steps in the right direction. The United States should also fund Ukraine through annual appropriations, such as Foreign Military Financing and longer-term funds like the EU’s. More regularized funding at a lower “peacetime level” will also reduce domestic political disputes. Finally, the West should offer Ukraine security guarantees that are stronger than the “assurances” offered in the Budapest Memorandum. As part of that, the United States could commit to surge aid in the event of renewed Russian aggression. The United States’s existing agreement is a framework that can be built upon for a more robust set of protections. Second, Ukraine should reinstate its former neutrality. For their part, Western leaders should publicly recognize Ukraine’s neutral stance. Slow progress toward NATO membership, described as Putin’s “brightest of all red lines” by CIA Director Burns, likely has more risk than benefit for Ukrainian sovereignty. Third, Ukraine must be rebuilt. Economic prosperity will harden Ukraine against further incursions and, therefore, protect Ukrainian sovereignty post-war. Ukraine currently controls most of its major metropolitan areas and maintains access to the Black Sea, where it has resumed agricultural shipping at near pre-war levels. The fundamental ingredients to rebuilding a thriving, prosperous society are still present. A robust economy will not only enable Ukraine to build a domestic defense industry and fund a strong military but also ensure that peace is sustainable for the Ukrainian people. This will be a major reconstruction effort, potentially financed in part through investment proceeds generated from frozen Russian assets. Ukraine should also begin integrating with Western Europe, leading to eventual EU membership. Given the choice to prioritize territorial concessions or multilateral security guarantees in peace negotiations, Ukraine would be best served by making itself as strong and steady as possible. (Source: nationalinterest)
by Davidson, Piliero, and Gaber - researchers with the Applied History Project at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. They are also the authors of a recently released research paper on the history of conflict resolution and its implications for the Russia-Ukraine War.

North America

United States
July 16, 2024 6:08 pm  “We can expect no peace initiative coming from [Trump] until the elections. I can however surely state that shortly after his election victory, he will not wait until his inauguration, but will be ready to act as a peace broker immediately,” Hungarian PM Orbán wrote in his letter that was sent to European Council president Michel and other EU leaders. “He has detailed and well-founded plans for this.” A Trump-style peace deal is expected to call on Ukraine to concede much of its invaded territory to Moscow, something Kyiv and most Western capitals bitterly oppose. According to Menon, a professor of European politics at King’s College London: “It is very hard to see what the Europeans can do if Trump gets in and says to Zelensky, ‘sign this deal or I’ll stop US aid’. Ukraine could refuse to sign. But how long would it last without US support? And he could say to Putin: ‘Sign up or we’ll double the amount of weapons we send to Ukraine.’ There is a visceral reluctance among Mr Trump’s wing of the Republican Party to give any US taxpayer money to Ukraine. Fears that America’s support for Kyiv will wither if Mr Trump is elected have been heightened by the announcement Ohio Senator Vance will be his running mate. He is a staunch proponent of Trump’s “America First” vision and generally suspicious of US intervention in foreign affairs. Soon after Russia’s invasion in February 2022, Vance declared: “I gotta be honest with you, I don’t really care what happens to Ukraine one way or another.” Mr Vance led the ultimately unsuccessful attempts among the Maga section of the GOP in Congress to kill off President Biden’s latest $60bn US aid package to Ukraine. (Source: inews)

July 16, 2024, 7:44 a.m. ET  Would-be Trump assassin was spotted by cops twice 26 minutes before he rained bullets on the Pennsylvania rally crowd and wounded ex-prez. A clear picture is emerging of the exact timeline of staggering failures that enabled an armed 20-year-old man with no military training to scale a building loaded with counter-sniper team cops in broad daylight and come within a hair’s breadth of killing former President Trump. The Beaver County Emergency Services Unit - which traveled to the Butler County, Pennsylvania, Trump rally from the neighboring Pittsburgh suburb - noticed Cooks on the roof, took a picture of him and reported it around 5:45 p.m. Not only did Crooks manage to avoid being confronted despite sticking out like a sore thumb, he secured his rooftop perch right under the noses of a local police sniper team stationed inside the AGR International Inc. factory next to the Butler County Farm Fair grounds which was being used by local police as a “watch post” for snipers to scan for threats as the former president spoke onstage only 130 yards away. Cops were inside, but not on the roof, during the shooting. Crooks was able to scale the building unchallenged before firing off up to eight shots with an AR-style assault rifle, grazing Trump in the ear, killing one Trump supporter ex-fire chief and wounding two others. Law enforcement sources said it was not clear as of Monday night whether any of the local officers - who were tasked with securing the perimeter outside the rally - were able to warn Secret Service agents about the gunman. Chilling video captured at the rally illustrates the botched security operation. This includes approximately two minutes of footage that could go down in history as a low point for the Secret Service in the agency’s more than 100-year history of protecting US presidents. A multi-feed video montage assembled by MilkBarTV, which has been viewed more than 3.5 million times on X, shows the attempted assassination play out in real time using clips from several vantage points. In it, more than 120 excruciating seconds pass between rallygoers first spotting Crooks on the roof and the moment he fires his rifle. Perhaps most disturbingly, the people who saw the would-be assassin repeatedly tried to alert law enforcement patrolling nearby. In the video, the two-minute timer the videographer suddenly verbally acknowledges a nearby commotion, apparently sparked by several rally attendees noticing Crooks on the roof. “Look, they’re all pointing,” he says of the crowd’s reaction to the unusual and troubling sight. Seconds later, the camera pans and captures what appears to be a uniformed police officer making his way around the front of the plant building where the 20-year-old gunman was hiding. At this point, more onlookers are crowding around to gawk, chatting about what they saw. “Yeah, someone’s on top of the roof, look! There he is right there, see him? He’s laying down, see him?” the videographer asks. “Yeah, he’s lying down,” a woman says in response. Just before the 17-second mark, Crooks comes into frame for the first time, appearing to be lying on his right side. By 22 seconds in, the crowd nearby is becoming more interested and is gathering closer to take a look, and the scene grows noticeably more tense. Ten seconds later, the videographer points out Crooks to another male bystander, and at the 34-second mark, Crooks can be seen very clearly altering his position to rest on his stomach. At this moment, with Crooks still visible in the frame and still adjusting his position, a male voice calls out, “Officer!” An anxious-sounding woman starts giving play-by-play of what she’s witnessing, seemingly while calling out to law enforcement. “Come over here, he’s on the roof! He’s flat! Right here, he’s flat on the roof! He’s standing up now, he went flat on the roof again.” At this point, other members of the crowd can be heard calling out as well, but their voices are indistinguishable. At the 52-second mark, the montage shifts perspective to a single image of Trump, who is still speaking on stage. The video is barely one minute away from the shooting. When the timer reaches 1 minute, 15 seconds, the view switches to a split-screen, both showing Trump in real time, who calls for a chart to boast about the low illegal immigration numbers under his administration compared to President Biden’s. At a minute, 49 seconds, the camera splits into four simultaneous views - two of Trump head-on, one from behind his back, and another view of the original cameraman who noticed Crooks on the roof. A second later, a man in what appears to be an Army uniform complete with green helmet steps into frame and appears to wave at the crowd before disappearing out of frame, walking in the opposite direction of the manufacturing plant building. At the 1 minute, 55 second mark, a man screams, “He’s got a gun!” The camera grows increasingly unsteady, but it captures what appears to be a uniformed police officer walking toward the building where Crooks is lying. At 2 minutes and 1 second, three distinct shots ring out and the scene erupts into chaos. As Trump hits the deck and the Secret Service swarms him, a chorus of blood-curdling screams erupts from the crowd. At 2 minutes and 8 seconds, a series of rapid gunshots can be heard as the audience continues screaming. Then a few seconds later, a man’s voice warns, “He’s turning this way, be careful!” and a woman shrieks before one final gunshot rings out. The camera’s focus shifts back to the roof, showing Crooks, lying motionless, his body blurred out. The gunman is dead. The surreal footage echoes what several witnesses told reporters after the shooting: Some rally attendees were aware of Crooks’ presence well before he fired. One local cop from the Butler Township police did manage to get hoisted onto the roof, and came face to face with the gunman, who pointed his rifle at the officer. The Butler County sheriff defended his failure to stop Crooks, saying the cop was still pulling himself up and had to let go when faced with the weapon. Law enforcement sources who have served on presidential protection details told that Secret Service field offices where events are taking place routinely engage in a budgetary tug-of-war with purse string holders back in Washington. The field offices usually get 'a fraction' of what they ask for, the sources said. This means the agency has to depend on local law enforcement to supplement its resources, and small municipalities typically lack the resources of major cities like New York. It was “absolutely a miracle” that Trump survived the attempt on his life, which was thanks in no small part to Crooks’ poor marksmanship. /video/ (Source: nypost): https://tinyurl.com/22njc9vd

July 16, 2024 10:02 PM GMT+2  The United States received intelligence in recent weeks about an Iranian plot to assassinate former President Trump, CNN said today. The White House said there were no indications that the suspected shooter in Saturday's attempted assassination of Trump had any foreign or domestic accomplices. CNN reported that the intelligence about the Iranian plot was passed on by a human source. "These accusations are unsubstantiated and malicious.' "From the perspective of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Trump is a criminal who must be prosecuted and punished in a court of law for ordering the assassination of General Soleimani. Iran has chosen the legal path to bring him to justice," Iran's mission to the United Nations in New York said in a statement. (Source: reuters)

July 16, 2024  The foreign-born population was estimated to be 46.2 million, or almost 14% of the U.S. total, in 2022, according to the Census Bureau, including about 11 million in the country illegally. Hardly a month passes without at least one in the country illegally getting charged with a high-profile, horrific crime. ’Peer-reviewed academic studies have generally found no link between immigration and violent crime’, though conclusions vary based on the data examined. A review of academic studies from 1994 to 2014 in the Annual Review of Criminology found that the most common conclusion was “a null or nonsignificant association between immigration and crime.” A study published by the National Academy of Sciences, based on Texas Department of Public Safety data from 2012 to 2018, found people in the country illegally had “substantially lower crime rates than native-born citizens and legal immigrants across a range of felony offenses.' Texas is the only state to track crimes by immigration status. “There’s a lot of research on immigration and crime, there’s far less on undocumented immigration and crime,” said Light, an associate professor of sociology at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and co-author of the study on Texas data. The perception that immigration breeds crime “continues to falter under the weight of the evidence,’ according to a review of academic literature last year in the Annual Review of Criminology. Trump has reached the greatest political heights while linking immigration to violent crime, ’portraying the foreign-born as criminals’ - claims that immigrants are more responsible for crime than native-born Americans. “This is not coming from nowhere, says Bon Tempo, an immigration historian and associate professor at University at Albany. To the lowest month of Biden’s presidency, arrests for illegally crossing the border from Mexico plunged 29% in June - impact of a new rule to temporarily suspend asylum. Historians trace the ’unfounded’ narrative linking immigration to violent crime to at least the 1850s with the populist Know Nothing movement, also known as the American Party. (Members were required to say “I know nothing” when asked about the party.) In the 1850s German and Irish immigrants were targeted as degenerate thieves. In the 1880s the Knights of Labor reached its peak influence by associating immigrants with crime as part of an agenda for workers’ rights. Fear of crime helped produce laws in the 1880s against Chinese immigration. The undercurrent of popular belief that immigrants breed crime persisted through the 20th century and into the 21st. The high-level Dillingham Commission produced a 41-volume report in 1911 that found the government wasn’t doing enough to keep out criminal immigrants, reflecting views that other countries were sending America their worst. Johnson, a Republican newspaper editor who represented a Washington state congressional district, authored a 1924 law that severely restricted arrivals from outside Western Europe for four decades amid deep public anxiety about immigration. In 1929, Livingston Blease, a Democratic governor and U.S. senator from South Carolina who advocated lynching Blacks, spearheaded a law that made illegal entry a misdemeanor crime. The Wickersham Commission government report in 1931 noted the theory that immigration fuels crime is “almost as old as the colonies planted by Englishmen on the New England coast.” Crime has been an underlying fear even as Republican presidential candidate Buchanan spoke of an “illegal invasion” when focused on cultural issues in the 1990s. California Gov. Wilson, a Republican, dwelled on the idea that American citizens were being robbed of social services when he campaigned for a 1994 ballot measure to prohibit education and health care for people in the county illegally, which was approved by voters but largely thrown out in court. Tancredo led efforts against illegal immigration as a Republican congressman from Colorado in the 2000s, highlighting that federal prisons housed many who entered the country illegally. “They’re coming here to kill you, and you, and me, and my grandchildren,’ he said at a 2005 rally in New Hampshire. Trump launched his presidential bid in 2015 by saying Mexico is “sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.” Trump elevated the profile of MS-13, a criminal gang with roots among Salvadoran immigrants, and of “angel families” whose loved ones were killed by people in the country illegally. “For years, their pain was met with silence; their plight was met with indifference’” he told a group of victims’ families at the White House in 2018. Trump and his allies describe violent crimes committed by people in the country illegally as preventable acts, especially when an assailant had previous encounters with police in the United States. A poll in March shows the share of Americans who say that there’s a major risk that legal immigrants will commit crimes in the U.S. has increased to 32% from 19% in 2017. At last month’s presidential debate Trump was saying that “millions” from prisons, jails and mental health institutions entered the country under Biden’s watch. (Source: thestar * / The Associated Press)
* Toronto Star
by Spagat

.4 8 14

.

United States
July 14, 2024 at 8:02 a.m.; July 13, 2024  Reporters covering the rally heard five or six shots ring out and many ducked for cover, hiding under tables. After the first two or three bangs, people in the crowd looked startled, but not panicked. An AP reporter at the scene reported the noise sounded like firecrackers at first or perhaps a car backfiring. Two firefighters from nearby Steubenville, Ohio, who were at the rally told the AP that they helped people who appeared injured and heard bullets hitting broadcast speakers. “The bullets rattled around the grandstand, one hit the speaker tower and then chaos broke, Takach said. “The first thing I heard is a couple of cracks,” Sullivan said. Sullivan said he saw one of the speakers get hit and bullets rattling and, “we hit the deck.” He said once Secret Service and other authorities converged on Trump, he and Takach assisted two people who may have been shot in the grandstand and cleared a path to get them out of the way. Sullivan recalled that fluid sprayed from a mechanical line on the stage before a speaker tower started to fall. “Then we heard another shot that, you could hear, you knew something was, it was bullets. It wasn’t firecrackers,” he said. Trump flew to New Jersey after visiting a local Pennsylvania hospital, landing shortly after midnight at Newark Liberty International Airport. Video posted by an aide showed the former president deplaning his private jet flanked by U.S. Secret Service agents and heavily armed members of the agency’s counter assault team, an unusually visible show of force by his protective detail. (Source: thestar *)
* Toronto Star, a Canadian English-language daily newspaper. Headquarters Toronto, Ontario

Jul 14, 2024, 5:29 AM CEST The picture, taken by Associated Press photographer Vucci, shows a blood-covered Trump holding up his fist against a backdrop of the American flag while being shielded by Secret Service agents. Trump Jr. posted the image on X with the caption, "He'll never stop fighting to Save America." His brother, Eric, followed up by posting the same image with the caption, "This is the fighter America needs!" /photo/ (Source: businessinsider *)
* Business Insider, a multinational financial and business news website. Headquarters New York City, U.S.

Sunday 14 July 2024 at 7:12am  Conspiracy theories about the event have emerged online. (Source: itw  - United Kingdom)

Jul 14, 2024, 9:34 AM  Biden reacts to possible attempted assassination of Trump after a gunman and rally attendee are dead, and Trump was whisked away by Secret Service. “Jill and I are grateful to the Secret Service for getting him to safety. There’s no place for this kind of violence in America. We must unite as one nation to condemn it.” Biden said he has reached out to Trump but has not talked yet, but hopes to later Saturday night. (Source: mehrnews - Iran)

Jul 14, 2024 11:32 IST  The rally began at 6:02 PM (local time) with Trump taking the stage at the Butler Farm Show grounds to the strains of “God Bless the USA. He waved at the cheering crowd and began his speech under the scorching midsummer sun. Just a few minutes later, Trump was criticising the Biden administration's handling of the southern border with Mexico, pointing to a projection of a chart showing a spike in illegal migrant crossings. “That chart’s a couple of months old,” Trump told the crowd. “And if you want to see something really sad -” At that moment, gunshots rang out. Trump clutched his ear as Secret Service agents, dressed in dark suits, dashed toward him. He dropped to the ground as the agents yelled, “Get down!” After about a minute, an agent yelled that the shooter was down. Crooks had positioned himself on the roof of a building about 120 metres from the stage. The building was outside the rally's security perimeter. /photo */ (Source: indiatoday *)
* India Today, a weekly Indian English-language news magazine, based in Noida, Uttar Pradesh, India

Sunday 14 July 2024 07:00, UK  Hours after the attempt on his life, he was seen giving a brief wave as he left his plane in Newark, New Jersey. (Source: skynews)

14/07/2024 - 07:54  Law enforcement officers said they had tentatively identified a suspected shooter but did not disclose details. (Source: france24 *)
* France 24, French international news television network based in Paris, owned by the French government

Jul 14, 2024, 9:19 AM  Moments of Trump assassination attempt. Footage shows the moment when Trump was shot in the right ear during a campaign rally on Saturday. Video/ (Source: mehr *)
* The Mehr News Agency, a semi-official news agency of the government of Iran. Headquartered in Tehran

July 14, 2024 10:29 IST  Chilling photo shows bullet flying past ex-president's head after piercing his ear. The FBI said it was unaware of the suspect on the roof until the shots were fired. Ghanbari: 'A remarkable photo captured by my former White House Press Corps colleague Mills. Zoom in right above President Trump’s shoulder and you’ll see a bullet flying in the air to the right of President Trump’s head following an attempted assassination'. (Source: theweek *)
* The Week, the largest circulated English news magazine in India, based in Kochi
(/photo /  Source: x *)
* X, its former name Twitter - a social networking service, one of the world's largest social media websites
(Jul 14, 2024) 2:19 AM  10,1 M views

14.07.24, 08:02 AM  The shooting was captured live on news channels, happened. As the bullet hit his ears, the former president was seen ducking with the secret service surrounding him. He could be heard making a few comments on an audio feed from the stage. Trump said, “Let me get my shoes,” as he was escorted to the safe place. He was seen pumping his fist to the public. The shocking incident happened two days before the start of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, where Trump will formally become the party’s nominee. “I was shot with a bullet that pierced the upper part of my right ear. I knew immediately that something was wrong in that I heard a whizzing sound, shots, and immediately felt the bullet ripping through the skin. Much bleeding took place, so I realised then what was happening. God bless America!” Trump said. According to Guglielmi, spokesperson of the US Secret Service, the incident happened around 6:15 pm local time when the suspected shooter fired multiple shots toward the stage from an elevated position outside of the rally venue. “US Secret Service personnel neutralised the shooter, who is now deceased. The US Secret Service quickly responded with protective measures and Former President Trump is safe. One spectator was killed, and two spectators were critically injured,” he said Eyewitness McEvoy (50) said he thought he heard eight to 10 shots. “I saw Trump go down, but then I saw him get up and he raised his hand that he was OK,” McEvoy told. (Source: telegraphindia *)
* The Telegraph, an Indian English daily newspaper. Headquarters Kolkata, West Bengal, India

Sunday 14 July 2024 01:44, UK  Gunshots reportedly fired at Trump rally - as former president rushed off stage. Trump was giving a speech in Pennsylvania when he fell to the ground. /(/video/ (Source: news.sky *)
* Sky News, a British television news channel. Headquarters London, United Kingdom

Sun 14 Jul 2024 at 9:05am; Sun 14 Jul 2024 at 12:21am  Trump has survived a shooting at a campaign rally in Butler, in western Pennsylvania, saying afterwards a bullet pierced his ear before Secret Service agents rushed him offstage. Screams tore through the crowd and Mr Trump grabbed at the side of his face and ducked behind a riser during the shooting. An attendee was killed and two others were critically injured. The shooter, who was on the roof of a nearby building, who the FBI named as 20-year-old Crooks was also killed. Mr Trump was taken away, with his fist in the air and blood on his face, during the incident. Trump has thanked Secret Service agents who rushed him off stage during a shooting at a campaign rally. "I want to thank The United States Secret Service, and all of law enforcement, for their rapid response on the shooting that just took place in Butler, Pennsylvania. Most importantly, I want to extend my condolences to the family of the person at the rally who was killed, and also to the family of another person that was badly injured. It is incredible that such an act can take place in our country. Nothing is known at this time about the shooter, who is now dead. I was shot with a bullet that pierced the upper part of my right ear. I knew immediately that something was wrong in that I heard a whizzing sound, shots, and immediately felt the bullet ripping through the skin. Much bleeding took place, so I realised then what was happening. GOD BLESS AMERICA!" The Trump campaign released a statement shortly after the shooting that said he was 'fine". There was no reason to believe there was any ongoing threat, Pennsylvania State Police Lieutenant Colonel Bivens said. "We are absolutely not taking for granted that this was a lone wolf attack," he said. Earlier, the local county district attorney, Goldinger, told America's ABC News the shooter had been on the roof of an adjacent venue, so did not go through security screening. In an earlier statement, the Secret Service said 'multiple shots were fired from an elevated position outside of the rally venue'. "US Secret Service personnel neutralised the shooter, who is now dead," it said. Republican congressman Jackson said his nephew was wounded at the rally. 'He was grazed in the neck. A bullet crossed his neck, cut his neck and he was bleeding,' he told Fox News. "I was behind the former president, so I didn't see what happened", Mr Brzozowski described the scene. He said he saw police and paramedics attending to a man, dressed in a shirt displaying an American flag, who was lying on the ground. "I don't know if it was a shooter or somebody who got shot," he said. "All I saw was he was holding his stomach when the other two paramedics or cops were attending to him." Republican congressman Scalise, who survived a shooting in 2017, blamed Democrat leaders for 'fuelling ludicrous hysteria that Trump winning re-election would be the end of democracy in America'. Australia's ambassador to the US, Rudd, said it was a relief Mr Trump was safe. "All Australians are shocked by the attack on former president Trump at his campaign rally this evening in Pennsylvania," he said. Mr Trump is due to be endorsed as the Republicans' presidential candidate at the party's national convention in Milwaukee, which begins on Monday. The rally in Butler was the last one scheduled before the convention. The convention will go ahead as planned. /photo/ (Source: abc.net *)
* The Australian Broadcasting Corporation, the national broadcaster of Australia. Headquarters Sydney
by Hosier in Butler, Pennsylvani

July 14, 2024, Sunday // 01:59  "And then the worst president in the history of our country took over. And look what happened to our country. Probably 20 million people [came in illegally]. And, you know, that's a little bit old, that chart... that chart's a couple of months old. And if you want to really see something that sad, take a look at what happened over..." Trump said before the gunfire erupted. The former president had just started energizing the crowd when up to five shots were fired, causing him to go down, immediately surrounded by Secret Service agents. (Source: novinite *)
* Novinite (Sofia News Agency), Bulgaria's largest English-language news provider through its news website.

July 14, 2024 07:40 JST; Updated on July 14, 2024 20:20 JST  Secret Service spokesperson Guglielmi released a statement saying that the case is an active investigation. He said that at about 6:15 p.m., 'a suspected shooter fired multiple shots toward the stage from an elevated position outside of the rally venue.' At least two initial shots can be heard on audio of the incident. In the video footage, Trump holds his ear and crouches under the podium on his own volition. Secret Service members are heard shouting "duck, duck, duck, duck." Trump is heard saying to the Secret Service, "Let me get my shoes." Trump is leading in all seven of the most contested battleground states, according to the poll average compiled by political website Real Clear Politics. Incumbent President Biden has struggled to convince fellow Democrats that he is the best candidate to beat Trump, after a poor performance at the June 27 presidential debate. About an hour and a half after the incident, Biden released a statement. Tesla CEO Musk gave his endorsement to Trump shortly after the shooting, writing on X. World leaders - Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Philippine President Marcos Jr., South Korean President Yeol condemned the shooting with statements on social media. The Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson said China was "following the incident" and that Chinese President Xi had "expressed his sympathies." (Source: asia.nikkei *)
* The Nikkei, a national daily newspapers in Japan, the world's largest financial newspaper. Headquarters Tokyo, Japan.

14 Jul, 2024 10:34 am  A GoFundMe page for donations to support those wounded or the families of those killed in the rally has raised more than USD$170,000. The page was organized by the Trump campaign's national finance direct O'Rourke. "President Trump as authorized this account as a place for donations to the supporters and families wounded or killed in today’s brutal and horrific assassination attempt. "All donations will be directed to these proud Americans as they grieve and recover. May God bless and unite our nation." More than 2000 donations have been made since it was set up.      The Federal Aviation Administration has said the airspace over Bethel Park, where the shooter was from, was closed "effective immediately" for security reasons. The three spectators who were shot, including the one who was killed and two who were critically injured, were adult men. There were no police hit by gunfire. Pennsylvania Democratic Governor Shapiro said that he was also briefed on the situation and that state police were at the site. 'The central premise of the Biden campaign is that President Trump is an authoritarian fascist who must be stopped at all costs,' Vance wrote. “That rhetoric led directly to President Trump’s attempted assassination.' Representative Collins (R-Ga.) went further: “Biden sent the orders,' he wrote on X, formerly Twitter. There is no evidence that Biden was behind the attack. (Source: nzherald *)
* The New Zealand Herald, a daily newspaper of record for New Zealand. Headquarters Auckland

.

Europe

Hungary
July 15, 2024 2:47 PM  Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has sent a letter to the heads of other European Union countries briefing them on a recent set of foreign visits he made. Orbán's unannounced meetings, which included a visit with former U.S. President Trump at his Mar-a-Lago estate last week, have led some governments to consider boycotting or limiting participation in a series of upcoming informal meetings in Budapest related to the rotating EU presidency. Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said last week that ministers from his country, along with Finland and the Baltic countries, would not participate in such meetings this summer, while other reports suggest a planned summit of foreign ministers in Budapest in late August could be disrupted by an EU-wide boycott. (Source: voanews *)
* Voice of America, the international radio broadcaster of the United States of America. Headquarters Washington, D.C., United States

Estonia
July 15, 2024  Estonian PM Kallas resigned as Estonia's prime minister today. The former Estonian PM is ’determined’ to drive the bloc's Russia policy - but does she lack vision on other issues? Kallas had been considered for the post of NATO secretary general until a few months ago. She has suggested joint borrowing by the EU to fund the expansion of defense capabilities. Reports suggest Kallas may have raised it in February in Hamburg with Chancellor Olaf Scholz. While France's President Macron has backed the idea, it will be harder for she to convince fiscally prudent states like Germany. Kallas was a lead candidate in the race to replace Stoltenberg. There were concerns that handing the top security job to a Baltic leader was too strong a message for Russian President Putin. Kallas’ reputation as a Russia hawk scuttled her chances. The possibility of a change in US leadership and calculations over who could best deal with Trump should he win the November presidential election was also an issue. Kallas endorsed Mark Rutte as the next NATO boss. The outgoing Dutch PM took the job. Observers suspected Kallas’ nonchalant exit was part of an agreement that paved the way for her for position of the EU high representative for foreign policy. She was nominated 'at a post-election EU summit' in June. Kallas personally hasn't been vocal about foreign policy questions other than Russia, Arjakas, a fellow at the International Centre for Defence and Security, a think tank in Tallinn, Estonia, said. Her top priority as the EU's chief diplomat ’will be’ ensuring that Europeans are prepared to prevent future Russian advances. Kallas comes from a small state, so it's very natural 'for her to lay strong emphasis on a rules-based order where international agreements are valid and norms respected'. While that approach may work in the context of the threat Russia poses to smaller Baltic states, her bigger challenge 'will be' defining her foreign policy’s controversial when it comes to conflicts in other areas, such as dealing with Iran, China, and the Middle East. There are already concerns over potential turf wars within the bloc and whether Kallas’ focus on Russia might steal the thunder of incoming NATO chief Rutte. In May, Estonia voted in favor of a United Nations General Assembly resolution upgrading Palestinian status from that of an observer to full membership. Little was known about Kallas in Tel Aviv. Estonia's vote had been noted. Among feminists, there is a debate about whether a feminist foreign policy merely encourages the inclusion of women in positions of power, fights for their rights through diplomatic tools and pushes for allocation of more resources or goes beyond that to fundamentally prioritize human security over national security. Towns, professor of political science at Sweden's University of Gothenburg, said many feminists reject the idea that "there is inherent tension between feminist foreign policy and security policy," adding: ’Kallas would fall in that same tradition.’ (Source: dw *)
* Deutsche Welle, the German public, state-owned international broadcaster, headquartered in Bonn

Finland
15 July 2024  Finnish Customs seize major cocaine shipment when Customs officials stopped a vehicle with foreign plates at the Port of Naantali. The 15-kilogram haul, discovered in the car arriving on a ferry from Sweden driven by a Denmark resident, has an estimated street value exceeding 2.25 million euros. "This is one of the largest narcotics seizures at the Turku area ports," Customs’ lead investigator Kaunisto stated. Preliminary investigations suggest the cocaine was concealed in the vehicle elsewhere in Europe before being transported through Denmark and Sweden to Finland.  A Romanian national has been detained and remains in custody as the investigation continues. (Source: helsinktimes *)
* Helsinki Times, English-language daily online newspaper in Finland. Headquarters Helsinki

European Commission
15/07/2024 20:40  Budapest insists both trips, which Orbán advertised as chapters of a so-called "peace mission," were strictly done under bilateral diplomacy. But the timing of the international tour, the selection of countries and the use of the Hungarian presidency's official logo fuelled harsh accusations of abuse of power and disloyalty. Separately, Orbán participated in an informal summit of the Organisation of Turkic States, which includes the "Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus" that only Turkey recognises, prompting fresh condemnation. Speculation about a coordinated boycott has been rife in Brussels since then, with one diplomat telling the plan was to 'make Orbán less visible.' The Commission's decision, taken by President von der Leyen, confirms the rumours: Brussels will not engage at the highest level in the many events that Budapest plans to host until the end of the year. The boycott comes as a group of 63 MEPs, led by Estonia's Terras, send a letter demanding Hungary be stripped of its voting rights under the Article 7 procedure as retaliation for Orbán's 'abuses of power.' "This kind of behavior amounts to usurping the powers and prerogatives of the EU Member States in the field of foreign policy,' the lawmakers write in the letter, addressed to Presidents von der Leyen, Michel and Metsola. (Source: euronews *)
* Euronews, a European television news network. Headquartered in Lyon, France

(15 July 2024) 20:35  Formal meetings, which take normally place in Brussels and Luxembourg, will not be affected as their organisation does not depend on the rotating presidency. The traditional European Commission College visit to the country would be cancelled, Mamer said. The step also follows a decision by Sweden, Finland, Poland, and three Baltic states – Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania – to skip the informal meetings during Hungary’s presidency. The only response so far has been EU member states downgrading their ministerial representation at some of the informal ministerials that have taken place over the course of the past week. An industrial policy meeting hosted in Budapest saw only seven ministers from EU countries showing up and no Commissioner responsible for the file attended. The plans have been floated informally among several EU member states, including France and Germany. The European Commission “cannot cherry-pick institutions [and member states] it wants to cooperate with,” Hungary’s European affairs minister Bóka said. “Are all Commission decisions now based on political considerations?” he asked. (Source: euractiv *)
* Euractiv, a European news website. Headquarters in Brussels, Belgium.

July 15, 2024 7:43 PM CET  The European Commission has asked its commissioners not to attend informal ministers’ meetings during the Hungarian Presidency of the Council of the EU. Hungary took over the rotating EU presidency from Belgium in June. Since then, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has undertaken self-declared “peace missions” to Kyiv, Moscow, Beijing and Washington and 'claimed, without authorization, to be representing the European Union'. The Council’s legal service has told EU ambassadors this breaches EU treaties. EU leaders have been fuming about Hungary’s 'rogue' presidency;) One of their responses is to send lower ranking civil servants instead of ministers to the informal ministers’ meetings Hungary is organizing in Budapest. For example, 'the bloc’s foreign affairs ministers are set to snub Hungary by organizing their own foreign affairs summit' in August instead of traveling to Budapest for Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s event. The European Commission is now set to follow a similar route. Mamer, "the chief spokesperson of the European Commission, confirmed the decision to only send senior civil servants to Hungary’s meetings'. (Source: politico - U.S.)

Europe
July 15, 2024 7:07 PM CET  ’Europe’s populists’ use Trump shooting to slam the left from Spain to Serbia. Belgian 'far-right' leader Van Grieken accused the media of “dehumanizing” and “demonizing” Trump, and seemed to draw a parallel between Trump and murdered 'far-right' Dutch politician Fortuyn. France’s ’far-right’ leader Le Pen, who last week compared the left-wing New Popular Front alliance to the Jan. 6 rioters who stormed the U.S. Capitol in Washington in 2021, said the attempted assassination was “a warning for all of us,” adding that “France is not safe from this violence.” In Italy, Deputy Prime Minister Salvini blamed the shooting on “certain violent tones of the left.” “It happened in the USA, it also happened in Italy against Berlusconi,” he said, referring to an assault on former Italian Prime Minister in 2009 that left him bloodied. The Netherlands’ Wilders, who leads the Dutch ruling-coalition 'far-right' Freedom Party, said “the hate rhetoric from many leftish politicians and media, who label right-wing politicians as racists and Nazis, ”amounts to “playing with fire.” Some European political figures alluded to a malevolent global plot, casting the media and left-wing parties as co-conspirators. Elsewhere, the shooting was turned into a rallying cry. Serbian President Vučić described Trump’s survival as a “miracle” and called for “the libertarian forces of the world to rise up.” “This is all the madness of the demonization that they carry out every day in which there is only one acceptable truth and no one has the right to a different opinion,” he told yesterday. Serbian Deputy Prime Minister Vulin said the shooting was “an expression of permitted and encouraged hatred” and warned that Vučić’s life was also at risk. Hours after the deadly incident, Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico - who survived an attempt on his own life in May - hit out at Trump’s “political opponents” for fomenting hatred against him. The former American leader’s critics “are trying to shut him down and when they don’t succeed, they piss off the public so much that some loser picks up a gun,” Fico wrote in a post. Reform UK leader Farage said he was “upset” but “not shocked” by the attack. “The narrative that is put out there about Trump by these liberals that oppose him is so nasty, so unpleasant, and I think it almost encourages this type of behavior,” he said. Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez condemned the attack within hours of its occurrence. The leader of Spain’s 'far-right' Vox party, the third-largest force in the country’s parliament, said the attempt on Trump’s life had been orchestrated by “the globalist left that is spreading hatred, ruin and war.” Abascal accused Spain’s left-wing coalition government of being allied with that same globalist cabal, adding that Spain’s leaders were likely “regretting that the murderer has failed.”  (Source: politico  - U.S.)

Asia

China
July 15, 2024 11:44 AM PT  T-shirts with image of Trump raising his fist after assassination attempt on sale in China for as little as $4 on China’s e-commerce platforms. (Source: latimes *)
* Los Angeles Times, a regional American daily newspaper. Headquarters El Segundo, California

North America

United States
July 15, 2024, 12:44 p.m. ET  Biden finally grants Secret Service protection to RFK Jr after Trump assassination attempt, months of resistance. Hours earlier, former President Trump demanded that Kennedy receive Secret Service protection, calling it the “right thing to do.” “In light of what is going on in the world today, I believe it is imperative that Kennedy Jr. receive Secret Service protection - immediately,” the 78-year-old former president wrote on Truth Social. “Given the history of the Kennedy Family, this is the obvious right thing to do!” he added. The Secret Service is authorized to protect major presidential and vice presidential candidates, identified as such by the secretary of Homeland Security, within 120 days of a presidential election. (Source: nypost *)
* New York Post, an American daily newspaper. Headquarters New York City, United States

07/15/2024, 3:59PM ET  Former President Trump met this morning in Milwaukee with Kennedy Jr. to discuss the possibility of the independent candidate endorsing the Republican nomine. Kennedy denied that he plans to drop out of the race. (Source: politico *)
* Politico, an American political digital newspaper. Headquarters Arlington County, Virginia, U.S.

