Egyik 19

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Europe

Hungary
September 11, 2024 5:27pm EDT  In 1944, hundreds of Nazi Germany's explosives-laden Black Sea fleet vessels were scuttled along the River Danube, destroying the ships themselves as they retreated from advancing Soviet forces. After a drought in July and August that saw the river's water level drop, four vessels have come to light in Hungary's Danube-Drava National Park near Mohács, this year. Strewn across the riverbed, some of the ships still have turrets, command bridges, broken masts and twisted hulls, while others lie mostly submerged under sand banks. Wrecks of ships have also emerged near Serbia's river port town of Prahovo. The Danube stood at 1.17 metres in Budapest today. During floods the Danube rises well above 6 metres there. Long-awaited rainfall set in on Monday (September 9) is expected to raise Danube levels by the weekend, with the river likely to submerge the shipwrecks again. (Source: foxnews / Reuters)

11.9.2024 17:55  Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orbán wants to station about 200 soldiers in Chad to stem migration, after meeting Chadian leader Deby in Budapest. "Chad is a key country in the fight against illegal migration in Africa. Migration from Africa to Europe cannot be stopped without the countries of the Sahel region. That is why Hungary is building a partnership with Chad. We are working on this today and tomorrow with President Deby," Orbán stated. Bordering Sudan, Libya, Niger, and the Central African Republic, Chad, which as a population of approximately 19 million, occupies a crucial position in the Sahel strategic location. Its status as a key Western ally in a volatile part of the world, underscores its significance in the global geopolitical landscape. By deploying troops in Chad, Orbán has economic interests in the region. The Hungarian prime minister is also trying to score political points at a time when troops from EU member states like France have lost favor and are scaling down on their presence in the Sahel, Owusu, a Ghanaian political and security analyst, told. The abundant resources in the Sahel in terms of oil, uranium, gold, and other resources are yet to be exploited, Owusu said. "Gold, cobalt, lithium, and other resources are major pull factors that could pull Budapest to the Sahel, and they should not be overlooked." But while some think the deployment could significantly impact the security situation in the Sahel region, Owusu is skeptical. "Chad itself is far larger than Hungary and many Western European countries. Therefore, 200 troops may not make an impact," he emphasized. If Hungary is interested in Chad's resources, then perhaps eventually it will have to contribute more forces to ensure that such interests are well protected, Awusu added. Cummings, a security analyst at Signal Risk in South Africa, told that strategies the Sahelian states have used to counter armed non-state actors, usually from a military perspective, have not effectively addressed security challenges in the region. "Up until now, the strategy by Sahelian countries where they've leveraged off European or Western forces, or whether they've leveraged off Russian forces, focuses on addressing the symptoms and not the causes of these insurgencies or why these terrorist groups are receiving the support that they're receiving," Cummings said. Over the past year, Hungary has rapidly developed ties with Chad, opening a humanitarian aid center and diplomatic mission in the capital and signing agreements on agriculture and education. Hungary has a historically weak presence in Africa, but Orbán has championed a foreign policy of opening up to the East and South by seeking closer ties with China, Russia, and African countries. Marsai, director of the Migration Research Institute, said Budapest has also sought a more significant military role in the Sahel to train its defense forces. Hungary this time would need to provide everything by itself. This could pose significant challenges, particularly in terms of resources and coordination. Despite disagreements with Budapest, the European Union welcomed Hungary's initiative in Chad. Amid the domestic and regional challenges, "it is important for more international partners to work with Chad," an EU spokesperson told AFP news agency. But at home, the military mission has drawn criticism, with opposition parties branding the deployment 'dangerous and wasteful." The Hungarian government has also been accused of nepotism. The premier's only son, Gáspár, had discreetly participated in official negotiations. Budapest dismissed the criticism, pointing to Gáspár's language skills and expertise as a captain in the Hungarian army. He has since been appointed a "liaison officer to help prepare the mission in Chad." (Source: dw)

United Kingdom
(11 September 2024)  ’There are strong indications that the US and UK are poised to lift their restrictions within days on Ukraine using long-range missiles against targets inside Russia.’ ’The UK has supplied Storm Shadow long-range missiles to Ukraine’ after a request from Kyiv for its fight against invading Russian forces. Storm Shadow is an Anglo-French cruise missile with a maximum range of around 250km. The French call it Scalp. It is launched from aircraft then flies at close to the speed of sound, hugging the terrain, before dropping down and detonating its high explosive warhead. Storm Shadow is considered an 'ideal' weapon for penetrating hardened bunkers and ammunition stores. Each missile costs nearly US$1 million. Britain and France have already sent these missiles to Ukraine - but with the caveat that Kyiv can only fire them at targets inside its own borders. They have been used with great effect, hitting Russia’s Black Sea naval headquarters at Sevastopol and making the whole of Crimea unsafe for the Russian navy. Kyiv has lobbied for its use inside Russia, particularly to target airfields being used to mount the glide bomb attacks that have recently hindered Ukrainian front-line efforts. Moscow has already taken precautions for the eventuality of the restrictions being lifted. It has moved bombers, missiles and some of the infrastructure that maintains them further back, away from the border with Ukraine and beyond the range of Storm Shadow. Even if Russian aircraft pull back further from Ukraine’s frontiers to avoid the missile threat they will still suffer an increase in the time and costs per sortie to the front line. At the Globsec security forum in Prague this month, it was suggested that Russian military airbases were better protected than Ukrainian civilians getting hit because of the restrictions. Kyiv argues that in order to push back the Russian air strikes, it needs long-range missiles, including Storm Shadow and comparable systems including American Atacms, which has an even greater range of 300km. ’Storm Shadow is unlikely to turn the tide’. ’It might "unlock' another system, the Atacms’. ’Washington worries that although so far all of President Putin’s threatened red lines have turned out to be 'empty bluffs', allowing Ukraine to hit targets deep inside Russia with Western-supplied missiles could just push him over the edge into retaliating. The fear in the White House is that hardliners in the Kremlin could insist this retaliation takes the form of attacking transit points for missiles on their way to Ukraine, such as an airbase in Poland. If that were to happen, Nato's Article 5 could be invoked, meaning the alliance would be at war with Russia. Ever since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022, the White House's aim has been to give Kyiv as much support as possible without getting dragged into direct conflict with Moscow, something that would risk being a precursor to the unthinkable: a catastrophic nuclear exchange’. (Source: bbc)

North America

United States
Wednesday, September 11, 2024 8:31 pm CET   'Ukrainian hopes that U.S. Secretary of State Blinken would use the occasion of his Wednesday trip to Kyiv to announce a loosening of the rules preventing it from hitting targets inside Russia with donated weapons came to nothing". Kyiv is starting to regularly attack Russia 'with its own long-range weapons'. Today, the Arctic city of Murmansk, 2,000 kilometers to the north of Ukraine, shut two of its airports after reporting attacks by Ukrainian drones. A day earlier, Ukraine attacked Moscow and other targets inside Russia. Both the U.K. and the U.S promised continued military aid. UK FM Lammy announced over £600 million in humanitarian, military and economic support during the visit. Blinken announced $717 million in new economic and humanitarian assistance. Further supplies of Western weapons to Ukraine are 'fraught with uncontrolled escalation,' warned Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zakharova today. 'And we’ve now seen this action of Russia 'acquiring ballistic missiles from Iran', which will further empower their aggression in Ukraine. So if anyone is taking escalatory action, it would appear to be Mr Putin and Russia,' Blinken said. He added: 'We're working with urgency to continue to ensure that Ukraine has what it needs to effectively defend itself.' 'I can announce we will now also send hundreds of additional air defense missiles, tens of thousands of additional artillery ammunition rounds and more armored vehicles to Ukraine by the end of the year,' Lammy added. (Source: politico)

September 11, 2024 4:54pm EDT  During Tuesday night's presidential debate, former President Trump discussed his relationship with foreign leaders, - leaders of rival nations and allies alike during his term - most notably Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, the "strongman" of Europe. "He’s a tough person, smart prime minister of Hungary," Trump said, adding that Orbán insisted "you need Trump back as president" because "they were afraid of him.’ "China was afraid, and I don’t like to use the word afraid, but I’m just quoting him," Trump said. 'China was afraid of him. He said Russia was afraid of him." "Look, Viktor Orbán said it: He said the most respected, most feared person is Donald Trump. We had no problems when Trump was president," Trump added. Trump also responded to Vice President Harris’ claim that he ’admires dictators, wants to be a dictator on day one" and he "exchanged love letters with Kim' by noting that Russian President Putin had endorsed her last week and said he hoped she wins 'because what he’s gotten away with is absolutely incredible.’ Trump said Russia's invasion of Ukraine would never have happened during his time in office, noting that he knew Putin 'very well." Trump has repeatedly compared his foreign policy record to that of the Biden administration, roping in Harris as part of that policy, and noted the more interventionist approach he took, using force as deterrence against Iran and meeting with Putin and North Korean leader Kim to ensure stability in regions faced with uncertainty. Trump and Orbán enjoyed a rosy relationship during the Trump administration, often pictured together smiling and shaking hands in sharp contrast to the more demure meetings between Orbán and Biden. During a visit to the U.S. in March, Orbán visited with Trump, not Biden, when trying to court potential foreign policy in the U.S. He also spoke at a panel with the leader of the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank. Orbán made headlines over the summer when he prematurely ditched a high-level NATO summit in Washington, D.C., to meet with Trump in Florida at a time when Biden faced questions about his fitness for office and in seeking a second term. Orbán was seeking a cease-fire in the Russia-Ukraine conflict, having met separately with Putin and Zelenskyy. "We continued the peace mission in Mar-a-Lago," Orbán wrote on his official social media account on X after the meeting. "President @realDonaldTrump has proved during his presidency that he is a man of peace. He will do it again!" "It was an honour to visit President @realDonaldTrump at Mar-a-Lago today," he wrote in a separate post that labeled the visit "Peace mission 5.0." "We discussed ways to make peace. The good news of the day: he’s going to solve it!" Orbán, who assumed the role of president of the European Union as part of a six-month rotational leadership scheme,’joked’ at the time that Hungary would "make Europe great again" and ’warned’ that "the next American president will not be the same president who is today." He told other leaders at the formal NATO dinner that allies who still thought Biden could win the upcoming presidential election "were like people on the Titanic playing violins as the ship went down." (Source: foxnews)

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Europe

Russia
(Tuesday), 10/09/2024 - 14:11  Today Russia launched its largest navy drills of post-Soviet era alongside Chinese warships. China sent four warships and a supply vessel to the exercise, joining Russia's naval fleet in the Sea of Japan. The major naval exercise will see Moscow sail through waters spanning the Northern Hemisphere and Pacific. The wider drills will take place in the Pacific and Arctic Oceans, as well as the Mediterranean, Caspian and Baltic Seas, and are set to become one of the Russian army's main operational and combat training events of 2024.The "Ocean-2024" drills will continue until September 16 and will involve more than 400 warships, submarines and other maritime vessels. Also taking part are more than 120 aircraft and helicopters, about 7,000 units of weapons, military and special equipment, and more than 90,000 personnel. President Putin will make an address formally opening the Russian-led exercise and will oversee them from a situation centre in the Kremlin. The Japanese defence ministry said it had observed five Chinese naval ships entering the Sea of Japan heading in the direction of Russia, sailed north-eastwards through the Tsushima Strait towards the Sea of Japan from Saturday to Sunday. The Tsushima Strait lies between South Korea and Japan and connects the South China Sea and the Sea of Japan and is not within Japanese territorial waters. (Source: france24 / AFP)