22:10 BST, 15 July 2024  Trump picks Ohio senator Vance as running mate opting for a MAGA favorite in last-minute decision. Trump made his announcement on Truth Social, dropping it just as delegates were rubber stamping his nomination as presidential candidate at their convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The former venture capitalist and U.S. Marine had initially been critical of Trump. Since then he become personally close with the former president and his son Trump Jr. His feisty appearances on Fox News impressed Trump, as has his recent weight loss. Insiders said the two other 'finalists' were Sen. Rubio of Florida and Gov. Burgum of North Dakota. After the announcement, Don Jr. paid tribute to 'incredible patriots' Burgum and Rubio. 'Biden is stuck with the worst VP in the history of our nation,' he posted on X. 'President Trump has one of the most dynamic, young leaders in the country in JD Vance. (Source: dailymail *)
* The Daily Mail, a British daily, middle-market tabloid newspaper. Headquarters London, United Kingdom

NATO

15 July 2024, 4:00pm  Sober analysis of the Washington summit’s positives and shortcomings was overshadowed by feverish discussion on whether Biden is mentally fit to stand for re-election. The return of Trump is no longer unimaginable. Although the summit took steps to try to mollify Trump by spelling out European budget contributions, burden-sharing arrangements for Ukraine, and appointing a new secretary general with solid personal relations with the former president, Trump’s campaign rhetoric has made clear that he still sees Nato as a financial burden on the US rather than a net positive for US national security. In 1948, Labour foreign secretary Bevin set out his vision for a new trans-Atlantic alliance to protect against the Russian threat and bind the US to the defence of Europe. It has been assumed ever since that the United States will always ensure that Europe remains whole and free. The rise of China, a steady US drift away from Europe over the last 30 years, and Americans questioning why 750 million Europeans rely so heavily on a country of 330 million for their protection all challenge this assumption. Trump exemplifies this drift but is not its progenitor; President Obama also spoke of freeloaders and led the US pivot to Asia. Biden’s Atlanticism is out of sync with mainstream political thought in Washington. Although Trump is unlikely to leave Nato, those around him have been sketching out a ‘radical reorientation" in which Washington takes a back seat to Europe – and cuts a deal with Putin over Ukraine, severely weakening European security. At this time of potential turbulence, European leaders must ‘stop moaning and whining and nagging about Trump’ as the new Secretary General Rutte put it in February, and get cracking. 'First, all should ensure national defence spending meets at least 2 per cent of GDP to meet their Nato obligation. Sweden has shown what is possible when there is political will, moving from 1.3 per cent to 2 per cent in two years. Work to strengthen the European pillar of Nato should also be defined and accelerated. This was encouraged at Washington but words must be turned into action. Labour’s proposed but still vague UK-EU defence and security pact can be a crucial part of this. Lastly, in the face of the Russian threat and possible return of Trump, Starmer should show the same strategic grip as Bevin and set out a clear timeline for the UK spending 2.5 per cent of our GDP on defence now, and not meekly hide behind the bureaucratic process of his Strategic Defence Review, which will come at some stage next year. This increase in defence spending will demonstrate UK leadership within Europe, encourage European laggards to display similar political solidarity, and address US rancour about freeloaders'. (Source: spectator *)
* United Kingdom

Globalization

13:33 ET, Mon, Jul 15, 2024  Speaking at VivaTech in Paris, France a worldwide summit for technological start-ups, Musk was asked by an event host if he was an alien. The 52-year-old entrepreneur laughed and responded: "I am an alien yes, I keep telling people I'm an alien. But nobody believes me." Musk also issued a warning about artificial intelligence (AI), stating it posed a more immediate problem than extraterrestrials for humans. He predicted that AI would eventually replace all jobs on Earth, making employment optional and transforming jobs into hobbies as AI and robots would provide all necessary goods and services. He cautioned that these AI systems need to be carefully trained to prioritize honesty over political correctness to prevent the spread of misinformation. He mused that human probes might one day discover "remains of long-dead alien civilisations". He noted that none of SpaceX's missions to low Earth orbit, which have launched 6,000 satellites, have encountered any signs of extraterrestrial life or unidentified flying objects. (Source: express *)
* The Daily Express, a national daily newspaper. Headquarters London, United Kingdom

.

.

Europe

Russia
14.07.2024  Russia 'strongly' condemns assassination attempt on former US President Trump. Peskov argued that the current administration in the US tends to resolve all issues, especially global matters, through the use of force. "No one is trying to seek a compromise. This includes economic pressure, sanctions that the US administration is very fond of, political pressure, or direct use of force, including military power,' he alleged. Referring to the attempted assassination of Trump, Peskov emphasized that violence is now being directed inward within the country. Peskov emphasized that they do not believe the current administration orchestrated the assassination attempt on Trump. He did, however, claim that the political climate created by the administration fueled such violence. "After numerous attempts to politically discredit and undermine candidate Trump using legal means, courts, and prosecutors, it is clear to all external observers that Trump's life is now in danger," he said. "We offer our condolences to the families of those who lost their lives in this attack and wish a speedy recovery to the injured," he added. (Source: aa *)
* Anadolu Agency, a state-run news agency headquartered in Ankara, Turkey.

15:31, Sun, Jul 14, 2024  Russia today accused the US of bankrolling a bid to assassinate Putin. There were loyalist calls for the dictator to halt foreign trips because of a supposed risk to him from the security services of America, Britain and Ukraine. The Russian foreign ministry bluntly alleged Ukraine was working on plots to strike Putin funded by the US. This followed quotes from the head of Kyiv’s military intelligence agency - the GRU - that there had indeed been unspecified failed attempts to assassinate Putin. 'They [assassination attempts] were made, but, as you can see, they were unsuccessful so far,' said Lt-Gen Budanov. Zakharova took this as evidence Kyiv was directly working on the assassination of 71-year-old Putin This was “prepared” with “American money” which had also funded the Ukrainian government and intelligence services, she said. Meanwhile, there are claims that a hushed-up explosion on March 13, 2024, in Moscow may have been linked to an attempt on Putin’s life. Telegram channel VChK-OGPU alleged that Chilikov - far from being a victim as was first believed - was a 'saboteur' who built an explosive device which detonated because he wrongly handled it. Chilikova was seriously wounded with limbs torn off. He had been due to have access to a major economic forum in St Petersburg attended by Putin, said the channel. (Source: express *)
* The Daily Express, a national daily newspaper. Headquarters London, United Kingdom

Asia

China
July 14, 2024 1:15 PM  China and Russia's naval forces kicked off a joint exercise Sunday at a military port in southern China. The exercise, which began in Guangdong province Sunday and is expected to last until mid-July, aimed to demonstrate the capabilities of the navies in addressing security threats (Source: voanews * "by Associated Press))
* Voice of America, the international radio broadcaster of the United States of America. Headquarters Washington, D.C., United States

Gaza
July 14, 2024 | 08:37 AM  An Israeli air strike killed at least 91 Palestinians and 300 injured in the designated humanitarian zone Al Mawasi in Gaza yesterday. It is a designated humanitarian area that the Israeli army has repeatedly urged Palestinians to head to after issuing evacuation orders from other areas. Many of those wounded in the strike were taken to the nearby Nasser Hospital, which hospital officials said had been overwhelmed and was 'no longer able to function' due to the intensity of the Israeli offensive and an acute shortage of medical supplies. The Israeli military said the strike targeted Hamas military chief Deif and Salama, the commander of Hamas’ Khan Younis Brigade. The Palestinian resistance movement Hamas said Israeli claims it had targeted leaders of the group were false and aimed at justifying the attack, which was the deadliest Israeli attack in Gaza in weeks. Separately, at least 20 Palestinians were killed yesterday in an Israeli attack on a prayer hall at a Gaza camp for displaced people in west Gaza City. (Source: gulf-times *)
* Gulf Times, one of three English language newspapers in the country. Headquarters Doha, Qatar

North America

United States
July 14, 2024  The attempted assassination of former President Trump has heightened concerns in Congress about member security, with some lawmakers even cancelling events and closing their offices in response. House Republicans are set to receive a security briefing from the House-sergeant-at-arms today afternoon. House Democrats will receive their own briefing tomorrow afternoon. Senior Democratic congressional staff will also receive a security briefing today. (Source: axios *)
* Axios, an American news website based in Arlington, Virginia.

Jul 14, 2024  Media reports said the shooter had fired as many as eight shots, while a photograph by The New York Times’ Mills appeared to show the streak of a bullet cutting through the air near Trump’s head - an indication of just how close of a call this was for the former president. At the news conference, the Secret Service was conspicuously absent, leaving the FBI and Pennsylvania police to brief reporters. Secret Service Director Cheatle's whereabouts were not immediately clear. The shooting came just over two years after Japan was rocked by the shocking assassination of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and more than a year after a pipe bomb was thrown at Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, who escaped without injury. Kishida condemned the Trump rally shooting in a post on X. “We must stand firm against any form of violence that challenges democracy,” he wrote. “I pray for former President Trump’s speedy recovery." (Source: japantimes)

July 14, 2024  Conspiracy theories began doing rounds on social media. Netizens were pushing unverified or unsupported claims on X. "Staged” became the second-highest trending topic with over 228,000 posts on the platform using the word. Posts suggesting that the shooting was staged were viewed several millions of times on X, while the same sentiments were echoed in Meta's Instagram and Threads, though to much smaller audiences. Another topic that went trending on X was "Antifa" after social media posts misidentified the gunman responsible for today’s shooting. The posts blamed a 'prominent Antifa activist' Violets for the shooting. One account went overboard with a photo of a man in sunglasses and a black hat from a video posted to YouTube before the attack in which the man claimed "justice was coming." The man, Violi, was actually an Italian YouTuber who vlogs about football. Violi had to clarify that the news was fake. "I am in Italy, I am in Rome and I had no idea what happened". (Source: theweek)

July 14, 2024  Just moments after being grazed in the ear by a bullet at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday, Trump was on his feet again, blood streaming down the side of his face, pumping his fist and urging his supporters to “fight!” The photo of that moment is already an icon of our time. And experts say that surviving the assassination attempt in such a dramatic fashion can only help Trump in the election, by drawing a stark contrast with the visibly aging Biden, and complicating the Democrats’ case that Trumphimself is a unique threat to American democracy.    Former president Roosevelt was shot in the chest while campaigning for an unprecedented third term in the 1912 election. A delusional German immigrant named Schrank had pulled the trigger, he said, to avenge the ghost of former president McKinley, whose own assassination had paved the way for Roosevelt, McKinley’s veep, to first take the top job ten years earlier. The bullet was slowed down by Roosevelt’s eyeglasses case and a copy of his speech, which he continued to give. “I don't know whether you fully understand that I have just been shot,” he said to the stunned crowd, “but it takes more than that to kill a Bull Moose!” Roosevelt managed to win more votes than sitting president Taft – their rivalry had in fact split the Republican party in two – they were both bested by the Democrats’ Wilson.    In March 1981, President Reagan was shot by Hinckley Jr. after leaving a speech in Washington, DC. Reagan survived and was back on the job within two weeks. Hinckley was mentally ill and wanted simply to catch the attention of famous actress Foster. Reagan's approval ratings did surge by eight points to nearly 70% in the aftermath of the shooting. But economic gloom would pull them down by more than 40 points later in the year. Still, he had more than three full years to bounce back ahead of the 1984 election, which he won in a landslide.    Will Trump be better able to parlay a failed assassination into a successful re-election? Unlike Reagan, he faces voters in less than four months, meaning that any sympathy bump he gets could last long enough to help on election day. Unlike Roosevelt, he has his entire party behind him - against an opponent whose own candidacy remains in doubt. But much will depend on what we learn about the identity and motivations of the shooter. And of course, four months is still an eternity in today’s news cycle. Before long, the “fight!” that Trump is in could still look very different. /photo/ (Source: gzeromedia *)
* GZERO Media, the digital media company launched by "Eurasia Group"

July 14, 2024  An Associated Press (AP) analysis of more than a dozen videos and photos from the scene of the Trump rally, as well as satellite imagery of the site, shows the shooter was able to get astonishingly close to the stage where the former president was speaking. A video posted to social media and geolocated by the AP shows the body of a person wearing gray camouflage lying motionless on the roof of a building at AGR International Inc., a manufacturing plant just north of the Butler Farm Show grounds where Trump’s rally was held. The roof where the person lay was less than 150 meters from where Trump was speaking, a distance from which a decent marksman could reasonably hit a human-sized target. For reference, 150 meters is a distance at which U.S. Army recruits must hit a scaled human-sized silhouette to qualify with the M-16 rifle. The AR-15, like the shooter at the Trump rally had, is the semi-automatic civilian version of the military M-16. Trump was showing off a chart of border crossing numbers when the gunfire began after 6:10 p.m. Witnesses heard multiple gunshots and ducked for cover. As the first pop rang out, Trump said, “Oh,” and the raised his hand to his right ear and looked at it, before quickly crouching to the ground behind his lectern. The people in the stands behind him also crouched down as screams rang through the crowd. Reporters covering the rally heard five or six shots ring out and many ducked for cover, hiding under tables. After the first two or three bangs, people in the crowd looked startled, but not panicked. The attack drew new attention to concerns about political violence in a deeply polarized U.S. less than four months before the presidential election. And it could alter the tenor and security posture at the Republican National Convention, which will begin Monday in Milwaukee. Organizers said the convention would proceed as planned. Trump flew to New Jersey after visiting a local Pennsylvania hospital, landing shortly after midnight at Newark Liberty International Airport. Video posted by an aide showed the former president deplaning his private jet flanked by U.S. Secret Service agents and heavily armed members of the agency’s counter assault team - an unusually visible show of force by his protective detail. President Biden, who is running against Trump, was briefed on the incident and spoke to Trump several hours after the shooting, the White House said. Many Republicans quickly blamed the violence on Biden and his allies, arguing that sustained attacks on Trump as a threat to democracy have created a toxic environment. They pointed in particular to a comment Biden made to donors on July 8, saying “it’s time to put Trump in the bullseye.” /video/ (Source: africanews * "with AP **"): https://tinyurl.com/mpvz3dec
* Africanews, a pan-African news network located in Lyon, France
.** Associated Press, an American news agency headquartered in New York City, U.S.

14 July 2024  The Secret Service is facing questions after former US President Trump was shot at during a rally in Pennsylvania. Trump was quickly bundled off stage and into a waiting vehicle after shots were fired just a few minutes into his speech at 18:11 local time on Saturday. Trump is now "doing well". One bystander was killed in the shooting, and the two others critically injured, were all male. Their identities have not been released. The Director of the Secret Service, Cheatle, has been summoned to testify before the US House of Representatives on 22 July by the Oversight Committee - the main investigative board of the US House of Representatives. At a news conference on Sunday, FBI special agent Rojek said it was "surprising" that the shooter, who has been named as 20-year-old Crooks, was able to open fire before the Secret Service killed him. An investigation into the attempted assassination, which is already under way, involves the FBI, the Secret Service and the Department of Homeland Security. Law enforcement sources told CBS News that Crooks had been armed with "an AR-style rifle' and 'had fired from a building a few hundred metres from the venue'. At here are questions about how prepared the Secret Service was. Bystanders who spoke to the BBC suggested the gunshots may have come from a one-storey building to the right of the stage where Trump was speaking. One witness - Greg - told that he had spotted a suspicious-looking person "bear crawling" on the roof of the building about five minutes after Trump took to the stage. He said he pointed the person out to police. "He had a rifle, we could clearly see him with a rifle," he said. "We’re pointing at him, the police are down there running around on the ground – we’re like ‘hey man there’s a guy on the roof with a rifle’ and the police did not know what was going on." "Certainly Trump needs more protection - there’s a lot of inquiry now about whether the Secret Service was totally prepared," Mr Moore, senior adviser to Trump's campaign said. However, FBI spokesperson, Mr Guglielmi says there is an "untrue assertion" circulating that someone on Trump's security team had requested extra security "resources" and that request was "rebuffed". "This is absolutely false. In fact, we added protective resources and technology and capabilities as part of the increased campaign travel tempo," Mr Guglielmi said. Warren and Debbie were at the venue and told the BBC they heard at least four gunshots. Republican Congressman Jackson told the BBC that his nephew was injured in the shooting. He sustained a minor wound to his neck and was treated at the scene, Mr Jackson said in a statement. Some had speculated that Trump had been set to reveal his running mate at the Butler rally. Senator Vance, who is thought to be on the shortlist to become Trump’s vice-presidential candidate, said the rhetoric from the Biden campaign had led directly to this incident. Collins - a Republican congressman - accused the president of “inciting an assassination”. (Source: bbc *)
* British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), the oldest and largest local and global British public service broadcaster, founded in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company. Headquartered in London, England.

July 14, 2024  AP photographer Vucci recounts the moment shots were fired, his experience from the rally with Trump. /video; photo/ (Source: youtube */ Associated Press): https://tinyurl.com/4rrhwy25
* YouTube, an American online video sharing platform owned by Google. Headquarters San Bruno, California, United States
9 128 views; 66 comments on July 14, 2024

Jul 14, 2024  Just before the shots rang out, some in the crowd said, it seemed as if law enforcement snipers who were perched atop a barn had noticed movement nearby. The snipers seemed to be focusing on something off to the side of the grandstand in the direction of a building and a water tower just outside the farm show grounds. "I saw them with their binoculars,” said Cyrus, 54, who had come over from New Castle, Pennsylvania. "Then they got their guns.” Once the shooting broke out, he said, the snipers returned fire. Miller, the commissioner of the Texas Department of Agriculture, who had come to the rally to cheer on Trump, said he turned and saw a person behind him bleeding profusely, their white clothes reddening as people gathered around to help. Others saw a man directly behind Trump, who appeared to be bleeding from the head. Several at the rally said they would later see a couple of people being carried out, limp and covered in blood. According to the Secret Service, one person who attended the rally was killed, along with the suspect, and two spectators were seriously injured. The FBI identified the suspect as Crooks, 20, of Bethel Park, Pennsylvania. And authorities recovered an AR-15-type semiautomatic rifle at the scene Trump returned to his feet. He had a little blood on his forehead. But he seemed not to have been badly injured. He raised his fist in the air. The crowd cheered "USA! USA!” though the cheers were not quite as robust as they had been just a few minutes earlier. Trump was ushered into an SUV by law enforcement officers. Later, on Truth Social, Trump said that he had been "shot with a bullet that pierced the upper part of my right ear,” and Secret Service officials said he was safe. Other officers then told everyone to leave. (Source: japantimes  */ The New York Times **)
* The Japan Times, Japan's largest English-language daily newspaper. Headquarters Tokyo, Japan
** The New York Times, an American daily newspaper. Headquarters New York City, U.S.

14 July 2024  Not long before shots rang out, rally goers noticed a man climbing to the top of a roof of a nearby building and warned local law enforcement, according to two law enforcement officials. One officer climbed to the roof and encountered Crooks, who pointed his rifle at the officer. The officer retreated down the ladder and Crooks quickly took a shot toward former President Trump, and that’s when the US Secret Service counter snipers shot him, said the officials who spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity. He used an AR-15-type, semi-automatic rifle in the attack, according to law enforcement. On Sunday, multiple law enforcement sources told ABC News that the AR-15 found next to Crooks’s body had been purchased legally by his father. Investigators later recovered a cache of explosives from Crooks’s car, according to reports. A witness, identified only as Greg, said that he tried to alert Secret Service agents to a rifle-wielding man he spotted “bear crawling” onto the roof of a nearby building before gunshots rang through the crowd. “We’re pointing at the guy crawling up the roof. We could clearly see him with a rifle,” he told. (Source: independent *)
* The Independent, a British online newspaper. Headquarters London, United Kingdom

14 July, 2024  The spectator who was fatally injured - who has not been publicly named - appeared to have been caught in the crossfire, a witness told NBC. "It seemed like the man was in the way of the shots between whoever was shooting the gun and the president," he told the outlet. "The man who was hit, it seemed like he was in the crossfire." The witness, who gave his name as Joseph, said the man was shot from behind between benches as people fled the scene. A doctor attending the rally said the man was shot in the head. 'Jill and I are grateful to the Secret Service for getting him to safety. There’s no place for this kind of violence in America. We must unite as one nation to condemn it,” Biden said. Mr Biden later said that he had spoken with Trump. Senator Hawley called the incident an assassination attempt and called for a congressional investigation. “The nation needs to know who did this. And why. And we need a full, public investigation by Congress into how it happened,” he wrote on X. (Source: thenationalnews *)
* The National, a United Arab Emirates state-owned English-language daily newspaper. Headquarters Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.

(Jul. 14, 2024)  Sounds of multiple shots were heard at Trump's rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday, with the Republican presidential candidate raising a fist as he was escorted to a vehicle by the U.S. Secret Service, video footage from event showed. /video/ (Source: reuters *): https://tinyurl.com/3vkxsjnk
* Reuters, News agency. Headquarters London, England
33 092 views

July 14, 2024 Former President Trump was rushed off stage after loud bangs were heard and he fell to the ground at the start of a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, Saturday night. /video/ (cnn *)
* Cable News Network (CNN), a multinational news channel and website. Headquarters Atlanta, Georgia, U.S.
1 726 056 megtekintés

Globalization

July 14, 2024 By 2054  Bosnia’s population is expected to decline by over 26%, according to the median scenario from the UN, while the populations of Albania, Lithuania and Moldova will fall by 23%, 24% and 25% respectively. Other countries set to lose more than a fifth of their populations include Belarus, Bulgaria, Latvia and Serbia. By the end of the century, the decline will be even steeper. Across the Emerging Europe region, the deepest decline is forecast to be in Ukraine, at 60%. Albania, Bosnia, Belarus, Latvia, Moldova and Poland are also expected to lose more than half of their populations. Population declines of more than 40% are projected by 2100 in Armenia, Bulgaria, Croatia, Montenegro, Romania and Serbia. These countries are among 63 countries and territories worldwide where populations peaked before 2024, a group that also includes major nations such as China, Germany, Japan, and Russia. Globally report indicates that the number of people living in these areas is projected to shrink by 14% by 2054. In countries with already low fertility levels, emigration further exacerbates population decline. In 62% of these regions, emigration is expected to continue reducing population size through 2054. The populations of 126 countries, including populous nations such as India, Indonesia, Nigeria, Pakistan and the US, are likely to continue growing through 2054 and beyond. (Source: intellinews *)
* bne IntelliNews, a news wire agency and media company. Headquarters Berlin, Germany

4 8 1

.

Europe

Germany
July 13, 2024  The U.S. and Germany have reportedly thwarted a Russian plot to kill Papperger, the CEO of German arms manufacturer Rheinmetall, which has been producing shells and tanks for Ukraine, 'according to five U.S. and Western officials who spoke anonymously to CNN'. (Source: theweek *)
* The Week, a weekly news magazine, based in New York City, United States; London, United Kingdom

Belarus
(Saturday), 13/07/2024   For years, Belarus' second-largest trading partner after Russia was the European Union (EU). Sanctions against Belarus have caused the nation's economy to shrink. The EU market and access to ports is closed to them. The economy has had to adapt to this new reality. The country must resort to using Russian and Chinese infrastructure, and pursuing trade with the third world. At first, state officials turned toward Russia but now they are looking for other markets. Belarus was seeking to replace its European market with Asian partners, especially in China. About 70% of Belarusian trade is with to Russia, and about 10% goes to China. Belarus has relied on Chinese machinery, cars and consumer goods while Belarus exports potassium fertilizer -  formerly this was sent mostly to Western countries - and food products to China. Earlier this month Belarus joined the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, a Eurasian political, economic and defense organization led by Russia and China. Belarus had ties with China and India even before joining the SCO. The country has become the 10th member of the SCO, which originally consisted of the founders China and Russia, as well as Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Since the organization's founding, India, Pakistan and Iran have also joined it. At first, the SCO was intended to address border disputes between the first members. Being an SCO member could increase Belarus‘ chances of joining BRICS. Currently comprising Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, the United Arab Emirates, Iran, Egypt and Ethiopia, the BRICS group wants to be seen as a challenger to the West's G7 bloc. SCO member states regularly take part in joint anti-terrorism exercises. Belarus and China first cooperated on military exercises in 2018 in China's northeastern Jinan. On Monday, July 8, Belarus and China began a joint anti-terrorism military drill. Dubbed Eagle Assault 2024, the 11-day exercise will see troops practice night landings, overcome water obstacles and undetake urban combat drills. This is all happening within Moscow's sphere of influence. The countries are working together in Belarus' southwestern Brest, just 2.8 kilometers from the Polish border and 28 kilometers from Ukraine. These kinds of drills lead to tensions with neighboring countries. Previously, from 2016 to 2020, Minsk had maintained a dialogue with NATO and even invited observers to its maneuvers. (Source: dw *)
* Deutsche Welle, the German public, state-owned international broadcaster, headquartered in Bonn

Russia
(Saturday), 07/13/2024  The White House announced Wednesday during the NATO summit that it would station long-range weapons, including Tomahawk cruise missiles, in Germany on a regular basis starting in 2026 as a deterrent. The Kremlin warned that the deployment of US missiles in Germany could make European capitals targets for Russian missiles in a repeat of Cold War-style confrontation, Kremlin spokesman warns. Peskov spoke of the "paradox' in which 'Europe is a target for our missiles, our country is a target for US missiles in Europe.' "We have enough capacity to contain these missiles, but the potential victims are the capitals of these countries,' he said, suggesting that such a confrontation could undermine Europe as a whole. Peskov noted that during the Cold War, American missiles were aimed at Russia, while Russian missiles were aimed at Europe, making the continent's countries the main victims of any potential conflict. (Source: dw *)
* Deutsche Welle, the German public, state-owned international broadcaster. Headquarters in Bonn, Germany

Ukraine
July 13, 2024 12:01 am ET   ’A recent poll by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace found that 58% supported further mobilization compared with 35% against’. A wartime law bans men aged between 18 and 60 from leaving Ukraine. Still, tens of thousands have fled the country illegally and many are lying low to avoid conscription. On the main road leading to the western Transcarpathia region, a sign at a checkpoint exhorts men not to leave. “We are strong,' it reads. Once a tourist destination, the mountainous region’s borders with four countries -, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Slovakia - have made it a hub for illegal crossings. At least 44,000 Ukrainians have left the country illegally since Russia invaded, according to data provided by border authorities in Moldova, Romania and Slovakia. That doesn’t include men who crossed the border officially using documents exempting them from military service issued in exchange for bribes. Number of Ukrainian citizens who have crossed into select neighboring countries illegally, 2021–24: Moldova 29,728; Romania 13,861; Slovakia 1,642. More than two dozen men have drowned in the River Tysa since Russia invaded, many of them fugitives from a military draft. The number of men fleeing Ukraine illegally has increased in recent months, with some of the more desperate attempts ridiculed on social media. 41 men were trying to escape in the back of a grain truck last month. Many of the men who initially mobilized to repel Russia’s invasion are dead, missing or wounded - and the rest are worn out from more than two years of brutal combat. The delay in mustering fresh troops has increased the strain on soldiers serving with no prospect of demobilization other than through injury or death. Military contracts became indefinite when martial law was introduced in the early days of the war. Recruitment numbers have improved since Zelensky signed a law lowering the age of conscription to 25, to replenish threadbare ranks. But the conscription campaign inflamed tensions in society. Across the country, men are hiding from draft officers, who have been filmed snatching potential conscripts off the street. Plainclothes officers are posted at train stations and monitor hotels for fugitive men. Many Ukrainians head for the mountains, undeterred by warnings about wildcats and bears. Rescue services sometimes receive calls from men who have lost their way in the rugged terrain. Smugglers now cater to booming demand from men trying to flee the country, charging from $4,000 to $15,000 for their services. It is more lucrative than their traditional trade in counterfeit and contraband cigarettes, of which Ukraine is a top source for Europe. Many of the smugglers are locals with knowledge of the area. Some accompany their clients to the border or send children to guide them. Others provide directions remotely. One smuggler recently detained by the police was equipped with a bug detector he used to ensure clients weren’t informants recording his activities. Men caught trying to cross the border illegally face a fine of up to $360 and 15 days in prison, though it isn’t a criminal offense. The bigger risk is of being fast-tracked to the front line. Ukraine's border with Romania is patrolled by border guards who catch dozens of men daily. As winter thawed, the Tysa swelled and the current grew stronger. In late April, rescuers recovered the bodies of two men beached on an islet in the river. Soon afterward, a fisherman spotted the body of another man in the water. Two more were pulled out the same day - one of them just 20 years old. In mid-May, Romanian border guards found the corpse of another man floating in the river. He appeared to have been dead in the water for some time and wasn’t carrying any documents. It was the 30th body recovered from the river since Russia’s invasion. As Ukraine tightened conscription, 25-year-old Minikhinov decided to flee across the river to Romania with the aid of a smuggler he paid $4,000. A day after he vanished, about 25 miles downriver from Velykiy Bychkiv, rescuers recovered his body in mid-February. An autopsy found Minikhinov’s heart had failed. The family waited nearly a week before going to the police. His mom blames the government for Minikhinov’s death: “They’re destroying our kids,” she said. (Source: wsj *)
* The Wall Street Journal, an American newspaper. Headquarters New York City, U.S.

Asia

China
2024-07-13 16:37 - 39  At a symposium held today, members of the Committee of Ethnic and Religious Affairs of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) slammed the signing into law of the so-called "Promoting a Resolution to the Tibet-China Dispute Act" as full of 'extremely erroneous views and provocative remarks", adding that it was blatant interference in China's internal affairs under the guise of "ethnicity," "religion" and "human rights". China's top political advisory body, the CPPCC National Committee today expressed strong indignation at and firm opposition to the United States on its signing into law of act. The act 'grossly interferes in China's internal affairs and severely undermines China's interests", sending a seriously wrong signal to the separatist forces seeking "Tibet independence," the statement of China's National People's Congress (NPC) said, Xinhua * informs. (Source: english.news)
* Xinhua News Agency, the official state news agency of the People's Republic of China

North Korea
13.07.2024  North Korea today denounced a NATO summit declaration that condemned its weapons exports to Russia, calling it "illegal' and warned of strong "strategic counteraction,' after a NATO summit in Washington concluded where leaders of the 32-member alliance and four Indo-Pacific partners - South Korea, Japan, Australia and New Zealand - discussed concerns about growing military ties between Pyongyang and Moscow. The spokesperson said the declaration incites a new Cold War and military confrontation and the situation requires a new strategy to counter US attempts to expand its military alliances. (Source: anadoluagency *)
* Anadolu Agency, a state-run news agency headquartered in Ankara, Turkey.

North America

United States
Sat, 13 Jul, 2024 - 23:36  Trump has been rushed off the stage at a rally in Pennsylvania after apparent gunshots rang through the crowd. His motorcade has left the venue. His condition was not immediately known. Leaving Mass in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, President Biden responded 'no', when asked if he had been briefed about the incident. (Source: irishexaminer */ Associated Press reporter)
* Irish Examiner, an Irish national daily newspaper, headquartered in Cork, Republic of Ireland.

July 13, 2024 3:26 PM PT  Former President Trump was the target of an apparent assassination attempt Saturday at a Pennsylvania rally, days before he was to accept the Republican nomination for a third time. Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, was showing off a chart of border crossing numbers during his last rally before the Republican National Convention opens Monday. As Trump was talking, a popping sound was heard, and the former president put his right hand up to his right ear, as people in the stands behind him appeared to be shocked. As the first pop rang out, Trump said, “Oh,” and grabbed his ear as two more pops could be heard and he crouched down. More shots are heard then. Someone could be heard saying near the microphone at Trump’s lectern, “Get down, get down, get down, get down!” as agents tackled the former president. They piled atop him to shield him with their bodies, as is their training protocol, as other agents took up positions on stage to search for the threat. Screams were heard in the crowd of several thousand people. A woman is heard screaming louder than the rest. Afterward, voices were heard saying “shooter’s down” several times, before someone asks “Are we good to move?” and “Are we clear?” Then, someone ordered, “Let’s move.” Trump got to his feet moments later and could be seen reaching with his right hand toward his face. There appeared to be blood on his face. He then pumped his fist in the air and appeared to mouth the word “Fight” twice to his crowd of supporters, prompting loud cheers and then chants of “USA. USA. USA.” The barrage of gunfire set off panic, and the bloodied Trump, who said he was shot in the ear, was surrounded by Secret Service and hurried to his SUV as he pumped his fist in a show of defiance. It took two minutes from the moment of the first shot for Trump to be placed in a waiting SUV. His motorcade left the venue moments later. Trump’s campaign said the presumptive GOP nominee was doing “fine” after the shooting, which he said pierced the upper part of his right ear. “I knew immediately that something was wrong in that I heard a whizzing sound, shots, and immediately felt the bullet ripping through the skin. Much bleeding took place,” he wrote on his social media site. In the memo obtained Trump’s senior campaign advisers said staff in Washington and West Palm Beach, Florida, should stay away from the office as they assess those locations. The memo also says they’re enhancing the armed security presence on-site. The memo also tells staff not to comment publicly on the apparent assassination attempt against Trump and that dangerous rhetoric on social media won’t be tolerated. The officials said the shooter was engaged by members of the Secret Service counterassault team. The heavily armed tactical team travels everywhere with the president and major party nominees and is meant to confront any active threats while other agents focus on safeguarding and evacuating the person at the center of protection. The roof where the person lay was less than 150 meters from where Trump was speaking. Biden was briefed on the incident and spoke to Trump several hours later, the White House said. He received an updated briefing from Cheatle, the director of the Secret Service, Homeland Security Secretary Mayorkas, and White House homeland security adviser Sherwood-Randall. Pennsylvania Gov. Shapiro, a Democrat, said in a statement on X that he had been briefed on the situation and Pennsylvania state police were on hand at the rally site. “I truly love our Country, and love you all, and look forward to speaking to our Great Nation this week from Wisconsin,” Trump said in his Sunday morning social media post. /photo/ (Source: latimes *)
* Los Angeles Times, a regional American daily newspaper. Headquarters El Segundo, California

July 12, 2024  Today, President Biden have signed into law S. 138, the “Promoting a Resolution to the Tibet-China Dispute Act”. He shares the Congress’s bipartisan commitment to advancing the human rights of Tibetans and supporting efforts to preserve their distinct linguistic, cultural, and religious heritage. The Administration will continue to call on the People’s Republic of China to resume direct dialogue, without preconditions, with the Dalai Lama, or his representatives, to seek a settlement that resolves differences and leads to a negotiated agreement on Tibet. The Act does not change longstanding bipartisan United States policy to recognize the Tibet Autonomous Region and other Tibetan areas of China as part of the People’s Republic of China, White House informs. Reported to Senate at 05/07/2024, the Promoting a Resolution to the Tibet-China Dispute Act bill addresses issues relating to Tibet, including by establishing a statutory definition of Tibet that includes areas in Chinese provinces outside the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR). "For the purposes of U.S. policies and activities relating to Tibet, this bill defines Tibet to include the TAR and the Tibetan areas of the Qinghai, Sichuan, Gansu, and Yunnan provinces. (Generally, when China's government refers to Tibet, it means only the TAR, but it recognizes the areas included in this bill's definition as Tibetan. China's government formally established the TAR in 1965.) Furthermore, the duties of the Office of the U.S. Special Coordinator for Tibetan Issues shall include working with relevant bureaus in the Department of State and the U.S. Agency for International Development to ensure that U.S. government statements and documents counter, as appropriate, disinformation about Tibet by China's government and the Chinese Communist Party, including disinformation about Tibet's history and institutions," congress.gov tells. (Sources: whitehouse *; congress **)
* The White House, the official residence and workplace of the president of the United States, located in Washington, D.C.
** The United States Congress, the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States in Washington, D.C.

13/07/2024 13:00   When told Hunter she was pregnant, Ms Roberts, who has been described as the Markle of the Bidens claims he promised to support her, but he shortly stopped returning her phone calls and cut her out of his company’s insurance. She met Hunter in late 2016 when she and a friend were invited to an after party at his Rosemont Seneca office in the Swedish Embassy. The First Son was smoking crack in a pair of boxers covered in parrots. The pair embarked on a yearlong entanglement during which Ms Roberts claims they both professed their love to one another, although she says now he may not have meant it. He fiercely denied he was Navy’s father until he was forced to take a 2019 paternity test. It showed he was an even closer DNA match to Navy, this little blue-eyed girl with soft blonde curls from rural Arkansas than her mother. Child support was set at $20,000-a-month in 2020. They reached a settlement last year to reduce the fees to $5,000-a-month on the condition Hunter start building a relationship with his daughter. While the Bidens frequently talk about the importance of family, Ms Roberts has been devastated by how they have excluded their own flesh and blood. "Let me meet my grandpa": Joe’s secret grandchild makes heartfelt plea. Navy chose a headshot of the smiling US president to keep in a birdhouse in her bedroom. The book Out of the Shadows: My Life Inside the Wild World of Hunter by Ms Roberts will be released on Aug 20. The US president continued to insist he only had six grandchildren. Last year he finally acknowledged his seventh grandchild, but he has stopped short of communicating with her. Ms Roberts armoury includes two shotguns behind the headboard, a rifle behind the door, a glock in each nightstand and a third under the mattress - Navy is the only first grandchild without secret service protection. Jill dedicated her children’s book Joey to all her grandchildren – naming each one apart from Navy. Christmas stockings hung in the White House for each grandchild – and even the dog – but not Navy. /photo/ (Source: msn * / The Telegraph **)
* MSN (Microsoft Network), an American web portal;
** The Daily Telegraph, a British daily newspaper. Headquarters London, England, United Kingdom

Sat, 13 Jul 2024 9:00:56 WAT  Meta said yesterday it was lifting restrictions on US presidential candidate Trump’s Facebook and Instagram accounts, ending measures put in place after his supporters violently stormed the US Capitol in 2021. Trump’s accounts were suspended indefinitely a day after January 6, 2021, and it was determined he had praised people engaged in violence on social media. His accounts were reinstated in February 2023 but with a threat of penalties for future breaches – an additional restriction that Meta lifted yesterday. Trump was also banned from Twitter and YouTube. While those restrictions were later lifted last year, Trump now mainly communicates on his own social media platform, Truth Social. (Source: dailytrust *)
*  Daily Trust, newspaper, headquarters Abuja, Nigeria

July 13, 2024 11:54 IST  Tech mogul Musk has donated a "sizeable" amount to America PAC working for Trump's 2024 presidential campaign against US President Biden. In April, Musk posted on X that Biden "barely knows what's going on' and is just "a tragic front" for a far left political machine. Meanwhile, the Tesla CEO defended Trump, calling him a victim of media bias. When he bought Twitter in 2022, one of his first major moves was to restore Trump's X account. In February, Musk posted on X, slamming Biden's immigration policies. "Biden’s strategy is very simple: 1. Get as many illegals in the country as possible. 2. Legalize them to create a permanent majority – a one-party state. That is why they are encouraging so much illegal immigration. Simple, yet effective.' In 2022, the SpaceX CEO said he was a centrist and a "reluctant Democrat' who voted for Biden hesitantly in 2020. Since then, Musk did not donate money to any of the national campaigns until now to the America PAC. He has also supported right-wing politicians across the globe like Brazil's Bolsonaro and Argentina's Milei. (Source: theweek *)
* The Week, an Indian news magazine based in Kochi, India

.