10.9.2024 10:21  Authorities temporarily shut down three airports outside Moscow -  Vnukovo, Domodedovo, and Zhukovsky. The Russian capital was targeted with one of the heaviest waves of Ukrainian drones of the war, Moscow says. More than 140 Ukrainian drones targeted Russian regions, including Moscow and those on the border with Ukraine. It is the second such massive Ukrainian drone attack on Russia this month. Overall, Russia's Defense Ministry said it "intercepted and destroyed" 144 Ukrainian drones over nine Russian regions. The Russian military on September 1 had intercepted 158 Ukrainian drones in more than a dozen Russian regions. At the time, Russian media described it as the biggest Ukrainian drone barrage since the start of the war. Meanwhile, Russian Security Council Secretary Shoigu says Ukraine's cross-border attack on Russia's Kursk region last month has failed to distract Moscow's forces from their objectives, to slow the advance in the eastern Donbas region. "They are losing up to 2,000 killed and wounded every day. In total, if we talk about 8 days in September and August, almost 1,000 square kilometers of territory have been liberated. The pace is increasing," Shoigu said. Ukraine's air force shot down 38 out of 46 Russia-launched drones during an overnight attack across 13 regions. Russia also used two missiles in its attack. The Ukrainian Energy Ministry says Russian forces have attacked energy infrastructure in eight Ukrainian regions in the past 24 hours. The attacks had disrupted high-voltage lines and power substations. In the Cherkasy region, the strike damaged an infrastructure facility and caused a fire. Authorities in Kyiv reported no damage or casualties in the city itself. Moscow's forces have ground ahead through the Donetsk region in recent weeks, in the direction of Pokrovsk, a strategic logistics hub for Ukraine. (Source: dw)

NATO

10 Sep 2024  What the Indo-Pacific is becoming for the United States, Wider Mediterranean Africa (WiMedAf) will become for NATO's European members. NATO is preoccupied with its eastern flank, it does so at the risk of overlooking equally strategically important developments elsewhere. The African-Mediterranean region is crucial for European security. Of North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s 32 members, nine face the Mediterranean Sea. Sicily is about 150 kilometres from the North African coast; the Canary Island of Fuerteventura is less than 100 kilometres west of Morocco. The Italian government uses the concept of "Wider Mediterranean” to refer not just to the area immediately around the Mediterranean, but spanning as far as the Middle East and Persian Gulf as well as the Horn of Africa and the Sahel. It is an area of primary importance in which Italian interests are projected and must be protected for reasons of national security. Many countries here are already a vital supplier of gas, oil and raw materials for Europe. At least 40% of global maritime trade passes through WiMedAf waters. Beneath the waves, communication cables connect Europe to India and East Asia. The region is the starting point for migration waves that have pushed European politics to the right. By 2050, Africa alone ’is expected’ to be home to 25% of the global population. Countries like Egypt, Nigeria and Ethiopia have booming populations and are only going to grow in geopolitical significance. New tensions between Egypt and Ethiopia, as a result of a defence deal between the former and Somalia, is an example of this. China, Russia and other revisionist powers are increasingly active in the WiMedAf region. China’s is based on loans, investment and trade, although many governments in the region are beginning to realize that all that glitters is not gold. Russia's is primarily one of hybrid warfare, such as the deployment of mercenaries, the massive use of disinformation, and supporting coups and subversive forces - evident from Libya to the Sahel and in the Central African Republic. Expanding the Wider Mediterranean definition even more, to cover the entire African continent, ’NATO needs to focus more’ on what is going on there, strengthening democracy and governance in the region by implementing ad hoc programmes in like-minded countries such as Cape Verde, Senegal, Mauritius and Ghana. It would also be important to strengthen ties with partly free countries such as Tunisia, Morocco, Kenya, Kuwait and Mozambique. NATO launched two partnership forums for WiMedAf countries – the Mediterranean Dialogue and the Istanbul Cooperation Initiative. Cooperation could include improving accountability in defence establishments, sharpening counter-terrorism capabilities and bolstering defence against cyber-attacks, disinformation and other hybrid warfare. NATO could also extend assistance in the event of pandemics and natural disasters as well as help WiMedAf energy exporters improve security of their infrastructure. It already has a blueprint for this kind of work, as it cooperates in these areas with countries like Moldova, Ukraine, Mongolia and Pakistan. NATO should increase its forward presence in the southern part of its territory just as it has already bolstered its eastern flank, reducing drug and human trafficking. It should not be interested in stationing military assets in this region, as Russia has done in Syria. Working more closely with African and Middle Eastern partners is not a roadmap to joining NATO - an option NATO's founding treaty forecloses on, anyway. The focus must be on working with organizations and governments that lean towards the West and support the rules-based international order. The recent appointment of a Special Representative for the Southern Neighbourhood, Spanish diplomat Colomina, was a step in this direction. The goal is democratic reform and knowledge exchange, not a new kind of European colonialism.
(Source: ’theparliamentmagazine.eu’ *)
* a monthly magazine, "owned by Dods', a British company (Total Politics Group, owned by Lord Ashcroft, a businessman and former deputy chairman of the Conservative Party)
by Catania, the director of the OGGNIL, a geopolitical think tank based in Italy

Globalization

10.09.24  International criminal law’s potential to adress online harms is Ukraine, Palestine, and beyond. Sharing footage of crimes to the internet, on social media is one of the harms, which has been particularly noticeable in both Ukraine and Palestine. Russian and Israeli combatants have allegedly filmed and uploaded violent footage of what likely constitute war crimes. In March and April 2023, two videos went viral circulated widely on Telegram and X of what appears to be Russian soldiers executing Ukrainian prisoners of war. In both instances, the videos could not be authenticated with absolute certainty, but information such as the clothing worn and language spoken suggested that Russian soldiers filmed the executions themselves and potentially shared them to wider audiences. This is also similar to content that has emerged from Palestine, where in addition to other imagery of alleged crimes, IDF soldiers have posted videos of Palestinian detainees stripped, blindfolded, and bound to TikTok, Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram. In one particular video shared on Instagram by an account identifying as an IDF soldier, which was verified by Bellingcat, bound and blindfolded detainees, one with an Israeli flag tied to him, are shown on the ground while a soldier taunts them and throws dollar bills at them. A sticker of a praying Israeli soldier was added on top of the footage. These examples demonstrate the alleged perpetrators’ desire to further degrade and humiliate the victims through sharing the video online. Tthe soldiers depicted are mocking the detainees, dehumanise them, reducing them to tools to be used to boast about alleged crimes and spread propaganda. The psychological and moral harms that arise from sharing footage of crimes online are similar in nature to those previously recognised in ICL jurisprudence. For instance, in Al-Werfalli, the ICC Pre-Trial Chamber stated in its two arrest warrants that ‘the posting on social media of the videos depicting executions’ and ‘the manner in which the crime was committed and publicized was cruel, dehumanizing, and degrading’ (para. 29, para. 31). When images are posted online on social media, they essentially are thrown into permanent circulation. It is virtually impossible to stop the footage from being reshared. Victim’s families and friends may be forced to constantly relive their trauma. Members of the general public will also come across the violent content while scrolling online - another layer of harm that was not possible prior to the development of social media. Chambers at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in Furundžija and the Special Court for Sierra Leone in Fofana and Kondewa have acknowledged the serious mental harm that can come to third parties who witness violent acts committed against others. Secondary trauma to those who innocently view the videos can manifest in psychological ailments such as post-traumatic stress disorder and depression. Maliciously sharing the content online can conceivably constitute its own additional crime. The harms are recognised in elements of existing international crimes, including torture, the crime against humanity of ‘other inhumane acts’, and the war crimes of inhuman treatment, wilfully causing great suffering, and outrages upon personal dignity. Multiple domestic war crimes trials have convicted and sentenced perpetrators for similar acts for outrages upon personal dignity. Courts in The Netherlands, Finland, Germany, and Sweden have convicted individuals of the war crime of outrages upon personal dignity for posting photos and videos to social media of themselves posing with or mutilating corpses in the context of the conflict in Syria. The digital harm of filming and sharing footage of crimes has not yet been addressed by an international criminal court or tribunal.Given the violent nature of the footage previously mentioned that is coming out of Ukraine and Palestine can be marginalised and silenced victims of ‘new’ harms? The Russian and IDF soldiers seem to be boasting about their crimes in a similar way that the individuals prosecuted in domestic courts were posing with the bodies of victims. It is not unreasonable to speculate that these acts could be addressed in future prosecutions at courts such as the ICC. Their recognition by international legal institutions will be critical in order to ensure justice for victims in a digital age.
(Source: opiniojuris *)
* an independent blog, in partnership with the International Commission of Jurists
by Zarmsky, a PhD Candidate and Assistant Lecturer at the University of Essex Human Rights Centre with a focus on international law and new and emerging technologies. In 2023, she was a Visiting Scholar at the Human Rights Center at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law

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Germany
Monday, 9.9.2024 16:27  The ’far-right’ anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD) party won state elections in the state of Thuringia last week and came second in another state, Saxony. Germany's coalition government has been consulting with the main "conservative opposition’ CDU and CSU parties on ways to curb migration in the face of public concern. German Interior Ministry Faeser's Social Democrats are facing a state election in Brandenburg in two weeks, where her party  -  which is also that of Chancellor Olaf Scholz -  governs in coalition with the Greens and Christian Democrats. The German Interior Ministry has announced an extension of passport controls along all of the country's land borders, aimed at curbing the number of people entering Germany without visas to limit irregular migration and address threats from Islamist terror groups and cross-border criminal organizations. In response to a sharp increase in first-time asylum requests last year, Germany had already imposed some repeatedly extended stricter controls on its borders with Austria, the Czech Republic, Poland, and Switzerland. Germany shares more than 3,700 kilometers of land borders with Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, France, Switzerland, Austria, the Czech Republic and Poland. All are fellow members of the Schengen Zone, within which there are usually no restrictions and checks on travel. The controls start from next Monday and are to initially set to last for six months. (Source: dw, "with dpa, Reuters')

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European Parliament
07/09/2024 - 8:00 GMT+2  Pending a confirmation vote by lawmakers, Kallas, the former Estonian prime minister wish the EU’s top diplomatic role - the High Representative for Foreign Policy - helming the bloc’s external action in regions including Africa, Asia-Pacific and the Middle East. She has a limited track record in diplomatic engagements beyond Europe’s eastern flank - her support for Ukraine has defined her rise to international recognition. Kallas is under pressure to prove she has the experience and commitment to steer the European Union’s diplomacy beyond its eastern flank. If Kallas is to let her support to Ukraine define her mandate, it could lead to further ambiguity over the famous question, "Who do I call if I want to call Europe?" coined by former US Secretary of State Kissinger. Some in Brussels fear Kallas' term in office will be inevitably centred on the war in Ukraine and the progressive erosion of the decision-making power of the High Representative - who can only act with the unanimous endorsement of all 27 member states - means the EU's relevance in the Global South could further diminish. And Von der Leyen has pledged to appoint a new European Commissioner for the Mediterranean. It means the current portfolio of Várhelyi will be split to delineate the so-called 'enlargement' countries - both in the Western Balkans and the Eastern flank - from other neighbourhood countries in the Middle East and North Africa. The decision is a reflection of von der Leyen's double standards in how she views cooperation with the two regions, Amnesty International's Baoumi said. The enlargement group will be more values-driven, seeking to anchor democracy, stability and rule of law, whereas the Commissioner for the Mediterranean will focus more on issues connected to energy, security, migration and quite vague cooperation in areas of mutual interest. "This is a very clear message that the promotion of human rights, democracy and the rule of law is reserved for a certain group of countries that have a future in the European Union." Others say that the damage that has been wrought on the EU’s reputation in the Middle East and the Global South during Borrell's mandate is irreparable - the EU has lost whatever remaining credibility, clout or influence it had in recent years, and Kallas will hardly be able to change anything at all. Among Borrell's proposals to exert diplomatic pressure on Israel are sanctioning extremist Israeli ministers and convening Israel to discuss its compliance with human rights obligations in the EU-Israel cooperation agreement. He has manoeuvered to table these proposals despite member states' objections. The risk for Kallas is not being able to learn the lessons of previous High Representatives in terms of how you deal with the member state dynamics and internal decision-making processes. Under Kallas, more "pro-Israel' decision-makers within the wider executive, including Commission president von der Leyen herself, could wield more influence on the bloc’s response to the Gaza war. Von der Leyen faced fierce criticism for her immediate response to the conflict when she failed to speak up about the humanitarian emergency engulfing the Gaza Strip. Civil servants have accused the institution that employs them of failing to uphold its ideals of human rights, peace and the rule of law. Powerful civil servants within the European External Action Service (EEAS) bureaucracy have aimed to tighten their grip on the EU’s Middle East policy. A greater role for the Commissioner for the Mediterranean in the EU's relations with Middle Eastern countries could mean Kallas' relevance as an actor in the region being further diluted. (Source: euronews / „EP’/

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United States
September 6, 2024  Planning for a post-American NATO, „Europe must prepare for a second Trump term”. By the end of January 2025, the Europe’s most important partner, the United States, could be led by former President Trump, who has said that he would encourage Russia to do “whatever the hell it wanted” to European countries that did not do what he wanted: spend more on defense. Freed from the influence of the traditional Atlanticist Republicans who staffed his cabinet in his first term, a second-term Trump would face fewer obstacles to making good on his threats. The magnitude of the change that a Trump victory could bring is far too great for Europe to sit by and hope that the former president loses at the ballot box. European governments stuck their heads in the sand. Trump has ’warned’ that he would immediately cut all U.S. aid to Kyiv and demand a quick end to the war, which would likely require Ukraine to cede a significant part of its territory to Russia. And that could just be the start. Trump has long questioned the value of NATO, so it is not inconceivable that he would strip back the U.S. commitment to defend Europe. He could enact the analyst Maitra’s widely circulated “dormant NATO” proposal, in which the U.S. military would provide logistics support as a last resort but leave all other NATO defense responsibilities to Europe, or follow in the footsteps of French President de Gaulle, who removed France from NATO’s military command (but not the alliance itself) in 1966. There is no reason Trump could not act quickly. As commander in chief, he could vow never to order U.S. troops to fight for Europe and take steps to withdraw the United States from NATO’s military command. Without the United States to provide military leadership and capability, European capitals could quickly turn against one another over Ukraine. Countries in central and eastern Europe, for instance, may double down on their commitment to the survival of a strong Ukraine, fearing that a Russian victory would give Moscow the opportunity to rebuild, rearm, and then, with the help of a compliant Belarus and Ukraine, issue new threats across the border. Many western European countries, meanwhile, might decide that, with the United States out of the picture, the best option would be to force Ukraine to make extensive concessions to Russia. A European security alliance could collapse under the weight of such incompatible outlooks. European countries and institutions must start planning now. The continent’s leaders will need to grapple with many hard questions. The most urgent among them fall into three categories: how to structure European security, who should lead the effort, and what capabilities Europe must acquire.     The most straightforward and best solution would be for Europe to assume control of the North Atlantic Council, the decision-making authority within NATO, being familiar to all NATO countries in Europe and having an established secretariat. European countries could also repurpose NATO facilities, such as the NATO Defense College, that are scattered across the continent. ’The new NAC could draw upon other European institutions for support, too. The EU, for example, could help coordinate the national legislative change and bloc-wide financial planning that will be necessary to prepare European societies for a potential conflict’. ’And although the NAC would remain the primary decision-making body for NATO members’, the European Political Community, which was established after Russia’s 2022 invasion and counts several non-NATO countries among its members, would play an important role as a forum for discussing security matters that affect the region as a whole. European countries have essentially outsourced geopolitical leadership to the United States for the last 75 years or so. ’No European country has experience with that job, and there is no natural leader for the rest to converge upon’. Berlin, crippled by political indecision, has failed to display leadership so far in the war in Ukraine. Having cozied up to Russia before the 2022 invasion, and joining the United States in limiting aid to Ukraine after, Germany has lost the trust of many of the central and eastern European countries that fear ending up on a new frontline. The openly pro-Russian positions espoused by the ’far-right’ Alternative for Germany and ’far-left’ Reason and Justice parties, both of which made strong showings in last weekend’s regional elections, raise additional concerns. France could be a better option. As one of Europe’s two nuclear powers, France would necessarily play an important and immediate role in European security if the United States were to withdraw. The French have a competent military. Yet Paris, like Berlin, carries serious liabilities. In the early months of the invasion, Macron favored reaching some kind of arrangement with Russian President Putin, and today, politicians on France’s increasingly empowered ’far right’ and far left, as in Germany, seriously discuss cutting aid to Ukraine. The United Kingdom, Europe’s other nuclear power, would bring many positive attributes to the leadership role. London, as a ’consistent supporter’ of Ukraine, is aligned with Europe’s frontline countries. The United Kingdom also has long-standing defense ties with fellow members of the Joint Expeditionary Force, a military grouping of ten Baltic, Scandinavian, and other northern European nations. But after its 2016 decision to leave the EU, it is almost impossible to see EU countries agreeing to British strategic command. Europe could seize the opportunity to make a less conventional choice for its security leadership. Poland has emerged as a strong candidate. It is a large country with a growing economy, and it took defense seriously even before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Over the past few years, Warsaw has undertaken the most substantial military buildup on the continent, increasing both the fraction of its GDP spent on defense and the forces deployed to its borders with Belarus and the Russian enclave Kaliningrad, and its defense budget target of five percent of GDP for 2025 outpaces the rest of Europe. ’Already seen as a leader in central and eastern Europe’, Poland understands frontline countries’ concerns about Russia in a way that a western European government cannot. Given that Poland shares a border with Belarus, Ukraine, and Russia, its military would be critical ’in a larger war with Russia’. Warsaw, aware of this, is now expending significant resources to upgrade its army and air force. Before the war in Ukraine, a land-centric military such as Poland’s would not have been considered capable of leading European forces. But NATO’s traditional emphasis on air and sea domains was largely a function of the centrality of the United States, which relied on long-range air and sea capabilities to project power across the Atlantic. Without Washington, the picture changes. If Europe is defending itself, its land power, supported by tactical airpower, becomes its bulwark. Thus, once Poland expands its air force - it is now amassing one of Europe’s largest fleets of F-35 and F-16 fighter jets - the country will have a striking case for security leadership. 'If the need arises, a Polish officer could be selected as the first supreme allied commander for a European NATO'. This choice would make political and strategic sense to show both frontline states and Russia that Europe is serious about protecting its eastern flank. A strong signal of this kind is sorely needed; the appointed successor to Jens Stoltenberg as NATO secretary-general, Mark Rutte, most recently served as prime minister of the Netherlands, a country that has consistently failed to meet the NATO defense spending target of two percent of GDP. Elevating a Polish commander would also smooth the way for a civilian leader from western Europe, ensuring the political balance that would be crucial to European unity in the early stages of post-American security planning. Europe has outsourced many essential defense capabilities to the United States. It has neglected to develop the basic capabilities it would need if the United States were to draw down. Perhaps the most glaring among them is a system for intelligence sharing among European states. For decades, Europe has relied on the Five Eyes - the intelligence network that includes Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States - to conduct much of its intelligence work. The United States does the bulk of the data collection - high-end, space-based intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance systems. Washington’s retreat from Europe would thus disrupt the flow of information. European countries would have to rely on local sources for data collection and analysis. Setting up the architecture to share intelligence among European NATO members will be a challenge in the absence of U.S. leadership. Althoug reams of data, it turns out, do not always produce good intelligence or insight. Some of the best intelligence work on Russia over the past few years has in fact come from smaller countries with more specialized knowledge. The Baltic states and the Nordic states, for instance, have consistently provided useful information about Russian capabilities and intentions. Ukraine, too, has done a credible job analyzing Russian strengths and weaknesses, and ’Kyiv’s intelligence capacity has enabled operations such as a strategic air campaign against Russian oil production’. Europe’s country-by-country weapons production is also wildly inefficient. Across the ten main categories of major weapons systems - such as fighter aircraft or destroyers - the United States maintains 33 types of systems. Europe maintains 174. This has limited European militaries’ interoperability and created a logistic nightmare. Decades of peace and Europe’s concentration on boutique capabilities have also left the continent with insufficient weapons arsenals. Individual countries’ protectionist impulses to bring investments home would replicate the inefficiencies of Europe’s small-scale, national weapons production. „European countries have not moved as quickly as the United States to address their production capacity shortfalls - a problem they will need to rectify in order to plan for an end to or a drastic reduction in U.S. material support for Ukraine’. The European Political Community should negotiate a framework for joint - its own - research and development. The task has largely been farmed out to the United States. NATO’s London-based Defense Innovation Accelerator for the North Atlantic, which became operational last year, has begun to extract lessons from the war in Ukraine, especially regarding dual-use technologies that originate in the civilian sphere - European countries could repurpose and expand this model to fill the resulting gap. Logistically, Europe would have to confront issues around deployability. „Without U.S. capabilities, European militaries could not maintain any kind of global presence; they do not have the capacity for long-distance air deployments of fighting units on their own”. Europe will need to invest in the full breadth of tactical airpower, while it integrates the capacities of European militaries. „European NATO might have to confront life without the U.S. nuclear deterrent”, it would also need to build up a credible European nuclear deterrent, separate from the United States. In the long term, the nuclear deterrent would have to be fully Europeanized. A United States with little military presence on the continent - and with an administration that looks rather benignly at Putin - could not credibly warn Europe’s enemies that it would put its nuclear weapons in play ’in the event of an attack’. ’This is not to say Europe should reject a slimmed-down U.S. deterrent if a Trump administration were to offer’. In the short term, the job would fall to France and the United Kingdom, which both have small nuclear arsenals. The immediate challenge will be ’coordinating the deployment’ and refitting of the British and French nuclear arsenals. Furthermore, ’London and Paris must begin to expand their deterrents to the rest of the continent’. Europe’s nuclear capacity would need to be fully independent. As long as Russia maintains its vast nuclear arsenal, Europe will need to protect itself from Russian nuclear blackmail. Europe would have to manufacture a nuclear delivery system. At present, European states have the ability to produce nuclear warheads on their own. But they have outsourced the means to deliver those warheads -the United Kingdom today shares a nuclear missile fleet with the United States. (Source: foreignaffairs)
by O’Brien, Head of the School of International Relations and Professor of Strategic Studies at the University of St. Andrews; Stringer, a senior fellow at Policy Exchange, a retired RAF Air Marshal, and former Director General of the Defence Academy of the United Kingdom.