.

Europe

Georgia
July 12, 2024  Reduced language devoted to Georgia, near-exclusion from NATO Declaration emerged from this week's NATO summit in Washington. "The main issue regarding Georgia is that Georgia is no longer on the Euro-Atlantic agenda and that there has been a democratic backsliding in Georgia, which may bring irreparable consequences,’ Kutelia, a former Georgian defense minister and a former Georgian ambassador to the United States have lamented, regarding the perceived NATO snub. NATO allies controversially pledged in the 2008 Bucharest Summit Declaration that Georgia would eventually become a member, providing it fulfilled requirements. That decision was reconfirmed in the wake of Russia's five-day war with Georgia in August 2008 and Russia's ongoing occupation of Georgia's breakaway Abkhazia and South Ossetia regions. A 2022 NATO summit in Madrid approved specific "support measures" for Georgia as a partner, after President Putin ordered troops to invade Ukraine months earlier. Whereas former declarations have mentioned Georgian cooperation with the transatlantic defense alliance, this week the declaration neither repeated the record of the Bucharest summit, nor talk about the NATO-Georgia program, nor mention the essential package of the Wales summit. NATO members limited the text to a single reference urging Russia to completely withdraw its troops from Moldova and Georgia. Prime Minister and Georgian Dream leader Kobakhidze, in May accused a former U.S. ambassador of supporting two attempted revolutions in Georgia. The United States has undertaken a 'comprehensive review' of relations with Tbilisi since the so-called "foreign agent" law was passed in May over pro-European President Zurabishvili's veto. Kobakhidze responded to Washington's review by calling for a review of relations with the United States. 'EU officials have checked the momentum of Georgia's candidacy'. Pursuit of EU and NATO membership remains embedded in the post-Soviet Caucasus nation's constitution, but the current Georgian government's passage of the perceived Russian-style law to curb media and NGOs has dealt a blow to both efforts. The U.S. House of Representatives is considering legislation calling for increased scrutiny of the Georgian government's actions and its ties to Russia and other authoritarian regimes like China. The so-called Megobari Act passed the House Foreign Affairs Committee yesterday. The act, which takes its name from the word that in Georgian means "friend', mandates several reports, including an assessment of Russian intelligence's penetration of Georgia and Tbilisi's cooperation with China. The bill is expected to come to a vote in the full House before Congress adjourns for summer break in August, to become law ahead of Georgian elections in October. (Source: rferl *)
* Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, an American government-funded international media organization. Headquarters Prague Broadcast Center, Czech Republic

Asia

China
July 12, 2024 9:06 PM  China and Russia announced today that they are conducting joint naval exercises in the waters and airspace near Zhanjiang city in the south of China. Zhanjiang city, located in China’s southern Guangdong province, faces the South China Sea, a contentious waterway where China holds multiple territorial disputes with neighboring countries, including the Philippines. "The ongoing exercise is to demonstrate the resolve and capabilities of the two sides in jointly addressing maritime security threats and preserving global and regional peace and stability," said Zhang, spokesperson for China’s Defense Ministry. Guided missile destroyers, guided missile frigates and suppliers have assembled on China’s Southern coast to participate in the exercise, according to Chinese state-run media CGTN. The exercises, titled Joint Sea-2024, began in early July and will last until the middle of the month, according to the Chinese Defense Ministry. Joint Sea-2024 is part of the regular defense collaboration agreed upon between the two nations, according to the ministry. This new round of naval exercises “will further deepen China-Russia comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination in the new era," Zhang said. The naval exercises were announced following the NATO summit in Washington, where countries cited the deepening strategic relationship between China and Russia and the two states’ attempts to "undercut and reshape the rules-based international order" as "a cause for profound concern.’ China said NATO’s statement was "filled with Cold War mentality and belligerent rhetoric.’ A spokesperson for China’s mission to the European Union said in a statement yesterday that the NATO statement was "provocative" and filled with "obvious lies and smears.’ China is also hosting bilateral military exercises with Russian-ally Belarus on the border with Poland, which will last until July 19. (Source: voanews *)
* Voice of America, the international radio broadcaster of the United States of America. Headquarters Washington, D.C., United States

North America

United States
(Friday), July 12, 2024 04:29 JST  The North Atlantic Council met with leaders of the Indo-Pacific and European Union during NATO's 75th anniversary summit in Washington yesterday. The meeting came a day after U.S. national security adviser Sullivan announced four new joint projects between the Indo-Pacific countries and NATO members that focus on Ukraine, artificial intelligence, disinformation and cybersecurity. The leaders of Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand met with NATO members yesterday for the third consecutive year. It also came a day after NATO issued the Washington Summit Declaration, which strengthened language against China, calling it a "decisive enabler" of Russia's war in Ukraine and directly categorizing Beijing as part of the threat facing the Euro-Atlantic region. Against the accusation, the English-language newspaper China Daily said today the declaration's language is provocative and is based on the "false proposition" that China bears responsibility for the prolonged conflict. "China has remained a neutral party and it is NATO that has been continually fanning the flames of the hostilities," it said, echoing Moscow's argument that it was the expansion of NATO that is the root cause of the conflict. China skipped a Ukraine peace summit in Switzerland last month on the grounds that a meeting without Russia's participation lacked balance. Since the war began in February 2022, China has supported Russia's defense industrial base and become its major trading partner, while also trying to maintain stable economic relations with Western countries. On Monday, Xi met with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán in Beijing, who briefed the Chinese leader on his recent visits to both Kyiv and Moscow. Hungary just took over the European Union's rotating presidency in July and Xi is eager to collaborate with Orbán for a diplomatic win. Today, U.S. President Biden met with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, South Korea President Yoon, New Zealand Prime Minister Luxon and Australian Deputy Prime Minister Marles on the sidelines of NATO events. The leaders "strongly condemned' arms transfers from North Korea to Russia and also discussed ’shared concerns" over China's support to Russia's military industrial base. NATO and its Indo-Pacific partners are signaling to China that Beijing's current path is unacceptable, and that united messaging from all parties could put pressure on Chinese President Xi. The key is for NATO leaders and Indo-Pacific partners to voice concerns directly to the Chinese president, Zhao, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace said. "If this complaint comes from Washington, it will easily be dismissed. But if European countries and U.S. allies in East Asia can speak out more directly and explicitly to the Chinese leadership, that will have a greater chance of being persuasive because these countries are now the major target of Chinese diplomatic engagement.' (Source: nikkei *)
* The Nikkei, a national daily newspapers in Japan, the world's largest financial newspaper. Headquarters Tokyo, Japan.

(Friday), July 12, 2024 6:03 am  Another step in an arms race. The White House announced on Wednesday, July 10, that it would begin deployments of non-nuclear ’long-range fires capabilities’ for a US force stationed in Germany in 2026. That will, when fully developed, include the SM-6 and Tomahawk missile systems, and ’developmental hypersonic weapons’. The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) signed by the US and Russia in 1987, prohibited both sides from possessing, producing, or testing land-based cruise or ballistic missiles with a range between 500-5,500km. Former president Trump withdrew from the treaty in 2019. Moscow says it has observed a “voluntary moratorium” on the deployment of missiles previously covered by the treaty. The US’s Long-Range Hypersonic Weapon (LRHW) programme, dubbed ’Dark Eagle’, is said to use missiles capable of reaching speeds of Mach 17 with a range of up to 3,000km. Both the Dark Eagle and Tomahawk systems are capable of reaching targets across Russia. 'This will almost certainly lead to Russia declaring a formal end to its moratorium on the deployment of INF-range systems,' Podvig, a senior researcher in the Weapons of Mass Destruction Programme at the UN Institute for Disarmament Research told. 'I think we should expect that Russia will deploy its systems in response’. “I don’t know how anyone in the US or Nato believes that this will lead to a more secure environment in Europe,” he added. President Putin warned on 4 July: 'If medium and shorter-range missiles of American manufacture appear somewhere, then we reserve the right to act in a mirror manner.” 'The necessary work on preparing compensating countermeasures by Russian specialised agencies was started in advance and is being carried out on a systematic basis,' Russia’s foreign ministry said yesterday. Stefanovich, a security analyst at Russian think-tank, the Primakov Institute of World Economy and International Relations, said the Kremlin would see the US deployments as a direct threat and respond in kind. 'Given the clearly strategic nature of the US and allied INF-range weapons vis-à-vis Russian targets, I believe that our guys will not bother much with matching European/Asian deployments and go straight after [the US],' he wrote on X. Wolfstahl, director of global risk at the Federation of American Scientists, warned: 'We have recreated one of the most dangerous components of the Cold War in Europe and things will only get worse from here.' So far, the US has announced plans to deploy missile systems in Germany. The weapons will be under US rather than Nato command. (Source: inews *)
* The i, a British national newspaper published in London, United Kingdom.

12 Jul 2024  Hungary’s Viktor Orbán has met with former US President Trump at his Mar-a-Lago home in Florida for ‘peace mission 5.0’. They discussed the “possibilities of peace”, the latest stop in the prime minister’s solo run to secure a ceasefire in the Russia-Ukraine war. “It was an honour to visit President [Trump] at Mar-a-Lago today. We discussed ways to make peace. The good news of the day: he’s going to solve it!,” Orbán said on X. Trump has said he would quickly end the war, and advisers to the former president are reported to have presented him with a plan to end the conflict by, in part, making future US aid to Kyiv conditional on Ukraine joining peace talks. Orbán was in the United States this week to attend a NATO summit hosted by President Biden. Orbán has visited Ukraine, Russia and China in the past two weeks on a self-styled “peace mission”. He had travelled to Kyiv before visiting Moscow, meeting last week with Putin. President Zelenskyy said he was not informed by Orbán of his onward trip to Russia. The Kremlin said today that Orbán did not tell Putin of his plans to meet Trump, and the Russian president did not convey any message to Trump via Orbán. NATO allies were frustrated with Orbán’s actions around the summit in Washington, but he had not blocked the alliance from taking action on Ukraine. Some NATO members said the trip handed legitimacy to the Russian leader when the West wants to isolate him over his invasion of Ukraine. Meeting in Beijing on Tuesday, July 9, with Chinese President Xi for “peace mission 3.0”, Orbán said China was key to ’creating the conditions for peace" between Ukraine and Russia. Hungary does not want NATO to become an 'anti-China' bloc, and will not support it doing so, the country’s foreign minister Szijjártó said yesterday. (Source: aljazeera *)
* Al Jazeera Media Network, a media conglomerate headquartered at Doha. Qatar

July 12, 2024  Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán met with former US President Trump in the United States on July 11 to discuss a peace deal in Ukraine, and said he would “fix this problem." Trump, expressing gratitude, emphasized the urgency of peace. "Thank you, Viktor. There must be PEACE, and as soon as possible. Too many people have died in a war that should never have started!" Trump wrote on TruthSocial. His meeting with Trump follows Orbán's first trip to Kyiv on July 2 since Hungary assumed the presidency of the EU Council to meet with President Zelenskiy who flatly refused to start talks with Russia. Orbán then put the cat amongst the pigeon by travelling to Moscow, to meet Russian President Putin, who repeated earlier offers to restart talks on the basis of the Istanbul peace deal agreed in 2022. Orbán shared a photo on social media from the Vnukovo government terminal in Moscow, highlighting his Hungarian EU presidency. Under EU rules the presidency does not grant Hungary the authority to act independently in foreign policy matters. Orbán vowed to “Make Europe Great Again” after taking over the presidency on July 1, in an echo to Trump’s famous MAGA phrase. Orbán's follow up with a visit to Azerbaijan for the Organization of Turkic States summit and a meeting in China with President Xi, who also called for a dialogue to begin. (Source: dw *)
* Deutsche Welle, the German public, state-owned international broadcaster, headquartered in Bonn

July 12, 2024  "Trump’s "going to solve" Russia-Ukraine war, says Orbán". 'Peaceniks unite' at Mar-a-Lago summit in Florida. Since Hungary took over the rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union at the start of July, Orbán announced he is using the presidency to take steps toward peace in Russia’s war against Ukraine - despite the fact that Budapest's role affords him no special diplomatic status. Trump, who leads incumbent President Biden in polling in several critical swing states for November's election, has also said several times that he would end the war quickly - even before he takes over the presidency. ('by Melkozerova'). (Source: politico *)
* Politico, an American political digital newspaper. Headquarters Arlington County, Virginia, U.S.

12 July 2024  Members of Biden’s cabinet crestfallen, dismayed in silent dejection, anxious embarrassment. Secretary of State Blinken, Defense Secretary Austin and National Security Adviser Sullivan were sat in the audience and react to president calling his deputy Harris ‘vice president Trump.’ 'Look, I wouldn’t have picked Vice President Trump, to be vice president, if I think she’s not qualified to be president,” Biden said, without correcting himself. Earlier in the day Biden confused President Zelensky with his Russian counterpart Putin, introducing him as "President Putin'. That time, Biden returned to the podium to correct himself: 'President Putin? He’s going to beat President Putin. President Zelensky. I’m so focused on beating Putin.' Asked whether he can reassure Americans that he won’t have further bad nights like his admittedly stupid mistake of a debate performance, Biden said there is “no indication” that his work is slowing down. "None.” /photo, video/ (Source: independent *): https://tinyurl.com/3nwn2zjz
* The Independent, a British online newspaper. Headquarters London, United Kingdom

United States
July 12, 2024  Today, President Biden have signed into law S. 138, the “Promoting a Resolution to the Tibet-China Dispute Act”. He shares the Congress’s bipartisan commitment to advancing the human rights of Tibetans and supporting efforts to preserve their distinct linguistic, cultural, and religious heritage. The Administration will continue to call on the People’s Republic of China to resume direct dialogue, without preconditions, with the Dalai Lama, or his representatives, to seek a settlement that resolves differences and leads to a negotiated agreement on Tibet. The Act does not change longstanding bipartisan United States policy to recognize the Tibet Autonomous Region and other Tibetan areas of China as part of the People’s Republic of China, White House informs. Reported to Senate at 05/07/2024, the Promoting a Resolution to the Tibet-China Dispute Act bill addresses issues relating to Tibet, including by establishing a statutory definition of Tibet that includes areas in Chinese provinces outside the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR). "For the purposes of U.S. policies and activities relating to Tibet, this bill defines Tibet to include the TAR and the Tibetan areas of the Qinghai, Sichuan, Gansu, and Yunnan provinces. (Generally, when China's government refers to Tibet, it means only the TAR, but it recognizes the areas included in this bill's definition as Tibetan. China's government formally established the TAR in 1965.) Furthermore, the duties of the Office of the U.S. Special Coordinator for Tibetan Issues shall include working with relevant bureaus in the Department of State and the U.S. Agency for International Development to ensure that U.S. government statements and documents counter, as appropriate, disinformation about Tibet by China's government and the Chinese Communist Party, including disinformation about Tibet's history and institutions," congress.gov tells. (Sources: whitehouse *; congress **)
* The White House, the official residence and workplace of the president of the United States, located in Washington, D.C.
** The United States Congress, the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States in Washington, D.C.

NATO

(Friday), 2024. júl. 12.  The military alliance was changing its stance. For the past two years, NATO has refused to be involved in anything related to providing lethal support to Ukraine. ’The fact that the war is ongoing and that support must be sustained has changed this attitude’. The transfer of oversight of military supplies, training and reform of Ukraine’s armed forces into NATO hands is to be completed 'in the coming months' as 'alliance leaders rush to protect the country’s support from governments that may criticise it in the future'. On Wednesday, NATO members endorsed the Alliance’s role in coordinating training and supplies to Ukraine. “This will not make NATO party to the conflict, but it will enhance Ukraine’s self-defence,’ Stoltenberg insisted ahead of the summit. They created a platform called NATO Security Assistance and Training to Ukraine (NSATU), which will be put in place 'over the next several months, in a way that has no disruption over the efforts.' Until then, the coordination of assistance will remain in the hands of the SAGU (Security Assistance Group for Ukraine) and its International Board of Coordination Center (IBCC), which are linked to the so-called Ramstein format, where more than 50 countries meet regularly. A reason is the need to insulate support for Ukraine from any future governments that might challenge it. NSATU’s tasks currently lie in the hands of ad hoc structures set up by the US in the wake of Russia’s war in Ukraine. ’This conflict is not likely to be over any time soon,’ said a senior NATO official. The decision to create NSATU was taken by 31 allies – with Hungary opting out – and any further decision to change its mandate will require the consensus of all 31 allies. Bilateral or multilateral training missions for the Ukrainian armed forces are now in the hands of the countries, such as the British-led Interflex, the EU military assistance mission (EUMAM), and the Dutch-led fighter jet pilot training for F-16s. The NATO Supreme Allied Commander in Europe (SACEUR) will lead the transition from the ephemeral formation to the NSATU coordination platform. A three-star general will lead NSATU and report to SACEUR. NATO will coordinate with donor governments what equipment to send Ukraine based on their needs, and deliveries will be made to hubs on the eastern flank in Poland, Slovakia and Romania. As a second task, NSATU will also coordinate training activities. A third task is the future development of the Ukrainian armed forces. This means that, as part of its coordination work, NATO staff will take into account ’the needs of the future Ukrainian Army as it modernises and joins the Alliance, making its forces more interoperable and able to work with the armies of NATO members’. “We work more closely with the Ukrainian armed forces, including to a new NATO-Ukraine joint analysis, training and education centre in Poland and by deepening our cooperation on innovation and defence industrial production,’ the Secretary-General Stoltenberg said yesterday. "NATO will not deploy forces in Ukraine, move equipment into Ukraine, track its movement across the border or get involved in procurement', a NATO official said. (Source: euractiv *)
* Euractiv, a European news website. Headquarters in Brussels, Belgium.

.

Europe

Poland
July 11, 2024 11:39 Ukraine’s silence about the WWII Volhynia massacre underscores one-sided alliance as Zelensky visits Poland. The anniversary of the WWII massacre passes and the silence from president Zelensky and Polish leaders is not just a missed diplomatic gesture but a profound failure in addressing historical wounds that continue to mar the relationship. July 11 marks the 81st anniversary of Bloody Sunday, the most tragic episode of the Ukrainian-perpetrated genocide of Poles in Volhynia, which was a Polish territory before the Second World War in the “borderland” region, but is now part of Ukraine. On this day, tens of thousands of people were slaughtered in 99 villages. These victims have yet to be exhumed and given a dignified burial, a process continuously blocked by Ukrainian authorities, including the current administration. Last year, on the 80th anniversary of this horrific crime, Poland received not a single word from the Ukrainian president. Tragically, the steadfast guardian of this cause, Rev. Isakowicz-Zaleski, is no longer. On July 11, 1943. Ukrainian nationalists murdered over 50,000 Poles. This year, just three days before the anniversary, Zelensky visited Poland. His visits, typically center on what more Poland can offer Ukraine. The leader did not mention the impending anniversary. It is reflective of a ’Kyiv standard.’ Cessation of cult of UPA murderers is last issue to be settled. It is scandalous that this omission was mirrored by every Polish politician he met. Both the left-liberal Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk and the conservative President Duda seem to prefer that the Volhynia issue be forgotten, wishing away the unburied dead. Simultaneously, Poland signed an agreement with Ukraine on defense commitments. The document is not formally an international treaty, thus it does not require legislative approval for ratification. If it were a treaty, such approval would be necessary given it involves a military alliance - a detail highlighted by the content of the agreement. The choice of agreement format also conveniently avoids parliamentary debate, which would likely raise uncomfortable questions about the benefits Poland receives from the arrangement and what it demands in return. In this “bilateral’ deal, Kyiv is practically the sole beneficiary. The entirety of the 24-page document is a litany of Polish obligations to Ukraine, underpinned by a tally of what it have already done. The document does not address a single issue where Polish and Ukrainian interests might conflict, such as in agricultural production. In Poland, based on this agreement, a Ukrainian legion is to be formed, which the Polish are of course expected to equip. No one has clarified how this will affect security, especially given that Ukrainian soldiers will effectively be entering combat from Polish territory. Tucked away at the very end of the agreement, on page 14, there is a vague mention of “enhancing cooperation in conducting searches, exhumations, and other activities aimed at the dignified burial of victims of conflicts, repression, and crimes.” Exactly which “conflicts, repressions, and crimes' are referred to remains unclear. (Source: brusselssignal *)
* Brussels Signal, published by Remedia Europe SRL, Brussels, Belgium

July 11, 2024  The Polish government will train a unit of Ukrainian exiles to be deployed in their home country, Foreign Minister Sikorski said on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Washington. The Polish move comes only a few days after Warsaw and Kyiv signed a bilateral security agreement; one of the provisions called for training Ukrainians for war. Earlier this year Ukraine adopted a law increasing the pace of mobilization, as it desperately needs new troops. Under the new law, Kyiv obliged Ukrainian men living abroad to renew their military draft information online and encouraged them to return to Ukraine and join the fight. 'In Poland, we are beginning to train the first Ukrainian brigade composed of volunteers from inside Poland. We have up to a million Ukrainians of both genders, and several thousands of them have already registered for the draft,’  FM Sikorski said during a NATO Public Forum today. They will be available to the Ukrainian government as a unit with the right to return to Poland after their rotation, he said. He encouraged other European countries also hosting male Ukrainian refugees or with significant Ukrainian minorities to do the same. (Source: politico *)
* Politico, an American political digital newspaper. Headquarters Arlington County, Virginia, U.S.

11 July 2024  Poland angry as Hungary blocks €2 billion ‘peace facility’ payments. Poland has reacted with frustration after Hungary blocked a payment of around €2 billion in European Union funds intended to compensate Warsaw for its military aid to Ukraine over the war with Russia. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s government is blocking the payment from the European Peace Facility, an off-budget EU instrument designed to reimburse governments that send military aid to Kyiv. The Hungarians have consistently opposed military aid to Kyiv and Orbán has maintained high-level relations with Russian President Putin. Orbán has recently visited both tKyiv and the Russian capital in an effort to facilitate negotiations to end the war. That was criticised by other EU leaders who argued that the Hungarian government was effectively giving succour to the Russians. The Hungarians countered that channels must remain open to both nations if a peace agreement is to be reached. Yesterday, at a NATO summit in Washington, Polish foreign minister Sikorski told reporters that 'Hungary is abusing our trust’ and called the Hungarian stance 'unfriendly and hostile’. He confirmed that the money blocked by the country was intended to fund the modernisation of Poland’s armed forces. Poland is not the only country affected by the blockage of the funds. The arrears to be paid out by the EU to all countries supporting Ukraine amount to about €9 billion. In June, the foreign ministers of 26 EU countries decided to by-pass Hungary’s veto on proposed aid to Ukraine, enabling them to grant Kyiv up to €1.4 billion for ammunition and air defences. Still, that only involves frozen Russian financial assets and does not resolve the problem of the Hungarian blockage of other EU funds. (Source: rmx *)
* Remix, published in Budapest, Hungary. Offers news and commentary from Central Europe, the Visegrád countries

July 11, 2024  Poland borrows another $2B from US to buy F-35s. The US State Department has approved a second foreign military loan to Poland to clear the way for its planned procurement of an undisclosed number of F-35 jets from Lockheed Martin on top of Patriot air defense missiles and Abrams main battle tanks. Valued at $2 billion, the loan agreement is part of Warsaw’s ongoing military modernization effort to address ’rising threats in the region’. Poland received its first military loan from the US, signed in September 2023, also for $2 billion. It was clearly stipulated that the money should only be spent on US-made weapons. The country said it earmarked roughly half of the borrowed amount for the purchase of four aerostat-based early warning radar systems. ’Poland is a leader in NATO,’ the department wrote. ’[It is] currently spending four percent of GDP on defense, the highest in the alliance. Poland hosts thousands of US and allied forces.’ Warsaw has so far sent more than $8.6 billion in military aid to the war-torn nation and accepted the largest number of Ukrainian refugees. At a recent press conference, Polish Army Chief of Staff General Kukula said the country needs to prepare its soldiers for an all-out conflict amid the increasing tension in the region, adding that this will allow ’us to find a good balance between the border mission and maintaining the intensity of training in the army.’ Earlier this year, a startling German intelligence report claimed that 'Moscow may launch an attack on a NATO member state by 2026'. ’Poland is considered a likely target’. (Source: thedefensepost *)
* The Defense Post, a security and defense news publication. Headquarters Washington D.C., U.S.

July 11, 2024  NATO officials have agreed at a summit in Washington taking over the coordination of training and weapons deliveries from the United States. NATO Secretary-General Stoltenberg announced on July 10 the launch of a centralized command in Germany and the establishment of a training and analysis center in Poland. Stoltenberg said NATO’s plans to establish these two support facilities are within the elements of the robust security support package agreed during the summit along with providing Ukraine with $43 billion in military aid for next year, bilateral agreements, and more equipment, including air-defense systems. The operation in Poland will be known as a joint training and analysis center (JTAC), which will focus on improving NATO interoperability with Ukraine and studying the way the Ukraine war has changed warfare. Speaking at a panel discussion on the sidelines of the summit, Polish Foreign Minister Sikorski said the JTAC will be built in his hometown of Bydgoszcz. He envisions it becoming a state-of-the-art war analysis center that examines how drone warfare is changing the battlefield and other modern aspects of the Ukrainian war. And he predicted that Ukrainians eventually will take on major roles at the JTAC - the Ukrainians will be teaching them. 'We are not doing this because we want to prolong the war. We are doing this because we want to end the war as soon as possible’;) Stoltenberg said. (Source: rferl *)
* Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, an American government-funded international media organization. Headquarters Prague Broadcast Center, Czech Republic

European Council
11 July 2024  EU ambassadors yesterday blasted Hungary for Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s solo diplomatic initiative on Ukraine in a two-hour meeting. They sought more clarity on the aims and results of Hungary’s recent visits ’to speak with Russian President Putin and then Chinese President Xi', initiatives Budapest had described as "peace mission" to resolve the ongoing war in Ukraine. EU leaders and officials had been unanimous in recent days in condemning the surprise visit 'to Moscow", insisting that Budapest was not acting on behalf of the bloc as a whole. The bloc’s envoys were stressing that Orbán’s push 'was incompatible with the country currently holding the bloc’s rotating EU presidency". In total, 25 EU member states, with the exception of Slovakia, which did not take part in the discussion, ’expressed wide dissatisfaction or anger at how the Hungarian presidency is unrolling, according to several’ EU diplomats. Hungary’s envoy to the EU used the meeting to present his country’s case for the trip. “Hungary tried to argue that the visits were strictly bilateral, only to scope out the feasibility and conditions for a ceasefire,” one EU diplomat said. That argument ’was not credible, given the timing and sequencing of the meetings", use of presidency hashtags, and the reaction of Putin, the diplomats said. Budapest had created ambiguity by using the Hungarian EU presidency logo and hashtags, while Putin had approached Orbán in the expectation that he would represent the bloc’s position. However, EU member states did not discuss options on how to deal with the issue or, as some had previously called for, to ‘rein in’ Hungary’s actions, including Poland, which had originally put the issue on the agenda for yesterday’s meeting. “No one raised the issue of ending or shortening the presidency. No concrete measures were presented or adopted,” a second EU diplomat said. 'Some EU member states have already shown signs of carrying out diplomatic snubs by sending more junior officials than expected to informal meetings' organised by the Hungarians. Hungarian officials were keen to play down concerns about possible shunning of EU presidency meetings. (Source: euractiv *)
* Euractiv, a European news website. Its headquarters in Brussels, Belgium.

European Union
11/7/2024  Jews in EU member states are in the grip of a ’rising tide of anti-Semitism’, the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA), that conducted the survey said. The vast majority of the survey’s data had been collected prior to the October 7 Hamas massacre. The agency’s study, which compiled data from 12 Jewish organisations, found that 96 per cent of European Jews had encountered anti-Semitism in 2023. Three-quarters of Jewish people in Europe hide their identities ’at least occasionally’ as they fear being harassed or attacked by anti-Semites. And 34 per cent said they took care to avoid Jewish events or places as they did not feel “safe” there,  Rautio, the agency’s director said. “FRA’s consultation with national and European Jewish umbrella organisations in early 2024 shows a dramatic surge [in anti-Semitic attacks],' Ms Rautio said. Jews are 'more frightened than ever before’ and growing anti-Semitism was also at risk of disrupting the EU’s first-ever strategy for addressing the issue, she said, as she blamed increased tensions over the war in Gaza. Of particular concern was France, where 74 per cent of respondents said they felt the ongoing Gaza war affected their sense of security. Eighty per cent of respondents said they felt that negative stereotypes or conspiracy theories about Jews were a growing concern, such as claims they were “holding power and control over finance, media, politics or [the] economy”. Others encountered Europeans who denied Israel’s right to exist. Four per cent said they had been the victims of physical anti-Semitic attacks in 2023, a twofold increase from a previous 2018 study by the same agency. A further 60 per cent said they were unhappy with the way their national government was dealing with anti-Semitism. The survey covered 13 EU member states which account for 96 per cent of the EU’s Jewish population: Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Spain and Sweden. Similar surveys were carried out in 2013 and 2018. (Source: telegraph *)
* The Daily Telegraph, a British daily newspaper. Headquarters London, England, United Kingdom

Russia
July 11, 2024   Russia Today published an article by Russian academic Lukyanov titled "This is the only way to end confrontation between Russia and the West," on June 22, 2024. „Judging by Moscow's statements, the confrontation may only come to an end when the principles on which European security is based are fundamentally reconsidered," he wrote. Russia's then-Minister of Foreign Affairs Kozyrev signed up to NATO's Partnership for Peace program in Brussels on June 22, 1994. This marked the beginning of official relations between the Russian Federation and the US-led bloc (prior to that, the USSR and NATO were involved in political dialogue within the framework of the North Atlantic Cooperation Council, but it was established only several days before the dissolution of the Soviet Union). The Partnership for Peace program originally served a double goal: it was an alternative to NATO membership, but also a preparatory step for joining the organization (at least for some countries). When the program was launched, a final decision on the expansion of NATO had not yet been made. "Russia opposed the idea, but was not consistent. Kozyrev warned about the consequences of expansion, but repeatedly said NATO was not Russia's enemy. Russian President Yeltsin dissuaded Western leaders from growing the bloc, but at the same time told Polish President Walesa that Moscow was not against Warsaw's accession. However, two years later, NATO finally announced that it would admit the first group of former communist countries. "Currently, the prevailing view in Russia is that, following the dissolution of the USSR, the US and its allies embarked on a course of a military and political takeover of the former Soviet sphere of influence, and NATO became the main instrument in achieving this. "The concept adopted at the end of the Cold War stated that NATO ensured European security, and a bigger NATO meant a more secure continent. As a first step towards this, everyone (including Moscow) agreed that a reunited Germany would remain a member of the bloc instead of receiving neutral status, as some had suggested earlier. Further, it was implied that each country had the right to choose whether or not to join any alliances. Theoretically, that is what sovereignty implies. But in practice, the geopolitical balance of power had always imposed restrictions that forced alliances to consider the reaction of non-member countries. However, the triumphalism that reigned in the West following the Cold War significantly reduced the willingness to take such reactions into account - NATO felt like it could do anything and no reply would follow. The West's easy and unexpected success in the Cold War created a feeling of unconditional victory – a political and economic success, but most importantly, a moral one. "The West felt that it, as the winning side, had the right to determine the structure of Europe and knew exactly how to go about it. This was not simply a display of conscious arrogance, but rather of joyful euphoria. "In fact, there never was a real chance to establish a true partnership between Russia and NATO, although at some point there were certain illusions regarding this. "The situation could have changed dramatically if Russia had considered the possibility of joining NATO, and if the bloc itself had considered such a scenario. Then the principle of the indivisibility of security, proclaimed in the 1990 Charter of Paris for a New Europe, would have been respected within the framework of the bloc. However, it was impossible for Russia to join NATO, since, even at its weakest, Russia remained one of the world's largest military powers and possessed the largest nuclear arsenal. The hypothetical accession of such a state to NATO would mean the emergence of a second force within the club that would be on a par with the US, and therefore, would not obey it on the same level as other allies. This would change the very essence of the organization, and alter its principles of Atlanticism (simply because of Russia's geographical location). No one was prepared for this. The qualitative transformation of NATO was never on the agenda. "As a result, NATO's expansion, which in a sense became automated, pushed Russia further and further to the east. Moscow's attempts to regulate this process – first through participation in joint institutions (such as the NATO-Russia Council of 2002, which was an expansion of the NATO-Russia Founding Act of 1997) and then through growing opposition (starting with Putin's Munich Speech in 2007) – did not bring the desired results. In addition to the inertia of the West's initial approach (which implied that the bloc's very existence is security in itself), the West believed that Moscow didn't have the right to set conditions and must only follow the rules set by the stronger and more successful Western community. This is how the EU eventually got involved in the current Ukraine war. "Could relations between NATO and Russia have developed in a different way? The West believes that the persistence of Russia, which continued to consider NATO a threat to its security, led to the current military crisis. And, in fact, this became a self-fulfilling prophecy. But even assuming that this was true, the speed and ease with which NATO returned to a strong confrontation with Russia shows that it had been prepared for this. "Russia's memorandum of December 2021 and the 2022 military operation in Ukraine were designed to put an end to the idea of NATO's uncontested expansion as the only means of ensuring European security. Two-and-a-half years later, we see that the scale of the conflict has exceeded all initial expectations. Judging by Moscow's statements, the confrontation may only come to an end when the principles on which European security is based are fundamentally reconsidered. "This is not a territorial conflict, but a conflict which may only end when NATO abandons its main goal and function. So far, there is no compromise on the horizon. The Western side is not willing to agree that the results of the Cold War must be reconsidered, and the Russian side is not ready to retreat without this assurance. Thirty years after the signing of the Partnership for Peace program, there's still no partnership or peace between Russia and NATO. And neither is there a clear understanding of why the two sides were unable to achieve it."
(Source: memri *)
* Middle East Media and Research Institute, an American press monitoring and analysis organization. It publishes and distributes copies of media reports translated into English. Headquarters Washington, D.C., United States
by Lukyanov, the editor-in-chief of Russia in Global Affairs; research professor at the Faculty of World Economy and International Affairs of Moscow Higher School of Economics; chairman of the Presidium of the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy; research director of the Valdai International Discussion Club.

July 11, 2024  American allies in Europe caught in between. The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty was signing in 1987 by President Reagan and the Soviet leader, Gorbachev. West Germany at the time was on the front lines of the Cold War. The agreement was prohibiting nuclear and conventional missiles with ranges from 500 to 5,500 kilometers and removed the Soviet-type SS-20s or Pioneers mobile, intermediate-range, nuclear-armed ballistic missiles and the American nuclear-capable Pershing II ballistic missiles as well as nuclear-capable Ground-Launch Cruise Missiles from Europe. The treaty remained in force until the Trump administration pulled out of it in 2019, citing violations by Russia with the development of a new cruise missile, the 9M729, also known as the SSC-8. Washington said that the missile could fly at ranges in violation of the agreement. Moscow said that the missile’s range was shorter and denied violating the pact. The dissolution of the Cold War-era agreement signaled the possibility of a renewed arms race, including competing missile deployments in Europe. For years, President Putin of Russia has cited the American deployment of missile infrastructure in Europe as an aggressive move aimed at containing Moscow’s capabilities. At the end of June, Mr. Putin said at a meeting with security officials that Russia should relaunch production of ground-based nuclear-capable missiles of shorter and intermediate range. Russia is preparing military countermeasures in response to the planned American deployment of longer-range missiles in Germany, ’to this new game,’ the Russian deputy foreign minister Ryabkov said today, adding that the U.S. move was “destructive to regional safety and strategic stability.’ In a separate comment published by the Russian Foreign Ministry, Mr. Ryabkov said that Moscow had anticipated the decision and that Russia had started preparing ’compensating countermeasures’ in advance. The news about the coming missile deployments in Germany was made during the NATO summit in Washington. Ultimately, the weapons will include nonnuclear SM-6 missiles, Tomahawk cruise missiles and developmental hypersonic weapons. The alliance also announced that an American missile defense base in Poland capable of intercepting ballistic missiles was 'mission ready' after years of development. The Kremlin’s spokesman, Peskov, said today that tensions were ’escalating on the European continent.’ Moscow saw the deployment of NATO infrastructure closer to its border as “a very serious threat.’ (Source: dnyuz */ New York Times **)
*
** The New York Times, an American daily newspaper. Headquarters New York City, U.S.