September 06, 2024   "Many of the recruits drafted under Ukraine’s new conscription law lack the motivation and military indoctrination required to actually aim their weapons and fire at Russian soldiers. “Some people don’t want to shoot. They see the enemy in the firing position in trenches but don’t open fire… That is why our men are dying,' said a frustrated battalion commander in Ukraine’s 47th Brigade. “When they don’t use the weapon, they are ineffective.' In Ukraine, an expanded military draft has failed to overcome the reality that most young Ukrainians do not want to kill and die in an endless, unwinnable war. Hardened veterans see new recruits much as Sassoon described the British conscripts he was training in November 1916 in Memoirs of an Infantry Officer: “The raw material to be trained was growing steadily worse. Most of those who came in now had joined the Army unwillingly, and there was no reason why they should find military service tolerable.” U.S. Brigadier General “Slam” Marshall, a First World War veteran and the chief combat historian of the U.S. Army in the Second World War conducted hundreds of post-combat small group sessions with U.S. troops in the Pacific and Europe, and documented his findings in his book, Men Against Fire: the Problem of Battle Command. One of Marshall’s most startling and controversial findings was that only about 15% of U.S. troops in combat actually fired their weapons at the enemy. In no case did that ever rise above 25%, even when failing to fire placed the soldiers’ own lives in greater danger. Marshall concluded that most human beings have a natural aversion to killing other human beings, often reinforced by our upbringing and religious beliefs, and that turning civilians into effective combat soldiers therefore requires training and indoctrination expressly designed to override our natural respect for fellow human life. This dichotomy between human nature and killing in war is now understood to lie at the root of much of the PTSD suffered by combat veterans. Marshall’s conclusions were incorporated into U.S. military training, with the introduction of firing range targets that looked like enemy soldiers and deliberate indoctrination to dehumanize the enemy in soldiers’ minds. When he conducted similar research in the Korean War, Marshall found that changes in infantry training based on his work in World War II had already led to higher firing ratios. That trend continued in Vietnam and more recent U.S. wars. Part of the shocking brutality of the U.S. hostile military occupation of Iraq stemmed directly from the dehumanizing indoctrination of the U.S. occupation forces, which included falsely linking Iraq to the September 11th terrorist crimes in the U.S. and labeling Iraqis who resisted the U.S. invasion and occupation of their country as “terrorists.' A Zogby poll of U.S. forces in Iraq in February 2006 found that 85% of U.S. troops believed their mission was to 'retaliate for Saddam’s role in the 9/11 attacks,' and 77% believed that the primary reason for the war was to 'stop Saddam from protecting Al Qaeda in Iraq.” This was all pure fiction, cut from whole cloth by propagandists in Washington, and yet, three years into the U.S. occupation, the Pentagon was still misleading U.S. troops to falsely link Iraq with 9/11'. 'The response of the U.S. political class to the blowback from its catastrophic wars in Iraq and Afghanistan was simply to avoid large deployments of U.S. ground forces or “boots on the ground.” They instead embraced the use of devastating bombing and artillery campaigns in Afghanistan, Mosul in Iraq and Raqqa in Syria, and wars fought by proxies, with full, “ironclad” U.S. support, in Libya, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and now Ukraine and Palestine. The absence of large numbers of U.S. casualties in these wars kept them off the front pages back home and avoided the kind of political blowback generated by the wars in Vietnam and Iraq. The lack of media coverage and public debate meant that most Americans knew very little about these more recent wars, until the shocking atrocity of the genocide in Gaza finally started to crack the wall of silence and indifference. The results of these U.S. proxy wars are, predictably, no less catastrophic than the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The U.S. domestic political impacts have been mitigated, but the real-world impacts in the countries and regions involved are as deadly, destructive and destabilizing as ever, undermining U.S. “soft power' and pretensions to global leadership in the eyes of much of the world. In fact, these policies have widened the yawning gulf between the worldview of ill-informed Americans who cling to the view of their country as a country at peace and a force for good in the world, and people in other countries, especially in the Global South, who are ever more outraged by the violence, chaos and poverty caused by the aggressive projection of U.S. military and economic power, whether by U.S. wars, proxy wars, bombing campaigns, coups or economic sanctions'. As Israeli and Ukrainian leaders see their political support crumbling, Netanyahu and Zelenskyy are taking increasingly desperate risks, all the while insisting that the U.S. must come to their rescue. By “leading from behind,' our leaders have surrendered the initiative to these foreign leaders, who will keep pushing the United States to make good on its promises of unconditional support, which will sooner or later include sending young American troops to kill and die alongside their own. (Source: counterpunch)
by Davies, an independent journalist, the author of Blood on Our Hands: The American Invasion and Destruction of Iraq, and War in Ukraine: Making Sense of a Senseless Conflict, co-authored with Benjamin.

Globalization

6 Sep 2024 at 12:20  Over the past 12 months, the global average temperature was 1.64°C higher than pre-industrial levels, above the 1.5°C threshold that policymakers and scientists say threatens life on the planet. The European Union's (EU) Copernicus Climate Change Service reported that for June to August, global temperatures were 0.69 degrees Celsius above historical averages, beating the previous high set last year. The record for the world's highest average temperature was broken on a number of days over the summer. In Europe, the heat over the June to August period was 1.54°C above the 1991-2020 average, according to Copernicus. The most extreme conditions were recorded in the Mediterranean region and Eastern Europe, while the United Kingdom, Iceland, parts of Ireland, the west coast of Portugal and southern Norway were cooler than the norm. And parts of the Southern Hemisphere just had a very mild winter, with Australia experiencing the hottest August since data started in 1910 and looking forward to a warmer-than-average spring. This summer the effects of a strong El Niño weather pattern, which causes warming in the Pacific Ocean, started giving way to the La Niña phenomenon. This shift usually means less extreme heat, but it can also bring droughts in some areas and produces flooding and hurricanes elsewhere. (Source: bangkokpost)

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United States
Sep 1, 2024, 2:00 PM GMT+2  America isn’t ready for another war - because it doesn’t have the troops. Having been burned by massive threat inflation over terrorism in the post-9/11 era, Americans may be understandably skeptical of the gravity of the Russian or Chinese threat to the United States. A record dented by two decades of defeat has undermined the US military’s self-anointed status as the 'finest fighting force the world has ever known,' leading to a significant decline in public trust. Though some might call the US military 'America’s team,' it hasn’t won a game since Desert Storm, before most of its current members were born. A 2019 Pew Research Center survey found that 58 and 64 percent of veterans of Afghanistan and Iraq, respectively, say those conflicts were not worth fighting. A political horseshoe effect has helped cement this: both leftists and right-wingers publicly advocate for refusing to fight what they call unnecessary, unwinnable wars, with an especially sharp decline in enlistments by white men and women. America did away with the draft 51 years ago, waging its many wars and interventions since with the All-Volunteer Force (AVF). But “all-volunteer” is a misnomer. Americans aren’t lining up to serve, and the AVF is really an all-recruited force. Its previous annual recruitment of about 150,000 mostly young Americans, who are individually located, pitched, and incentivized to serve, comes at considerable effort and expense. The United States got through two foreign wars in Iraq and Afghanistan with the AVF - though neither war was a victory. A war with Russia, China, Iran, or North Korea would be an entirely different proposition, with the possibility of more casualties in a few weeks than the United States suffered in the entire Global War on Terrorism. But as crises overseas multiply, the immediate existential threat to the AVF, and ultimately to US security, is at home: There aren’t enough Americans willing and able to fill the military’s ranks. Three of America’s four major military services failed to recruit enough servicemembers in 2023. The Army has failed to meet its manpower goals for the last two years and missed its 2023 target by 10,000 soldiers, a 20 percent shortfall. Today, the active-duty Army stands at 445,000 soldiers, 41,000 fewer than in 2021 and the smallest it has been since 1940. The Navy and Air Force missed their recruiting goals, too, the Navy failing across the board. The Marine Corps was the only service to achieve its targets (not counting the tiny Space Force). But the Marines’ success is partially attributable to significant force structure cuts as part of its Force Design 2030 overhaul. As a result, Marine recruiters have nearly 19,000 fewer active duty and selected reserve slots to fill today than they did as recently as 2020. Recruiting challenges have impacted the reserve components even more severely than the active duty force. The National Guard and Reserves have been shrinking since 2020. Last year, the Air National Guard and Air Force Reserve each missed their recruiting targets by 30 percent. The Army Reserve had just 9,319 enlistees after aiming to recruit 14,650 new soldiers. Numbers for the Navy Reserve were just as bad - the service missed its enlisted and officer targets by 35 and 40 percent, respectively. Should a true national security emergency arise, America lacks the ability to mobilize as Israel and Russia have done. The Individual Ready Reserve (IRR) - comprising former active duty or selected reserve personnel who could be reactivated by the Secretary of Defense during wartime or a national emergency - is designed to act as a bridge from the AVF to a revived draft. Almost forgotten even by servicemembers, the IRR earned brief notoriety when some servicemembers were “stop-lossed' during the Iraq War - pulled from the IRR and returned to active duty involuntarily, usually to deploy again. Today, there are just over 264,000 servicemembers in the entire IRR. The Army’s IRR pool has shrunk from 700,000 in 1973 to 76,000 in 2023. The IRR is now incapable of even providing sufficient casualty replacements for losses from the first battles of a high-intensity war. Even if more Americans could be encouraged to sign up, they may not be able to serve. Before Covid, fewer than three in 10 Americans in the prime recruiting demographic - ages 17 to 24 - were eligible to serve in uniform. Those numbers have shrunk further since the pandemic began. Only 23 percent of young Americans are qualified to enlist without a waiver, based on the most recent data. Endemic youth obesity, record levels of physical unfitness, mental health issues exacerbated by the Covid pandemic, and drug use have rendered the vast majority of young Americans ineligible for military service. Scores on the ASVAB - the military’s standardized exam for recruits, which tests aptitude for service - plummeted during the pandemic. The introduction of a new military health system in 2022, MHS Genesis, has also hamstrung recruiting. Fewer than 10 percent of Americans aged 16 to 21 say they would seriously consider signing up, according to a 2022 poll from the Pentagon’s Office of People Analytics. Those interested in serving are largely motivated by material factors. Respondents cited pay, college tuition aid, travel opportunities, health benefits, and acquiring career skills as the top five reasons for considering military service. Only 24 percent said they would join the military out of a sense of pride or honor. Though the US population has increased by more than 50 percent since the end of the draft, the AVF has come to rely on a smaller and smaller share of the nation. In the all-recruited force, it is military families that have inexorably become the primary providers of new recruits. Nearly 80 percent of recent Army enlistees have a veteran in their family - for almost 30 percent, it’s a parent. In the half-century since the AVF’s birth, "the US military has become a family business'. This entrenchment of a “warrior caste' presents a long-term danger to democracy: A citizenry disconnected from its military can become indifferent to the missions it performs. Civilian oversight and accountability suffer when the military is insulated from public scrutiny and understanding. The percentage of veterans in Congress has declined precipitously in the 50 years of the AVF’s existence. But the immediate danger is more concrete. Should the majority of military families decide the nation is unworthy of their children’s service, as may already be happening, the AVF will become unsustainable. The worst of the recruiting crisis is still to come. American birth rates plummeted after the 2008 financial crisis: A “baby bust” saw almost 2.3 million fewer children born between 2008 and 2013 than had been projected before the crisis. The number of American 18-year-olds is set to peak in 2025 at 9.4 million, before dropping to about 8 million by 2029. With another baby bust during the Covid-19 pandemic, the following generation will likely be even smaller. Army surveys of Americans aged 16 to 28 conducted in 2022 revealed that the top two reasons this cohort wouldn’t consider serving were fear of death and concerns about post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The reality is that less than 15 percent of enlisted military personnel are assigned a combat role, and far fewer ever find themselves in a firefight. Policymakers’ refusal to cut missions and offload defense burdens to wealthy allies greatly exacerbates the strain on the All-Volunteer Force. Though the United States is not at war, its military remains highly active, with constant deployments to Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. Some branches and military communities, like armor, air defense, and aircraft carriers, struggle to maintain even a 2-1 ratio of “dwell to deploy” (the Pentagon’s desired ratio is three years at home for every year overseas). This unsustainable pace burns out soldiers, erodes morale, and helps fuel an epidemic of military suicides. The strong post-Covid labor market has limited the economic appeal of military employment. Relocation for servicemembers, which occurs every 2.5 years on average, puts additional stress on families and runs counter to the desire for stability people generally gain as they age. Poor on-base housing, potential food insecurity, and a high spousal unemployment rate are unappealing for young Americans looking to start their careers and families. Gen Z, which already constitutes about 40 percent of military personnel, views serving in the armed forces through a different lens than the millennials who came before them (and who made up the majority of the fighting force in Iraq and Afghanistan). This “network generation” is immersed in the digital world, distrustful of institutional authority, and often viewed as psychologically fragile. Going back to the standard AVF recruiting playbook - signing bonuses, waivers for substandard fitness or education, new slogans, and expensive ad campaigns - is unlikely to solve the problem. Some analysts have proposed that the US military relax its standards to acquire more technically skilled recruits. But such a move risks undermining the universal standards that undergird the military’s egalitarianism and common culture - critical advantages in the crucible of combat. And despite the drones and the tech, modern war still requires soldiers who can endure the physical demands of high-intensity combat. The Army has taken a dramatic step toward increasing its recruiting pool by standing up the Future Soldier Preparatory Course, a remedial program for motivated recruits who nonetheless fail to meet initial entry standards. Future Soldier Prep will take in nearly 20,000 recruits this year, which may enable the Army to make its lower recruiting mission. A longer-term solution could involve minimizing the friction of moving between civilian life, reserve service, and active duty service - a concept known as “permeability.” But breaking down the existing barriers to both entering and leaving service strikes at the heart of the US military’s view of itself as a profession, not a part-time job. The massive militaries that fought existential conflicts like the American Civil War and World War II were filled not merely with volunteers, but millions of conscripts. There has been no serious attempt to restore American military conscription since compulsory military service ended in 1973. While America is unlikely to ever again need the 12 million servicemen and women it had in 1945, clearly failing recruiting efforts may at least prompt a reexamination of compulsory service. Absent a draft or major structural reform to AVF recruiting and retention, the US military will struggle not to shrink. The recruiting crisis is a greater national security threat to the United States than the wars that currently dominate the headlines. No amount of high-tech wizardry has changed this enduring reality of warfare. (Source: wox *)
* Wox, an American news and opinion website