Asia

South Korea
July 11, 2024, 3:33 PM   South Korea will become the first country in the world to deploy and operate laser weapons. It announced today that it will deploy laser weapons by the end of this year, to be produced by Hanwha Aerospace, to target North Korean drones. The low-cost system burns engines or other electronic equipment with beams of light. Each shot fired only costs about $1.50 and is extremely difficult to detect before impact. It’s a weapons system capable of countering even aircraft and ballistic missiles if they enhance the generated power, Seoul’s key arms agency said. (Source: foreignpolicy).

North America

United States
July 11, 2024, 3:33 PM  Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán met with former U.S. President Trump at his Mar-a-Lago property in Florida today. Orbán took over the six-month presidency of the European Union’s Council of Ministers on July 1, and since then, he has met with Russian President Putin and Chinese President Xi as part of a self-described “peace mission”- meetings that have angered his fellow NATO members. Orbán and Trump were expected to discuss Russia’s war with Ukraine. Orbán is not the only one worrying fellow NATO members. Yesterday, Trump said he would not pull the United States out of the alliance; however, he reiterated that he wants other NATO nations to pay more. Trump is considering reducing the United States’ intelligence-sharing with NATO members if he is reelected in November. (Source: foreignpolicy *)
* 'Foreign Policy, an American news publication based in Washington, D.C., U.S., with daily content' on its website.

NATO

July 11, 2024 10:23 PM  West preparing for arms race with Russia, its backers - intent on confronting a nascent arms race with global implications. Some Western officials say NATO must prepare to outspend, outpace and outproduce the fledgling alliance that has kept the Russian military on the move - the growing defense cooperation among Russia, China, North Korea and Iran. Officials have repeatedly accused China of playing a critical role in sustaining Russia's military by sending Moscow raw materials and so-called dual-use components needed to produce advanced weapons and weapons systems. In April and May, the United States and Britain levied new sanctions against Iranian companies and officials involved in the production of drones for the Russian military. Declassified U.S. intelligence has noted Russia's use of North Korean ballistic missiles. South Korean officials said earlier this year that Pyongyang has so far sent Russia at least 6,700 containers that could contain more than 3 million artillery shells. U.S. President Biden said a strategy to disrupt their efforts is being put into place. 'We talked about how both the European Union as well as NATO has to be able to begin to build their own ammunition capacity, has to be able to generate their own capacity to provide for weapons,’ Biden said today. The West is going to become the industrial base for it, Biden added. "We will have the ability to have all the defensive weapons that we need." The U.S., Germany, Spain and others have already begun to produce interceptors for Patriot air defense batteries in Europe. The U.S. and Turkey have embarked on an effort to produce 155 millimeter artillery shells in the southern U.S. state of Texas. The U.S. president said some European allies are also preparing to impose costs on China and disengage economically for as long as Beijing provides Moscow with the components and materiel it needs to continue its war against Ukraine. Already some U.S. officials have taken to calling Russia, China, North Korea and Iran a new ’axis of evil.’ They're 100% aligned all the time, every day, on the strategic capabilities that they're building in partnership, Goldberg, a U.S. National Security Council official under former President Trump, told. "Our response has to view them as an axis, not individual parts." "There are still significant tension points between the four countries that prevent the formation of a more cohesive alliance," said Grisé, a senior policy researcher at the RAND Corporation. "Within the Russia-Iran relationship, for example, friction points include competition for energy markets and for influence in the Caucasus, as well as - at least historically - divergent approaches to Israel," Grisé told. The Russia-China-North Korea-Iran axis "to form a more cohesive alliance, they'll have to translate their shared opposition to the Western-led international order into a coherent, shared vision for the future, which I expect they'll struggle to do,’ she said. (Source: voanews *)
* Voice of America, the international radio broadcaster of the United States of America. Headquarters Washington, D.C., United States

.4 7 28 23:26

.

NATO

11 Jul. 2024 17:14 / 10 Jul. 2024 

Washington Summit Declaration

issued by the Heads of State and Government participating in the meeting of the North Atlantic Council

in Washington, D.C. 10 July 2024.

(Source: nato *):

https://tinyurl.com/4f7nbf9j

 * North Atlantic Treaty Organization, a collective security system.

NATO's headquarters are located in Brussels and near Mons, Belgium.

July 11, 2024, 3:33 PM  Key takeaways from the 2024 NATO Summit. Kyiv is on an 'irreversible' path to membership, the bloc formally declared on yesterday - one that will kick off once its war against Russia ends. The alliance said it would provide at least $43 billion in military aid to Kyiv within the next year, but it stopped short of a multiyear commitment that NATO Secretary-General Stoltenberg advocated for. The United States, Denmark, and the Netherlands revealed that they have sent the first batch of F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine, which should be in the skies later this summer. Poland said it will train a unit of Ukrainians living in Poland to be deployed back to Kyiv. And NATO confirmed plans to establish a new command center in Germany aimed at coordinating arms and training logistics for Ukraine. Washington announced yesterday that it plans to start deploying longer-range weapons - including Tomahawk, SM-6, and hypersonic missiles - to Germany in 2026. France, Germany, Italy, and Poland agreed today to jointly develop long-range cruise missiles to address a gap in European defenses that Russia’s war in Ukraine has exposed. Despite efforts to counter Russia’s military influence, though, NATO reiterated yesterday that it “does not seek confrontation, and poses no threat to Russia,’ adding that the alliance remains willing to “maintain channels of communication with Moscow to mitigate risk and prevent escalation.” Yesterday, the alliance criticized China for being a “decisive enabler' of Moscow’s war efforts. For Washington’s part, National Security Advisor Sullivan said the United States would continue to impose sanctions on Chinese entities involved in aiding Russia’s effort. South Korean President Yoon argued on today that the Kremlin’s close ties with North Korea are a “stark reminder of the fact that the European security and the Indo-Pacific security are indivisible.” To end the multiday summit, Biden will hold a rare, high-stakes solo press conference today, It will be his first time facing the press alone since November, and it comes amid growing calls for Biden to end his reelection campaign after a poor debate performance in late June. (Source: foreignpolicy *)
* Foreign Policy, an American news publication based in Washington, D.C., U.S., with daily content on its website.

July 11, 2024 3:16pm EDT  Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán departed the NATO summit in Washington, D.C., today to meet with former President Trump in Florida. Orbán arrived in the U.S. this week to attend the multi-day NATO summit, which occurs at a time when members remain concerned about Russia's ongoing invasion of Ukraine and what the future holds for the broader European Union. Orbán has crisscrossed the globe over the past week after assuming the role as president of the European Union. Hungary’s presidency will last six months as part of a rotating leadership scheme for the bloc and does not provide much actual power, but Orbán wasted no time in using that office to start holding discussions with President Zelenskyy, Russian President Putin and Chinese President Xi before his meeting with Trump. His visit to Russia shocked many of his peers. The rest of Europe ’has remained less than enamored’ with Orbán, though, especially in light of his foreign visit blitz in the past 10 days. ’A majority of member states already have considerably lowered’ the level of participation in the informal council meetings ’that will be held in Hungary” during the presidency term. In some capitals, also, officials have discussed how to use EU treaties to limit Orbán’s impact. Orbán has long admired Trump, going so far as to invoke the former president with a quip that Hungary would "make Europe great again," and Trump met with Orbán at Mar-a-Lago in Florida in March when ’trying to court’ foreign policy in the U.S. During an interview with German journalist and author Ronzheimer, Orbán said that there is a "very, very high chance that the next American president will be not the same president who is today." He refused to be drawn on questions about President Biden’s fitness for office. (Source: foxnews *)
* Fox News Channel (FNC), an American multinational conservative news and political commentary television channel and website. Headquarters New York City, New York
By ’Aitken

July 11, 2024 6:13 pm CET Turkey and Hungary came to the NATO summit. Hungary spends 2.1 percent of GDP on defense, above the alliance target, and is modernizing its military. Turkey has NATO's second-largest army after the U.S. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán nor Erdoğan, the Turkish president, the pair of’ populists’ - one defending Christian values, the other increasingly Islamist - have broader interests in common. They play their own game. They both ’dally’ with Russia, they hedge on supporting Ukraine and they have foreign policies that often clash with NATO priorities. They're looking to ensure NATO is a purely defensive alliance - in other words that ’it keeps its nose out’ of Ukraine. They're also gearing up for a possible change of government in the United States and cozying up to Trump. Although both Orbán and Erdoğan have broken ranks with the rest of the alliance and met with Putin, their positions on Ukraine aren't exactly the same. The Hungarian leader has sought to undermine NATO's role on Ukraine and ’parrots Putin's talking points on the war’, declaring that Ukraine won't be able to hold out against superior Russian forces. Hungary also has no intention of following the rest of the EU in ending purchases of Russian natural gas. Turkey has declared its support for Ukraine's ’territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence," and does send weapons to Kyiv while maintaining a vibrant trading relationship with Russia - including big gas purchases. Both are wary of entangling NATO in the conflict. Erdoğan cautioned on X that the alliance "should not be made a party to the war when designing steps to support Ukraine." Despite having policies wildly out of line with the rest of NATO, the alliance remains a core foreign policy priority for both countries. Indeed, Orbán even exhibited a sense of deference when he arrived in the summit, physically bowing to NATO boss Stoltenberg and U.S. President Biden while appearing onstage for an official photo. Turkey has much wider interests than NATO. Its army is in Syria and regularly crosses into Iraq. It has tried to form a Turkic bloc that includes ex-Soviet countries like Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan. It also regularly demands NATO focus more on fighting terrorism, an agenda that serves its national interests. Orbán made an informal appearance at the Turkic summit earlier this month, something that ’earned him a smackdown’ from the EU's top diplomat Borrell. Days before Erdoğan met Biden and Stoltenberg, he showed up in Kazakhstan and attended a meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, a security and defense grouping founded by Beijing and Moscow, and asked for full membership. As soon as Orbán arrived in Washington from his much-criticized meeting in Moscow and Beijing, he sat down with Erdoğan. Later today, he was due to fly to Florida ’to pay court to Trump’ at Mar-a-Lago. Orbán used the NATO summit as his latest platform to preach his self-appointed "peace" mission - an effort to end the war in Ukraine ’on what looks like terms set by Russian leader Putin, the war's instigator’. "The issue of the Russia-Ukraine war was discussed," Orbán's office said in a statement following the meeting with Erdoğan, adding that the Hungarian PM "asked for the support of the Hungarian peace mission in view of the fact that Turkey has been the only successful mediator in the conflict so far." Hungary was the only NATO country that opted out of the alliance's new mission to support Ukraine by coordinating the transfer of Western weapons and training Ukrainian soldiers. Weeks before coming to the summit, Orbán ’forced’ then-Dutch PM Mark Rutte to sign and confirm respect for this position - a necessary ’kowtow’ before he approved Rutte's bid to be the next NATO secretary-general. Turkey ’also put Rutte through the wringer’ before signing off on his candidacy. Now, to the ’chagrin’ of U.S. and European diplomats, Ankara has a new demand: that Turkey gets to host the NATO summit in 2026. Turkey also caused last-minute trouble with the NATO summit declaration, which was issued yesterday evening. Earlier this week, on the advanced stage of negotiation on the wording Turkey "reopened the declaration" on various points. In the end, the declaration mentioned that NATO countries "look forward to meeting again at our next Summit in The Hague, the Netherlands, in June 2025, followed by a meeting in Türkiye." The format (meeting as opposed to summit) and the timing (2026 or later) were deliberately left vague for countries to hammer out the details at a later stage. Ankara also sought to water down the reference to NATO-EU cooperation. The issue has been a sore point for Turkey, whose EU candidacy exists only in name. On this, however, Turkey made less headway - 23 countries share membership in EU and NATO. In a recent interview, Turkish Defense Minister Güler said: “The most effective security organization in the Euro-Atlantic region is NATO ... We think there is no need for any other formation.” In the end, the NATO statement says the alliance "recognises the value of a stronger and more capable European defence that contributes positively to transatlantic and global security and is complementary to, and interoperable with NATO." (Source: politico *)
* Politico, an American political digital newspaper. Headquarters Arlington County, Virginia, U.S.
by ’Lau’

July 11, 2024 12:45 AM EDT  Former President Trump will meet with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán in Florida today, less than a week after he met with Russian President Putin in Moscow. Orbán will travel to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort after the conclusion of the NATO summit in Washington. His visit to Moscow became a central point of discussion at the gathering, where other allies pledged additional air defenses for Ukraine in its continuing campaign against the full-scale Russian invasion that began in 2022. Orbán also paid a visit this week to President Xi in China, following a trip to Azerbaijan earlier this month. Hungary took over the European Union’s rotating presidency July 1. EU officials have criticized Orbán’s travels, arguing they could undermine the 27-member bloc’s positions on global issues. NATO Secretary General Stoltenberg told on July 7 that Orbán “made it clear when he came to Moscow that he didn’t go there on behalf of NATO.” “Different NATO allies interact with Moscow in different ways,” he added. The Biden administration has criticized Orbán over his friendly relations with Putin. Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, has not asked the Hungarian leader to lay the groundwork for some sort of Ukraine-Russia peace deal, according to one of the people familiar with the Orbán visit. The person described the visit, which will take place days before the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, as more of an informal get-together. 'The visit is likely to fan concerns that the Hungarian leader is working as an intermediary between Putin and Trump'. Trump and Putin 'professed a fondness for one another" during the U.S. president’s first term - often garnering bipartisan criticism. More recently, the Republican leader has said he believed he could convince Putin to end his war in Ukraine and release Americans detained in Russia if he were elected to a second term. The Hungarian leader and Trump have cultivated a close relationship, with Orbán visiting Mar-a-Lago in March. Trump feted him with a tour of his residence, dinner with former first Lady Melania, an hour-long meeting with senior aides, and musical performance by a band covering Orbison songs. (Source: time *)
* Time, an American news magazine based in New York City, New York, U.S.

2:24 AM CEST, July 11, 2024  The European and North American members and their partners in the Indo-Pacific increasingly see shared security concerns coming from Russia and its Asian supporters, especially China. The sternly worded final communiqué, approved by the 32 NATO members at their summit in Washington, makes clear that China is becoming a focus of the military alliance. In this year’s final declaration, NATO member countries reiterated their concerns that China poses “systemic challenges” to Euro-Atlantic security. It was first raised in 2021. In the communiqué, they said China has become a war enabler through its “no-limits partnership” with Russia and its large-scale support for Russia’s defense industrial base. “This increases the threat Russia poses to its neighbors and to Euro-Atlantic security. We call on the PRC, as a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council with a particular responsibility to uphold the purposes and principles of the U.N. Charter, to cease all material and political support to Russia’s war effort,” read the communiqué, which referred to China by the abbreviation of its official name, the People’s Republic of China. “The PRC cannot enable the largest war in Europe in recent history without this negatively impacting its interests and reputation,” the document says. Beijing insists that it does not provide military aid to Russia but has maintained strong trade ties with its northern neighbor throughout the conflict. NATO Secretary-General Stoltenberg said China provides equipment, microelectronics and tools that are “enabling Russia to build the missiles, to build the bombs, to build the aircraft, to build the weapons they use to attack Ukraine.” The Chinese embassy in Washington yesterday said China is neither a creator of nor a party to the Ukraine crisis. “China does not provide weapons to the parties to the conflict and strictly controls the export of dual-use articles, which is widely applauded by the international community,' said Liu, the embassy spokesman. He said China’s normal trade with Russia is “done aboveboard” and “beyond reproach.” The new wording by NATO was coupled with the warning that Beijing continues to pose “systemic challenges” to European interests and security, Russel, vice president for international security and diplomacy at the Asia Society Policy Institute said. ’China’s attempts at divide-and-conquer have instead produced remarkable solidarity between key nations of the Euro-Atlantic and the Asia-Pacific regions,” Russel, the former assistant secretary of state for Asia added. ’The U.S. believes that Europe has influence in Beijing, and that while China will not pay any attention to U.S. condemnation, they will pay attention to European condemnation because just because Europe trades with China, China also trades with Europe,” Bergmann, director of the Europe, Russia, and Eurasia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said. The alliance said China has been behind sustained, malicious cyber and hybrid activities, including disinformation and expressed concerns over China’s space capabilities and activities. It also raised alarms that China is rapidly expanding and diversifying its nuclear arsenal with more warheads and a larger number of sophisticated delivery systems. Liu said China handles such issues “in a responsible manner with transparent policies,’ adding Beijing firmly opposes NATO’s use of regional hotspot issues to smear China and incite a new Cold War.’ It also accuses NATO of overreaching and inciting confrontation in the Indo-Pacific region. Australia, New Zealand, Japan and South Korea have sent their leaders or deputies to the NATO summit in Washington this week. They are partners, not members, of the alliance. NATO and the Indo-Pacific partners plan to launch four projects to support Ukraine, bolster cooperation on cyber defense, counter disinformation and work on artificial intelligence. The NATO members said these projects would “enhance our ability to work together on shared security interests.” In the final declaration, NATO members affirmed the importance of the Indo-Pacific partners to the alliance and said they were “strengthening dialogue to tackle cross-regional challenges.' (Source: apnews *)
* The Associated Press, an American news agency headquartered in New York City, U.S

July 11, 2024  Hungarian PM Viktor Orbán has asked Turkish President Erdogan to support his efforts to launch peace talks to end the Russia-Ukraine War, Orbán’s press secretary 'Hawashi' told Russian news service TASS on July 10. The previous day, Orbán and Erdogan met in Washington, DC on the sidelines of the Nato summit. In a video on Facebook, the Hungarian leader confirmed that he had asked for the Turkish president's support. “The positions of the battling parties are still far apart,” Orbán noted in the video. In his peace efforts, Orbán met with President Zelenskiy on July 2, Russian President Putin on July 5 and Chinese President Xi on July 8. Hungary is holding the presidency of the EU in H2 2024. At his meeting with Putin held on July 5 in Astana, Erdogan has also offered mediation between Russia and Ukraine. However, the Russians have turned a cold shoulder to Erdogan’s offer. (Source: intellinews *)
* bne IntelliNews, a news wire agency and media company. Headquarters Berlin, Germany

July 11, 2024  NATO’s leaders at the summit once again risked disappointing Zelensky by refusing to issue Ukraine a clear invitation to join their alliance. But in a bid to soften any upset, leaders called Ukraine’s path to membership “irreversible.’ They also pledged to provide Kyiv a minimum of 40 billion euros ($43 billion) in military support ’within the next year.” ’We are doing and will continue to do everything to ensure that the day comes when Ukraine is invited and becomes a NATO member, and I am confident we will achieve this,’ Zelensky said. NATO allies have put together a package of support for Ukraine including the pledge of more Patriot missile systems to defend the skies over the war-torn country. President Zelensky today called on NATO leaders, especially the United States, to drop all restrictions on letting Kyiv strike inside Russia with Western weaponry. The leader joined his NATO counterparts after receiving promises of new air defenses for Ukraine and as allies began the transfer of long-promised F-16 jets. Key allies such as Washington and Germany relaxed conditions on Ukraine hitting inside Russia in May in response to Moscow’s offensive toward the second city Kharkiv, but they kept in place some limits on how far and under which circumstances Kyiv could strike. ’If we want to win, if we want to prevail, if we want to save our country and to defend it, we need to lift all the limitations,’ Zelensky said. ’The only way to hit military targets, missile launchers or airfields which are conducting attacks against Ukraine is to hit military targets on Russian territory, because the frontline and the borderline is more or less the same,’ NATO chief Stoltenberg said. He said there has been ’a Russian campaign organized by the security services to conduct hostile actions against NATO allies, across the alliance, with sabotage attempts, with cyber attacks, with arson, with different types of hostile actions.” The purpose of this campaign is, of course, to intimidate NATO allies from supporting Ukraine, he said. The United States on yesterday announced an important step to bolster NATO’s own deterrence against Russia in Europe by saying it would begin ’episodic deployments’ of long-range missiles to Germany in 2026. The White House said it would eventually look to permanently station them in Germany, and the missiles would ’have significantly longer range’ than current US systems in Europe. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz welcomed the move and said it would help ’securing peace.’ The Kremlin on today struck back, saying it was planning “response measures’ to contain the “very serious threat” from NATO, accusing the alliance of being ’fully involved in the conflict over Ukraine.’ NATO shifted attention eastwards by welcoming the leaders of Australia, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea. The Washington summit is the third such gathering attended by leaders from the four Asia-Pacific partners. The United States has been pushing its European allies for years to pay closer attention to the challenges posed by China. NATO agreed to several initiatives with the partner countries, including bolstering cooperation against cyberattacks and disinformation, and providing Ukraine non-lethal help. (Source: digitaljournal */ „Written by AFP **„)
* Digital Journal, Canada
** Agence France-Presse, a French international news agency headquartered in Paris, France

Space

Space
July 11, 2024  What on Earth is a Canadian citizen supposed do if they find potentially hazardous space garbage on their private property? Today’s commercialization of orbit - SpaceX and other companies, as well as governments - are producing space debris that could very easily kill people. Sawchuk, a Saskatchewan farmer’s near miss with potentially lethal debris falling from orbit highlights the skyrocketing risks and murky politics of space junk. On his farm dangerous fragments of space debris from the uncontrolled reentry event fell on February 26, 2024. On a photo of the farmer, standing next to what looked like the charred, battered hood of a semitruck covered with woven carbon fiber and a few slightly melted aluminum protrusions, the object looked exactly like debris that fell in an Australian sheep field in 2022, which the U.S. aerospace company SpaceX later admitted was part of a cargo trunk for its Crew Dragon spacecraft. This “trunk” is actually the size of a small grain silo, and is ejected in orbit well before the spacecraft’s atmospheric reentry, to naturally and chaotically reenter on its own and, supposedly, burn up completely. A dramatic increase in space commerce and exploration could soon make such events disturbingly common across the globe. McDowell, an astronomer at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian who maintains probably the best public database of launches, reentries and other space activities, confirmed, tracing the path of a SpaceX Crew Dragon trunk ejected by the Axiom 3 private astronaut mission: it had reentered over the Canadian prairies on February 26, 2024. After being cast adrift on February 9, the cargo trunk spent more than two weeks in a decaying orbit. Reaching about 50 miles altitude in the early morning hours of February 26, it began to burn as it plowed at some 17,000 miles per hour through the thickening air. Anyone near Calgary looking up at the right moment could have briefly seen a very bright, messy shooting star as the heavy cylinder melted and broke into pieces. The trunk’s outer layers of woven carbon fiber billowed and unraveled as it fell, likely insulating and slowing the plummeting pieces so abruptly that friction from the atmosphere failed to destroy them as SpaceX engineers had planned. Objects breaking apart high overhead often leave debris trails spanning hundreds of miles; the hefty fragments in Sawchuk’s equipment shed were a testament to many smaller ones undoubtedly generated by this event that are yet to be discovered. People will be finding additional pieces for years, if not decades. The SpaceX company has been launching huge numbers of its Starlink internet broadband satellites since 2019; more than 6,000 are in orbit, and as many as 42,000 are planned. Beyond the disruptive light pollution, atmospheric pollution is skyrocketing from the SpaceX-dominated dramatic increase in launches and reentries - with potentially disastrous global effects. The aluminum oxide produced by sublimating satellites in Earth’s upper atmosphere is a potent and lasting catalyst for chemical reactions similar to those that in the 20th century famously corroded a gaping hole in our planet’s delicate, radiation-blocking ozone layer. The farmer was extremely annoyed that SpaceX was allowed to dump its orbital trash onto his farm, he said, and had assumed the best response was to tell his story in the news media. But most journalists didn’t prioritize following up on a rural Saskatchewan farmer saying he found a piece of space junk. How does one tell SpaceX, a piece of their spacecraft fell on your farm? Who has to clean it up? The answers are completely bizarre. The Outer Space Treaty (OST) and the Space Liability Convention, two agreements were signed between many countries during the space race era of the late 1960s and early 1970s - a time when only national governments were capable of launching rockets into orbit. The treaties mandate that signatory governments have absolute liability for any damage or death caused by anything launched into orbit from their respective countries. In other words, anytime SpaceX launches a rocket, the U.S. government is responsible for any damage it causes in other countries. So far, these treaties have only been fully tested once. In 1978 a Soviet satellite with a nuclear reactor on board crashed into northern Canada, spraying radioactive waste across a Florida-sized swath of land that Indigenous people have relied on for thousands of years. The U.S.S.R. paid Canada a small token compensation for the cursory cleanup effort that ensued, but the effects of that disaster linger to this day. Another precedent-setting scenario - damage claims from a Florida family whose home was recently struck by NASA-sourced space debris - is presently unfolding. Sawchuk’s case was rather different from these, however, with pieces of a spacecraft built by an American private company landing on private property in Canada, without apparent damage. It was a rare chance for independent scientists to study the trunk’s composition and learn more about the pollutants that transparency-averse SpaceX and others are incessantly pumping into Earth’s upper atmosphere. But a sort of “independent study” plan was actually prohibited by international law, because although the trunk fell on private property in Canada, according to the OST it needed to be returned to its country of origin. A representative of SpaceX called Sawchuk in mid-May to arrange plans for retrieving the company’s space junk. Sawchuk first demanded proof that the person was from SpaceX. Then he asked them as compensation to donate money to a skating rink that’s under construction in the nearby town of Ituna. SpaceX’s representative wrote back offering several thousand dollars and agreeing to those terms in cordial legalese; Sawchuk would need to send them an official invoice “for collection and storage of debris pending recovery.” Should provide compensation a company owned by the richest dude in the world probably to folks they drop potentially lethal garbage on? But after learning of the situation via early media coverage, by initiating unilateral contact with Sawchuk, SpaceX had circumvented the formal procedures dictated by prevailing space law. According to the OST and the Space Liability Convention, what should’ve happened is this: after finding the SpaceX’s space junk, Sawchuk somehow should have contacted Global Affairs Canada, which should have contacted the U.S. State Department, which should have contacted SpaceX to arrange retrieval of the company’s property in coordination with the Canadian government. If there had been damage, the U.S. government would have been obligated by the OST to compensate the Canadian government. But because SpaceX is a private company, and no damage occurred, any compensation is voluntary. Canadian Space Agency later released a statement saying that local law enforcement should be notified - implying that small-town RCMP officers are trained in dealing with potentially hazardous space debris. They aren’t. As Sawchuk and his neighbors awaited SpaceX’s trash pickup, even more recoverable debris emerged, but in the form of fragments of an entirely different Crew Dragon trunk that reentered elsewhere on May 21. Pieces were found in North Carolina, including one that allegedly bounced off someone’s house. SpaceX’s plan for the Starlink mega constellation is that each Ford F150-sized satellite will operate for five years before being deorbited to burn up in Earth’s atmosphere, clearing the way for the launch of new replacements. SpaceX has provisional permission from the Federal Communications Commission to launch and operate 42,000 Starlink satellites. Assuming each one reaches orbit and lasts five years, on average, SpaceX will be burning up nearly one satellite per hour. If, like the Crew Dragon trunks, some might scatter large pieces across the Earth after failing to fully burn up, the prospect of human fatalities cannot be easily dismissed. Even if all Starlinks fully burn as planned, the repercussions on our planet’s atmosphere and climate from this single mega constellation project could be severe - and Starlink is but the first of many. SpaceX finally notified Sawchuk of the recovery team’s planned arrival on June 11. The stage was set for a space-junk media circus in the middle of rural Saskatchewan. By then the space-junk haul had grown to five very large pieces - the two Sawchuk had originally found, plus one apiece that each of his two sons found on their plots, and finally from a neighbor a frighteningly huge spearlike shard that was about nine feet tall and weighed 80 pounds. There were about 250 pounds of space debris in total, sitting there in the equipment shed. An U-Haul arrived, then two very nervous-looking young men emerged and somewhat sheepishly approached the awaiting throng. The pair stayed mostly silent, avoiding eye contact and offering only tight-lipped smiles in response to the ceaseless barrage of questions as they donned gloves and loaded the debris, piece by piece, into the truck. “How much do these trunks weigh? That information isn’t public, you know!” No answer other than twin forced smiles. “After all, the U.S. government classifies spacecraft parts as munitions.” One of them glanced nervously at the U-Haul but said nothing. Both disappeared into the side room to talk behind closed doors with Sawchuk. After that uneventful private chat, the pair hopped back in the U-Haul and drove off. The assembled media gradually packed up and left too. If had fallen those pieces in the city of Regina, or in New York City, or on a midair passenger jet? To SpaceX’s credit, the company is now working with NASA to study ways to mitigate the problem posed by Crew Dragon trunks. Even so, that more space junk will fall on us in the coming months and years is a matter of mathematical certainty. As of this writing there are 10,057 active satellites in orbit; well more than half of those are SpaceX’s Starlink spacecraft. There are tens of thousands of pieces of space debris large enough to track, and orders of magnitude more that are too small for our current surveillance to see. Most of this material, satellites and debris alike, is in low-Earth orbit, and without intervention will eventually burn up in Earth’s atmosphere in years, decades or centuries depending on altitude. We’re left hoping that hazardous pieces won’t reach the ground, that all those tons of vaporized aerospace-grade metal won’t further erode our planet’s protective ozone layer, that the sky will not fall. Countries need to enforce the rules that already exist, and regulations need to be updated to account for the unprecedented numbers of launches and reentries now occurring. (Source: scientificamerican *)
* Scientific American, an American popular science monthly magazine.
by Lawler, an associate professor of astronomy at the University of Regina in Saskatchewan, Canada

.

.

Europe

Austria
Wednesday, July 10, 2024  Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, was welcomed with military honours by Austria’s Chancellor Karl Nehammer in Vienna Austria, today. Modi’s visit to Austria is the first by an Indian prime minister in 41 years. A day after he met Russian President Putin in Moscow, emphasizing the need for diplomacy, Modi discussed the war in Ukraine with an ally of Kyiv, the leader of Austria, that has a policy of military neutrality. While in Moscow, Modi reiterated India’s neutral stance on the invasion. Nehammer told reporters it was important to understand India’s position on Ukraine and convey Europe’s concerns. He said it was an “important and significant signal” that India took part in a summit in Switzerland last month and added that Austria could act as a ’bridge-builder’ in helping move forward peace efforts. In his comments today, Modi said in general terms that he and Nehammer had “extensive discussions” on all the world’s conflicts, including Ukraine. He said that “problems cannot be solved in the battlefield” and that “the loss of innocent lives is not acceptable, wherever it may take place.” “India and Austria both lay emphasis on dialogue and diplomacy for the rapid restoration of peace and stability,” he said. “Both of us are ready to provide all possible support to achieve this.” Modi and Nehammer took no questions from journalists. (Source: washingtontimes */ Associated Press)
* The Washington Times, an American conservative daily newspaper. Headquarters Washington, D.C., U.S.

Italy
10.07.2024  Hungary assumed the rotating presidency of the European Union this month, and Orbán has since embarked on a "peace mission" to Ukraine, Russia, and China. In Kyiv, he said a cease-fire between Russia and Ukraine could speed up negotiations to end the war that started in February 2022. Italian Foreign Minister Tajani today said Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán is free to make the trips he desires, but should not undermine the unity of EU and NATO. “When Orbán undertakes these trips without a mandate from the EU, he represents Hungary, not the EU. The Hungarian prime minister is free to choose the visits he deems appropriate, but he should ensure not to weaken the unity representing the strength of the West, Europe, and NATO,” Tajani told Italian press in Washington DC, where he is attending a NATO summit. He reiterated Rome’s commitment to defend Ukraine's territorial integrity and sovereignty. He said the G7 foreign ministers, under Italy's presidency, would meet on the margins of the NATO summit, expressing hope for positive outcomes in discussions on Gaza and emphasizing the need for progress towards a two-state solution to the Palestine-Israel conflict. (Source: aa)

Poland
8:57 PM CEST, July 10, 2024  The new joint training NATO-Ukraine center in Bydgoszcz, Poland is planned in part to have Ukrainians teach NATO member countries some of the lessons Ukrainians have learned about fighting Russian forces, such as using civilian drones in the battlefield, Siewiera, head of Poland’s National Security Bureau and the security adviser to President Andrej Duda said on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Washington, yesterday. Siewiera also spoke 'in favor of Ukraine being allowed to use the weapons that it gets from NATO allies against Russian military targets in Russia'. ’It’s up to Ukrainians how they use their weapons’ once they get them, he argued. The new joint training center in Poland that NATO announced early this year and is setting up with Ukraine ’ideally’ would be used to provide military training to potentially ’millions’ of Ukrainian civilians living abroad who would be willing to come home to join the fight against Russia, the senior Polish security official said. He pointed to Russia’s success greatly expanding its military ranks during the war in Ukraine. The West has to look at the NATO center as a potential center for training Ukrainians for volunteer forces, ’the volunteers who are now present in European countries and are willing to defend Ukraine in the future, because there are millions of them,’ he said. (apnews *)
* The Associated Press, an American news agency headquartered in New York City, U.S

'10 lipca 2024, 14:59'  Poland 'needs to prepare its soldiers for all-out conflict', army chief of staff General Kukula said today, as the country boosts the number of troops on its border with Russia and Belarus. As of August, the number of troops guarding Poland's eastern border would be increased to 8,000 from the current 6,000, with an additional rearguard of 9,000 able to step up within 48 hours notice. The border with Belarus has been a flashpoint since migrants started flocking there in 2021 after Belarus opened travel agencies in the Middle East offering a new unofficial route into Europe - a move the European Union said was designed to create a crisis. The size of the armed forces stood at about 190,000 personnel at the end of last year, including ground, air, naval, special forces and territorial defence forces. Poland 'plans to increase this to 300,000 troops within a few years'. (Source: tvn24 *)
* TVN24, a Polish 24-hour commercial news channel, owned by US-based media company Warner Bros. Discovery. Headquarters Warsaw, Poland

European Parliament
10 July 2024  How the formation of new European Parliament Party Groups is going? Negotiations are still ongoing to finalise the new groups that will be running the European Parliament for the next five years. European Parliament Party Groups by total seat count - 720 seats total, 361 required to achieve governing majority - The Left (46); Greens/EFA (53); S&D (136); Renew Europe (76); EPP (189); ECR (74); Patriots for Europe (84); Europe of Sovereign Nations (25); Other/Unknown/Non-Inscrits (37). European Parliament Party Groups and their country composition; European Parliament Party Group formation - complete data. (Source: euractiv *):

https://tinyurl.com/y52jzp7n

* Euractiv, a European news website. Its headquarters in Brussels, Belgium.

European Union
10.07.2024  An analysis of military aid to Ukraine by the Dutch-based journalism collective Investigative Desk  shows significant discrepancy between reported figures and actual production capacity; the European Union is exaggerating its promises to increase production of ammunition to support Ukraine in the ongoing war. Despite the plans, EU deliveries since the start of the year have significantly lagged. Plans to produce and deliver at least 1.3 million artillery shells to Ukraine by the end of the year to bolster its ammunition stocks were announced by EU Commissioner for Internal Market Breton in January. The EU Council also agreed in May to accelerate the supply of 1 million artillery shells to Ukraine within 12 months. The group slammed the given numbers as a “fantasy.” Brussels is allegedly overstating Europe's munitions production capacity, while more capacity is needed to replenish stocks that have been drastically reduced. The EU claims that European arms companies will be able to produce between 1.4 and 1.7 million 155-millimeter NATO-standard artillery shells by the end of the year, but actual production capacity is “actually between 400,000 and 600,000 shells,” said the group. “There’s no such thing as 1.7 million capacity (of artillery shells) in all of Europe combined,” „a well-informed industry insider’ interviewed for the investigation said. ‘Unrealistic figures,' another source told the group; the figures given are “unrealistic.” “Production increases across Europe are lagging behind with the current total capacity reaching a level of about 580,000 units per year,” the collective said, quoting another “well-informed anonymous source". A PowerPoint presentation from German producer Rheinmetall confirms that the capacity in Europe is actually between 400,000 and 600,000 shells, the group said. ’According to this document, other such producers and Rheinmetall together could produce 550,000 shells in 2024,’ it added. An EU Commission spokesperson maintained that achieving a production capacity of 1.5 to 1.7 million 'under realistic conditions was feasible'. False confidence might lead to a situation where factories are left without supplies, compromising support for Ukraine and NATO. (Source: aa)

Russia
(Wednesday), July 10, 2024  Yesterday, the South China Morning Post reported that a Russian pilot known on Telegram as "Fighterbomber" posted documents purportedly related to the U.S. Air Force's F-35 Lightning II and F-15 Eagle jet fighters. The paper of record further identified the individual as "Ivanov," but that has not been confirmed. The individual first posted files including manuals from the American military aircraft, as well as documents on U.S. Switchblade drones and other weapons systems including precision-guided missiles, on his channel last Tuesday. Fighterbomber’s channel has a reported 500,000 subscribers. He claimed to have at least 250 gigabytes of U.S. military data, which he said were obtained via a U.S.-based company.. While many of the files have been deleted, some of the documents were still available as of yesterday afternoon. According to SCMP, the files included a maintenance manual for the F110 engine used by the F-15SA – a variant of the F-15 Eagle in service with Saudi Arabia – as well as a flight manual and maintenance manuals for the aircraft itself. The documents related to the F-35 were described as "being partially redacted," which SCMP also reported "may indicate they were already declassified." The Morning Post indicated that at least some of the documents have been viewed by Chinese officials, who said they are authentic. "The documents are detailed and their format resembles other U.S. military information previously leaked online. However, these are not strictly blueprints or design documents, and their true value can only be assessed by professionals," Tang, the chief marketing officer of Beijing-based antivirus and network security firm Rising Information Technology told SCMP. It remains unclear how damaging – if at all – this information might be. Such data can provide a shortcut for other nations. Telegram users joked that regular people could now build an F-15 or an F-35 in the garage. (Source: nationalinterest *)
* The National Interest, an American bimonthly international relations magazine, based in Washington, D.C., U.S.

North America

United States
10.07.2024  The US will deploy long-range missile capabilities in Germany - conventional long-range fires units which will include SM-6, Tomahawk, and developmental hypersonic weapons which have significantly longer range than current land-based fires in Europe. The United States will begin episodic deployments of the long-range fires capabilities of its Multi-Domain Task Force in Germany in 2026, as part of planning for enduring stationing of these capabilities in the future. Exercising the advanced capabilities will demonstrate the US' commitment to NATO and its contributions to European integrated deterrence, the joint statement by the US and Germany during a NATO’s summit in Washington said. In 2021, the US Army introduced the 2nd Multi-Domain Task Force at the Army Europe and Africa headquarters in Wiesbaden, Germany, which seeks to provide the command with capabilities that extend beyond traditional ground warfare tactics. (Source: aa)

NATO

10 July 2024  The first batch of US-built F-16 fighter jets are already being transferred to Ukraine from Denmark and the Netherlands and will be flying over Ukrainian skies this summer, US Secretary of State Blinken said, speaking at an event on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Washington today. A robust package for Ukraine will be unveiled over the next couple of days that will build a clear and strong ’bridge’ for Ukraine's NATO membership, he said. ’We are grateful to Belgium and Norway for committing to provide further aircraft, and to the other members of the Air Force Capability Coalition for their support," a joint statement from the leaders of the United States, Denmark and the Netherlands said. NATO members have announced the delivery of five additional Patriot and other strategic air defence systems to help Ukraine. Still more aid announcements were expected at this week's summit in Washington. President Zelenskyy said last week that he wanted to double Ukraine's air defence capacity over the summer and that his country needed at least seven additional Patriot systems to protect itself. (Source: trtworld *)
* TRT World, a Turkish public broadcaster which broadcasts in English. Headquarters Ankara, Turkey

July 10, 2024 7:25 pm  The UK is set to warn the EU not to try to replace Nato with a new, its own internal defence pact – even as Sir Keir Starmer negotiates a new security deal with Brussels. The Prime Minister has been meeting Nato leaders including Macron at the alliance’s summit in Washington. In a highly unusual move, he has brought Thomas-Symonds – the Minister for European Relations – with him to Nato, along with Foreign Secretary Lammy and Defence Secretary Healey. They’ve got the Nato summit within a week of the election, so they get the opportunity to strengthen relations with various of the Nato leaders and others, including EU leaders. British officials have privately warned EU allies against imposing additional protectionist measures on their defence industries. Leaders including Mr Macron have suggested a pact could make Europe more secure by reducing its reliance on the USA. Sir Keir Starmer insisted that Britain’s global defence alliances must remain “Nato first”, adding: “I do see scope for complementing that. That is why we are wanting to advance the defence and security pact or agreement with the EU.” Nato insiders have admitted behind closed doors that they are concerned about the prospect of a Trump presidency undermining support for Ukraine, and are moving to boost the long-term structures of Nato so that it is less dependent on American underpinning. Currently, 23 of the 32 member governments meet the target of spending at least 2 per cent of their GDP on the military, but the UK believes this goal will need to rise in the near future. The Prime Minister has been under pressure to set out a timetable to increase Britain’s own spending to 2.5 per cent from its current level of 2.3 per cent. Shortly before the event kicked off, the Prime Minister held one-on-one talks with Mr Scholz, the Chancellor of Germany, and President Zelensky who said: ’Thank you for the military financing packages and support, thank you very much.’ The Chancellor welcomed the Prime Minister’s commitment to resetting the UK’s European partnerships. The two leaders moved on to discuss the need for enhanced defence cooperation in Europe to act as a deterrent for aggression by hostile actors. They agreed that the Nato summit was an opportunity to solidify and strengthen support for Ukraine. The two leaders agreed a firm commitment to strike a deep UK-Germany defence agreement and a shared determination to start work together forging the agreement without delay.” (Source: inews *)
* i, a British daily newspaper. Headquarters London, England

July 10, 2024 7:24 pm CET  NATO has backed today Ukraine's ’irreversible path" to full Euro-Atlantic integration, including NATO membership in the future. Ukraine has been demanding a stronger commitment on its NATO membership. NATO leaders "welcome the concrete progress Ukraine has made since the Vilnius Summit on its required ’democratic’, economic and security reforms. 'We reaffirm that we will be in a position to extend an invitation to Ukraine to join the Alliance when Allies agree and conditions are met,' the leaders said. NATO 'will never recognize Russia's illegal annexations, including Crimea,’ they added. It will "constrain and contest" Russia's aggressive actions to "counter its ability to conduct destabilising activities towards NATO and Allies." NATO will "decide on further measures to counter Russian hybrid threats or actions individually or collectively," pointing at "sabotage, acts of violence, provocations at Allied borders, instrumentalisation of irregular migration, malicious cyber activities, electronic interference, disinformation campaigns and malign political influence, as well as economic coercion." Referring to China as a "decisive enabler" of Russia's war against Ukraine,the language in the communiqué is more critical of China than in statements from previous summits,. On China, the communiqué stresses Beijing's "no limit partnership" with Moscow and "large-scale support for Russia's defence industrial base." It ’cannot enable the largest war in Europe in recent history without this negatively impacting its interests and reputation," the statement said. (Source: politico *)
* * Politico, an American political digital newspaper. Headquarters Arlington County, Virginia, U.S.

10.07.2024  NATO Secretary-General Stoltenberg and NATO's 32 leaders are expected to sit down with President Zelenskyy tomorrow for a meeting of the NATO-Ukraine Council. The joint body is a forum for Ukraine to sit with NATO allies to advance political dialogue, engagement, cooperation and Ukraine’s aspirations for membership in NATO.Stoltenberg said allies will agree on Ukraine's eventual membership in a 'strong message" that will be part of a NATO declaration that is expected to be released later today. He added that the alliance's plans to set up a new NATO command at a headquarters in Germany, as well as logistics hubs in eastern flank nations, which will be used to facilitate military assistance to Kyiv, are part of the "concrete actions' the alliance is taking to 'move Ukraine closer to our membership.' Other steps include a 'long-term pledge" to maintain aid and ongoing efforts to increase military interoperability between NATO allies and Ukrainian forces. He acknowledged, however, that allies "didn't deliver on their promises to Ukraine" over the winter and early spring due to delays. Stoltenberg said earlier today that it is "too early to say exactly when' Ukraine will be invited to join the Transatlantic alliance. He said today that the 'best and strongest security guarantee' for Ukraine will be the alliance's collective defense guarantee Article Five as allies work toward providing Kyiv with a 'bridge' to membership. (Source: aa *)
* Anadolu Agency, a state-run news agency. Headquarters Ankara, Turkey.

Moon

12:30 ET, Jul 10 2024  China's space agency has officially declared that the US is a competitor on the moon for the very first time. The CNSA said: "It is foreseeable that in the next 20 to 30 years, China’s International Lunar Research Station and the US Artemis programme will compete." Their new lunar plan read: "[We] will compete in terms of technology and operational efficiency on the same historical stage and at the same geographical location (the south pole of the moon)." The plan, titled the “Strategic Concept of Resource Utilisation Development Route of the International Lunar Research Station”, written under mission scientist Pei’s leadership, was unveiled in April. It continued: "In the historical context of that period, the race to demonstrate superior political strength made lunar exploration unsustainable", Prof. Pei told The South China Morning Post: "The utilisation of lunar resources will become the focus of the competition." The decision marks China's shift from a secretive to more open space policy. China successfully launched its Chang'e-6 spacecraft as part of its mission to retrieve new samples from the Moon on May 3. The satellite touched on the lunar far side after descending from its orbit of around 124 miles above the moon's surface to find a landing site. Earlier this month the Chang'e-6 robot landed on the dark, 183C side of the moon. The space probe landed on Earth in northern China in the Inner Mongolian region, carrying the first ever sample - untouched rock and soil. India, Russia, China and the US have all been engaged in space developments to study the far point of the moon. It is one of the moon's most resource-dense areas. The permanently shadowed places could contain ice and minerals, which would be vital resources for future explorers. The mountain peaks near the pole - which are illuminated for longer periods - could be used to provide solar energy to an outpost. Scientists reckon there is an abundance of Helium-3 in so-called 'cold traps' littered across the south pole, which can help produce huge amounts of energy here on Earth. China will use the data collected by the space lander to allow its astronauts to set foot on the moon by 2030. (Source: the-sun *)
* The U. S. Sun, a US online edition of The Sun, Britain’s largest newspaper.

.

.

Europe

Russia
July 9, 2024  Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's love-in with Putin started in Moscow yesterday. While the opprobrium was heaped upon Orbán, Modi’s decision to spend two days cuddling with Putin has been met with almost complete silence. That is because the West can do even less about his decision to visit than they can about Orbán’s. And „India is the biggest democracy in the world and just carried out the biggest election in history”. Modi’s trip shows that Russia is being driven into all of China’s, India’s, Brazil’s and Iran’s arms. And on Indian TV it was fascinating to see the local attitudes. The panellists ’were all surprisingly angry. They all highlighted how deep the friendship with Russia runs that goes back to Soviet times. It’s said that Russia’s relationship with China is a marriage of convenience, but the relationship with India is a genuine and warm relationship. That is tied in with Russia's image as anti-colonialist that plays so well in Africa, and persistent prevalence of the communist ideology in Indian domestic politics’ among other things. But more shocking was the barbed comments about the West, which they saw as an arrogant meddler, that tells them what to do while failing to apply the same standards to its own behaviour: in other words, exactly Putin’s double-standards criticism of the G7”. The whole Global South is fed up with being lectured to by the holier-than-thou West about values the West routinely ignores. Gaza… etc. They all also referred to India as an “emerging superpower” and clearly believe it’s time that India stands up for its own interests. That makes their non-participation in, specifically “Western”, sanctions a no-brainer. The rest of the world’s attitude is the war in Europe is a European problem that the Global South sees as none of its business. Later the same day, on X most of (predominantly European and US) interlocutors scoffed at the idea that India is a superpower, even if you point out that it's now the third largest country in the world in terms of adjusted GDP. Three of the four largest economies in the world are now BRICS members (China, India and Russia in that order, with the US in second place). And all three of the BRICS members are growing faster than their western peers, while Japan (fifth) and Germany (sixth) are stagnating and falling down the rankings. These are not bilateral relations anymore. They are multilateral non-Western relations. The BRICS+ summit last year was difficult but expanded that group. And Modi had a field day at last year’s G20 summit, hosted by India, that brought in the whole of the African Union and was dominated by Modi. These deepening multilateral and non-Western groupings could have wide-ranging consequences. India has a big problem with China, but Russia can help with that. Iran has big problems with other countries in the Middle East, especially with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), but Russia can help with that too. Putin is playing this game well. And it appears Russia wants to extend this diplomacy to Asia. He has moved a lot closer to North Korea with a trip in June, as part of a move to put a little distance between him and China, which has traditionally ruled supreme in Pyongyang. Putin followed that trip up with another to Vietnam, which is also keen for better relations with Russia simply as a counterweight to China’s strength in the Pacific Rim. Everyone thought that Russia would just become China’s raw materials warehouse, but it’s starting to look like Putin is trying to cut out a role for Russia that is a keystone that holds up a complicated but increasingly powerful Global South alliance that stands in opposition to the US hegemony. And Russia has been playing that game since the Cold War. The Kremlin has already emerged as an “honest broker” in the Middle East, which it has been courting from well before the start of the war in Ukraine. Its African project that started with the first Russia-Africa summit in 2019 is also well advanced. And, BTW, the Russian first half budget numbers just came out. It’s becoming increasingly obvious the sanctions have not only failed, but have actually backfired. The Russian federal deficit has fallen to just 0.5% of GDP – despite massive $100bn military spending – and the Ministry of Economy has upgraded its growth forecast for this year to 3.8% – that’s even more than last year’s 3.6%, and that was an upside surprise. (Source: intellinews)

(Tuesday ), July 9, 2024 2:21 PM EDT  Why Modi and Putin are friends? India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi landed in Moscow yesterday. It is the first state visit of his third term and his first trip to Russia since 2022. Modi used the trip to affirm longstanding strategic and economic ties between the two countries. The Indian PM’s visit occurred at the same time as NATO meetings in Washington. He focused primarily on defense cooperation. India is a major financial lifeline for Russia, with trade between the two countries amounting to nearly $65 billion in the last year. Most of that money has flowed toward Russia - a trade imbalance that Modi hoped to address during his talks with Putin. India has also continued to purchase large quantities of Russian crude oil at steep discounts despite Russia facing sanctions and isolation from the West. Today, the two leaders continued talks over Russian imports vital for Indian power plants, civil nuclear cooperation. During Modi’s two-day visit to the Kremlin Modi did not plan on challenging Putin over his actions in Ukraine. In 2022 during the sidelines of a regional summit in Uzbekistan, Modi has opted for a softer approach to the conflict, telling Putin that “today’s era is not an era of war” Putin did not attend the G-20 summit hosted by New Delhi last year, where world leaders criticized the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Still, Delhi-Moscow relations were not without contention, as Modi sought to secure the early discharge of dozens of Indian nationals who were lured to join the Russian Army in recent years to fight Ukraine, with at least four dying on the battlefield so far. India has refused to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and abstained from all resolutions on Ukraine at the United Nations, despite facing pressure to distance itself from Moscow. Last June, Modi met with U.S. President Biden during a state visit to Washington, where the two leaders struck a defense, trade, and technology partnership and deepened relations over shared concerns about China’s influence in the region. Tensions with neighboring China have heated up in recent years over a disputed Himalayan border, which has resulted in India becoming increasingly estranged in forums where Russia and China play a prominent role. “For India, Modi’s meeting with Putin in Russia is just a continuation of longstanding strategic ties dating back to the Cold War, but for the U.S. and West, it reminds everyone how difficult it is to enlist New Delhi in a coalition to counter Russia’s invasion of Ukraine,” says Grossman, a senior analyst at the RAND Corporation. “In short, it won’t happen.” It’s likely the friendship between India and Russia will endure. It comes after Putin’s return from Kazakhstan last week, where the Russian President claimed during a regional summit that Moscow-Beijing relations were experiencing “the best period in their history.” Russia’s stance on India-China hostilities in the future will be critical, especially given India’s heavy reliance on Russia for military equipment that dates back to the height of the Cold War. (Source: time *)
* Time, an American news magazine based in New York City, New York, U.S.

North America

United States
1:54 PM EDT, Tue July 9, 2024  US military bases across Europe were placed on a heightened state of alert last week for the first time in a decade after the US received intelligence that Russian-backed actors were considering carrying out sabotage attacks against US military personnel and facilities. The intelligence the US received suggested that Russia had included US bases and military personnel as options to attack via proxies. Plots have been carried out or disrupted across Europe in recent months. In April, two German-Russian nationals were arrested for allegedly plotting bomb and arson attacks on targets including US military facilities on behalf of Russia. The intelligence, which the US received within the last two weeks was deemed alarming enough to implement additional safety protocols. Several US military bases in Europe raised their alert level to Force Protection Condition “Charlie,” which “applies when an incident occurs or intelligence is received indicating some form of terrorist action or targeting against personnel or facilities is likely,” according to the US Army. A senior NATO official said today that the alliance had “significantly increased” its intelligence sharing around “Russia’s campaign of covert sabotage activities” in Europe, which have become increasingly brazen and aggressive in recent months amid elections across the West. US European Command’s spokesperson, Cmdr. Day, said that “our increase in vigilance is not related to any one single threat, but due to a combination of factors potentially impacting the safety and security of US forces in the European theater.” In London in March, several men were charged with working with Russian intelligence services to set fire to a Ukrainian-linked warehouse. Poland is investigating whether an arson attack that destroyed Warsaw’s largest mall in May was connected to Russia and has arrested nine people in connection with Russia-linked acts of sabotage, the prime minister said in May. And French authorities last month detained a Russian-Ukrainian man who was allegedly building bombs as part of a sabotage campaign orchestrated by Moscow. By outsourcing the attacks to local actors, Russia likely believes it can wage a hybrid war that falls below the threshold of armed, state-on-state conflict, officials say. (Source: cnn *)
* Cable News Network (CNN), a multinational news channel and website. Headquarters Atlanta, Georgia, U.S.

July 9, 2024  Hoffman, director of the Congressional and Government Affairs Program, a fellow at Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) discusses Ukraine and Transatlantic security on the eve of the NATO Summit with Senator Ernst from the state of Iowa and Congressman Suozzi representing the Third District of New York - two members of Congress who are leading voices on foreign policy and national security in their respective parties. Senator Ernst, an elected member of Republican leadership serves on the Senate Armed Services, Agriculture, and Small Business Committees. Congressman Suozzi (D-NY) serves on the House Budget and Homeland Security Committees. In April they joined CSIS on the first multiday, bipartisan, bicameral delegation to Ukraine to visit Kyiv, Chernihiv and Odessa and to visit Moldova.       At first, they both spoke about the importance of controlling the narrative. Sometimes the information the public received ’is ginned up by strategic adversaries – Russia, the Chinese Communist Party, Iran, North Korea, and others. They are trying to manipulate the public, „to get us simply to be mad at each other. Gaza, Gaza, Gaza was in the paper every day. It’s working,’ Rep. Suozzi said. During the trip, he released a picture shaking hands with President Zelensky, which they met in Chernihiv. Within an hour, in a disinformation campaign the picture was doctored to show him wearing a Nazi armband. The good people of America needs to get beyond the rhetoric and the hate-fueled speech, he added. And „we do have constituents at home that are very concerned about the U.S. taxpayer expenditures going into the war in Ukraine”, Sen. Ernst said. "It’s important for members of Congress to continue the dialog and discussing how can we bring this war to an end – what are the platforms and assistance that Ukraine needs.’ This fight is not going to end, not well anyway, ’if America doesn’t provide leadership’ or doesn’t engage with other world leaders on a solution for Ukraine, she added.       Has really the administration articulated a strategy for victory? In April when the supplemental was passed one of the provisions required the administration to provide to Congress a strategy for victory within 60 days. That 60 days has now elapsed, said Ms. Hoffman. The actual strategy is classified. The restriction of ability to use U.S. weapons to strike Russian targets have been eased slightly in the past several weeks, but they still remain. Given the Ukrainians weapons that could strike much deeper into Russia, including some of the airfields from which they launch attacks, is there a clear strategy for victory? And are we giving the Ukrainians all the tools that they need to be successful?, she asked. It literally is cheaper for America for us to be supporting Ukraine than for us to get engaged in a war like this, Rep. Suozzi said. 'I always say is it’s so much cheaper for America, and without having our soldiers there. Now we’re sending an enormous amount of arms here. Our soldiers, our service members, are not engaged in Ukraine.” 'We need to give them what they need and anticipate the demands that they will need to strike inside of Russia'. The administration has not clearly articulated what the strategy is to win in Ukraine, Sen. Ernst told. Allowing the Ukrainians to be as aggressive as they need to be to win this war and put it to bed, they need to be able to go on offense, ’and let’s settle the war’. ’So we need to have someone that will clearly articulate that’. National Security Advisor Sullivan never clearly articulated this. „Neither Secretary of Defense Austin nor the president would actually say the phrase, we want Ukraine to win”. ’So we need Ukraine to win’. The administration is holding the Western world together, holding the NATO alliance and others together in this effort ’in an effective way for a war’. The NATO conference this week will help to cement that fact, Rep. Suozzi said. Russia has access to untold numbers of dumb bombs that they had figured out how to launch from within Russian territory from Russian planes that they could sail in to attack Ukraine, especially in the Kharkiv area. And there were some restrictions lifted by the administration on attacking Russians and Russian planes and airspace at the end of May. 'A short way into Russian territory is an airfield with the airplanes that are launching these dumb bombs on a regular basis where we can wipe out a significant portion – or, the Ukrainians can wipe out a significant portion of the Russian air force'. Many of our allies’ concerns – about escalation. I don’t think that we can tie the hands of the Ukrainian officials and army to really go after the Russians, he added. At the same time, Putin’s not going to stop, to back down. ’Over a hundred thousand Ukrainians have been killed. At least 40,000 children have been kidnapped from Ukraine and taken into Russian space', according to him. And ten million Ukrainians have been forced from their homes, as the Russians try and take over more land. The greatest strength we have right now is that we’ve held together this Western alliance, Rep. Suozzi continues. Positive developments: NATO did step up. The Europeans did step up: Europe was doing its fair share, there’s a million Ukrainian refugees in Poland right now, weapons have been sent in, and ’people’ have been increasing their defense budgets to their 2 percent ’as has been demanded by so many in our country’ over the past eight years.       Member states have been clear that Ukraine cannot receive a formal invitation to join NATO until the war is over, which is reasonable and outlined in the NATO charter – that a state at conflict cannot join. However, there is a lot that can be offered to Ukraine, short of an official invitation to join the alliance, that can signal a significant commitment by allies to the future security of Ukraine, Ms. Hoffman said. We need to continue to hold this incredible alliance together, Sen. Ernst answered. 'We see China, Iran, and Russia, and in some areas even North Korea, forming their own axis of evil. It’s the modern-era axis of evil’. 'So we do need to continue to push those member nations to meet their 2 percent GDP obligations'. 'In Poland, we heard from the defense chief that ’Putin’s war is against the West’. We should use Information in our space, pushing back on Russia informational, creating these messages on Facebook, or Instagram. Militarily ’we still do use Special Operations Forces (SOF)’, and provide them with the military platforms that they need and the munitions. Economically: working with Ukrainians, with the alliance to find ways that we can be supportive in business or industry, to push back against the Russians. But America needs to lead’, Sen. Ernst added.       ’Its complete BS and complete disinformation - Rep. Suozzi said - that Putin and his allies, and people that have been bamboozled by his disinformation here in the United States of America – including some presidential candidates, and some members of Congress, and some senators, and many others, conspiracy theorists – are like, well, the reason that Putin has done this is because he’s afraid that Ukraine is going to attack Russia and invade Russia; and that’s why they’re moving Ukraine and others into – closer and closer to Russian borders; and Russia’s history having been attacked for many, many centuries has this paranoia; and, therefore, that’s why they’ve got to go stop this invasion. But that’s why we have said that, no, we’re not looking for Ukraine to join NATO because we want to take that argument away from Putin, away from the conspiracy theorists, away from the people in the United States of America who’ve been bamboozled by that message so that they can’t use it’. "We were meeting with the commander of the Polish military and he had a topographical map on the wall. It was just so obvious looking at the topography of that region that if Russia were to go through Ukraine it’s, clearly, going right into Poland right afterwards. I mean, the topography demands it’, Rep. Suozzi added. ’And I sensed, some anger from some of the Polish people we met with at the highest levels because they felt that the United States was backing down on its commitment that it had made”. When you look at the history of World War II and what Hitler did, ’it’s the same playbook'. It’s in the United States’ self-interest to support Ukraine to defeat the bad guys, Sen. Ernst added. ’I tend to say more weapons, more weapons’. We need to focus on weapons, and so that is typically what I talk to Iowans about because we can track those platforms. We can track how the munitions are used, I would love to see additional oversight of humanitarian assistance, she said. ’We really need our European partners to step up in this area. I think we can continue to be the arsenal of democracy where we can provide a lot of the munitions platforms that maybe some of our friends in NATO, in other European countries, they can’t. They don’t necessarily have the defense industrial base to do that.’       The G-7 took the important step of agreeing to use the interest from frozen Russian assets to go to Ukraine to procure and buy weapons. Ms. Hoffman said.      In Moldova, until recently neutrality was actually enshrined in their constitution. They take steps to join the EU, potentially maybe at some point NATO. But there is an election in Moldova this year. The President’s opponent is quite clearly backed by the Russians, he spends a lot of time in Russia. There’s been clear linkages to Russian oligarchs and even the state for his campaign finance and Transnistria also, which is occupied by Russian forces – this is really a consequential year for Moldova with these elections in October ’which are very close to ours’, Rep. Suozzi said. Because of the Russian influence through Transnistria it will be very difficult for them to continue leaning towards the West. If there are economic opportunities for them to join the EU, to work with the United States, ’certainly we would look for those opportunities”. 'And it was so inspirational to listen to this president of this tiny country who’s fighting back for the most idealistic things you could possibly imagine. Talking about freedom, and about democracy, and about participating in the modern world, in the Western market economy with the specter of the Russian bear breathing down their neck. And this sense that they’re next’, Rep. Suozzi added. Years and years ago, McCain had said that if Ukraine should fall that one of the most likely targets would then then – next for Russia would be Moldova, he recalled. This is a tiny country, 3 million people, really trying to move closer and closer to the West and away from the clutches of Russia. They’re trying to build their wine industry...      And I’d just like to get your thoughts on the importance of the economic and humanitarian assistance, not just by the U.S., but again, our allies, Ms. Hoffman: said. There are some that say the U.S. should support Ukraine and other countries in the region military, but not economically or not with humanitarian assistance. And we had the opportunity to meet with the U.S. business community in Ukraine to hear about kind of really the remarkable story of continued economic growth in Ukraine in spite of bombs raining down, Russian attempts to really completely destroy Ukraine infrastructure to the point that the economy can no longer function, she added. (Source: csis *)
* The Center for Strategic and International Studies, officially a bipartisan American think tank based in Washington, D.C., CSIS "has been dedicated to finding ways to sustain American prominence and prosperity as a force for good in the world'.

01:56 BST, 9 June 2024  Since the United States detonated its first atomic bomb at the Trinity test site in 1945, dozens of accounts of UFOs have been logged by military witnesses and government scientists working with America's sensitive nuclear arsenal. A series of three studies led by a retired US Air Force staff sergeant, Hancock, and a data analyst affiliate with Harvard's UFO-hunting Galileo Project, Porritt, along with their research team focused the analysis on official military and police reports of UFOs from 1945 to 1975, on cases with multiple witnesses and signals evidence, like radar. Now a new, decades-long study has analyzed over 500 of the best supported UFO cases from the heights of the Cold War, Hancock and Porritt's most recent report on the connection, 'UAP Activity Pattern Study 1945-1975 Military and Public Activities.' It was published in March and presented before the Scientific Coalition for UAP Studies this past weekend. Their study only covered US cases. Their conclusion: extraterrestrials, or some other intelligence, has methodically surveilled America's rise to a nuclear power. 'This intelligence understands the developmental cycle. They have some contextual knowledge of what they're looking at and what they're looking for,' Hancock told. From 1948 to 1952, as America's production of atomic weapons first ramped up, waves of UFO sightings began cropping up over Washington state's Hanford nuclear production complex, as well as Los Alamos and other sites for the Manhattan Project. Inside the Air Force for the first seven to 10 years they sincerely believed it was the Russians, Hancock told. 'And when they couldn't prove that,' he said, 'it became very political.' In one illustrative case from May 21, 1949, Hanford personnel spotted a 'silvery, disc-shaped' UFO hovering over the plant, whose B Reactor had generated the plutonium used in the first atomic bomb test at Trinity. The UFO was simultaneously tracked on radar by nearby Moses Lake Air Force Base, which scrambled an F-82 fighter jet to 'intercept it in hopes that it might be a disk,' 'UFO's were faster than jet,' Air Force investigators noted of the failed pursuit. These years of strange encounters were much more likely to have occurred in broad daylight and often involved multiple UFOs in formation performing dazzling maneuvers. 'This period, here, we've got only four sites, that would be the key stuff that you would focus on,' Porritt told. ’You get the same sort of pattern with with all four sites,' he said. But as the Pentagon began arming Air Force squadrons with its new nuclear bombs, and installing missile silos in the American heartland, UFOs appeared to follow the action there. From 1952 onward, UFOs probing near active US nuclear weapons took precedence, with a wave of sightings around America's new intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) starting in the 1960s. As the UFOs appeared more and more over armed and ready nuclear weapons sites, the apparent craft also started to appear more at night. 'When you get to those ICBM bases, from about 1965 to 1975, these things are occurring at night,' Hancock pointed out. And they are much more intrusive. ’They're very low altitude, they penetrate the security perimeters of the base,' he added. Among the hundreds of cases included in their analysis was the infamous March 16, 1967 Malmstrom case in Montana in which Air Force witnesses reported that ten nuclear missiles were switched off by a UFO, confirmed by a US Strategic Air Command report. 'All ten missiles in Echo Flight at Malmstrom lost strat alert within ten seconds of each other'. The declassified report, much like Salas who was the on-duty commander for the base's underground launch in March 1967, and his fellow veteran witnesses, noted 'grave concern' about the case. This February, a bombshell report revealed that an ex-Pentagon UFO investigator had privately briefed Congress on a similar 1964 incident where a UFO blasted an Atlas missile carrying a dummy nuclear warhead out of the sky. Several of UFO sightings, including incidents at Malmstrom Air Force Base become central to demands in Congress for wider declassification of military UFO data. During the first public hearings on UFOs in over half a century, back in May 2022, Congress grilled Pentagon officials over UFOs and America's nuclear weapons security. Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security Moultrie 'didn't seem to know anything about it – or if he did, he was wanting to avoid the topic', according to Salas who told he was 'shocked' to see those Pentagon officials plead ignorance on the events. Hancock, Porritt and their coauthors hope to extend their analysis on the connections between UFO sightings and nuclear sites from 1975 to the modern era, although that work faces some hurdles. But from just the 1945 to 1975 studies, Hancock believes that these airborne mysteries appear to show intentional study of America's most sensitive weaponry. 'I mean, focus implies intention. And focus obviously implies intelligence,' he said. 'This intelligence understands atomics, and they understand atomic weaponry.''The way it progressed from one type of facility to another type - I mean, it starts with manufacturing plants, moves on through assembly plants, storage, deployment, it's hard to read that as anything other than someone having an agenda,' according to Hancock. His research partner, Porritt, ventured even a little further: 'They may have a better understanding of the future, our future, than we do.' (Source: dailymail *)
* The Daily Mail, a British daily, middle-market tabloid newspaper. Headquarters London, United Kingdom
Photo: Project 1794: a Cold War-era US Air Force effort to build a supersonic flying saucer in collaboration with a Canadian defense contractor

NATO

July 9, 2024  The Nato summit comes on the back of the failed Swiss peace summit held on June 16-17 that was supposed to reinforce the isolation of Russia mandate, but in the end had the opposite effect: too few Global South countries turned up and too few signed off on what was already an extremely weak final communiqué. At the Swiss summit this was watered down to a mere three of the least contentious points – POW exchanges, food security and nuclear safety – and the delegates struggled to endorse even those. The main objective of the Nato summit – to create a roadmap for Ukraine’s accession – is dead in the water before the meeting begins. There is talk of a “bridge” to Nato, but this is classic Euro-nonsense that means nothing. It doesn’t even go as far as “road”, as roads go somewhere. All bridges do is cross some bit of water but don’t get you to a destination. US President Biden is struggling after his debate fiasco, French President Macron is fighting for his political life after the snap elections and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz also took a body blow in the recent EU elections. Ukraine’s three Ms problem highlights the details of the increasing pressure President Zelenskiy is under from the lack of men, money and materiel. (Source: intellinews *)
* bne IntelliNews, a news wire agency and media company. Headquarters Berlin, Germany

(Tuesday), 07/09/24 6:00 AM ET  President Biden’s fitness for office will be put to the test this week during the NATO summit he is hosting in Washington, a high-stakes endurance test that gives the president an opportunity to push back on critics saying he is too old for a second term. The NATO summit, beginning today and taking place over three days in Washington, D.C., will focus on demonstrating the alliance’s enduring support for Ukraine in its defensive war against Russia, and 'signaling deep ties in the Indo-Pacific' to counter Chinese President Xi’s designs on subsuming Taiwan. But the frantic debate over Biden’s future - as he tries to contain the fallout from his alarming debate performance last month - risks overshadowing an event 'aimed at projecting strength against threats from Russia and China'. Biden’s June 27 debate with Trump spurred panic among even ardent supporters, as the president failed to match Trump’s energy, speaking with a weak, raspy voice and trailing off on numerous answers. “Journalists attending President Biden’s summit press conference will likely not ask one question about NATO but instead ask about the president’s political future,” said Townsend, a former senior Pentagon official focused on NATO policy and a current adjunct senior fellow with the Center for New American Security. While the U.S. is viewed as an indispensable partner and the de facto leader of the alliance, allies are confronting the reality that Trump may win in November, and the possibility that he could follow through on threats to withdraw from the alliance or hold back U.S. commitments to the Article 5 mutual defense agreement. “U.S. domestic politics” is a major challenge for the alliance, Gentile, associate director of the RAND Corporation’s Arroyo Center, said. “The alliance will have to improve cohesion among NATO states in their aim to help Ukraine win the war,' he added. “It is possible that a future U.S. administration will substantially reduce its traditional level of leadership and support for the alliance because of a shift in American domestic politics or a conflict in Asia that consumes U.S. attention and resources,' Mueller, senior political scientist with the RAND Corporation, said of the challenges facing NATO. Biden has been defiant in the wake of increasingly public calls from Democratic lawmakers to drop out of the race and widespread concern behind closed doors that the president is too frail to mount a campaign against former President Trump in the November election. White House national security communications adviser Kirby brushed off a question yesterday about whether Biden’s poor debate performance late last month would cause trouble with allies, saying it “presupposes the notion that they need to be reassured.” “I don’t believe that’s the case,” he said. “We’re not picking up any signs of that from our allies at all.' Kirby sought to put the focus back on Ukraine, saying announcements throughout the summit will include new commitments for air defense support for Ukraine, deterrence capabilities to boost NATO and investments in the defense industrial base, 'including' domestically in the U.S. He said leaders would also reaffirm that 'there is a path for Ukraine to join NATO in the future'. A joint communique issued at the end of the summit is 'expected to lay out how NATO is taking on a bigger leadership role in coordinating support for Ukraine' - concerned that a second Trump administration would cut back or end robust U.S. military and economic support for Kyiv. This includes NATO establishing a command post in Germany to coordinate weapons deliveries among approximately 50 of Kyiv’s supporters - an initiative currently led by the U.S. and called the Ramstein grouping. The alliance will also seek pledges from allies to sustain their current level of funding for the next year, and seek to establish a consensus on a baseline of future financial support. The president is expected to meet with newly elected British Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Wednesday, and he will host a dinner with NATO allies beginning at 8 p.m. local time - a counter to Biden’s reported comments last week to Democratic governors that evening events tend to tire him out. On Thursday, (July 11), Biden will begin a day of meetings at 10 a.m. with NATO allies, and hold a press conference at 5:30 p.m. Other events include the president hosting President Zelensky and nearly two dozen NATO allies who have signed bilateral security agreements with Kyiv. (Source: thehill *)
* The Hill, an American newspaper and digital media company based in Washington, D.C.

United Nations

(Tuesday), 9:12 PM CEST, July 9, 2024  At an emergency meeting chaired by Moscow’s own ambassador Nebenzia, U.N. Security Council members confronted Russia today over a missile strike the previous day that destroyed part of Ukraine’s largest children’s hospital. France and Ecuador asked for the session at the Security Council, but Russia led it as the current holder of the council’s rotating presidency. At the U.N. headquarters, Ukrainian Ambassador Kyslytsya showed the Security Council photos of what his country asserts were fragments showing the projectile’s Russian origin, plus a map purportedly showing a missile’s path from Russian territory and, via a sharp turn, to the children’s hospital. Kyslytsya’s country isn’t on the 15-member council. Russia denies responsibility for the strike at the hospital, where at least two staffers were killed. At Okhmatdyt, “the ground shook and the walls trembled. Both children and adults screamed and cried from fear, and the wounded from pain,” cardiac surgeon and anesthesiologist Dr. Zhovnir told the Security Council by video from Kyiv. “It was a real hell.” Most of the over 600 young patients had been moved to bomb shelters, except those in surgery, Zhovnir said. He said over 300 people were injured, including eight children, and two adults died, one of them a young doctor. Later, he heard people crying out for help from beneath the rubble. Nebenzia reiterated Moscow’s denials of responsibility for the hospital attack, insisting it was hit by a Ukrainian air defense rocket. He characterized the slew of criticism as “verbal gymnastics” from countries trying to protect Ukraine’s government. “If this had been a Russian strike, there would have been nothing left of the building,” Nebenzia said, adding that “all the children and most of the adults would have been killed, and not wounded.” The strike on the Okhmatdyt children’s hospital was part of a massive daytime barrage in multiple cities, including the capital of Kyiv. The attack also damaged Ukraine’s main specialist hospital for women and hit key energy infrastructure. Officials said at least 42 people were killed. Acting U.N. humanitarian chief Msuya stressed to the Security Council that intentionally attacking a hospital is a war crime. Since Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, the U.N. World Health Organization (WHO) has verified 1,878 attacks affecting health care facilities, personnel, transport, supplies and patients, she said. Russia insists that it doesn’t attack civilian targets in Ukraine. Earlier today in Geneva, Bell, who heads a U.N. team monitoring human rights in Ukraine, said the hospital likely was struck by a Russian Kh-101 cruise missile. (Source: apnews *)
* The Associated Press, an American news agency headquartered in New York City, U.S

.