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Asia / The Middle East
August 19, 2024  Another crisis enveloping the Middle East region: intense heat and water scarcity. In Egypt, temperatures have rarely fallen below 100 degrees since May. In late June, the Grand Mosque in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, registered a temperature of 125 degrees (51,6 °C). This heat coincided with Hajj season. When it was over, more than 1,300 people had lost their lives. In mid-July, the heat index in Dubai was 144 degrees Fahrenheit (62,2 °C). It was actually hotter in the Gulf region last summer, topping out at an eye-popping real feel of 158 degrees (70 °C ) in the coastal areas of Iran and the United Arab Emirates. That reading and the unrelenting heat this season exceeded the wet-bulb temperature at which humans, if exposed for six hours, can no longer cool themselves off, leading to heat-related illnesses and death. The World Bank estimates that by 2050, water scarcity will result in GDP reductions of up to 14 percent in the region. In 2021, a UNICEF report stated that Egypt could run out of water by 2025, with the Nile River coming under particular stress, exacerbated by the upriver flow of the Nile being restricted because of the construction of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam. Syria and Turkey have been at odds over many years because the Turks have built dams along the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, cutting the flow south. Among the many issues that divide Israelis and Palestinians is water and who has the right to tap into the Mountain Aquifer of the West Bank. In the Middle East and North Africa, a hotter region has the potential to destabilize politics well beyond its borders. As the October 2021 National Intelligence Estimate on climate change dryly noted, the U.S. intelligence community had low to moderate confidence in how physical climate impacts will affect US national security interests and the nature of geopolitical conflict. How people adapt to rising temperatures and water scarcity? They migrate to places with lower temperatures and more water. According to the World Bank, as many as 19 million people - approximately 9 percent of the local population - will become displaced in North Africa by 2050 because of the climate crisis. The bank is extrapolating. It is possible that there may be political, economic, or technological changes that limit the number of migrants., not every person on the move will be migrating, and some of those displaced people will remain in the region given the resources necessary to make it across the Mediterranean. Internally displaced people generally settle in urban areas, put pressure on the budgets and infrastructure of places whose resources and capacity to absorb migrants are limited. In the abstract, migration is ’positive’ for countries in the European Union, which have aging populations and need workers to pay into generous social safety nets. Yet the claim that migration provides benefits to society remains unconvincing to a significant number of Europeans who oppose large or perceptively large numbers of newcomers into their countries. France’s National Rally party has become a major force in French politics in large part due to its opposition to immigration, especially from Islamic countries. Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, the avatar of European illiberalism, ’built his authoritarian system on fears of the threat’ that migrants pose to Hungarian society. 2015, Germany. Hundreds of thousands of Syrians sought refuge from the violence enveloping their country. Then-German Chancellor Angela Merkel made the decision to grant Syrians entry. It was a decision that many Germans embraced, but has helped drive the emergence of the Alternative for Deutschland (AfD) party. Migration is the through line in this phenomenon. 2016, Brexit. Immigration propelled the United Kingdom’s imprudent decision to leave the European Union. The proximate cause of the recent riots in England was the allegation that an immigrant was responsible for the murder of three young girls at a dance class in the seaside town of Southport. The ensuing street violence suggests simmering resentment toward migrants within a segment of the marginalized English working class. The Unites States has a compelling interest in a Europe that is stable, whole, free, and prosperous. Washington needs to help head off mass migration to Europe. Using its own experience and technical expertise from managing resources in the increasingly hot western United States, the U.S government can play a useful role in helping countries in the Middle East do a better job managing what water they have. The conflicts that span the region make assistance harder, given the fact that water sources often cross boundaries. That challenge can be overcome. There are technical solutions to the problem of water scarcity. There are also political incentives to come to agreement even across conflict zones. Leaders across the region have a political interest in satisfying at least their people’s minimum demands, including access to water. Egyptian President Sisi and Ethiopian Prime Minister Ahmed have a strong interest in sharing the waters of the Nile. Without such an agreement, the political and economic problems of both countries will deepen, threatening both leaders. The maritime border agreement between Israel and Lebanon can be a template of sorts for the way U.S. officials approach the problem of water sharing in the region. U.S. diplomats separated Israeli concerns about Lebanon and Lebanese concerns about Israel and focused instead on the upside for each country. Once that became clear the exploitation of gas deposits off the Israeli and Lebanese coasts, it was hard for the two countries that nonetheless remain in a state of war to not agree to a boundary. Despite 10 months of conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, the agreement has not been breached. That suggests a way forward for negotiations over water. Washington should focus on issues where it has a realistic chance of making a difference. Water is critically important, an area where the United States has expertise to bring to bear. Helping strike agreements to manage water scarcity in the Middle East is a low-cost way the United States can mitigate ’the perversions’ of European politics and help shape the global order to come. (Source: Foreign Policy)
by Cook, a columnist at Foreign Policy and the Eni Enrico Mattei senior fellow for Middle East and Africa studies at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). His latest book is The End of Ambition: America’s Past, Present, and Future in the Middle East; Bouri, a research associate at the CFR.

China
Aug 19, 2024  China appears to have installed a laser directed energy weapon on one of its Type 071 amphibious assault ships, mirroring U.S. and other nations’ expanding activities in the same arena. The system is mounted immediately aft of the 76mm dual-purpose gun on the ship’s bow. Most of China’s activities with laser weapons have, so far, been conducted on land. The precise vessel is the Siming Shan, which has the hull number 986, or hull number 988, the Yimeng Shan. Until the arrival of the Type 075 landing helicopter dock, the Type 071 was the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN)’s largest operational amphibious warfare ship. The Type 071 displaces around 25,000 tons, includes a small flight deck at the stern and hangar space for up to four Z-8 heavy transport helicopters. It also has capacity for four air-cushion landing craft, up to around 60 armored fighting vehicles, and as many as 800 troops. This example of the Type 071 has been selected as a test platform for the laser weapon, which may then make its way onto other warships, too. There’s an obvious parallel between the Chinese system and the LWSD Mk 2 Mod 0, which was primarily developed to provide ships with an additional line of defense against unmanned aircraft and small boat swarms. Additionally, the U.S. laser can be used as a dazzler for blinding optical sensors and seekers. Both have been installed on amphibious assault ships for testing. An Arleigh Burke class destroyer, the USS Preble is now armed with a High-Energy Laser with Integrated Optical Dazzler and Surveillance system, or HELIOS. This is a 60-kilowatt class directed energy laser weapon and is the first of its kind to be integrated with the Aegis combat system. A number of other Arleigh Burke class destroyers, including the USS Dewey and USS Stockdale, have been fitted with the Optical Dazzling Interdictor, Navy (ODIN) system. The laser on the turreted ODIN is only capable of being used as a dazzler, though the complete system also has secondary surveillance capabilities. Some dazzlers could temporarily blind an aircraft’s crew or cause permanent eye damage, as well as cause damage to optical sensors. The U.S. Navy envisages using more powerful lasers to engage larger and more complex threats, including low-flying cruise missiles and aircraft. The PLAN does indeed have similar ambitions that would eventually provide its warships with some very significant new capabilities. (Source: The War Zone - U.S.)
by Newdick, a defense writer and editor, covering military aerospace topics and conflicts, who has contributed to many of the world’s leading aviation publications. Before 2020, he was the editor of AirForces Monthly.

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Europe

Germany
08/16/2024  Kremlin declares Berlin-based Russian anti-war group 'undesirable'. Russian authorities have declared the nongovernmental organization ’Deputies of Peaceful Russia’ group, an association of Russian politicians in exile who oppose Moscow's war in Ukraine to be an undesirable organization. Members of the group founded in October 2023 are accused of taking part in events with an anti-Russian orientation in Germany, the General Prosecutor's Office said. They spread misleading information about the activities of Russian state agencies and ’support extremist organizations’, the statement added. The group held its first congress in Berlin. Its members include 74 regional and municipal Russian lawmakers and representatives, many of whom are living in exile. Under Russian law, organizations are designated undesirable if their activities are considered to ’pose a threat to the foundations of the constitutional order, defense, or security of the state'. (Source: DW - Germany)

16 August 2024  Warning came after the discovery of a fence cut at the water storage site in Mechernich area near Bonn. Residents were urged to boil their water before drinking it on Thursday night as the fire brigade drove around the area warning people not to use tap water for drinking, showers or preparing food. A day earlier, an air force base near Cologne-Bonn airport was sealed off for several hours with "abnormal water values" detected in the supply. Separately, Nato reported an attempt to trespass on its base at Geilenkirchen close to the Dutch border. Nato's Awacs reconnaissance planes are stationed at Geilenkirchen and the Cologne-Wahn base close to the main regional airport is home to the top echelons of the German air force as well as planes used by government ministers for foreign travel. More than 5,000 soldiers and civilians are said to work at the Cologne-Wahn base, and although the outer fence was not tampered with, a hole was found in the fence close to the barracks' water supply. No-one has yet been detained for any of the three alleged sabotage incidents. Military officials are taking the latest incidents very seriously. The extent of sabotage in any of the three incidents remains unclear ’although Germany's armed forces, the Bundeswehr, have been on heightened alert because of Russia's war in Ukraine’. Last April, two German-Russian dual nationals were arrested in the south-western state of Bavaria on suspicion of plotting sabotage attacks on military or industrial targets. Last month, the domestic intelligence service (Verfassungschutz) warned of an increased risk of sabotage activities and reports emerged of an alleged Russian plot to kill the head of Germany's biggest arms firm Rheinmetall. This week, Interior Minister Faeser said even before the spate of scares, that Germany was facing an increased danger of Russian sabotage. ’The threats we have to protect ourselves against range from espionage, sabotage and cyber attacks to state terrorism,’ she told on Monday, explaining that the Ukrainian advance into Russian territory could exacerbate the threat. ’Germany is the second largest donor of military aid to Ukraine after the US, earmarking some €28bn’ since the start of Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022. German-supplied Marder armoured vehicles are apparently being used by the Ukrainians in the Kursk region. (Source: BBC - United Kingdom)

Russia
Aug 16, 2024 Some Russian state media outlets have suggested that the Kursk incursion was a ’trap for Zelensky’ in which Putin will ultimately prevail. Kremlin propagandists have tried to make sense of how Ukraine entered Russia so easily. Pro-Kremlin outlet Tsargrad wrote how Ukrainian brigades 'fell into a trap' and faced heavy losses. This spinning of the narrative is at odds with accounts, including from Russian military bloggers, of Ukrainian gains, while Zelensky said on Thursday his troops had captured ’the entire town’ of Sudzha. While there is no evidence that Ukrainian forces have fallen into a trap, what Kyiv does next and whether Putin might benefit in the longer term is uncertain. Instead of being in eastern Donbas region trying to strengthen its existing line and hold as much territory as it can, Kyiv's best units are now in a place which may be vulnerable to an effective Moscow counter attack. ’There is a risk of overextending, and there is a risk that precious personnel and resources may be lost and that Putin may use this as a pretext for further escalation,’ said Witt, professor of international business and strategy at King's Business School, London. Putin might also be able to exploit domestically the narrative he has pushed all along about the war he started - that he acted because Russia is under threat from the West, of which he considers Ukraine to be a proxy agent. The narrative that Russia is under threat can help Putin and reinforce support through a rally-around-the-flag effect, Witt told. ’However, Putin may be forced into a mobilization more widespread that the partial draft he announced in September 2022, according to Bloomberg’. Kastehelmi, a military expert from the Finland-based open-source intelligence analysis firm Black Bird Group, said that the incursion risks attrition of Ukraine's precious reserves when it still has issues with manpower. ’Taking over a few dozen Russian border villages at the expense of many lives and pieces of equipment won't help,’ he told. ’Generally, the war won't be solved in Kursk, the most strategically important regions are still eastern and southern Ukraine.’ Part of Ukraine's aim for the incursion is to elicit support from the West by proving that Kyiv still has some fight left in it. They are wary of the outcome of the U.S. presidential elections, and there is a risk that the Trump administration will halt aid to Ukraine. It was Trump who invoked past Moscow triumphs last month, telling Fox News he had told Zelensky in a phone conversation that Kyiv faced a ’war machine’ and that "they beat Hitler. They beat Napoleon." On Thursday, Zelensky's top commander, Colonel General Syrskyi said military command had been set up in Kursk while Zelensky reiterated Kyiv's claim that it now controlled more than 80 settlements and over 440 square miles. This move might end up in Ukraine wasting the resource it lacks most in this war, which is manpower. (Source: Newsweek - U.S.)