.

Europe

Hungary
July 9, 2024  Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán is getting it in the neck from the rest of the Western allies for going to Russia to meet with President Putin and daring to talk about peace. The EU 'elite' are furious that Orbán took it on himself to simply ask Russian President Putin what he wants to bring the war to an end. And why shouldn’t he ask? Surely stopping this war as soon as possible is in everyone’s interests? Zelenskiy has refused to consider anyone’s peace plan other than his own that he presented at the G20 summit in November 2022. Over  100 were killed in a massive daytime missile attack that in particular hit the biggest children’s hospital in Ukraine, that specialises in treating children with complicated problems like cancer. Even Putin is now regularly signalling that he is open for talks, although the conditions he has offered so far are a non-starter for President Zelenskiy. Orbán went from Moscow on to meet Chinese President Xi in Beijing, who was, again, surprisingly outspoken about the need to end the conflict in Ukraine. ’But no one trusts Xi either’. The final leg on Orbán’s “peace mission” will be the Nato summit that is about to start in Washington. Orbán doesn’t care. Thanks to the need for a unanimous vote on all important EU business, he can just withhold Hungary’s vote on some important issue and watch the rest of Brussels squirm if they try. He is now trying to capitalise on the lurch to the right and build up a “Patriots of Europe” bloc in the European Parliament from the influx of fresh ’far right and populist’ MEP blood. ’While uber-Russia hawk European Commission President von der Leyen has been reappointed president and Kallas made EU foreign policy chief’, the polls show the majority of the EU population are ready for a negotiated ceasefire to begin. The cracks in the EU-Ukraine unity are getting wider - there is a growing disconnect between what the EU elite want and what the public want. (Source: intellinews *)
* bne IntelliNews, a news wire agency and media company. Headquarters Berlin, Germany

European Parliament
09.07.2024  The ’conservative’ European People's Party (EPP), the largest group in the European Parliament (EP), the Socialist and Democratic Alliance and Liberals (Renew), the Greens, Conservatives and Reformists, and the Left are negotiating the distribution of EP committees. The EPP is targeting the Foreign Affairs Committee, Constitutional Affairs Committee, and Agriculture Committee. Environment, Trade, Regional Affairs and Economic and Monetary Affairs committees could be among those assigned to the Socialists.. “Whoever is elected to this parliament by European citizens has the right to work like everyone else and this must be guaranteed,” EPP’s leader Weber told. 'However, those who are against the European project, such as Viktor Orbán, who said 'he wants to dismantle' the EP, as well cannot represent this institution,' he added. (Source: aa *)
* Anadolu Agency, a state-run news agency. Headquarters Ankara, Turkey.

Belarus
6:54 PM CEST, July 9, 2024  Belarus, the country of 9.5 million is hosting Chinese troops for a joint military drill near its border with NATO member Poland. The 11-day drill named Eagle Assault 2024 started yesterday at a shooting range in the Brest region close to Poland. The Belarusian Defense Ministry said that as part of the joint drill, the Belarusian and Chinese troops will practice airborne assault, river crossing and residential area combat. A statement from the Chinese Defense Ministry said the forces will also practice hostage rescue and counter-terrorism operations. “The joint training aims to enhance the coordination capabilities of the participating troops and deepen practical cooperation between the two armies,” it said. Belarus last week joined the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, a ’regional’ security organization established in 2001 by China and Russia to discuss security concerns in Central Asia and the wider region. (Source: apnews *)
* The Associated Press, an American news agency headquartered in New York City, U.S

Russia
9 Jul 2024  Russian President Putin presented the ‘Order of St. Andrew’ award to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The two leaders offered strong words of support for their countries’ relationship. /video/: (Source: aljazeera *): https://tinyurl.com/mu6dwc3c
* Al Jazeera Media Network, a media conglomerate headquartered at Doha. Qatar

.4 7 22

.

Asia

China
11:17, 08-Jul-2024, (Monday); Updated 23:12, 08-Jul-2024  Chinese President Xi and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán had an in-depth exchange of views on the Ukraine crisis when they met in the Chinese capital, Beijing, today. Orbán briefed Xi on his recent visits to Ukraine and Russia. Xi commended Orbán for his efforts towards seeking a political solution to the crisis, stressing that an early ceasefire and political settlement of the issue are in everyone's interest. The Chinese president said the priority is to cool down the situation by observing the three principles of no expansion of the battlefield, no escalation of fighting, and no fanning by any party over the flames. Xi called on the international community to provide suitable conditions and support for the resumption of direct dialogue and negotiation between the two parties. Stressing that Chhna has been actively promoting peace talks in its own way, Xi said China and Hungary share the same basic propositions and are working in the same direction. China will keep in communication with Hungary and the relevant parties, he added. During today's talks, Xi noted that during his successful state visit to Hungary two months ago, bilateral relations were elevated to an all-weather comprehensive strategic partnership for a new era, which gave new historical significance to the 75th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties this year and injected strong impetus into the high-level development of China-Hungary relations. Noting that the third plenary session of the 20th Communist Party of China Central Committee will be held next week, Xi said China will further deepen overall reform and promote high-quality development and high-level opening up, which will provide new opportunities and create new momentum for China-Hungary cooperation. Xi said that the two countries should maintain high-level exchanges, deepen political mutual trust, strengthen strategic communication and coordination, continue to firmly support each other, strengthen practical cooperation in various fields, advance high-quality Belt and Road cooperation, and continue to enrich the bilateral all-weather comprehensive strategic partnership for a new era to better benefit the people. He congratulated Hungary on assuming the rotating presidency of the European Union (EU) and said there is no geopolitical contradiction or fundamental conflict of interests between China and the EU. China-EU relations are of strategic significance and global influence and should maintain steady and sound development, Xi said, calling on the two sides to jointly respond to global challenges. Next year marks the 50th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties between China and the EU, Xi said, adding that the two sides should stay committed to the correct path of bilateral partnership with cooperation as the defining trend, continue to promote two-way opening up, strengthen international coordination, and contribute to world peace, stability, development and prosperity. It is hoped that Hungary, as the holder of the rotating EU presidency, will play a positive role in promoting the sound and stable development of China-EU relations and facilitating constructive interactions, Xi added. For his part, Orbán said that over the past two months, the two sides have earnestly implemented the important outcomes of President Xi's visit to Hungary, strengthened friendship and mutual trust, and laid a solid foundation for the future development of bilateral relations. In the face of the current turbulent international situation, China not only loves peace but has also put forward a series of constructive and important initiatives, proving with its own concrete actions that China is an important stabilizing force for world peace, Orbán said. He added that Hungary highly appreciates and values China's role and influence and is willing to maintain close strategic communication and coordination with China. Hungary advocates strengthening cooperation with China and opposes forming exclusionary cliques and bloc confrontation, Orbán said. Hungary is willing to take the rotating EU presidency as an opportunity to actively promote the sound development of EU-China relations, he said. (Source: cgtn *, "With input from Xinhua **")
* China Global Television Network (CGTN), a state-run international division of China Central Television (CCTV). Headquartered in Beijing, China
** * Xinhua News Agency, the official state news agency of the People's Republic of China

(Monday), 7/8/2024 12:00  Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán made a surprise visit today to Beijing. Upon landing in China, Orbán posted a photo of himself on X captioned: “Peace mission 3.0 #Beijing.” Orbán’s visit to China followed trips to Kyiv and Moscow last week, just days after Hungary took over the rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union. His "foray' into peacemaking has drawn criticism in the West of his attempt to pressure Kyiv to surrender territory that Moscow has seized by force. Zelensky has called for a full withdrawal of Russian troops, including at a “peace summit’ in Switzerland last month that China pointedly did not attend. Russia was not invited. Putin has insisted that the West, particularly the United States and Britain, is responsible for prolonging his war in Ukraine by not pressuring Kyiv to give in to his territorial demands. In an interview with the German newspaper Bild, Orbán insisted that Ukraine could never defeat Russia. “There is no solution to this conflict on the front lines,” he said, adding: “Putin cannot lose if you look at the soldiers, equipment and technology. Defeating Russia is a thought that is difficult to imagine. The probability that Russia could actually be defeated is completely incalculable.”  At the meeting with Orbán in Beijing, Xi said he appreciated the Hungarian leader’s efforts to bring about a political solution to the war in Ukraine, which he referred to as a “conflict.” “China and Hungary share the same basic positions and are working in the same direction,” he said. Chinese leader Xi called for a global effort to push Russia and Ukraine toward a “cease-fire” and praised Orbán’s diplomatic initiatives. “Only when all major powers exert positive energy rather than negative energy can the dawn of a cease-fire in this conflict appear as soon as possible,” Xi said. China, has been “actively urging peace and advocating talks in its own way,” he added.  Putin, welcoming Orbán in Moscow last week, pointedly invoked Hungary’s E.U. presidency. The Hungarian prime minister’s visit to Beijing occurred just hours before Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrived in Moscow on a state visit, his first since Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. In a statement before he left New Delhi today, Modi hailed “my friend Putin” and “the Special and Privileged Strategic Partnership between India and Russia.” With his visit to Moscow, Modi, who was reelected last month, was signaling his autonomy even though the Biden administration has worked assiduously to court the Indian leader. With Orbán in China and Modi in Russia, a multipolar world takes shape. (Source: msn / The Washington Post)

2:37 PM CEST, July 8, 2024  Chinese President Xi called on world powers to help Russia and Ukraine resume direct dialogue during a meeting today with Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán who made a surprise visit to China after similar trips last week to Ukraine and Russia to discuss prospects for a peaceful settlement of more than the two-year war. Orbán has long argued for a cessation of hostilities in Ukraine but without outlining what that might mean for the country’s territorial integrity or future security. The Hungarian prime minister broadly opposes Western military aid to Ukraine and has blocked, delayed or watered down EU efforts to assist Kyiv and impose sanctions on Moscow over its invasion. Standing alongside Orbán last week in Moscow, Putin declared that Russia wouldn’t accept any cease-fire or temporary break in hostilities that would allow Ukraine 'to recoup losses, regroup and rearm.' Putin repeated his demand that Ukraine withdraw its troops from the four regions that Moscow claims to have annexed in 2022 as a condition for any prospective peace talks. Ukraine and its Western allies have rejected that demand. Hungary assumed the rotating presidency of the European Union this month and Orbán has since embarked on a peace mission, which, however, lacks the endorsement of EU officials, who insisted Orbán was not acting on behalf of the whole European bloc. Their rebuke failed to deter Orbán from extending a similar visit to Beijing, which he called “Peace mission 3.0” in a picture posted on X. “China is a key power in creating the conditions for peace in the Russia-Ukraine war,” Orbán wrote on the social media platform X. “This is why I came to meet with President Xi in Beijing, just two months after his official visit to Budapest.” Orbán is widely seen as having the warmest relations with Xi and Russian President Putin among European leaders. Orbán hosted the Chinese leader in Hungary only two months ago. The European nation hosts a number of Chinese electric vehicle battery facilities, and in December it announced that Chinese EV manufacturing giant BYD will open its first European EV production factory in the south of the country. During the trip, China upgraded its ties with Hungary to an “all-weather, comprehensive strategic partnership,” one of its highest designations for foreign relations that in addition to Hungary applies only to Belarus, Pakistan and Venezuela. During his meeting with Xi, Orbán described China as a stabilizing force amid global turbulence and praised its “constructive and important” peace initiatives. China has been promoting its own six-point peace plan, which it issued with Brazil in May. Beijing says it is neutral in the conflict, though in practice it supports Moscow through frequent state visits, growing trade and joint military drills. China has spread its influence in Central Asia and Eastern Europe in recent years beyond its “no limits” partnership with Moscow. Over the weekend, China held “anti-terror" military drills with Belarus - a key ally of Russia - near the border with Poland. The drills came after last week Belarus joined a regional security organization led by China and Russia. While hosting Orbán, Xi called on Russia and Ukraine to cease fire and on other major powers to create an environment conducive to talks. “Next stop: Washington,” Orbán posted on his social media account today. In Washington, D.C. NATO leaders are holding a summit to discuss ways to assure Ukraine of the alliance’s continued support. It was not clear whether Orbán would meet separately with President Biden, or Trump, whose presidential candidacy Orbán openly supports. (Source: apnews)
* The Associated Press, an American news agency headquartered in New York City, U.S.

8 July 2024 5:38 (AM)  Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán arrived in Beijing today for a visit after recent surprise visits to Moscow and Kyiv in the past week since Hungary took over the European Union’s rotating presidency at the start of July. Orbán, the friendliest EU leader towards Moscow, held talked with President Putin on Friday, July 5, about the war in Ukraine. Putin told Orbán that Ukraine must withdraw its troops from regions that Moscow has annexed if it wants peace. The trip comes a day before NATO is due to hold a summit to mark its 75th anniversary, with setbacks in Ukraine set to dominate discussions. Orbán was greeted at the airport by Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua. He will meet Xi today morning. Beijing presents itself as a neutral party in the war and says it is not sending lethal assistance to either side, unlike the United States and other Western nations. It has however offered a critical lifeline to Russia’s isolated economy, with trade booming since the conflict began. In a short statement, the Chinese foreign ministry said the Hungarian leader would meet Xi today “for in-depth communication on issues of mutual interest”. Last October, the Hungarian premier was the sole EU leader to attend the summit for Xi’s flagship Belt and Road initiative in Beijing. The Central European country of 9.6 million people has attracted a flood of major Chinese projects in recent years, mostly related to battery and electric vehicle (EV) manufacturing. Xi visited Hungary in May this year, for the final leg of a European tour that also led him to France and Serbia. Following a meeting with Orbán, Xi said Beijing placed “great importance” on its relations with the EU. (Source: euractiv * )
* Euractiv, a European news website. Its headquarters in Brussels, Belgium.

(Monday), 8/7/2024  Hungary took over the rotating presidency of the EU earlier this month. On a self-proclaimed "peace mission 3.0., after his recent trips to Kyiv and Moscow, Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orbán visited to the Chinese capital. In an interview with German tabloid newspaper Bild published today, Orbán repeated his calls for a cease-fire and warned of further escalation in the conflict in the coming months. "Believe me: the next two or three months will be much more brutal than we think," he said in comments which will have been made directly on the back of his meeting with Russian President Putin in the Kremlin and before his arrival in China. "There are more weapons [involved] and the Russians are more determined. The energy in the confrontation, the number of dead, the number of victims will become more brutal than in the last seven months.' He insisted that he is "not arguing about who is right and who is wrong" and his "aim is peace and a cease-fire." In Beijing, where Hungary's PM Orbán met with Chinese President Xi, he attempted to position himself as a mediator pushing for an end to the ongoing Russian war in Ukraine. Orbán emphasized China's role as a 'key power in creating the conditions for peace' in the conflict. China's President Xi, for his part, used Orbán's visit to call on the international community for global dialogue, to "create conditions and provide assistance for the two sides to resume direct dialogue and negotiations". "Only when all major powers exert positive energy rather than negative energy can the dawn of a ceasefire in this conflict appear as soon as possible," he reportedly said. China presents itself as a neutral party in the war, but strategic relations with Russia have strengthened since the invasion. Beijing has offered a crucial lifeline to Russia's increasingly isolated economy, purchasing large quantities of Russian natural gas albeit at reduced prices. China is preferring to promote its own six-point peace plan, issued together with Brazil in May and which Moscow has supported. Since 2010, Orbán has been seeking closer economic ties to China, Russia and other Asian countries as part of his "eastern opening" foreign policy. China has continued to deepen economic ties with Hungary, which has remained open to Chinese investment despite EU sanctions imposed on Beijing, in particular on imports of Chinese-made electric vehicles. The Hungarian foreign minister claimed that Chinese investment in Hungary's electromobility sector could create 25,000 jobs. The Hungarian government recently boasted of ongoing economic projects originating in China worth around €15 billion ($16bn). Orbán departed Beijing en route for Washington today. (Source: dw *; "AFP, dpa, Reuters")
* Deutsche Welle, the German public, state-owned international broadcaster, headquartered in Bonn

North America

United States
(Monday), 07/08/2024, 2:15PM ET '  To put Trump in a bullseye'? A defiant President Biden insisted to his donors today that he is “done talking about the debate' and implored the party to ignore any further distractions and direct its attention back to Trump. 'We need to move forward. Look, we have roughly 40 days til the convention, 120 days til the election. We can’t waste any more time being distracted,' Biden said in a private call with donors. 'I have one job, and that’s to beat Trump. I’m absolutely certain I’m the best person to be able to do that. So, we’re done talking about the debate, it’s time to put Trump in a bullseye,' Biden said. The forceful message from Biden - which was delivered to hundreds of top Democratic donors and bundlers in the president's National Finance Committee - is the latest evidence that the president and his allies are working furiously to stem defections in the party. Earlier in the day, Biden sent a fiery missive to congressional Democrats, declaring his intentions to remain in the race even as roughly a half-dozen members have publicly called for him to bow out. Several donors who participated in the call "described Biden as forceful and strong'. One took four questions during the meeting, including one about Biden’s plans for the next debate. The president responded that his strategy was to 'attack, attack, attack'. Biden repeated multiple times that he would not be leaving the race: “I’m telling you, I’m not going anywhere folks. I’m in this to the end, and I’m going to beat Trump. I promise you.' He touted the “grassroots support' he saw during his 10-day cross-country tour following the debate, from Georgia to Wisconsin to Pennsylvania, and thanked his donors for sticking by his side. “I appreciate you hanging in there with me. I realize you’re getting a lot of heat,' he said. Instead of airing public concerns about his campaign, Biden argued the party should be directing its ire at Trump, who he said has 'gotten away with doing nothing for the last 10 days except driving around in his golf cart, bragging about scores he doesn’t score.' He said Democrats needed to focus on what Trump would do to abortion rights, Medicare, Social Security, and prescription drug prices. But there’s still lingering concern and frustration within the high-dollar donor community about Biden’s ability to beat Trump in November. (Source: politico *)
.* Politico, an American political digital newspaper. Headquarters Arlington County, Virginia, U.S.

NATO

July 8, 2024 4:00 AM CET  Taking the necessary steps to fully operationalize deterrence by denial now is critical - especially before a possible change in America’s relationship with NATO. After Russia’s second invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and the ensuing brutal war, though, NATO reexamined its approach and took several steps to strengthen its efforts. It completed new allied operations plans, which based allied defense planning, exercises and force sizing more closely on real-world threats. It revamped its force structure, embracing a new NATO Force Model designed to provide larger numbers of troops at higher readiness, and placed multinational battle groups in Slovakia, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria. It also moved to integrate its new members - Finland and Sweden - remarkably quickly. And given these changes, the alliance has now begun modifying its command structure as well. It has also agreed to expand its small battle groups to brigade-size, when and where necessary. Regarding personnel, NATO simply needs more. Nearly all major European allies - especially France, Italy, Germany and the U.K. - face military personnel shortages. Decisions made a decade ago to invest in capabilities at the expense of capacity mean that even as these allies have become increasingly capable of fighting side-by-side with their American counterparts, they’ve been fielding smaller militaries. And even those with plans to expand personnel, like Germany, don’t have plans to resource them. Attacking is usually considered a “harder” military task than defending. It requires troops to leave the safety of fortifications and enter unfamiliar “foreign terrain,” so typically a three-to-one ratio is necessary for offensive success. To mitigate this, NATO should aim to prevent its forces in the east from falling below a two-to-one or 1.5-to-one ratio. More European allies will likely need to reexamine their decisions to ditch conscription, as well as embrace more robust development and activation of reserve forces to help allies achieve the necessary mass. Larger European NATO countries, which have the populations to support bigger military formations, will be critical here. NATO needs to beef up its forces in the east. In terms of quality, this means endowing NATO’s forward military units with more full-spectrum capabilities, including electronic warfare, unmanned aerial vehicles, short range air defense and cyber. And in terms of quantity, it means that each forward military unit in the three Baltic states, Poland and Romania ought to be made into brigade-size units permanently. The German-led unit in Lithuania is headed in this direction, and the Canadian-led unit in Latvia may be as well - but the timelines for this are woefully long.For reducing the interoperability frictions in some forward military units - the one in Latvia, for example, suffers from this the most, with 10 contributing allies - a country’s minimum contribution to each unit ought to be a battalion. Meanwhile, there’s no reason to have land-centric forward military units in Slovakia, Hungary or Bulgaria, as these allies face no significant ground threat. And given the threats facing Romania, NATO should convert the unit there into its first Multi-Domain Task Force, with an emphasis on intelligence, maritime domain awareness, air defense, and long-range artillery and rockets. In the air domain, in any case, the goal should be to forcibly end Russian aircraft and missile incursions into allied airspace. For instance, the NATO countries should announce they’ll no longer tolerate violations of allied airspace by piloted Russian aircraft, flyovers of any ally by Ukraine-bound Russian missiles and rockets, or Russian drone activity within a certain distance of the alliance’s eastern frontier. NATO should then forward station-appropriate integrated air and missile defense assets along its eastern front, starting in southeastern Poland and northeastern Romania - creating no-fly zones over portions of western and southwestern Ukraine. As for the electromagnetic spectrum, Russia’s aggressive, indiscriminate use of electronic jamming isn’t just threatening military operations by allied forces in NATO’s east but civilian aviation and maritime activity. Will the allies wait until Russia’s electronic warfare downs a civilian airliner before they respond? 'This upcoming Washington summit provides the ideal opportunity' for NATO to finally embrace this strategy. (Source: politico *)
.by Deni, a research professor at the U.S. Army War College’s Strategic Studies Institute, a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, and an associate fellow at the NATO Defense College. He’s the author of “NATO and Article 5.”
* Politico, an American political digital newspaper. Headquarters Arlington County, Virginia, U.S.

7/8/24 6:00  The leaders of the West’s preeminent military alliance convene this week in Washington. The war in Ukraine is bound to dominate the proceedings. NATO meets at a moment of peak uncertainty in the West. The Biden administration and some governments in Europe have ’desperately’ tried to “Trump-proof' support for Ukraine in the near to medium term. ’We have a political window right now that should allow for more acceptance of NATO accession,’ Runde, senior vice president of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told. ’This should be the time that the Biden administration should push’ for Ukraine’s NATO bid, he added. The best way to ensure Ukraine’s long-term security is to give Ukraine more capability to actually defeat Russia, Rogin noted ’That means speeding up delivery of air-defense systems, fighter planes, longer-range rockets, and helping Ukraine develop its own defense production to reduce its dependence on the West.’ Diplomats in Washington are aware that Trump may choose to cut off military support to Kyiv. European diplomats are already preparing contingency plans for a future Trump administration; many doubt he would actually withdraw from NATO, but are concerned about Trump weakening U.S. commitments to the alliance and undermining transatlantic unity. Trump repeatedly voiced his antipathy to NATO in his first term, and in the most recent debate declined to say whether he would pull the United States out of the alliance. New polling by the European Council on Foreign Relations of 15 European countries, including Ukraine, found a growing disconnect between Ukrainians and the European public elsewhere. When asked how the war will end, close to 60 percent of Ukrainians said they see outright victory for their nation, while only 30 percent believed it would end in some form of diplomatic settlement. If boosted by a new increases in Western arms, that Ukrainian belief in 'complete victory', according to the pollsters, only grows. That enthusiasm is not shared by many other Europeans, who overwhelmingly reject sending ground forces to help the Ukrainians and doubt Kyiv’s ability to actually win the war. “The prevailing view in most countries … is that the conflict will conclude with a compromise settlement,” noted the ECFR report’s authors, Krastev and Leonard. “So, when it comes to the war’s end, European publics express the pessimism of the intellect while Ukrainians represent the optimism of political will.’ Absent clear commitments to Ukraine, NATO officials have opted to focus on the big picture. “The United States is home to a quarter of the world’s economy, but combined, NATO allies have half of the world’s economy and half its military might,' outgoing NATO Secretary General Stoltenberg wrote. “Together, our deterrence is more credible, our support to Ukraine is more constant, and our cooperation with outside partners is more effective.’ (Source: msn */ The Washington Post **)
* MSN (Microsoft Network), an American web portal
** The Washington Post, the most widely circulated daily newspaper in the Washington metropolitan area. It has a national audience. Headquarters Washington, D.C., U.S.

Space

18:41 BST, 8 July 2024  The internet is awash with videos appearing to show UFOs flying near nuclear reactors, warheads and even high-speed planes. Nearly dozen UFOs appeared above Japan's Fukushima lab after its nuclear disaster in 2011. Witnesses told the Netflix docuseries, Encounters, that the UFOs aved them by lowering radioactivity levels. Local outlets caught several glimmering white orbs above the plant dipping into the lab before emerging again, in a sort of assembly line. UFO activity and nuclear devices and sites have been intertwined since the invention of the Atom Bomb in 1945. 'All of the nuclear facilities - Los Alamos, Livermore, Sandia, Savannah River - all had dramatic incidents where these unknown craft appeared over the facilities and nobody knew where they were from or what they were doing there,' investigative journalist Knapp told. The former head of the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program, Elizondo, agreed that there 'seems to be a lot of correlation' between UFO appearances and nuclear sites. And independent researcher Hastings, who has been working toward full government disclosure of UAP activity, said in 2010, 'Declassified US government documents and witness testimony from former or retired US military personnel confirm beyond any doubt the reality of ongoing UFO incursions at nuclear weapons sites.' Now, new research - in the form of three studies helmed by a retired US Air Force staff sergeant, Hancock, and a data analyst affiliate with Harvard's UFO-hunting Galileo Project, Porritt - shows that not only has there been unusual activity around nuclear weapons and facilities; UFO sightings over America's nuclear arsenal appeared to shift their interest from the making of the bombs to silos and bomber bases as the Cold War arms race grew over the years. 'You would see this interest' at silos when they were being installed before 'the activity would drop off,' Porritt previously told. As the UFOs appeared more and more over armed and ready nuclear weapons sites, the apparent craft also started to appear more at night. And when a new arsenal of ICMBs was built in the 1960s, UFOs became 'much more intrusive' in their approach of ICBM bases, Porritt said. 'They're very low altitude, they penetrate the security perimeters of the base.' Experts have an alarming theory for why these locations are being targeted. Former US Air Force ICBM launch officer Salas said he was contacted by the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) in an email to gather information after he said an orange flying disc shut off 10 warheads at Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana in 1967. Despite a thorough investigations by the military, no conclusion was drawn. This echoes what former US Air Force First lieutenant Jacobs said happened in 1964, when a UFO 'deactivated' an unarmed warhead in 1964. 'Now remember, all this stuff is flying at several thousand miles an hour. So this thing fires a beam of light at the warhead, hits it, and then it moves up… fires another beam of light… goes down and fires another beam of light, and then flies out the way it came in. And the warhead tumbles out of space,' he said in a 2000 interview. Eerily similar to these encounters are the instances of UAPs following fighter jets that were disclosed by the UAP Task Force, including a 'giant Tic Tac' UFO witnessed by Navy veteran fighter pilot Commander Fravor in 2004. Fravor's fellow co-pilot Underwood witnessed the 'perfectly white' wingless oblong that was captured from his cockpit's in-flight video. Two Air Force veterans previously told they have testified to the AARO in June 2023 that ’UFOs turned off their nuclear warheads’. Given the shared similarities, there seems to be a connection between the behavior of UFOs toward aircraft and nuclear weapons - and it may come from the very same reason. Whatever is up there is concerned about us, especially when it comes to the prospect of blowing ourselves up with nukes. The question emerges: are UFOs approaching high-speed aircraft because they are concerned they contain nuclear capability? In 1976, British Airways aired an ad for their Concorde flight in which an orb-like UFO darts toward the aircraft at an incredibly high speed, seemingly analyzes the plane and then accelerates away. In June 2022, at the Queen's Jubilee, the longest-serving royal monarch was honored by a cadre of nine fighter jets spewing streams of smoke in the Union Jack's red, white and blue colors - and one unidentified disc. No clear answer has ever been provided as to what it was. (Source: dailymail *)
* The Daily Mail, a British daily, middle-market tabloid newspaper. Headquarters London, United Kingdom

.

.

Europe

Hungary
July 2024  Europe invaded - warnings from Hungary and Poland about migration. Sitek, a Polish soldier on duty at the frontier with Belarus, was an easy target. As he tried to close a hole in the border fence someone holding a makeshift weapon - a knife taped to a tree branch - rammed it through the gap straight into his chest. Sitek, 21, died a few days later on 6 June. His murder was little noticed in the West, but it caused fury across Poland. Sikorski, the foreign minister, demanded that the Belarusian authorities hand over his killer. They are unlikely to agree. Poland’s border fence is 5.5 metres high, runs for 186 kilometres and is topped with razor-wire. So far this year there have been 17,000 attempts to breach it - and 90 per cent of those caught have Russian visas. Polish officials say that the flow is organised by Russia and Belarus to destabilise Poland. Europe’s borders are under assault from highly-organised, violent armed gangs. People trafficking is a multi-billion dollar business. During the first half of 2023 Hungary’s southern frontier was the pressure point. The two sets of barriers have been heightened to four metres and reinforced with razor wire, night vision and thermal cameras. But they can still be crossed. Migrants, mostly young men, daily besieged the fence. The Serbian side was divided up between different armed gangs. Each controlled a section and anyone passing through had to pay protection money. The frontier was closed to the media during the campaign for the European elections. But video footage of the southern fence obtained from the Hungarian National Police Headquarters shows the ferocity of those attempting to force their way across. Several migrants are armed, either with a pistol or what seems to be an assault rifle. Others fire slingshots into Hungary. The breaches are swift and coordinated. The border guards frequently drive up the path between the fences, or run after the migrants, at which point they either speed up or return to Serbia. The murder of Sitek, and those trying to break through Hungary’s southern frontier, are part of a continuum that reaches back to the migrant crisis of August 2015. Hundreds of people were camped out all around Keleti station. I focused on speaking to the migrants about their stories. But now, with hindsight, I wish I had pushed harder. Many questions still linger. How had Europe’s borders simply collapsed? How had hundreds of thousands of people simply traipsed through the continent? Many used smartphones and apps to plot their routes, sharing information on messaging groups. Who was paying for the wifi, the electricity and the extension leads where the migrants were charging their mobile telephones at Keleti? How did they know to sit quietly each morning in concentric circles and place a photogenic boy in the middle? Each time a television crew passed by, the boy held up a piece of cardboard emblazoned with the words Syria and Germany with a heart in the middle. And why was my coverage, like the coverage of most journalists, so sentimental and sympathetic? After all, this was an organised invasion, not just of Hungary, but of Europe. Instead of writing sob-stories, we should all have been asking much tougher questions. Hungary responded by building a secure fence along its southern frontier and deploying border guards to stop the migrants. This caused a predictable storm of outrage, as though a country defending its own - and the EU’s - southern border from an attack on its sovereignty was an affront to human rights. The following month I interviewed Viktor Orbán. He was on fine form, enjoying the world’s attention, but understandably puzzled about the barrage of criticism. “We are the only country in the last month to take seriously and put real effort into following the Schengen regulations. For that we are criticised. That is the strangest story I have seen since we joined the EU.” Orbán was open about his determination to keep Hungary a Christian country and not allow substantial Muslim immigration. Muslim communities live in parallel societies and do not integrate, he said. “I am speaking about culture and the everyday principles of life such as sexual habits, freedom of expression, equality between men and women and all those kind of values which I call Christianity.” Other countries were of course free to allow parallel societies. “But we Hungarians would not like to have it.” Hungarian officials repeatedly warned that it was impossible to know who was coming in. Later it was revealed that Europe’s collapsing frontiers provided cover for Islamist terrorists. General Bodnár told Pancevski of the Sunday Times that seven of the nine terrorists who carried out the November 2015 Paris terrorist attacks, in which 130 people were killed, passed through Hungary. In total 14 members of isis terror cells were based in Hungary and used it as a gateway to western Europe. Some took part in the Brussels terrorist attacks in March 2016 that claimed 32 lives. “Terrorists were mingled with the migrants from terror,” Bakondi, Hungary’s chief security adviser, told me recently. Many of the migrants had destroyed their papers and passports. “The people who were arriving had no travel documents at all. So their identity was established totally at the mercy of what they were saying.” In an article, Soros called for the EU to accept ’at least a million asylum-seekers a year for the foreseeable future”’and provide €15,000 for each asylum seeker for two years, to help cover the costs of housing, health care and education. These funds would be raised by issuing long-term bonds, he added ’helpfully’. The article was a gold-plated gift for the Orbán government, already engaged in a bitter culture war with Soros, his Open Society Foundations (OSF) and Central European University in Budapest. I asked the OSF what role, if any, it had played in the 2015 crisis. It directed me to a statement issued that year, denying that either Soros himself or the OSF ’had funded the production or distribution of materials to aid people smugglers’ However, the OSF said it had funded organisations in the region which provided legal assistance to migrants and refugees, which monitored and documented their reception on arrival, as well as for ’emergency response efforts and longer-term initiatives to ease the crisis’. Angela Merkel’s decision to admit one million mostly Muslim migrants in the summer of 2015 is still reshaping the continent. The results of the European elections show a surge in support for hard-right and 'far-righ't parties, in part because few centrist politicians will speak frankly about the impact of mass migration. The 2015 migration crisis was a shock, but the liberal consensus meant that open debate on immigration was stifled, says Lloyd, author of the forthcoming Their Iron Indignation: Dispatches from Europe’s Far Right Revolution: The EU, centrist governments and the liberal consensus meant that anyone who was against mass immigration was perceived as a racist and against foreigners. It inhibited speech and maybe even thought. So far Hungary has spent 650 billion forints (approximately £1.4 bn) on defending its (and Europe’s) southern border. Finally, after nine years, a senior EU official is due to visit. The border is quieter now after a sustained crackdown last year by the Hungarian and Serbian police and security services. “We would like to guarantee our internal security to keep away illegal migrants most of whom were moved by organised crime,” says Bakondi. “Most of them are young men, and they are often very aggressive. So we want to keep them as far away from Hungary as possible.” So far the crackdown has worked. There were 50,707 border violations and 415 smugglers detained to the year ending in May 2023. This year there have been 1,273 border violators and 28 smugglers detained. Lord Sacks, Britain’s former Chief Rabbi, once said that 'the hate that begins with Jews never ends with Jews'. For some the 7 October massacre triggered a surge not in solidarity with Jews, but anti-Semitism. Nine months later, most weekends, pro-Palestine demonstrators take control of swathes of space across British cities, intimidating passersby and Jewish counter-demonstrators. The police watch benignly. The British state has proved unwilling and unable to act decisively to secure the streets. Yet this is an issue for everyone, whatever their faith. When members of Hizb ut-Tahrir, an extremist Islamist group, called for “Jihad” after 7 October, the Metropolitan police issued a tweet, explaining that 'jihad has a number of meanings'. Which is technically true, but it seems unlikely that the activists were demanding a more fervent struggle for greater self-knowledge and moral improvement. Even as Hamas terrorists were still rampaging through Israel, pro-Palestinian activists in Neukölln, Berlin, handed out sweets to passersby to celebrate the slaughter. In Malmö in May, around 12,000 people took to the streets to protest Israel’s entry in the Eurovision final. Around 20 per cent of Malmö’s population are Muslim. The city, like Stockholm and other major conurbations, is riven by gang violence. Anti-semitism is surging. Sweden, a once peaceful, prosperous country, now has the second highest gun crime rate per capita in Europe after lawless Albania - and 30 times higher per capita than London. None of this is happening in central Europe. This year marks the eightieth anniversary of the Hungarian Holocaust. Budapest, like Prague and Warsaw, is still haunted by its lost Jewish population. Ironically, central Europe, the graveyard of so many Jews, is now one of the safest places in the world to be Jewish. In Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic there is widespread solidarity with Jews and Israel. Jewish people freely wear stars of David or signal their support for the Jewish state. Posters of the hostages abducted by Hamas remain untouched. There are no demonstrations in Budapest calling for the destruction of Israel as such protests are illegal. The ongoing migration crisis has forged an unlikely alliance: between Viktor Orbán and Donald Tusk, his Polish counterpart. Orbán is a 'populist' conservative eurosceptic, firmly on the right. Tusk is a liberal centrist, usually described as pro-EU. Not any more. In May this year EU member states finally approved the migration pact. Countries can either accept their quota or pay €20,000 a year for each migrant they refuse. Soon after, the European Court of Justice fined Hungary €200m for refusing to make changes in its border asylum policy, with a daily fine of €1m until it agrees to, causing fury in Budapest. Tusk, like Orbán, has been vocal in his opposition to the idea of quotas. Like Orbán, he argues that unrestricted mass migration poses an existential threat to Europe. “This is a question of the survival of our Western civilisation,” he said in February. Poland must “wake up and understand that we have to protect our territory, our borders, that if we are open to all forms of migration without any control, our world will collapse”. His declaration was greeted with a wry smile in Budapest. I lived in Budapest for about 25 years, covering Hungary and central Europe. I see now how something still thrives there that has almost vanished in Britain: a powerful sense of national and social cohesion. Hungarians, like Poles and Czechs, know who they are. They have a determined grasp of their history and culture. They know their national icons, their composers, artists and poets. They take a deep pride in them. There is no elite-led cultural onslaught on history and identity. National holidays prompt celebration rather than breast-beating. The contrast with Britain is sharp. A poll carried out in June for the Commonwealth War Graves Commission showed that only 48 per cent of 18-34 year olds even knew what D-Day was. Today there is no sign that Keleti was once the epicentre of Europe’s migrant crisis. The underpasses that were once home to legions of Afghans, Syrians and others are spotless, the station forecourt litter free. Around three miles away, on Freedom Square, stands one of the continent’s most poignant Holocaust memorials. It’s a decade-old ad hoc gathering of stories, photographs of victims, memories and documents in flimsy plastic folders, interspersed with personal possessions. Such a construct in a western European city would last a very short time before being daubed in paint or destroyed. In April the Holocaust memorial in Hyde Park had to be covered in blue plastic sheeting to prevent it being vandalised during a pro-Palestinian demonstration. The memorial on Freedom Square remains unguarded and untouched, as has it been for years, the fading testimonies gently rippling in the summer breeze. (Source: thecritic *)
* The Critic, a monthly British political and cultural magazine, based in London
Based on the writing of Mr LeBor

France
(Monday) July 8, 2024 4:01 AM CET  Voters in France have once again mobilized to stop Le Pen’s 'far right' taking power. But it was a close-run thing for the anti-Le Pen movement, and this time it was a case of winning ugly. The election delivered a chaotic result, with no party taking enough seats for a majority in parliament, plunging French politics into turmoil that could last months. Macron called the snap election in June in an effort to stop Le Pen’s surging 'far-right' National Rally in its tracks. But her party enhanced its profile and won 50 more seats than in 2022, while the president’s own liberal coalition fell back. Even though the leftist alliance and Macron’s liberals agreed to collaborate and vote tactically to stop Le Pen’s National Rally from winning, a deeper coalition between the two groups to govern France appears unlikely. Veteran 'far-left' firebrand Mélenchon’s France Unbowed, one of the parties within the left-wing alliance, has ruled out governing with the president’s liberals. Likewise Macron’s Prime Minster, Gabriel Attal, has said his side would never share power with Mélenchon. Yesterday evening, Attal opened the door to leading a caretaker government to provide some stability during the Olympic Games later this month. The 'far right' is now stronger and the liberals weaker, ahead of a wide-open presidential race in 2027. Before the snap election, the president commanded the largest group in parliament. Now he will likely have to work with an opposition politician as prime minister. His authority at home and credibility abroad have been damaged. The veteran left-wing radical Mélenchon who won the race to get his message out, leaping on stage at his party’s rally to demand Macron appoint a leftist prime minister and bring his movement into power. The three-times presidential candidate has indicated he wouldn’t mind becoming France’s prime minister himself. That’s not going to happen. The firebrand is toxic to many frontline politicians, with his fascination for Latin American strongmen, his temper tantrums and his vicious attacks on opponents. Most recently, critics accused him of flirting with antisemitism when he appeared to downplay attacks against Jews in France. The French voted massively, the centre was defeated, and if it ends with Attal staying on as prime minister, it’s not a good thing for France’s democracy. (Source: politico *)
* Politico, an American political digital newspaper. Headquarters Arlington County, Virginia, U.S.