08/16/2024  Moscow's Defense Ministry said in a statement on Friday it thwarted an attack from 12 US-built ATACMS missiles launched by Ukraine on the Crimea bridge, which was built at the behest of President Putin after Moscow annexed the peninsula in 2014. The bridge opened in 2018 and connects Kerch in Crimea with southern Russia's Krasnodar region. All the missiles were destroyed. Ukraine's Kursk offensive enters second week. Podolyak, Ukraine's presidential adviser has said on Friday the recent operations in Russia aim to bring Moscow to the negotiating table to start ’fair’ peace talks. ’We need to inflict significant tactical defeats on Russia,’ Podolyak wrote on the Telegram messaging app. ’The presence of Ukrainian troops within Russia may impact public opinion, Podolyak suggested, since for many in Russia the war had not been something that directly affected them’. Ukrainian forces have been advancing in the Russian border region of Kursk since a surprise incursion on August 6. Kravchuk, a Ukrainian lawmaker belonging to Zelenskyy's Servant of the People Party, told that Ukraine's incursion into Russian territory could help Kyiv achieve a ’strong' on the battlefield if it comes to the negotiating table with Russia, adding that territory in Kursk could be part of negotiations. She said that Ukrainian authorities had received intelligence that showed that Russian forces were planning to attack Ukraine's northeastern Sumy region from Kursk, so ’this is part of self-defense,’ which ensure that the region will not be shelled from the Kursk region. Kravchuk said that Ukraine's incursion into Kursk was ’significant’ because ’Ukraine gained more territory than Russia occupied during 2024 in total.’ She said that she hoped Kyiv could exchange prisoners of war captured in Kursk for Ukrainian prisoners of war held by Russian forces. Ukrainian forces have been pushing into the Russian border region of Kursk over the past several days. Ukraine claims to have taken control of 82 settlements in the Kursk region since launching a surprise cross-border offensive 10 days ago. The head of Ukraine's military says Kursk offensive 'has advanced'. Kyiv's forces were advancing between one and three kilometers in some parts of Russia's Kursk region, General Syrskyi told Zelenskyy in a video posted on social media. He added that intense fighting continued in Ukraine's front line in the east, in particular in Toretsk and Pokrovsk. The Ukrainian military has urged civilians in Pokrovsk to speedily evacuate as Russian troops encircle the town ’at a fast pace.’ Syrskyi said that he hoped to take ’many prisoner’ from a battle ongoing in the village of Mala Loknya, about 13 kilometers from the Ukrainian border. In general, ’everything is carried out following the plan,’ Syrskyi said. Meanwhile, Russia has accused the West of aiding the incursion. /Source: DW - Germany / (Reuters – United Kingdom; AFP – France; dpa – Germany; AP – United States)/

United Kingdom
16.08.2024  Over 1,000 people have been arrested and nearly 600 charged in connection with the ’far-right’ riots that erupted across the UK following a stabbing incident in Southport on July 29. On August 4, Prime Minister Starmer condemned the riots as ’far-right’ thuggery and warned that those involved in the violence would regret their actions. The violent riots were fueled by online claims that the suspect in the fatal stabbing of three children in Southport was a Muslim asylum seeker. The attacker was identified as Rudakubana, a 17-year-old from Cardiff with Rwandan parents. Prime Minister Keir Starmer has vowed swift justice for those involved. On August 7, three men became the first individuals to be jailed for their involvement in the Southport and Liverpool riots. Starmer was reminding social media users that online platforms are not „law-free zones’. Sweeney, 53, was sentenced to 15 months in prison yesterday, for posting inflammatory messages on Facebook, including a post that read: Blow the mosque up with the adults in it. Judge Everett criticized her online conduct, stating that keyboard warriors must be held accountable for their language, especially amidst the ongoing national disorder. Parlour was sentenced to 20 months in jail last week for social media activity related to the ’far-right’ riots urging attacks on a hotel housing asylum seekers. Greenwood, 31, who live-streamed racial slurs during riots in Sunderland, received a 2.5-year prison sentence for violent disorder. A 12-year-old boy has become the youngest individual charged in connection with the riots. He appeared at Liverpool Youth Court on Monday and pleaded guilty to violent disorder in Merseyside. Additionally, a 14-year-old boy faces charges related to a riot in Whitehall last month. (Source: Anadolu Agency - Turkey)

Asia

Taiwan
August 16, 2024  Working against short deadlines with limited resource. If it wasn’t for the signs pointing to every underground car park’s dual use as an “Air Defence Shelter”, the impending threat of a Chinese invasion could easily be forgotten. Tension in the Taiwan Strait is increasing, and experts are now in general agreement that the Chinese Communist Party will attempt to take Taiwan using force. US and UK intelligence agencies remain concerned that China will at some point try to claim Taiwan through invasion, blockade or political pressure. President Xi is understood to have ordered his military to be ready to take the self-ruled island by 2027. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has been clear about its intentions while building the world’s largest naval force.  How unprepared would be the West to deal with yet another conflict? The UK and European countries have a strong interest in helping maintain peace in the Taiwan Strait, due to Taiwan’s economic and geopolitical benefits, but wars raging in Ukraine and the Middle East have taken priority for Western nations. The war in Ukraine has sucked so much resource and attention from Europe that it cannot militarily support another conflict in its current state. Military-wise European nations don’t even have the capacities to supply own militaries and support Ukraine, they have reached a production limit. There is no chance we can significantly help if tensions turned to conflict in Taiwan - the UK’s capacity to assist in the event of another conflict would currently be unable to fund and support a new emerging war. The UK’s Ministry of Defence faces budget pressures, forcing the department to ask suppliers to find significant cuts. Keir Starmer has pledged to raise defence spending to 2.5 per cent of GDP in future years but no timeline has been set. All this comes against the backdrop of calls from the British Army’s chief, General Sir Walker, to prepare the UK’s military for threats from Russia, a possible Chinese invasion of Taiwan, and Iranian nuclear capabilities which he warned could all 'converge' in approximately 2027. Chinese military action against Taiwan would be catastrophic for the global economy, not least because 92 per cent of the world’s semi-conductors – an essential component of electronic devices used for computing, healthcare, and military systems – are manufactured there. A halt to shipments to and from the island could cause the production of phones, laptops, cars, and pacemakers to screech to a halt. This could cost the world economy an estimated $10trn and dwarf the effects of both the Ukraine invasion and coronavirus. The world focus would turn into the Indo-Pacific, which creates vacuums that other hostile powers can take advantage of. A successful Chinese invasion would entirely change the global governance. China’s success would further contribute to making democracies weaker, fast-track China’s leadership in critical technologies, including military ones, and eventually make China-led global order increasingly possible. The island has strategic location as the first island in a chain of archipelagos, including Japan, the Philippines, Indonesia, creating a natural barrier between mainland China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and its reach further into the Pacific. The UK and Europe’s lack of military readiness to defend Taiwan’s sovereignty has lead to frustration from both Taiwanese and American officials. ’We have helped fund a battle to protect Europe at high political and economic cost, and now we need that favour returned.’ a US intelligence source told, following America’s significant help in Ukraine. If tensions were to escalate in Taiwan, the US would have a duty to step in and defend the island’s sovereignty under the terms of an arms agreement between the two countries. The US would have its commitment to defence agreements with other countries in the region – including Japan, South Korea and the Philippines – tested. Since its election, Keir Starmer’s Labour Government has not yet mentioned China’s aggression in the region. In the first 40 days of the new Government, Foreign Office staff visited more than a dozen countries in all corners of the globe, including China, but have not yet made an appearance in Taiwan. Foreign Secretary Lammy is in talks over a trip to Beijing next month. Meanwhile, China has continued to deploy grey-zone warfare tactics – military actions that fall between war and peace – by repeatedly encircling the self-ruled island with fighter jets and navy ships, launching cyber attacks, and making provocative vows to ’reunite’ with Taiwan. It has also launched at least a dozen rocket launches – or satellite missions – that have passed over Taiwan’s air defence zone in the past 18 months. Military support right now appears to be out of the question - a senior UK military source told that “under current budget constraints' there was no chance of sending weapons to Taiwan any time soon. However, some officials, including Frederick, the US National Security Agency’s assistant deputy director for China, have cast doubt over China’s ability to meet its self-imposed deadline for seizing Taiwan in 2027. Rusi’s Dr Havrén said the UK should lean on pre-existing international agreements such as the Aukus military security partnership to apply pressure on Beijing without putting too much demand on resources. She told: ’Being more present in the Indo-Pacific with Aukus, strong relationships with like-minded democracies such as Japan and South Korea and non-aligned countries like India and Indonesia are essential to balance China’s presence and grey-zone tactics in the region’. Under the Aukus agreement, the UK, US and Australia share joint advanced military capabilities, including at least eight nuclear-powered submarines armed with conventional weapons, radar capabilities, hypersonic missiles and artificial intelligence developments, in order to promote security and stability in the Indo-Pacific region. Through Whitehall departments such as the Department for International Trade, the UK could provide knowledge and financing to help the Taiwanese people build in areas of food and energy storage, the introduction of key pharmaceutical and medical infrastructure to contribute to a greater Taiwanese resilience, according to the sources. It’s not military and would actually make a big difference. (Source: The i Paper - United Kingdom)

West Bank
16 August, 2024  Dozens of masked settlers torched homes and cars in the village of Jit, a Palestinian village near the occupied West Bank city of Nablus on Thursday evening. At least one Palestinian - identified as 23-year-old Sadda.- was killed and many others critically wounded. The settlers were also targeting residents of the village of Jit with live fire, threw rocks and Molotov cocktails at residents, with the Israeli army issuing a statement saying they were deployed to the village after receiving reports of violence. The attack is the latest in a series of many in recent weeks and months. Israel’s president Herzog denounced the attack as a "pogrom", while prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office published a statement saying, "those responsible for any offence will be apprehended and tried". "Violent attacks by settlers against Palestinian civilians in the West Bank are unacceptable and must stop. Israeli authorities need to take necessary measures to protect all residents," a White House spokesperson said, calling on Israel to take steps to prevent similar attacks. However, Israel’s ’far-right’ Finance Minister Smotrich said the perpetrators in Jit had nothing to do with settlers. "They are criminals who must be dealt with by the law enforcement authorities with the full force of the law," he wrote on X. The UN office OCHA says since the start of the war on Gaza in October, there have been at least 107 attacks that have caused Palestinians fatalities and wounds, and 859 causing damage to Palestinian property. According to the Wall and Settlement Resistance Commission’s (WSRC) head, Shaban, settlers have been exploiting attention on the war on Gaza to carry out further attacks in the West Bank. He added that most of the fires have been concentrated in the cities of Nablus, Ramallah, and Jenin, started in agricultural land and crops, as well as homes and vehicles. Some of these fires were caused by military raids, a WSRC report noted. Elsewhere in the West Bank, Israeli forces carried out a largescale raid in several neighbourhoods of Hebron. In recent weeks they imposed heavier entry restrictions in neighbourhoods in the city, by blocking off exits and installing checkpoints. Local media reports stated that soldiers detained civilians, including women and children, subjecting them to harsh treatment and preventing them from returning to their homes. Early on Friday, Israeli settlers also started excavating near the Arab Al-Ka’abneh Elementary School north of Jericho, aiming to establish a new settler building in the area. Melehat, the general supervisor of the Al-Baydar Organisation for Bedouin Rights highlighted that the area is central for the local Bedouin community there, and that the operation is part of a broader, aggressive colonial campaign, supported by Israeli occupation forces. Smotrich announced this week that a new settlement in the Battir area, which is listed on the UNSECO World Heritage List, has been approved. His office said it had "completed its work and published a plan for the new Nahal Heletz settlement in Gush Etzion". The report states around 6,000 acres have already been seized this year alone, and large-scale construction projects to make way for illegal outposts have increased. International law considers Israel’s settlements in the West Bank, occupied since 1967, are illegal in all cases. (Source: The New Arab - United Kingdom; a London-based news outlet, owned by a Qatari company)

North America

Canada
August 16, 2024  Canada ’places no geographic restrictions’ on the use of military equipment it has donated and continues to donate to Ukraine, Poulin, Canadian defense department spokesperson, told. Ukraine can use Canadian tanks and missiles in its ongoing special military operation on Russia soil, Ottawa said. According to Poulin, Canada will continue to work with the Ukrainian armed forces to provide the equipment they need. Canada have committed $4,5 billion in military assistance to Ukraine ’pledging to keep aid coming through to 2029’. So far, Canada has sent $33 million worth of air defense equipment, including air defense missiles AMRAAMS, AIM-9, AIM-7 and 40,000 rounds of ammunition delivered in 2023. Canada also contributed $53 million to Czechia’s initiative to purchase several thousand rounds of artillery ammunition for Ukraine. Canada has also donated M-777 howitzers, eight Leopard tanks, 200 additional Senator commercial pattern armored vehicles and 4,200 M72A5-C1 rocket launchers. Ukrainian forces have been slowly advancing in Russia’s Kursk region, where they control more than 1,000 square kilometers of territory, Kyiv said. The surprise attack - which has now lasted a week and a half - ’is a setback for the Kremlin, with some Russian units redeployed from the front lines in Ukraine to shore up defenses at home, Kyiv’s military said’. Germany also previously said it sees no problem with Ukraine using its weapons on Russian territory. ’It reduces Russian threat potential every day. It prevents Ukrainian civilians from becoming refugees,’ said Faber, the head of the German Bundestag’s defense committee. (Source: Politico - headquarters U.S., owned by a German company)

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Europe

Germany
August 15, 2024  German authorities have issued an arrest warrant for a Ukrainian national in connection to the explosion that damaged the Nord Stream 2 pipeline two years ago. The suspect, identified by German media only as ’Volodymyr Z,’ had lived in Poland in the town of Pruszkow near Warsaw at the time, but fled to Ukraine ’before authorities could execute the arrest warrant in early July’. Z allegedly participated in a six-man diving team of experienced Ukrainians who, in September 2022, rented a German yacht to sail over the Nord Stream pipeline and planted explosives that damaged a few of the pipelines. The pipelines allowed Russia to sell gas more easily to Europe - built to carry Russian natural gas to Germany - despite sanctions over its invasion of Ukraine and were condemned by the West as a national security threat. The underwater detonations on the Nord Stream gas pipelines occurred in international waters but within Swedish and Danish economic zones. Sweden earlier said that a state actor was the most likely culprit. The Wall Street Journal reported that the plan took four months to enact and cost around $300,000. The group brought a female diver so that they could pose as a group going out on a pleasure cruise. Zelenskyy originally supported the plan, but after the CIA learned of it and asked him to stop it, he tried to halt the effort. The WSJ reported that Commander-in-Chief Zaluzhniy ignored the order and pushed ahead with the plan. Four senior Ukrainian defense and security officials told the outlet that the pipelines were viewed as a legitimate target in the war. Zaluzhniy denied the claims, saying he had no knowledge of the operation and labeled such claims as mere provocation. German intelligence officers raised concerns that, despite these reports, they believe it is entirely possible that this amounts to a Russian false flag operation, according to Politico, citing German publication Welt am Sonntag. Politico reported that Polish security agents support this theory and sent a document with names of Russian suspects to Germany’s Federal Intelligence Service, but the Germans remained convinced of Ukrainian responsibility. German media named two other suspects: Svitlana and Yevhen Uspenska, a married couple who run a diving school in Ukraine. They denied involvement, with Svitlana claiming she was in Kyiv at the time of the incident. Germany, Denmark and Sweden all opened investigations into the incident, but Sweden and Denmark closed their investigations earlier this year. Sweden had found traces of explosives on several objects recovered from the site, confirming the incident was indeed an act of sabotage. The Swedes and Danes determined that they did not have sufficient grounds to pursue a criminal case. "The Swedes said they had a fairly good idea of who was behind it but have no jurisdiction over those they wanted to talk to," Øhlenschlæger Buhl, of the Royal Danish Defense College told The Associated Press. The Danes are saying "the same, just slightly different words." U.S. intelligence in 2023 suggested that a pro-Ukrainian group was behind the attack. Then-National Security Council spokesman Kirby confirmed that the U.S. believed ’it was an act of sabotage’ while stressing that the U.S. was not involved. (Source: Fox News "and The Associated Press” = U.S.)

North America

United States
8/15/2024  Independent presidential candidate Kennedy Jr. sought a meeting last week with Democratic nominee Harris to discuss the possibility of serving in her administration, perhaps as a Cabinet secretary, if he throws his support behind her campaign and she wins, according to Kennedy campaign officials. Harris and her advisers have not responded with an offer to meet or shown interest in the proposal. At the moment, Kennedy says he is continuing to campaign with the expectation that he will defeat both Trump and Harris, making regular interview appearances, planning upcoming rallies in states such as Arizona and Nebraska and releasing an “America Strong” plan for bipartisan governance. But he has also left open the possibility of bowing out of the race if he finds another way to bring about the change he seeks in the country, his advisers say. “From the beginning of this campaign, we were saying people should be talking to each other,” Kennedy said Wednesday in an interview. “That is the only way of unifying the country.” „I think it is going to be a very close race.” The latest round of outreach follows earlier efforts to convince Democrats that Kennedy would make a better candidate on their ticket than Biden. Even after Kennedy left the Democratic nomination fight to pursue an independent campaign for president last November, his advisers continued to press the case privately that he could replace Biden as the Democratic nominee. Kennedy, the campaign manager and daughter-in-law to the candidate, argued in an April email to Democrats, that Biden could not win the race. “As things are, Biden is going to lose. If Bobby were to drop out, Trump would win by an additional two states,” she wrote. “If Biden were to drop out, Trump would lose. Only Bobby can win this.” She argued that Democrats had to make sure a president is elected who could handle the responsibility of managing the nuclear arsenal. “I don’t want a president obsessed with the size of his crowds to be given that sacred charge. My bomb is bigger than your bomb is no path to peace,” she wrote. “Nor do I want to entrust my children’s lives to the alertness of a president who, despite honorable service and due to the natural toll of age, I wouldn’t leave babysitting my two-year-old while I went to the movies.” Democrats have for months attacked Kennedy because Mellon, a scion of a Pittsburgh banking family, is a top donor to both an independent group supporting Kennedy and a separate group supporting Trump. Kennedy’s campaign reached out this summer to Democratic intermediaries, including Hollywood talent agent Emanuel and director Reiner, in hopes of starting a dialogue with Democratic officials. No meetings resulted. One day after Biden had a disastrous performance in a June debate with Trump, Kennedy campaign staff contacted a relative of Airbnb founder Gebbia in an effort to get a message to Klain, a longtime Biden adviser, who had recently been hired by Airbnb as chief legal adviser. “The Dems should nominate Kennedy. He is the only candidate under consideration who can beat Trump,” the message read. Klain said Wednesday that he heard secondhand that the Kennedy campaign was trying to reach him, but that he did not respond to the request. A person spotted Kennedy at a hotel this week in West Palm Beach, Fla., not far from Trump campaign headquarters and Trump’s Florida home. Trump campaign advisers said they are still in touch with Kennedy and his senior team, and some of the advisers are expecting Kennedy to drop out and endorse Trump. In his pitch to Trump in Milwaukee, he also discussed a Cabinet-level job. Since Biden exited the race in July, Kennedy’s standing in national polls appears to have declined, suggesting that Harris has been able to attract some of his previous supporters. In July when Biden was still in the race showed Kennedy polling at about 9 percent. Since Biden dropped out of the race, the same average shows Kennedy polling at about 5 percent nationally. Kennedy said Wednesday that he had not had any contact with the Democratic Party since launching his campaign. The Democratic National Committee has launched an aggressive legal and political effort to diminish the appeal of Kennedy and other third-party contenders. “The only contact I have with the DNC is them suing me through intermediaries,' Kennedy said. (Source: MSN / The Washington Post = U.S.)

August 15, 2024  Vance has climbed to his current position as former President Trump’s running mate, in part, by selling himself as a hillbilly, calling on his Appalachian background to bolster his credentials to speak for the American working class. “I grew up as a poor kid,’ Vance said on Fox News in August 2024. “I think that’s a story that a lot of normal Americans can empathize with.” Indeed, the book that brought him to public attention was his 2016 memoir, “Hillbilly Elegy.” In that book, he claims his family carried an inheritance of ’abuse, alcoholism, poverty, and trauma.’ Created mainly by middle- and upper-class people for like-minded readers, long line of novels, films and plays can end up spreading harmful stereotypes about poor people. When you think about novels and films about the poor, you come upon the great classics: Dickens’ “Oliver Twist,” Zola’s “Germinal,” London’s “The People of the Abyss” or Steinbeck’s “The Grapes of Wrath.” Though these works are sometimes crafted with good intentions, they tend to focus on violence, drugs, alcohol, crudeness and the supposed laziness of poor people. These monuments to the suffering of the poor were written by authors who were not poor. Most of them had little to no knowledge of the lived experience of poor people. At best, they were reporters whose source material was meager. At worst, they simply made things up, recycling stereotypes about poverty. Steinbeck had some contact with poor people as a reporter. But as he wrote about migrant camps for “The Grapes of Wrath,” he relied heavily on the notes of Babb - herself poor and formerly homeless – who traveled to migrant camps throughout California for the Farm Security Administration. Babb’s boss – a friend of Steinbeck’s – had secretly shown the author her notes, without her permission. Babb would go on to also write a novel based on her experiences, which was bought by Random House. But the publishing house killed it after “Grapes of Wrath” came out, and it wasn’t published until 2004, when the author was 97 years old. Then there’s London, whose “The People of the Abyss” is seen as a faithful portrayal of the lives of the British poor. But London, who went “undercover” to craft a sordid account of England’s urban poor, nonetheless maintained a comfortable apartment. He kept a stash of money sewed into his ragged coat and conveniently escaped for a hot bath and a good meal while pretending to pass as a pauper. The result is a book laden with put-downs of the English working class, who are cast in eugenicist terms as a degenerate race. When you look at the books or films created by people who grew up poor, the tone and focus often shift dramatically. Instead of a fixation on the tawdry side of life, you see works that explore the things that bind all people together: family, love, politics, complex emotions and sensual memories. You only have to open Wright’s “Black Boy,” Gold’s “Jews Without Money to see their protagonists’ appreciation of beauty and ability to experience profound pleasure – yes, all while experiencing poverty. Wright recalls how, as a child, he would play in the sewer, where he would spend hours fashioning all manner of detritus into toys. And Gold sings a paean to an empty, garbage-strewn lot in his neighborhood that doubled as his beloved playground. Vance, on the other hand, fills his book with selections from the hits of violence, drugs, sex, obscenity and filth. But Vance himself was never actually impoverished. His grandfather, grandmother and mother all had houses in a suburban neighborhood in Middletown, Ohio. He admits that his grandfather “owned stock in Armco and had a lucrative pension.” He introduces himself to his Yale classmates as “a conservative hillbilly from Appalachia.” Over the course of the book, he confuses himself – and the reader – by variously saying that he is middle class, working class and poor. Vance did come from a troubled family. His mother was – like so many Americans, whether they’re poor, middle class or rich – addicted to painkillers. In the book, Vance searches for an explanation for his traumatic relationship with his mother, before hitting on the perfect explanation: His mother’s addiction was a consequence of the fact that her parents were “hillbillies.” The reality – one that Vance only subtly acknowledges in his memoir – is that he is not poor. Nor is he a hillbilly. He grew up firmly in Ohio’s middle class. In the forthcoming book, “Poor Things: How Those with Money Depict Those without It,” I detail how Vance’s work is actually part of a genre. In developing his grand theory, Vance takes readers very close to the now-debunked notion of a culture of poverty, in which the poor are responsible for their situation and their attitude toward work is passed along from one generation to the next. A dependence on government handouts, according to the theory, undergirds this culture. His neighbors in Middletown had lost – thanks to the welfare state – “the tie that bound them to their neighbors’. Vance’s dilemma: Are these people simply lazy? Or are they the victims of a system that encourages them to watch TV and eat bad food as they collect welfare or disability checks? Several times he refers to people who live on welfare as ’never [having] worked a paying job in his life.’ He seems to fully buy into the notion that people are poor because they are lazy freeloaders, they got there because of ’bad choices.’ and life will improve only through better decisions. The issue here is “representation inequality”: one identity group - in this case, poor people - don’t get to represent themselves. In the 'elite capture,' those with cultural capital and power assume the right to speak for and represent the powerless. In so doing, stereotypes and tropes get developed with serious political consequences. Our political and educational system elbows out most poor people. As political scientist Carnes points out in his 2018 book “The Cash Ceiling,” only 2% of congressional lawmakers worked in manual labor, the service industry or clerical jobs before getting involved in politics. In July 2024, The New York Times reported that Vance’s Yale law professor and author Chua read an early version of what became “Hillbilly Elegy,” one that was more geared to an academic audience and grounded in political theory. She prodded Vance to change his manuscript, telling him that “this grand theory [about America] is not working.' His “grand theory about the poor" doesn’t work, because the poor – unlike many other identity groups – don’t have a platform to articulate and promote their own needs and political vision. Instead, we’re stuck with people who offer bromides at best and fatalistic narratives of doom at worst. (Source: CounterPunch – U.S. / The Conversation – Melbourne, Victoria, Astralia)
By Davis, Distinguished Professor of English at the University of Illinois at Chicago, an American specialist in disability studies.