(Monday), 08/07/2024 - 01:22  Le Pen and Bardella attributed their party's setback on Sunday to what Bardella called the "disgraceful alliance" the anti-RN forces, who he said had caricatured the party and disrespected its voters. Bardella and Le Pen strove to put a brave face on their result. The party had increased its share of seats in the National Assembly to a record high, they noted, vowing to keep fighting until they won power. "The tide is rising, but it didn't rise quite high enough this time," said Le Pen, who is likely to mount her fourth presidential campaign in 2027. "Our victory has merely been delayed." (Source: france24 / Reuters *)
* Reuters, News agency. Headquarters London, England

(Monday), 08/07/2024 - 00:32  Macron dissolved parliament and called for snap legislative elections after the 'far right' came out ahead of his centrist alliance in June elections for the European Parliament. Leftist parties – including the 'hard-left' France Unbowed, the Communists, the centre-left Socialists and the Greens – hastily agreed to form an alliance called the New Popular Front in the days after Macron’s shock decision. Le Pen's 'far-right' National Rally party led the first round of voting with 33% followed by the New Popular Front with almost 28% and President Macron's ruling coalition trailing at 20%. Between the first and second rounds, more than 200 candidates from various parties who qualified for the run-off stepped aside to allow a better-placed rival to go head-to-head with the National Rally candidate in their constituencies, increasing the chances of defeating them. 'Leftist' alliance was trouncing Macron's ruling party. France's snap legislative elections yesterday showed the leftist New Popular Front leading both Macron's ruling party and the right-wing National Rally but falling short of an absolute majority, according to Ipsos Talan projections. Prime Minister Gabriel Attal said he would resign today but will carry out his duties as long as required. It is France's president who nominates the PM but the candidate must be approved by parliament and thus often hails from whatever party or coalition holds the most seats. One of the coalition's leaders, Mélenchon of the 'far-left' France Unbowed party, urged Macron to invite them to form a government, saying the alliance “is ready to govern". (Source: france24 *)
* France 24, French international news television network based in Paris, owned by the French government.

Russia
(Monday), 7/8/2024 12:00  Russian missiles smashed down in Kyiv, Dnipro and other Ukrainian cities on today, killing at least 31 people, including two at a children’s hospital in Kyiv.  The Russian Defense Ministry, posting on Telegram, confirmed that it had carried out a major missile attack on Ukraine today but insisted that the targets were “Ukrainian military industry facilities” and “air bases.” (Source: msn / The Washington Post)

 4 7 21

.

.

Europe

France
(Sunday ), July 7, 2024 6:00am EDT  Second round of voting is underway today in France's parliamentary election. French President Macron on edge as France's right-wing National Rally Party gained momentum in first round of elections. Le Pen’s National Rally (Rassemblement National - RN) outperformed expectations in the European parliamentary elections, trouncing Macron’s centrist party and prompting him to call a snap election as he felt it created tension in the country if the electorate no longer believed in his party and their policies. France's right-wing National Rally looks to seize on recent electoral gains. Bardella could become France's next prime minister. The 28-year-old ’right-wing populist’ Bardella shocked the establishment when his party got 31.5% of the vote in the recent EU election. Rivals move to block France 'right-wing national party's election momentum. (Source: foxnews)

European Parliament
(Sunday), 07/07/2024  Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán's new alliance of 'far-right' parties passes the threshold to form a political group called "Patriots for Europe" in the European Parliament. On Saturday, the group secured the membership of the 'far-right' Danish People's Party and the 'far-right' Flemish Vlaams Belang, meeting the required threshold. Notable partners include Dutch anti-Islam firebrand Wilders. To form the group, 23 MEPs from seven countries are needed. Viktor Orbán announced his intention to form a new EU parliamentary group on June 30, promising a "new era" that would "change European politics." He made the announcement in Strasbourg with the leader of the Freedom Party of Austria, Kickl, and the centrist ANO of former Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis. Since then, five other parties have said they will join. They include the Portugal's far-right Chega party and Spain's Vox party. Orbán, whose country holds the rotating EU presidency as of July for six months, said the parties would meet in Brussels tomorrow. By then he will know if the French National Rally has decided to join forces with him after the conclusion of Sunday's second round of French parliamentary elections. With 30 MEPs, the National Rally would be the largest political force in the group if it decides to join the "Patriots for Europe." If the National Rally joins, the "Patriots for Europe" would potentially become the third largest parliamentary group, following the conservative European People's Party (EPP) and the Social Democrats (SD). It would then even overtake the other right-wing group, the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) of Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. Several of the groups joining Orbán's movement were previously part of the Identity and Democracy (ID) group, which includes members of France's National Rally. Babis's ANO party defected from Renew Europe, which includes liberals and centrists. Vox is leaving the ECR movement, Orbán's main rival as the dominant player in right-wing EU politics. (Source: dw *)
* Deutsche Welle, the German public, state-owned international broadcaster, headquartered in Bonn

(Sunday), 7 July 2024  Orbán’s new right-wing group hits EU parliament threshold. In Strasbourg, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán announced June 30 his intention to form a new EU parliamentary group called “Patriots for Europe”, vowing “a new era” that “will change European politics”. Andrej Babis, former prime minister of the Czech Republic and leader of the ANO party, Hungarian PM Viktor Orbán, leader of the ruling Fidesz party and Kickl, head of the Austrian Freedom Party (FPOe) were holding a press conference after signing a trilateral political agreement of cooperation entitled "A Patriotic Manifesto for a European Future", which outlines the ideals and objectives of the grouping, in Vienna, Austria, 30 June 2024. Hungarian premier’s fledgling political movement attracted enough parties today to achieve recognition from the European Parliament in a boost for his latest ploy to shift Brussels rightwards. Five more parties said they will join: the Party for Freedom (PVV) of Dutch anti-Islam firebrand Wilders, Portugal’s 'far-right' Chega party and Spain’s Vox. With the Danish People’s Party and the Flemish nationalist pro-independence Vlaams Belang announcing they would join yesterday, Patriots for Europe fulfilled the EU parliament’s threshold for formal recognition - 23 lawmakers from seven countries. Orbán said the parties would meet tomorrow in Brussels. By that time, Orbán will know if France’s National Rally has chosen to join forces with him after the second round of the country’s legislative elections today. The new ‘Patriots’ for Europe grouping are on track to become the third largest political force - the dominant 'hard-right' force - in the European Parliament with Spain’s VOX party leaving the Conservatives and Le Pen’s party likely to join too with the biggest political force within the group with 30 MEPs. Vox is leaving the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) movement associated with Italian Prime Minister Meloni - dominant player in right-wing EU politics. Several of the groups joining Orbán’s movement were previously part of the Identity and Democracy (ID) group. Babiš’s ANO party defected from Renew Europe, which includes liberals and centrists, among them French President Macron’s Renaissance party. Italy’s League, led by Salvini, has also expressed an interest in the new movement but has not confirmed its participation. Orbán - whose country holds the EU’s rotating presidency - has long railed against the “Brussels elites'. His Fidesz party has been non-aligned in the EU Parliament since it left the 'right-wing' European People’s Party (EPP) in 2021. The group would push back against European support for Ukraine against Russia’s invasion and immigration and would campaigning for conservative family values. (Source: euractiv * )
* Euractiv, a European news website. Headquarters in Brussels, Belgium

Russia
Sunday, July 7, 2024.  Citing the Russian Ministry of Defence, state news agencies claimed that Iskander ballistic missiles destroyed two launchers for Patriot surface-to-air missile systems in Ukraine’s Odesa region. The Russian Defence Ministry said seven drones were intercepted over the Belgorod region. Russian strikes left some 100,000 households without power in northern Ukraine and cut off the water supply to a regional capital. The northern Sumy region, which borders Russia, was plunged into darkness after Russian strikes starting late on Friday damaged energy infrastructure. (Source: aljazeera *)
* Al Jazeera Media Network, a media conglomerate headquartered at Doha. Qatar

Europe
07.07.2024  European Union (EU) is turning blind eye to members' arms trade with Tel Aviv. Also the United Kingdom (UK) continues its arms trade with Israel. The EU lacks a provision prohibiting arms trade with Israel that is being tried at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) for genocide against the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. It allows member states to continue exports to and imports from Israel, Irish journalist Cronin said. When Israel attacked Gaza in 2014, that same year the EU imposed an arms embargo on Russia for annexing Crimea but did not apply the same to Israel, he said. 'So, there's obviously very clear double standards.' He noted that the ICJ decision could lead to additional cases challenging arms cooperation between Europe and Israel, causing concern in some countries. “The weapons cooperation with Israel makes the European Union complicit in the current genocide in Gaza,' Cronin stressed. Also, Cronin noted that the United Kingdom continues its arms trade with Israel. “Elbit Systems, the largest privately-owned Israeli weapons company, has something like 10 different factories and offices in Britain. Engines for Israeli drones are being manufactured near Birmingham in England.' Emphasizing that arms trade operates bilaterally, Cronin said Berlin has transferred numerous weapons to Israel in the last decade, but Germany is also an important customer of the Israeli arms industry. “So we really need to be talking about a two-way arms embargo.” “German officials paid a visit to the headquarters of Israel Aerospace Industries in May, where there was a discussion about Germany possibly buying the Arrow 3,” he said, referring to the hypersonic anti-ballistic missile that is jointly funded, developed and produced by Israel and the US. Cronin stressed that the state-owned Israeli weapons company “has made many of the weapons that are currently being used, drones and other weapons that are currently being used to kill people in Gaza.' Cronin said France has given indications of halting arms sales to Israel due to the ongoing genocide in Gaza. Noting that Israeli companies were banned from participating in the Eurosatory arms fair in Paris last month, but that decision was overturned following a complaint by the France-Israel Chamber of Commerce, Cronin said major Israeli companies were not able to participate in the way they planned in the exhibition. He said despite being fully Israeli-owned, Elbit's 'OIP Sensor Systems" arms company in Belgium registered as a Belgian company to participate in Eurosatory. The Irish expert noted that Dutch, Polish and Spanish arms companies also participated in Eurosatory, showcasing weapons systems composed of Israeli-made components. “The cooperation has been going on for a long time and it's become quite sophisticated, so we really need to have a total ban on all trading between Israel and the European Union.' (Source: aa *)
* Anadolu Agency, a state-run news agency. Headquarters Ankara, Turkey.

Asia

Azerbaijan
7 July 2024 14:25 (UTC+04:00)  Hungarian PM's participation in Organization of Turkic States (OTS) summit cuases much of EU leadership's consternation. Hungarian Prime Minister Orbán did not represent the European Union at the informal Summit of the Heads of State of the Organization of Turkic States (OTS/TDT) held on July 6 in Shusha, Azerbaijan - this was stated in the statement of the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Borrell. In addition, the European Union, as stated by the European Commissioner, condemns the OTS's attempts to legitimize the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) as an observer in the organization. Note that Hungary presides over the EU Council from July 1 to December 31, 2024. The logic of such a denial by Brussels is not entirely clear, because the OTS organization itself has never considered the European Union as its "Turkish' partner, to have a representative from the entire European Union among its members and even observer states. (Source: azernews *)
* Azernews, a centre-right, weekly newspaper. Headquarters Baku, Azerbaijan

China
July 07, 2024 8:37 PM  Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orbán arrived in Beijing today for talks with Chinese President Xi, Orbán's press chief told. Orbán's visit came days before a NATO summit that will address further military aid for Ukraine. Orbán, a critic of Western military aid to Ukraine who has the warmest relations of any EU leader with Russian President Putin, said last week he recognized he had no EU mandate for the trip to Moscow, but that peace could not be made "from a comfortable armchair in Brussels." Hungary's foreign minister, Szijjártó, was accompanying Orbán on the China trip. The foreign ministry canceled late last week a meeting for today in Budapest with Germany's foreign minister and Szijjártó. (Source: voanews * / Reuters)
* Voice of America, the state-owned news network and international radio broadcaster of the United States of America. It is headquartered in Washington, D.C.

Israel
(Sunday ), July 7, 2024 6:00am EDT  An Israeli minister has endorsed Marine Le Pen for French president, as her right-wing party seeks significant gains in the current election. "It is excellent for Israel that she will be the president of France, with 10 exclamation marks," Diaspora Affairs Minister Chikli said Tuesday, later indicating that his view may be shared by other members of Israel's leadership. "I think I and Netanyahu are of the same opinion," he said. 'It remains unclear' what had prompted Chikli to discuss Le Pen - Presidential race not until 2027. Le Pen has unsuccessfully run for president three times – in 2012, 2017 and 2022, improving her rank and share of the vote each time during that decade. Her most recent run saw her win 41.5% of the vote against Macron. Some speculate that the cultural issues at the heart of the election will propel National Rally – and potentially, in the 2027 presidential election, Le Pen – to control of the country. Immigration has proven a strong issue for right-wing parties across Europe. Klarsfeld, a Nazi hunter, last week announced that he would throw his weight behind National Rally, telling French outlet LCI that if choosing between 'an antisemitic party and a pro-Jewish party, I would vote for a pro-Jewish party," referring to National Rally. Antisemitism has taken sharp focus in the election after the alleged gang rape of a 12-year-old Jewish girl that many have cast as a hate crime. Two adolescent boys arrested in a Paris suburb were hit with preliminary charges in relation to the crime, with prosecutors alleging that the rape had been religiously motivated. Rabbi Sebbag of the Grande Synagogue in Paris said that the election has indicated to him that French Jews have ’no future" in France, telling The Jerusalem Post that he urges "everyone who is young to go to Israel or a more secure country.’ Sebbeg argued that even if the far-right National Rally has voiced support for Israel’s defense against Hamas following the Oct. 7 attack, the party’s roots come from a place of antisemitism that continues to trouble him. "Many Ashkenazi Jewish families here since before World War II couldn’t think to vote for National Rally, yet the Left has been antisemitic in recent times," said Sebbag. "The Jews are in the middle, because they don’t know who hates them more.' (Source: foxnews *)
* Fox News Channel (FNC), an American multinational conservative news and political commentary television channel and website. Headquarters New York City, New York

NATO

07/07/2024 05:00 AM EDT  With President Biden listing badly in his bid for reelection, many allies anticipate that at this time next year they will be dealing with a new Trump administration - one defined by skepticism toward Europe, a strident strain of right-wing isolationism and a hard resolve to put confronting China above other global priorities. Earlier this year, Trump said he would give Russia free rein to “do whatever the hell they want” to NATO allies that do not meet their defense-spending obligations. He wants European countries to spend far more on their own defense. The alliance’s strategy is to provide Trump with a message to his own voters letting himself take credit for making the alliance fairer and more effective. Twenty-three of the 32 NATO member states are assessed to spend 2 percent or more of their GDP on defense, meeting a goal outlined for the alliance in 2014. America’s NATO allies are ramping up weapons 'production', consulting Trump’s advisers and holding secret meetings with each other to feverishly lay the groundwork for his return. Italy and Canada, are far from meeting the 2 percent threshold. So are several smaller allies, including Spain, Portugal and Belgium. In May two dozen Republican and Democratic senators wrote to Prime Minister Trudeau a letter saying they were 'profoundly disappointed' that Canada was going to 'fail to meet its obligations' to NATO. In April, Norway unveiled a 12-year plan to spend $152 billion on defense, much of it focused on production of rockets and artillery. Romania signed a $4 billion deal to acquire Patriot missiles under the Trump administration, is helping expand what will soon become NATO’s largest military base in Europe. Poland spends more than 4 percent of its GDP on defense, the most of any NATO country. Poland’s 'right-wing' president Duda, who is friendly with Trump, 'has called on alliance members to hit a 3 percent spending target'. There is extensive personal outreach to Trump and his advisers, there are policy shifts aimed at pleasing by soothing Trump’s complaints about inadequate European defense spending and there are creative diplomatic and legal measures in the works to armor NATO priorities against tampering by a Trump administration. Last fall, German Foreign Minister Baerbock visited Texas to meet with Gov. Abbott, a powerful Trump supporter. Since Trump locked up the Republican nomination, Duda, and Japan’s former prime minister, Aso, have paid respects to him in person. So has Cameron, the former British foreign secretary and prime minister, who used a visit to Mar-a-Lago to make the case to Trump for supporting the war effort in Ukraine. Champagne, a Canadian minister has met with Republican governors including McMaster of South Carolina and Pillen of Nebraska. During a visit to Washington in May, Labour Party politician Lammy, Britain’s shadow foreign secretary at the time, who was appointed the U.K.’s top diplomat last week after elections there met with Trump allies and MAGA luminaries, including Sens. Graham and Vance. In public remarks, Lammy said Trump’s criticism of NATO had often been 'misunderstood,” and that the former president mainly wanted Europe to spend more on defense. Lammy previously described Trump as a racist and a 'woman-hating, neo-Nazi-sympathizing sociopath.' Lammy’s MAGA-friendly tour - a mission accomplished - frustrated some center-left leaders on both sides of the Atlantic, including in the White House particularly given his warm relationships with Democrats including Obama. In recent weeks, several diplomats from NATO member states quietly traveled to Washington to meet with conservative academics and people associated with think tanks that they believed could have some influence on Trump’s policy. In Ankara, Turkish officials have reviewed the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 policy road map for clues into Trump’s designs on Syria. In Atlanta, Austin and Lincoln, Nebraska, top ministers from Germany and Canada have met with Republican governors to shore up relations on the American right. At one of monthly breakfast meetings of ambassadors from European countries, the top envoy from one country asked his colleagues whether they were engaged in a fool’s errand more than six months before the next American president takes office. It has become a full-time mission for U.S. allies to parse who is an authentic Trump emissary and who is a pretender. Personal relationships are paramount with the former president and the people closest to him. Trump formed warm bonds as president with an eclectic range of leaders, from Abe and Bolsonaro to Johnson and Kim, all of whom used that direct personal link to their own advantage.    If allies do not see this time Trump withdrawing the U.S. from NATO as a likely scenario, the alliance is still in a state of trepidation only sharpened by the rising power of right-wing NATO skeptics in France and elsewhere on the continent. In Washington, last December a bipartisan majority in the House and Senate voted to make it impossible for a president to withdraw from NATO without strong support from Congress - a measure plainly aimed at handcuffing Trump or a future president who shares his views.      American ally South Korea, was pressing for an early renewal of a deal that helps pay for the 28,000 U.S. troops stationed in the country. The current deal does not expire until 2025, but renegotiating it with Trump could be much more difficult, given his frequent complaints about the cost of American support for South Korea.      In a June speech, Trump deplored the ongoing stream of American money into the war effort in Ukraine. “It never ends,' he railed. A scant two weeks before NATO’s leaders were set to descend on Washington for the summit, a rumor tore through the diplomatic world: Trump had a plan to bring peace to Ukraine. If Putin refused to negotiate an end to the war, the U.S. would flood Ukraine with even more weapons. And if President Zelenskyy refused to sit at a negotiating table with Russia, the U.S. would withdraw its copious military support. The plan was being pitched not by Trump himself, but by several of his many allies and self-described surrogates circulating through political and diplomatic circles. Upon closer scrutiny, it became clear that there was no secret, Trump-approved blueprint to end the war.       In Brussels, 'NATO officials have devised a plan to lock in long-term military support for Ukraine so that a possible Trump administration can’t get in the way'. At a mid-June meeting of NATO defense ministers in Brussels, members of the alliance agreed in principle on a plan to shift control of NATO’s support for Ukraine. Up to this point, the United States has taken the lead in organizing military aid through a 300-person unit known as the Security Assistance Group-Ukraine, housed at an American military office in Wiesbaden, Germany. Stoltenberg proposed an alternative configuration: 'transferring responsibility for aid management to NATO itself, and especially to European partner states'. The final decision is expected at the NATO summit in Washington. This plan would gradually shift control of aid to a group of 200 NATO soldiers in the Belgian city of Mons - a group that would continue working with the United States, but under the NATO flag.      Some Trump advisers have unnerved Europe by speaking with ambivalence about America’s commitment to defending NATO allies with its full military might. Colby, a former top Pentagon official who is seen as a contender to lead the National Security Council in a second Trump administration has rattled allies repeatedly by saying that the U.S. cannot overextend itself in Europe at the expense of countering China. In an interview he indicated there were limits to what the U.S. might do to counter certain kinds of Russian aggression, like an attack on the Baltic states. “The NATO treaty does not oblige us to send our whole military. Kissinger supposedly once said that alliances are not suicide contracts,” Colby said, adding that he was concerned about leaving the U.S. “vulnerable to a knockout blow by China.' (Source: politico *)
.* Politico, an American political digital newspaper. Headquarters Arlington County, Virginia, U.S.

.

.

 Europe    Európa  

France
09:15 BST, 6 July 2024  The fall of Macron. Since his entry into France's Elysée Palace in 2017, Macron has billed himself as the ultimate statesman - a quick-witted, slick-talking diplomat with a fierce political nous and a dab hand at economics thanks to a background in banking. But the murder and beheading of history teacher Paty in 2020, sparked national outrage. Immigrants constituted 5% of the population in 1946. This figure increased to 8.5% in 2010, After Macron came to power in 2017, now more than 10% of France’s population is made up of immigrants. But his detractors claim he's focused on building his rep in Europe at the expense of his own voters at home - and the results of recent votes appear to validate that criticism. Macron's first presidential term was blighted by the Yellow Vest protests - months of demonstrations by citizens enraged by fuel tax increases, among other policies. When Angela Merkel finally left office as German Chancellor in 2021, he picked up the baton as the most influential leader in Europe. But La Rotonde restaurant - one of Macron's favourite Parisian establishments – was attacked by protesters after the government pushed a pensions reform through parliament without a vote, using the article 49.3 of the constitution, in Paris on April 2023. France's retirement age will gradually rise from 62 to 64, with the age increased by three months each year starting from this September until 2030. From 2027, most workers will also have to make social security contributions over 43 years rather than 42 years in order to draw a full pension. The move prompted widespread riots, clashes with police, that endured for weeks, workers refusing to work. Macron's presidency has seen a litany of shockingly violent attacks authored by Islamic extremists. Late last year, another French schoolteacher was stabbed to death and several others injured by the 20-year-old Chechen Muslim refugee, Islamist knifeman in Arras in northern France. And a German tourist was killed by a 26-year-old man who had previously been sentenced to a four-year prison sentence for planning to join the islamic state in Syria. But the National Front’s National Rally (Rassemblement National - RN) party members see themselves as 'nationalists" and 'localists" who hold the interests of the French people above all others. This means cracking down on immigration. In December Macron's government passed a bill that made it harder for migrants to access state benefits that at the time was lauded by Le Pen as an 'ideological victory” for the RN. Unemployed immigrants must wait five years before they can get benefits - the previous stipulation was of just six months. Non-EU citizens working in France now have to prove they have been in the country for 30 months before they can receive welfare benefits such as child care. But these measures are seemingly too little, too late, with the RN promising a much tougher stance on immigration. And Macron's party was battered in European parliament elections last month - the catalyst behind his decision last month to call a snap election in France. The first round of the legislative elections last week saw Le Pen and Bardella's National Rally (RN) win some 33% of the vote ahead of a left-wing alliance on 28% - with Macron's centrists languishing in a distant third on just 20%. It seems to have been the final nail in the coffin. Is set to be slaughtered the 'Together' alliance - a coalition of centrists led by Macron's party - when the French electorate heads to the polls tomorrow? NR President Bardella himself has declared he will wage a 'cultural battle' against Islam if his party emerges victorious from parliamentary elections. If he is made Prime Minister in the case of an RN absolute majority, the party will seek to pass legislation to 'combat Islamist ideologies' in France that would grant the government enhanced powers to shutter mosques and deport imams suspected of being associated with extremist ideologies. The RN candidate also declared he would prevent dual citizens from accessing certain 'strategic' state jobs. France is also flouting the bloc's own regulations on debt and budget deficits. The EU stipulates that its members must not exceed a budget deficit of 3% of GDP. Public debt meanwhile must be held within 60% of GDP. Under Macron, France ran up a budget deficit of 5.5% of GDP last year - and the nation's debt now sits at well over €3 trillion. In December 2023, the public debt was put at 110.6% of GDP according to CEIC data. Last week, in an attempt to assuage the French people's concerns over the economy Prime Minister Gabriel Attal declared the government would lower energy bills, soften inheritance tax and link pensions to inflation to ease the strain on household finances if the Macron alliance remains in power after July 7. 'There will be no tax hikes, no matter what,' he said. Bardella attacked Attal, claiming the centrist Prime Minister had zero credibility on public finances, adding France was now in a state of 'near bankruptcy'. The RN's leading finance expert, Tanguy, was claiming the RN's economic programme would be entirely financed by closing tax loopholes, reducing red tape, and spending cuts - especially on welfare for immigrants as part of the crackdown on immigration. Bardella has also declared the RN would demand a huge cut of between €2 billion and €3 billion in France's contributions to Europe. Concerns over immigration and extremism, the state of the economy and the rehabilitation of the RN's image have all hastened the tilt of the French public to the right. Most French people simply do not like their president anymore. A week before Sunday's first round elections, Macron's approval rating was mired at just 26% - a historic low equal only to the weeks following the introduction of his detested pension reforms. Macron's party is fully aware of the nation's perception of their leader. His face has been removed from election posters and flyers. MPs from his party have implored him to allow his prime minister Gabriel Attal to take the lead in running the legislative campaign. Yet Macron still appears ubiquitous, giving regular speeches, interviews and even appearing on podcasts. Much of the French electorate sees the president as pig-headed and arrogant - a man who is convinced he knows best and simply cannot satiate his lust for the limelight. But subsequent comments made by Macron, in which he said a far-right or far-left victory in the elections could lead to 'civil war', saw him lambasted for stoking fear among voters and trying to paint himself and his party as the only stable choice, with the alternative being chaos. (Source: dailymail *)
* The Daily Mail, a British daily middle-market tabloid newspaper. Headquarters London, United Kingdom

Szlovákia
(Szombat), 2024. július 6. 10:19  Robert Fico szlovák miniszterelnök az ellene végrehajtott májusi merényletkísérlet óta első nyilvános fellépésében Orbán Viktor magyar kormányfő közvetítői erőfeszítéseit méltatta az ukrajnai konfliktusban. A Szent Cirill és Metód szláv apostolok tiszteletére a dévényi várban rendezett pénteki ünnepélyes rendezvényen Robert Fico élesen bírálta ’a liberális ideológiát’ és nagyra méltatta a magyar kormányfő azon erőfeszítését, hogy közvetíteni próbál az ukrajnai konfliktusban. "Ha egészséges lennék, csatlakoztam volna hozzá" - utalt a szlovák miniszterelnök Orbán Viktor moszkvai útjára. "Nem lehet elegendő békekezdeményezés" annak érdekében, hogy megakadályozzák az ukrajnai háború elmérgesedését és egy jóval szélesebb katonai konfliktussá terebélyesedését - hangsúlyozta Robert Fico. Mint mondta, "csodálattal adózik" Orbán Viktornak, amiért Kijevbe és Moszkvába is elutazott, hogy Zelenszkij elnökkel, illetve Putyin orosz államfővel is találkozzon. Fico úgy fogalmazott, hogy a béke ugyan nem minden, de "a béke nélkül minden semmis". (Forrás: infostart * / MTI **)
* Az Infostart tárgyilagos online közéleti hírportál, az InfoRádióval együttműködve.
** Magyar Távirati Iroda: magyar állami hírügynökség 1880 óta. 2015. július 1-jén a hírügynökség a Magyar Televízióval, a Duna Televízióval és a Magyar Rádióval egyesült Duna Médiaszolgáltató Nonprofit Zrt. néven

Slovakia
6 July 2024  Slovak PM in first public appearance since shooting. Yesterday, at Devin Castle, during a ceremony to mark Saints Cyril and Methodius Day, a public holiday in Slovakia, Mr Fico, 59, the Slovakian prime minister has made his first public appearance since being wounded in an assassination attempt on 15 May. Mr Fico used a speech at the commemoration to criticise the expansion of progressive ideologies and the West's stance towards Russia over the war in Ukraine. He said 'meaningless' liberal ideas were "spreading like cancer", and that there were 'not enough peace talks" with Russia over Ukraine. (Source: bbc *) by 'Philips'
* British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), the oldest and largest local and global British public service broadcaster, founded in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company. Headquartered in London, England.

Russia
7:15 PM CEST, July 6, 2024  Two civilians were wounded after Ukrainian forces overnight shelled a border town in the southern Belgorod region, Gov. Gladkov reported. The Russian Defense Ministry said its troops overnight shot down a total of eight drones over the Kursk and Belgorod regions in the south. In Krasnodar province next to Crimea, local authorities reported damage caused during the night by falling drone debris. Debris sparked a fire at an oil depot, set fuel tanks ablaze in a separate location and damaged a cellphone tower, the reports said. There were no immediate reports of casualties. According to the Ukrainian General Staff, Russian forces on yesterday and overnight launched six rocket strikes and 55 airstrikes across Ukraine, and used more than 70 “glide bombs”. Late yesterday Russian strikes damaged energy infrastructure, overnight left over 100,000 households without power in the northern Sumy region, which borders Russia. Russian drones hit the provincial capital, also called Sumy, which had a pre-war population of over 256,000, cutting off water by hitting power lines that feed its system of pumps. Moscow’s forces overnight hit a plant producing rocket ammunition in the city, Explosions rocked the city during an air raid warning early today. A funeral ceremony for the 49-year old British combat medic Fouché, a native of west London took place in the center of Kyiv today. Since 2022 he ferried drones, vehicles, uniforms and food to Ukrainian soldiers in the east at the volunteer group Project Konstantin. Fouché helped build a field hospital in Kyiv and later enlisted in the Ukrainian army. At least five other Britons have been killed while volunteering in Ukraine since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022. In the Donetsk region in the east, Russian shelling yesterday and overnight killed 11 civilians and wounded 43, local Gov. Filashkin reported today. Five people died in the town of Selydove southeast of Pokrovsk city, that has emerged as a front-line hotspot. The Russian Ministry of Defense announced its troops had captured a village some 30 kilometers east of the city. According to Filashkin, three more civilians died in Chasiv Yar, a town in Donetsk that has been reduced to rubble under a monthlong Russian assault. The town’s elevated location gives it strategic importance, and military analysts say its fall would put nearby cities in jeopardy. It could also compromise critical Ukrainian supply routes and bring Russia closer to its stated aim of seizing the entire Donetsk region. A Ukrainian military spokesperson on July 4 told that Ukrainian forces had retreated from a neighborhood on the outskirts of Chasiv Yar. (Source: apnews)

(Saturday), 18:54, 06-Jul-2024  Yesterday Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán met Russian President Putin at the Kremlin in Moscow to discuss peace in Ukraine. Before leaving Budapest or announcing the Moscow trip, Orbán had said he was on a mission for peace: "Hungary does not have the mandate or the international political weight (...) but we can be an instrument in the service of God and of those who want peace." According to the Kremlin, Budapest proposed the visit on Wednesday, the day after the Hungarian Prime Minister's visit to Ukraine, a country with which he maintains difficult relations, not least because of 'his' willingness to reach out to Russia. "I understand that this time you have come not only as a long-standing partner, but also as the President of the Council" of the EU, Putin told Orbán during a press conference in the Kremlin. "I expect you to tell me your position (on Ukraine) and that of the European partners", he added. In turn, Orbán told Putin that "the number of countries that can talk to both sides of the war is shrinking. Hungary is gradually becoming the only country in Europe that can talk to everyone." NATO member Hungary assumed the six-month rotating presidency of the EU on Monday. Five days in and Orbán has visited President Zelenskyy in Kyiv and formed the "Patriots for Europe" alliance with other right-wing 'nationalists". During his visit to Kyiv, Orbán had said that Ukraine should accept a ceasefire. He then chose to go to Moscow on what he called a "peace mission," days before a NATO summit that will address further military aid for Ukraine as the conflict with Russia continues. "You were in Kyiv recently. You came here to discuss all the nuances of the Ukrainian issue," noted Putin in his meeting with Orbán. The Russian president recalled during the meeting that in June he had set out his conditions for peace in Ukraine: complete withdrawal of all Ukrainian troops from the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, as well as from the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions. Ukraine is calling for a ’just peace" that includes the withdrawal of Russian troops and respect for its territorial integrity. For the EU, which has cut ties with Moscow and imposed tough sanctions on Russia, Orbán is not its representative in Moscow for this visit, and is not authorized to speak about Ukraine on its behalf. 'The rotating presidency of the EU has no mandate to engage in dialogue with Russia on behalf of the EU,' wrote Michel, President of the European Council on X, who had already reacted on Thursday evening to the unofficial announcement of the trip. "Appeasement will not stop Putin,’ European Commission President von der Leyen said on X. amid Orbán's trip. According to the EU's top diplomat, Borrell, Orbán ’does not represent the EU in any way’. A few days ahead of a NATO summit in Washington where Ukraine will be a major topic of discussion, and with this visit likely to blur positions, Secretary General Soltenberg insisted that "Viktor Orbán does not represent NATO at these meetings, he represents his own country", stressing however, without further details, that NATO had been "informed" of the trip. (Source: cgtn *)
* China Global Television Network (CGTN), a state-run international division of China Central Television (CCTV). Headquartered in Beijing, China

(Saturday), 6 July 2024 7:02  Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán travelled to Moscow on Thursday (4 July) to meet Russian President Putin, only a few days after his surprise visit to Kyiv, where he urged Ukraine’s leadership to work towards a rapid ceasefire with Russia. Russian President Putin was hosting Orbán - the friendliest leader in the EU to Moscow - for talks at the Kremlin, described by the Russian president as a “really useful, frank conversation” on the conflict in Ukraine. Putin said at the start of the talks that he wanted to “discuss the nuances that have developed” over the conflict in Ukraine with Orbán, who visited Kyiv earlier this week. Putin told Viktor Orbán on Friday (5 July) that Ukraine must effectively capitulate if it wants peace. The pair “talked about the possible ways of resolving” the Ukraine conflict, Putin said in remarks after a bilateral meeting. The Kremlin leader repeated his demand that Ukraine withdraw all its troops from regions that Moscow has annexed and said Kyiv was 'not ready to drop the idea of waging war until a victorious end'. Orbán in turn said he had realised “positions are far apart' between the two sides. “The number of steps needed to end the war and bring about peace is many,” he said. The visit came days after Hungary took over the EU’s rotating presidency and Putin told Orbán he expected him to outline “the position of European partners” on Ukraine. The visit had been Orbán’s idea and Russian officials only heard about the trip on Wednesday - a day after Orbán had visited Kyiv, Kremlin spokesman Peskov told. EU foreign policy chief Borrell said that Orbán’s “visit to Moscow takes place, exclusively, in the framework of the bilateral relations between Hungary and Russia'. 'If we just sit in Brussels, we won’t be able to get any closer to peace. Action must be taken,” Orbán said on 2 July during his regular interview on Hungarian state radio. Orbán and Putin last met in October 2023 in Beijing, where they discussed energy cooperation. Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico, who appeared in public yesterday for the first time since a May assassination attempt, backed Hungarian leader Viktor Orbán’s visit to Moscow, saying that he would have joined his Hungarian colleague on his visit if health allowed. Hungary’s six-month EU presidency gives the central European country sway over the bloc’s agenda and priorities for the next six months. The Hungarian leader yesterday insisted that peace cannot be achieved without dialogue. The visit is the first to Moscow by a European leader since a trip by Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer in April 2022. NATO head Stoltenberg said Orbán had informed the alliance of his trip but stressed the Hungarian leader was “not representing NATO at these meetings. He’s representing his own country”. (Source: euractiv * "with AFP')
* Euractiv, a European news website. Its headquarters in Brussels, Belgium.

Ukraine
July 6, 2024, 3:44 pm  On July 1, Hungary’s Viktor Orbán assumed the rotating Presidency of the European Union (EU) for six months despite his friendship with Putin, his efforts to obstruct Europe’s military aid to Ukraine, and his sanctions-breaking energy dependence on Russian oil and natural gas. But no sooner did he assume the role, than 'he trekked to Kyiv and recommended an immediate ceasefire to President Zelensky, not to Russia the predator'. Orbán also improperly suggested that Ukraine surrender a region called 'Kakarpattia' * that has traded hands for decades and where only 12 percent of residents speak Hungarian. He boasted he will “occupy Brussels” and organize a right-wing bloc within the European Parliament among those parties that made gains in recent Euro elections. He is also the darling of America’s pro-Russia right, invited to Republican and MAGA conferences and feted by Trump and Carlson. Orbán has just copied MAGA’s motto, with his “Make Europe Great Again” slogan. Hungary should be fiercely anti-Russian. It was the first Soviet satellite to stage an uprising against Moscow in 1956 which was brutally suppressed. But as of 2024, Budapest relied on Russia for 75 percent of its natural gas, 80 percent of its oil, and 100 percent of its nuclear fuel. This economic dependency is why Orbán rejected sanctions against Russian energy in 2014 and in 2022, despite European Union pressure. Orbán also claims that Ukraine has discriminated against the language rights of 156,000 ethnic Hungarians who live in 'Kakarpattia'. He believes this territory “belongs” to Hungary, and this has become his pretext for not supporting Ukraine in its struggle against Russia. 'In his recent meeting with Zelensky, he handed over a list of 11 demands which included that he hand over this territory to Hungary". Orbán wants 'Kakarpattia', 12 percent Hungarian population. He has blocked more than €6.6bn in military aid for Ukraine via the European Peace Facility fund. He temporarily stalled Ukraine’s EU accession talks but agreed to leave the room during a meeting with EU counterparts in order to allow them to vote unanimously in favor of launching the process. Further, he has weakened EU sanctions against Russia and run afoul of Brussel’s regulations for years. In October, he met with Putin in Beijing to celebrate the 10th anniversary of China’s Belt and Road Initiative. Budapest is now involved with China in a railway project and 'in May Hungary’s biggest and government-linked football club, "Ferencvárosi', announced massive funding from its new sponsor, Russia’s oil giant Gazprom". (The football club’s President is also deputy chair of Orbán’s ruling Fidesz political party.) Hungary is landlocked, has only 10 million people, and is bordered by seven countries. Orbán assumed the Presidency even though he has excoriated Europe’s bureaucrats as war-mongers: 'Europe is increasingly being dragged into a war, in which it has nothing to gain and everything to lose. The Brussels bureaucrats want this war, they see it as their own, and they want to defeat Russia. They keep sending the money of the European people to Ukraine, they have shot European companies in the foot with sanctions, they have driven up inflation, and they have made making a living difficult for millions of European citizens.” “Orbán has been playing this ‘peacock’ dance for a decade, and Hungary’s energy dependency on Russia will remain stronger than ever,” said Professor Zgut-Przybylska. (Source: kyivpost **)
** Kyiv Post, news media in Ukraine in Syrian possession
* derogatory denotation of Transcarpathia; fake assertions

United Kingdom
3:30 PM CEST, (Saturday), July 6, 2024  New UK Prime Minister Starmer says controversial Rwanda deportation plan is ‘dead and buried’. It’s unclear what Starmer will do differently to tackle the same crisis with a record number of people coming ashore in the first six months of this year. “Years of hard work, acts of Parliament, millions of pounds been spent on a scheme which had it been delivered properly would have worked,” Braverman, a Conservative hard liner on immigration who is a possible contender to replace Sunak as party leader, said today. “There are big problems on the horizon which will be I’m afraid caused by Starmer,” she criticized Starmer’s plan to end the Rwanda pact. Foreign Secretary Lammy was to begin his first international trip today to meet counterparts in Germany, Poland and Sweden to reinforce the importance of their relationship. (Source: apnews)

1:17 PM CEST, July 6, 2024  Britain’s new Prime Minister Starmer has appointed a Cabinet of Labour Party lawmakers and a few outside experts as he tries to tackle priorities including boosting a sluggish economy, building more homes and fixing the creaking state-funded health service. Labour has spent 14 years in opposition, so few have held government office before. (Source: apnews *)
* The Associated Press, an American news agency headquartered in New York City, U.S.

Asia

China
July 6, 2024.  Dongting Lake embankment collapsed in Hunan Province yesterday. Pieces of central disaster relief materials support local efforts to carry out emergency relocation and resettlement work for flood-affected people in the area affected by the pipe burst. /Video/ (Source: YouTube */ About Nature )

Note: 1 641 238 views since July 6, 2024

Iran
(Saturday), July 06, 2024 18:29 IST  Following the historically low turnout in the presidential election on June 28, a runoff election was declared. There was a voter turnout of almost 50 per cent in Friday’s vote. The recent security crackdowns that restrained any public dissent from Islamic orthodox had widely affected the people of Iran. With the support of the urban middle class and the young, Pezeshkian emerged victorious. During the row over Amini's death in 2022, Pezeshkian demanded clarification from authorities about her death. Amini had died in custody after she was arrested for allegedly violating the law restricting women's dress. "We will respect the hijab law, but there should never be any intrusive or inhumane behaviour toward women," Pezeshkian said after casting his vote in the first round. Iran's next president defeated hardliner Jalili. Pezeshkian, 69, a cardiac surgeon, is known to be a reformist and a moderate. His views offer a contrast to that of former Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, who died in a helicopter crash in May. Iran's ultimate authority is Supreme Leader Khamenei. Though the president's role is limited as shots are called by the Supreme Leader on matters regarding top affairs, Pezeshkian vowed to promote a pragmatic foreign policy, ease tensions over now-stalled negotiations with major powers to revive a 2015 nuclear pact and improve prospects for social liberalisation and political pluralism. During the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s, Pezeshkian, a combatant and physician, was tasked with the deployment of medical teams to the front lines. He lost his wife and one of his children in a car accident in 1994 and raised his surviving two sons and a daughter alone. Pezeshkian was health minister from 2001-5 in former president Khatami's second term. Pezeshkian is likely to be welcomed by world leaders as he is believed to pursue peaceful ways amid tensions in the Middle East. (Source: theweek *)
* The Week, the largest circulated English news magazine in India, based in Kochi

July 6, 2024  Iranian markets reacted positively to the outcome of the second round of snap elections held on July 5, which saw Pezeshkian emerge as the victor with 53.7% of the votes, becoming the 14th President of Iran. According to the final tally released by the election committee, the election saw a voter turnout of 30,530,157, with Pezeshkian garnering 16,384,403 votes. His main rival, Jalili, received 13,538,179 votes, accounting for 44.3% of the total, while spoiled ballots constituted 2%. The election commenced at 8 AM on July 5 and continued until midnight. Pezeshkian's victory represents an increase from the previous round, where he had secured over 10,415,000 votes with a 39.9% turnout. The overall participation rate in the final round stood at 49.75%, with 30,573,931 ballots cast out of 61,452,351 eligible voters. (Source: intelliNews *)
* bne IntelliNews, a news wire agency and media company. Headquarters Berlin, Germany

North America

United States
July 6, 2024, 2:52 AM  "If you can be convinced that you cannot defeat Trump, will you stand down?" Stephanopoulos asked. "It depends on - on if the Lord Almighty comes down and tells me that, I might do that,' Biden said. (Source: abcnews *)
* ABC News, the news division of the American television network ABC. Headquarters New York City

Space

July 6, 2024  Back in 1962, the United States exploded a 1.4-megaton nuclear weapon in space in a test known as Starfish Prime. The bomb blast created a powerful electromagnetic pulse and unleashed a belt of radiation that lingered for months circling the Earth. It crippled one-third of the 24 satellites in orbit at that time, knocking out streetlights in Hawaii and damaging the electric grid. A Defense Department report noted its “intense' burst phenomena illuminated “a very large area of the Pacific.” Today, low Earth orbit is infinitely more crowded. Hundreds of satellites might lose the ability to correct their positioning, sending them careening into one another. That could create fields of debris moving at more than 10,000 miles per hour, slamming into thousands of other satellites and creating a theoretical cascade effect known as Kessler Syndrome. (Source: msn */ The Washington Post)
* MSN (Microsoft Network), an American web portal

.

Europe

France
Friday 05 July 2024 10:02 BST  Will Macron resign? Macron has hitherto ruled this out, but it might become more appealing to him if policy paralysis prevails. Neither parliament nor the government can force a president to resign. The constitution says there can be no new parliamentary election for another year, so an immediate repeat vote is not an option. (Source: independent *)
* The Independent, a British online newspaper. Headquarters London, United Kingdom

Italy
05 July 2024, 11:12  The SAC agency that operates Catania airport closed its airspace early today due to ash in the atmosphere caused by eruptions on Mount Etna. It was ash on the runways but expects flights to resume at 15:00 today. Catania Mayor's order is banning people from using two-wheeled forms of transport for 48 hours and setting a speed limit of 30 km/h because of the ash. The Sicilian island of Stromboli is on red alert because of volcanic activity there. Each part of the island's emergency evacuation plan was being verified. (Source: ansa *)
* Agenzia Nazionale Stampa Associata ("National Associated Press Agency"), the leading news agency in Italy.

European Council
(Friday), July 5, 2024 8:31am EDT  Hungary assumed the six-month rotating presidency of the bloc on Monday. Five days in and PM Orbán has visited Ukrainian President Zelenskyy in Kyiv and formed the "Patriots for Europe" alliance with other 'right-wing' 'nationalists'. Now, he has chosen to go to Moscow on a "peace mission", days before a NATO summit that will address further military aid for Ukraine. Putin, who received Orbán in the Kremlin, told him that he was ready to discuss the "nuances" of peace proposals to end the two-and-a-half-year-old war. EU foreign policy chief Borrell said Orbán in Moscow was 'not representing the EU in any form'. Orbán, a critic of Western military aid to Ukraine who has the warmest relations of any EU leader with Putin, said he recognized he had no EU mandate for the trip, but that peace could not be made 'from a comfortable armchair in Brussels'. "We cannot sit back and wait for the war to miraculously end," he wrote on X. (Source: foxnews *)
* Fox News Channel, an American news, commentary television channel and website, based in New York City

European Union
July 05, 2024 11:24  A 14-country study by the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR), a Berlin-based think tank, reveals that the majority of Europeans do not believe Ukraine can win the war against Russia. Of the EU countries surveyed, only Estonia had a higher proportion of respondents (38 percent) who think Ukraine will win. In contrast Ukrainians (58 percent) remain confident that their troops can win and continue to count on the support of their international allies. Only 1 percent of Ukrainians believe that Russia will win the war, while 30 percent believe a negotiated settlement is the most likely outcome. Europeans polled are divided on the benefits of Ukraine joining the EU. The countries most supportive are Portugal, Estonia, Sweden, Spain and Poland, while the most skeptical are Germany, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic and France. However, the survey did not cover all countries. On defense spending, most countries are opposed to increasing contributions, except Poland (53 percent in favor), Estonia (45 percent), Sweden (41 percent) and Germany (40 percent). NATO leaders are unlikely to find support among the populations of member states for the deployment of troops. The percentage of those who support this idea varies between only 4 percent and 22 percent in different countries.
(Source: rmx *)
* Remix, published in Budapest, Hungary. Offers news and commentary from Central Europe, the Visegrád countries

Europol
FRI, 05 Jul, 2024 - 13:31  Over 2,000 items of anti-semitic content were identified online in Europe-wide policing operation for removal. The estimated 2,000 items of online content identified included Holocaust denial and the glorification of violence against Jews. Some 18 countries took part in the operation co-ordinated by Europol. It said the primary objective was to remove illegal content and ensure that online platforms adhered to European regulations concerning hate speech and discrimination. The Referral Action Day targeted a wide range of anti-semitic content, including hate speech, Holocaust denial, and the glorification of violence against the Jewish community, it said. It said the operation stemmed from the rise of widespread anti-semitism justified and cultivated in Jihadi-spheres and right-wing, as well as left-wing, extremist groups online. National Internet Referral Units and specialised police units from the following countries took part in this Referral Action Day: Albania, Austria, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Lithuania, Malta, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Ukraine and the United Kingdom. (Source: irishexaminer *)
* Irish Examiner, national daily newspaper, headquarters Corc, Ireland

Russia
13:14 BST, 5 July 2024  Moscow has claimed it wants tactical nuclear drills to 'cool the hot heads in Western capitals'. Findings from the Levada Centre show that some 34 per cent of Russians back Putin nuking Ukraine - five per cent higher than one year ago, more support than ever - for using the ultimate weapon in the conflict, following recent tactical nuclear drills. The upward trend shows the success of Russian propagandists. 31 per cent are definitely against the use of weapons, while 21 per cent are likely against it. On a photo taken from video on Monday, June 10, 2024, released by the Russian Defense Ministry Press Service, a Russian Tu-22M3 bomber is seen in flight during joint Russian-Belarusian drills intended to train the military to use tactical nuclear weapons. Putin's forces were drilling strikes from land, air and sea-based platforms, intended to train the troops in using tactical nuclear weapons on June 12. Footage showed naval crews 'equipping sea-based cruise missiles with training special warheads' before moving to 'designated patrol areas'. Nuclear-equipped 3M-80/82 Moskit/-M anti-ship missiles were reportedly shown being loaded into the launcher of a Project 12411M vessel of Russia's Baltic Fleet. The forces drilled strikes with tactical nuclear weapons on Ukraine or the West with land, air and sea-based launches on June 13. The Russian defence ministry stressed the launches were simulated, but everything else was performed by troops as it would be in a genuine attack. A naval crew was seen pressing the button on a nuclear hit from a warship believed to be in the Baltic Sea to hit a target some 220 miles away, while Tu-22M3 nuclear capable bombers were pictured taking off from an undisclosed airstrip. Meanwhile, a land-based mobile crew in Leningrad Military District was shown loading suspected Iskander nuclear-capable mobile short-range ballistic missiles, although the warheads were blurred in the footage. The footage came as the US announced an expansion of its sanctions regime against the Kremlin. 'Here are the new American sanctions', Russia's deputy chairman of the Security Council Medvedev, a former Russian president and prime minister declared in a stunning rant published on the Telegram messaging app in June. 'There will be new European ones soon. Do we need to respond to them? It seems not, their number is already measured in tens of thousands. We have learned to live and develop with them. 'On the other hand, it is necessary. Not only to the authorities, the state, but to all our people in general. To everyone who loves our Motherland - Russia. After all, they - the USA and their f***ing allies - declared war on us without rules!' Medvedev went on: 'Every day we must try to inflict maximum harm on those countries that have imposed these restrictions on our country and all our citizens. Harm in everything that can cause harm. Harm to their economies, their institutions and their rulers. Harm to the well-being of their citizens. 'Cause damage in all places, paralyzing the work of their companies and government agencies. Find problems in their most important technologies and strike them mercilessly. Literally destroy their energy, industry, transport, banking and social services. Instill fear of the imminent collapse of all critical infrastructure'. 'Let's turn their life into a complete crazy nightmare in which they will not be able to distinguish wild fiction from the realities of the day, infernal evil from the routine of life. And no rules regarding the enemy! 'Let them get everything in full for harming Russia and as painfully as possible! Everyone can contribute!,' he said. Putin recently ordered tactical nuclear missile drills in Russia, considering changing the country's nuclear doctrine, to lower the threshold for using such weapons. Russian ally, neighbouring Belarus, supplied with atomic weapons, is also involved in coordination in the second stage of the tactical nuclear missile tests currently in progress. The drills are the second part of several phases of tactical nuclear weapons exercises planned by the Russian defence ministry. Currently Putin could authorise the use of tactical - or battlefield - nuclear weapons on the basis of a perceived threat to the Russian state from attack by conventional or nuclear weapons. On the orders of Putin, the Yars intercontinental ballistic missile crews practised deployment in two regions, Irkutsk and Ivanovo. 'Similar exercises will be held by other missile units in the near future,' said the Russian defence ministry. 'Units of Yars ground mobile missile systems are implementing measures to perform marches to a distance of up to 100km, disperse the systems at the same time changing their field positions and their engineering equipment, camouflage them and ensure their combat storage,' said the ministry. A still image taken from a handout video made available by the Russian Defence Ministry press-service shows Russian servicemen operating a non-strategic nuclear missile for Iskander operational-tactical missile system during the second stage of tactical nuclear drills of Russian and Belarus armed forces at an undisclosed location. 'During the second phase of the exercises, personnel from the rocket division and naval patrol operations of the Leningrad Military District practised covert movement to designated positions and conducted electronic missile launches at simulated enemy targets. 'Additionally, Navy crews involved in the exercise deployed to their assigned patrol areas. 'Earlier, tasks were completed for receiving special training ammunition for arming sea- and land-based missile carriers.' The Russians did not give a location for the targets, but previously threats have included Ukraine or NATO territory. Russia expects the incoming administration to be as supportive of Ukraine as the outgoing Rishi Sunak government. /photo/ (Source: dailymail *)
* The Daily Mail, a British newspaper. Headquarters London, United Kingdom

United Kingdom
14:58 5 July (2024)  Sir Keir Starmer prime minister by lunchtime after 14 years under Tory rule. Labour set to govern the UK, it has won 412 seats. In many ways, this looks more like an election the Conservatives have lost than one Labour have won. The transition in 10 Downing Street is rapid. Early morning Rishi Sunak was speaking as he held on to his seat in Richmond, Yorkshire but conceded that the Labour Party had won the election. I take responsibility for the loss, Sunak said. They have performed strikingly badly in seats with large numbers of Muslim voters. Labour’s vote is down on average by 10 points in seats where more than 10% of the population identify as Muslim. The advances that the Conservatives secured in Leave-voting areas after the EU referendum, most notably in 2019, have been entirely lost. Compared with 2019, support for the Conservatives is down by 12 points in seats where less than 45% voted leave. In contrast, support for the party is down by 27 points in seats where more than 65% voted leave. With all the seats declared in Wales, the Tories have lost every single one they were defending, taking them back to the zero seats to which they fell in 1997. Sinn Féin is now the largest Westminster party from Northern Ireland with seven seats. Sinn Féin MPs do not take their seats in the House of Commons due to a long-standing policy of abstentionism. The Liberal Democrat Party's vote share is around 12%, managing 71 Westminster seats. Reform UK leader Farage has won a parliamentary seat. (Source: bbc *)
* The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), a British public service broadcaster. Headquarters London, England, UK

(Friday), 5 July 2024  The British public went to the polls in the UK general election yestersay, handing Sir Starmer’s Labour Party a landslide victory and ousting Rishi Sunak’s unpopular Conservatives. Trump has congratulated his 'right-wing' ally Farage after he won his first seat in UK’s parliament following seven failed attempts. Trump made no mention of the Labour party sweep and failed to congratulate Starmer. (Source: independent *)
* The Independent, a British online newspaper. Headquarters London, United Kingdom

North America

United States
Jul 5, 2024 5:51pm PT  Elections have been won and lost on television since the Nixon-Kennedy debate in 1960. And it may not be a fair expectation that a President be able to make the case on TV - but it is the expectation. Biden took eight days of preparation to give ABC News 22 minutes of screen time. It wasn’t enough. How much more preparation would have been? Or how much shorter should they have whittled down the interview? When, describing the stresses he is under, Biden said, “Not only am I campaigning, but I’m running the world,' viewers’ hearts may have stopped for a moment; Biden went on to clarify his statement, but a certain facility with words is simply gone. He waited eight days to give a scant amount of time to a relatively sympathetic interviewer - and this was the result. (Source: variety *)
* Variety, a magazine based in Los Angeles, California, U.S.

7/5/2024 3:30 PM  In several summits, going back to a 2022 gathering in the Bavarian Alps, it was apparent that the president’s schedule was kept thin and his advancing years were being accounted and accommodated for in the planning. There is anxiety about how Biden will present at a NATO summit he is due to host in the US next week, where his every move, gesture and word will be scrutinized in an unforgiving light. It’s no longer possible to hide the fact that the president is a shadow of his former self and may not even be able to govern or set policies. One senior NATO diplomat said US counterparts have acknowledged they can’t afford such moments from the president and their priority is to ensure the summit is not overshadowed by the spotlight on Biden. Daalder, the former US ambassador to NATO, pointed to a moment in last week’s debate that was largely overlooked at home but jolted US allies: When Biden asked Trump if he’d defend a NATO country against Russian President Putin, Trump responded with a shrug. “That’s not a comforting answer for countries who have, for 75 years, depended on America’s security commitment to their defense as core to their security,” Daalder said in an interview. Biden heads into a make-or-break weekend that could end his political career if the lapses keep multiplying. On July 4, in an interview with the Philadelphia WURD radio station, he flubbed again and seemed to mix himself up with Vice President Harris, who is emerging as a clear alternative to Biden and unlike some other potential Democrat contenders already has both a national and international profile. (Source: msn */ Bloomberg)
* MSN (Microsoft Network), an American web portal

Jul 5 2024  Just days before President Biden told a host of Democratic colleagues of his plans to enact a self-imposed curfew, turning down any official events past 8pm. He has described himself as a "black woman" during a confused radio interview. The bumbling commander-in-chief, 81, appeared to mix himself up with Vice President Harris during the awkward chat. Biden, speaking to Philadelphia station WURD yesterday, said: 'I'm proud to be, as I said, the first vice president, first black woman… to serve with a black president.' He previously served as VP to President Obama, likely the source of his confusion. In the footage shared on Trump's own Truth Social network, he claimed Kamala would be taking over from Biden despite repeated comments from his camp which insist he won't quit. The MAGA leader ranted: "He just quit you know, he's quitting the race, he's out of the race." He continued: 'And that means we have Kamala [Harris]... She's so bad, she's so pathetic, she's so f*****g bad.' In a patronising sneer, Trump added: "Can you imagine that girl dealing with Putin and the president of China who is a very fierce person?" President Putin has bizarrely said he backs President Biden to win the election in November. He admitted to watching the painful debate and added: “I saw some fragments - but I have enough to do". /video/ (Source: the-sun *)
* The U.S.Sun, headquartered in Manhattan - a U.S. version of United Kingdom--based newspaper The Sun

July 5, 2024  Dr. Motykie, the top Beverly Hills surgeon who runs a medical spa in West Hollywood favored by celebrities has analyzed who he thinks has had more procedures done.   Biden appears to have had more cosmetic surgery than rival Trump. He has undergone many cosmetic procedures to reverse the effects of aging and spent $160,000 approximately on multiple facelifts over the years. The 81-year-old also shows signs of eye lift and brow work. 'You can see it if you look at his neckline near his ears. Those are signs he's probably had one or two facelifts. He's also had upper and lower eyelid surgery because you can see that changing', he added. Biden's brow has an unnatural expression to it. In men that usually isn't done but about 20 years ago people did brow lifts.   The former president appears to age more ‘naturally’ than Biden. Trump has mostly undergone hair reconstruction surgery leaving his neck and jawline all natural. His estimates reveal he spent around $100,000 on cosmetic procedures. "Trump battled with his hair for a while and I do think he's had multiple hair restoration surgeries', the doctor shared. The way his hair parts and flows suggests he is trying to disguise it. "I am suspicious he had an older technique done 30 years or more ago". He explained that the older hair restoration techniques come with some scarring which is why Trump’s hair often looks funny. Trump’s ex-wife Ivana has also confirmed in 1990 that he underwent scalp reduction surgery the previous year. Clarifying the accusations about Trump’s tanned orange look, Dr. Motykie claims that his famously orange skin color is due to tanners and makeup. (Source: ohmymag * / Daily Mail)
* Oh! mymag is "an infotainment web magazine" - an online media focused on news, lifestyle, health and wellness, targeting women of generations Y and Z.

NATO

Jul 05, 2024  The point of NATO is peace, not endless war - Opinion. 'NATO, the most successful military alliance in world history' started as a peace project, and its future success depends on its ability to maintain peace. But today, instead of peace, the agenda is the pursuit of war; instead of defense it is offense. All this runs counter to NATO's founding values. Hungary's historical experience is that such transformations never lead in a good direction. The task today should be to preserve the alliance as a peace project. When the Hungarian nation joined NATO it was the first time in several centuries - perhaps as long as five hundred years - that Hungary had voluntarily joined a military alliance. Our collective experience is one of wars periodically fought within alliance systems of which we did not originally want to be a part, and which were established with some form of conquest in mind - or at least with some explicitly militaristic goal. However much we sought to stay out of the two world wars, and however vehemently we tried to warn those countries we were forced into alliances with, each occasion brought a defeat that almost erased Hungary from the face of the Earth. Our losses were colossal. These wars left Hungary with no control over its future. After 1945 we became an unwilling part of the Soviet bloc, and thus also of the Warsaw Pact. In the second half of the 20th century Hungary was cut off from its natural civilizational environment - the West - and, more immediately, from the whole of Europe. In 1956 our revolution drove the first nail into the coffin of communism; and, as that system was finally being overthrown, our then-prime minister was the first leader in the former Eastern bloc to declare (in Moscow!) that the Warsaw Pact must be dissolved. The military alliance that had been imposed on us almost immediately broke up, and just a few days after that famous meeting in Moscow the Hungarian foreign minister was in Brussels, negotiating the commencement of our NATO accession process. 25 years ago, we saw in NATO our guarantee of peace and defense. In addition to our natural desire to free ourselves from Soviet domination and to join the West, a special factor made NATO attractive to us: we were finally joining a military alliance that was committed not to waging war but to keeping the peace, not to offensive expansion but to the defense of ourselves and one another. From a Hungarian perspective we could not have wished for anything better. U.S. President Truman, upon the founding of the alliance, summed up its essence in the following words: In this pact, we hope to create a shield against aggression and the fear of aggression - a bulwark which will permit us to get on with the real business of government and society, the business of achieving a fuller and happier life for all our citizens. President Truman's words coincided with the aspirations of Hungarian history: peace. It is clear that the concept underpinning NATO was emphatically that of a military alliance for defense. Its primary task was to create a geopolitical environment in which the members of the alliance would mutually defend one another. This is not only a security guarantee, but also a competitive advantage. Mutual guarantees enable each member country to direct its resources to economic development rather than to warding off military threats. But there was another important element in President Truman's speech: NATO provides not only defense and deterrence, but also reassures external actors. "Twenty-five years ago, on September 16, 1999, as prime minister I was present when the Hungarian flag was raised at NATO headquarters in Brussels. This is how I summed up what joining the world's largest military alliance meant for us: "For Hungary, joining NATO also means peace. Well, to fight a war - even successfully - all you need are enemies; but to create lasting peace in this corner of the world is impossible without allies." Ever since then I have been closely following the development of the alliance's vision for the future, and the manner in which Hungary has been fulfilling the commitments it made when it joined. I have done so not only out of a general sense of political responsibility for Hungary, but also as a result of my personal memories and direct involvement. A sense of honor and a clear understanding of its self-interest dictate that when a country voluntarily joins a military alliance, its minimum obligation is to fulfill its commitments to that alliance. This is not least because the original purpose of NATO - to guarantee peace - demands strength, determination, and experience. And Hungary has done its utmost to increase its strength, demonstrate its determination, and gain experience in the maintenance of peace. Thus, together with our NATO allies, we participated in the ISAF mission in Afghanistan, where Hungary was the first from the most recent intake of member countries to assume the national role of leader of a provincial reconstruction team. We have been a member of KFOR, the Kosovo peacekeeping mission, since day one in 1999, and Hungary is the fourth-largest contributor to that mission in terms of forces on the ground. Moreover, Hungary provides air defense for two other NATO allies, Slovakia and Slovenia, and - on a rotational basis - for the Baltic states. We also host the Central European Headquarters Multinational Division Centre, a key element of the military cooperation system forming part of NATO's Eastern Wing. Hungary is also of the opinion that, in addition to participating in missions, we can only demand solidarity from other NATO member countries if we are able to defend ourselves. This is a fundamental question of sovereignty". In order to rebuild Hungary's defense capabilities, our defense spending in 2023 was already 2 percent of GDP, in accord with the commitments we had made at the NATO summit in Wales the previous year. By July's NATO summit in Washington, in addition to Hungary two-thirds of member countries are expected to have met this requirement. In 2016 Hungary also embarked on a comprehensive force modernization program, and we are spending 48 percent of the defense budget on force development - more than double the NATO requirement. This has made us one of the 10 highest-performing member countries. We are purchasing the most modern equipment for the Hungarian Defence Forces. Our soldiers are already using Leopard tanks, new Airbus helicopters and Lynx and Gidrán armored vehicles, and we have acquired NASAMS air defense system units. Thanks also to the organizational modernization that is taking place in parallel with the acquisitions, the Hungarian Defence Forces have been raised from the combat level to the operational level. The rebuilding of the Hungarian defense industry is also in progress. The war in Ukraine has shown that European NATO member countries are facing a serious shortfall in military industrial capacity. The development of our defense industry had already started long before the outbreak of the war, as part of Hungary's economic development plans, but it has since become a key factor for NATO's future position. Hungary's defense industry focuses on six priority sectors: the manufacture of combat and other military vehicles, production of munitions and explosives, radio and satellite communications systems, radar systems, small arms and mortar production, and aerospace industry and drone development. Strengthening the Hungarian armed forces and defense industry benefits not only Hungary, but NATO as a whole. Hungary is an ally that, in addition to being a loyal partner, stands ready to actively cooperate with other members of the alliance to achieve its goals of preserving peace and ensuring predictable development. Hungary is punching above its weight in developing its defence capabilities, participating in missions, and developing its military forces. But when it comes to the future of NATO, we are not in full agreement with the majority of member countries. Today ever more voices within NATO are making the case for the necessity - or even inevitability - of military confrontation with the world's other geopolitical power centers. The more that NATO's leaders believe conflict to be inevitable, the greater will be their role in precipitating it. Today the self-fulfilling nature of this confrontation prophecy is becoming increasingly apparent, with the news that preparations have begun for a possible NATO operation in Ukraine - and even high-level reports that troops from NATO member countries are already near the Ukrainian front. Happily, though, Hungary has come to an important agreement with NATO acknowledging our essential role in the alliance while exempting us from its direct support efforts in Ukraine, whether military or financial, as a peace-loving nation. We understand NATO as a defensive alliance - which this agreement helps to ensure. Those who argue in favor of confrontation typically base their arguments on the military superiority of NATO and the Western world. Toynbee argued that "Civilizations die from suicide, not by murder." An external enemy, if it has any sense, will not dare to launch an attack on any NATO member country. 'As the strongest military alliance the world has ever known', it is not defeat at the hands of any external enemy that we should fear. But we should very much fear our own rejection of the values that gave birth to our alliance. The purpose for which NATO was created was to secure peace in the interest of stable economic, political, and cultural development. "NATO fulfills its purpose when it wins peace, not war. If it chooses conflict instead of cooperation, and war instead of peace, it will be committing suicide". From the very beginning NATO has existed as a defensive alliance. Therefore our task is to preserve it as what it was created to be: a peace project.
(Source: newsweek *)
The views expressed in the article are the writer's own, Viktor Orbán's, Prime Minister of Hungary.
* Newsweek is a weekly news magazine, based in New York City

Earth

10:00 AM EDT, Fri July 5, 2024  New research confirms the rotation of Earth's inner core has been slowing down in recent years as part of a decades-long pattern. Deep inside Earth is a solid metal ball that rotates independently of our spinning planet, like a top whirling around inside a bigger top. Since its discovery by Danish seismologist Lehmann in 1936, its rotation speed and direction has been at the center of a decades-long debate. Buried about 5,180 kilometers deep inside Earth, the solid metal inner core is surrounded by a liquid metal outer core. The inner core is made mostly of iron and nickel, and it is estimated to be as hot as the surface of the sun - about 5,400 degrees Celsius. Earth’s magnetic field yanks at this solid ball of hot metal, making it spin. At the same time, the gravity and flow of the fluid outer core and mantle drag at the core. Over many decades, the push and pull of these forces cause variations in the core’s rotational speed. “Differential rotation of the inner core was proposed as a phenomenon in the 1970s and ’80s, but it wasn’t until the ‘90s that seismological evidence was published,” said Dr. Waszek, a senior lecturer of physical sciences at James Cook University in Australia. Seismologists have gleaned information about the inner core’s motion by examining how waves from large earthquakes that ping this area behave. Variations between waves of similar strengths that passed through the core at different times enabled scientists to measure changes in the inner core’s position and calculate its spin. When scientists attempt to “see” all the way through the planet, they are generally tracking two types of seismic waves: pressure waves, or P waves, and shear waves, or S waves. P waves move through all types of matter; S waves only move through solids or extremely viscous liquids, according to the US Geological Survey. Seismologists noted in the 1880s that S waves generated by earthquakes didn’t pass all the way through Earth, and so they concluded that Earth’s core was molten. But some P waves, after passing through Earth’s core, emerged in unexpected places - a “shadow zone,” as Lehmann called it - creating anomalies that were impossible to explain. Lehmann was the first to suggest that wayward P waves might be interacting with a solid inner core within the liquid outer core, based on data from a massive earthquake in New Zealand in 1929. “Studies which followed over the next years and decades disagree on the rate of rotation, and also its direction with respect to the mantle,” Dr. Waszek added. Some analyses even proposed that the core didn’t rotate at all. The sloshing of metal-rich fluid in the outer core generates electrical currents that power Earth’s magnetic field, which protects our planet from deadly solar radiation. Though the inner core’s direct influence on the magnetic field is unknown, one model proposed in 2023 described an inner core that in the past had spun faster than Earth itself, but was now spinning slower. It’s rotation matched Earth’s spin, then it slowed even more, until the core was moving backward relative to the fluid layers around it. By tracking seismic waves from earthquakes that have passed through the Earth’s inner core along similar paths since 1964, the authors of the 2023 study found that the spin followed a 70-year cycle. By the 1970s, the inner core was spinning a little faster than the planet. It slowed around 2008, and from 2008 to 2023 began moving slightly in reverse, relative to the mantle. Now another team of scientists’ research published June 12 in the journal Nature confirms the core slowdown. It supports the 2023 proposal that the core deceleration is part of a decades-long pattern of slowing down and speeding up and also confirm that the changes in rotational speed follow a 70-year cycle, said study coauthor Dr. Vidale, Dean’s Professor of Earth Sciences at the University of Southern California’s Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences. For the new study, Vidale and his coauthors observed seismic waves produced by earthquakes in the same locations at different times. They found 121 examples of such earthquakes occurring between 1991 and 2023 in the South Sandwich Islands, an archipelago of volcanic islands in the Atlantic Ocean to the east of South America’s southernmost tip. The researchers also looked at core-penetrating shock waves from Soviet nuclear tests conducted between 1971 and 1974. When the core turns, Vidale said, that affects the arrival time of the wave. Comparing the timing of seismic signals as they touched the core revealed changes in core rotation over time, confirming the 70-year rotation cycle. According to Vidale team’s model and calculations, the core is just about ready to start speeding up again in about five to 10 years. The seismographs also revealed that, during its 70-year cycle, the core’s spin slows and accelerates at different rates. One possibility is that the metal inner core isn’t as solid as expected. If it deforms as it rotates, that could affect the symmetry of its rotational speed, Vidale said. The team’s calculations also suggest that the core has different rotation rates for forward and backward motion. Changes in core spin - though they can be tracked and measured - are all but imperceptible to people on Earth’s surface. When the core spins more slowly, the mantle speeds up. This shift makes Earth rotate faster, and the length of a day shortens. But such rotational shifts translate to mere thousandths of a second in day length, Vidale said. The mysterious region where the liquid outer core envelops the solid inner core, where solid and fluid are meeting and moving, this boundary might have volcanoes, he said.
(Source: cnn *)
* Cable News Network (CNN), a multinational news channel and website. Headquarters Atlanta, Georgia, U.S.