August 15, 2024  The Cult of Military Service: Walz as soldier-teacher. Soon after Vice-President Harris introduced Minnesota Governor Walz as her running mate, the attacks on his military record began. Debating the finer points of Walz’s military record misses the larger point that the cult of military “service” in the United States is a widespread and dangerous one. Responding to attacks from Republican Presidential candidate Donald's Vice-Presidential candidate JD, Walz told a campaign rally filled with enthusiastic hospitality workers in Las Vegas all of the boxes for one kind of Democratic presidential campaign: Small Nebraskan town America, Family tradition, Military service, Teaching, and Football. My dad was a chain-smoking Korean War-era veteran who, two days after my 17th birthday, took me down to sign up to join the National Guard. And I have to tell you, like my dad before me and millions of others, the GI Bill gave me a shot at a college education, Waltz said. The message was pretty clear that military service was the natural and honorable stage in one’s life from a nobody to a somebody in the Great American community. One of first pictures of Walz that was widely circulated was a stern-faced, seventeen years old version of himself in 1981-era combat fatigues holding an M-16. Walz was by many accounts a popular teacher with his students and liked by his colleagues. But, the role model of the Soldier-Teacher ’is not a good one, especially for young men’. Connecting military service to teaching: high schools across the country are one of the main recruiting grounds for the U.S. military. Young people, especially high school age boys, can be easily impressed by the glamour of the uniform and combat through films, television, and video games. This was particularly true during the 1980s and 1990s, when political leaders and their friends in Hollywood spent a lot of time rehabilitating the military following the U.S. defeat in Vietnam, along with demonizing the Vietnam Anti-War movement. Walz joined the National Guard in 1981, the first year of Reagan’s presidency that saw the beginning of a massive military build-up and a resurgent anti-Communism and U.S. imperialism. It wasn’t until the end of the decade, however, before the U.S. could once again, send large numbers of ground troops to fight wars in far-flung corners of the globe; Panama, the first Gulf War, and after 9-11, the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq - the latter two dubbed the ’Forever Wars.’ The disastrous results for the countries that the U.S invaded and the large numbers of U.S. soldiers suffered debilitating physical and mental health conditions are still with us. Walz was deployed only once overseas to Italy during the Forever Wars and saw no combat. He spent seven months abroad before he returned home. Others from Minnesota? More than eight thousand Minnesota National Guard soldiers and Airmen were deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan from 2003 to 2011. Sixteen members of the Minnesota died in Iraq. Nearly one hundred soldiers with some connection to Minnesota were killed in combat during the Forever Wars. Walz retired from the National Guard in May 2005, he was elected to Congress during the Democratic sweep in 2006. During the debate over the surge, Walz voted to force the U.S. military to withdraw from Iraq within 90 days. Yet less than five months later, he voted to continue funding the war. It was a position that put him at odds with a majority of his Democratic colleagues. Throughout Walz’s congressional career, Walz often voted to repeal the War on Terror-era authorizations for the use of military force (AUMFs), while also voting against restrictions or cuts to military funding. Another aspect of the military service cult is never to discuss what the military actually does beyond blandishments of “serving” or “protecting” our nation. Walz spent his entire military career in the Minnesota National Guard. It’s not a good history from suppressing the Dakota uprising in 1862 to defending the 2008 Republican convention from demonstrators. When Walz was Governor of Minnesota he deployed National Guard troops to Minneapolis during the rebellion following Floyd’s police murder. Minnesota is quite proud of the National Guard’s role in foiling ’domestic unrest’. The National Guard in many states recruit soldiers by emphasizing the heroic role they play during natural disasters. The National Guard are sold as do-gooders or “citizen-soldiers” who rarely if ever see combat, but the post-Cold War reorganization of the U.S. military has meant that the National Guard is more integrated into U.S. military operations abroad, in sharp contrast to the Vietnam War era. The cult of military service has sprouted in the era of the volunteer army, and while it means that professional politicians like Walz may ride this into the White House with Harris, it is a road to the graveyard for many others. (Source: CounterPunch - U.S.)
by Allen, the author of The Package King: A Rank and File History of United Parcel Service.

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United States
Aug 14, 2024  The 11th Airborne Division, also known as the “Arctic Angels,” stood up its Arctic Aviation Command at Fort Wainwright, Alaska, on Thursday. The move puts two active-duty aviation battalions under direct control of the command and the 11th Airborne. Previously, the command’s Alaska-based battalions reported to units based in Washington state and Hawaii. It comes as the United States military in general works to counter Russian presence and Chinese interest in the region. In 1961, the Army activated its first aviation battalion, which was stationed at Fort Wainwright. An aviation regiment and various other unit configurations maintained a presence in the state through the mid-2010s. During that period aviation fell under the Army Alaska Aviation Task Force, which was deactivated in 2018. The Army reflagged U.S. Army Alaska as the revived 11th Airborne Division in 2022. In February, more than 8,000 soldiers in Alaska conducted a large-scale exercise across the state. During the exercise, soldiers conducted a 150-mile Apache-led deep strike on a target and moved a multi-launcher rocket system more than 500 miles to a location above the Arctic Circle. “The Arctic is obviously a strategically important region in for the United States,” Col. Vanderlugt, recently appointed head of the aviation command said. By living in the region and running aviation operations on site, the colonel said battalion soldiers and crews can work in the extremes of an environment that challenges ground and air assets on a near-daily basis. The move follows the Pentagon’s release last month an update to the Defense Department’s Arctic strategy, the first since 2019. Deputy Defense Secretary Hicks said in July that an increased Arctic presence, upgrades to area installations and new equipment - including sensors and space-based technologies - would be crucial. (Source: Military Times)
by South, who was named a 2014 Pulitzer finalist for a co-written project on witness intimidation. He is a Marine veteran of the Iraq War.

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Europe

Greece
13 Aug 2024  Greece battles wildfires near Athens. (Photo/ (Source: Al Jazeera - Qatar)

Ukraine
August 13, 2024  Wealthy oligarchs, individuals like Lahun, instead of helping the country during the war, are increasingly hiding their wealth in the West and fleeing to Europe, avoiding justice. One of the co-founders of PrivatBank and a close associate of Kolomoyskyi, Boholyubov, over 60 years old and with more than three minor children, boarding the last compartment of a train to Poland with a fake passport, likely managed to avoid criminal prosecution in the near future. He arrived at the Kyiv railway station incognito, using his wife’s car - his wife being the former First Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs. He was facing multiple criminal investigations. On the train, he presented a lost passport belonging to a man from the Volyn region in western Ukraine, who resembled him. Boholyubov holds British citizenship and plans to live in Vienna, where his wife has recently been appointed as Ukraine’s representative to Vienna-based international organisations. Two countries - the United Kingdom and Austria - are now turning a blind eye to the illegal exit of this prominent Ukrainian figure, thus aiding his evasion of justice. He crossed the Polish border with the help of several border guards, one of whom is now in pre-trial detention for organising the VIP’s escape. Before this, former bankers like Zhevago, Firtash and Lahun, also escaped justice by crossing the western border. These are prime examples of people who should be returning their ill-gotten gains to their country during Russia’s full-scale invasion. The wealth taken from Ukraine by these fugitives allows them to live comfortably in Western Europe for years, in hospitable European capitals, such as London and Vienna, avoiding justice. They can afford expensive lawyers and delay extradition cases - if they even arise. Former owner of Finance and Credit Bank, Zhevago is accused in Ukraine of embezzling about 60 million euros from the bank and being involved in bribing the head of Ukraine’s Supreme Court. He is comfortably residing in France, owning a media business in Ukraine that lobbies his interests in government agencies and whitewashes his reputation with foreign investors. French courts have refused Ukraine’s request to extradite Zhevago. Gas oligarch Firtash has been awaiting justice from a U.S. court in Austria’s capital for nearly ten years. In Ukraine, he faces charges related to gas schemes that caused the state 40.5 million euros in damages and is on the National Security Council’s sanctions list. Austrian courts have protected Firtash from extradition to the United States, where Washington accuses him of misconduct in arms supply deals. Entrepreneur Lahun, the former owner of Delta Bank, fled to Austria in 2022 and now divides his time between Vienna and London. He is notorious for leading one of the largest private banks to bankruptcy - second only to the nationalised PrivatBank, owned by Kolomoyskyi and the aforementioned Boholyubov. Lahun and his top managers are accused of abuses, including funnelling funds through numerous offshore companies under his control, registering businesses in the names of relatives, issuing loans to affiliated parties, submitting fake reports to regulators, engaging in illegal transactions with government bonds and currency operations, and using fraudulent or significantly overvalued collateral to secure refinancing funds. Delta Bank was one of the key operators of the scandal-ridden Austrian Meinl Bank, which lost its license due to involvement in money laundering. Lahun’s schemes also included dozens of companies in the aggressor country, as revealed by an investigation by the private detective firm Kroll. According to Ukrainian media, Lahun has transferred a number of companies and real estate rental businesses in Austria - some of his assets - to a UK resident, Ukrainian lawyer Hutsalyuk. Through Hutsalyuk, Lahun’s other Russian connections, such as with the company Ruspolimet, are also traced. Another of Lahun’s lawyers, Tarasyuk, has become the owner of several of Lahun’s companies. Today, Tarasyuk is among the Delta Bank executives against whom the Deposit Guarantee Fund claims nearly 600 million euros. The total damage caused by Lahun’s activities exceeds 1.2 billion euros. Around 600 criminal cases were opened, but Lahun has consistently managed to avoid serious consequences. Delta Bank was removed from the market in 2015, but until 2022, Lahun freely travelled between Austria and Ukraine, with his assets neither frozen nor transferred to state management. Dozens of land plots and active finance, construction, and insurance enterprises continued to generate profits for him. It wasn’t until 2023, when Lahun decided to take drastic measures to avoid further prosecution. The former owner of Delta Bank with over 1.2 billion euros in debt to state entities initiated personal bankruptcy proceedings as an individual. For almost a year, the National Bank, state banks Ukreximbank and Oschadbank on one side, and Lahun and his lawyers on the other, are debating whether the ex-banker has the right to take this step. Lahun may soon initiate the debt cancellation process in court. He proposes writing off 80% of that amount and paying the remainder in ’instalments’ from his modest salary in Austria - where the ex-banker claims to earn about 2,900 euros monthly. He proposes allocating 1,700 euros from this sum to repay the debt. Once it is completed, Lahun, a quiet, law- abiding European resident, will be without worrying about an Interpol warrant or other legal actions from Ukrainian authorities. EU countries and the UK turn a blind eye to the fact that potential criminals are effectively hiding on their territory. Ukraine, in turn, could desperately use these funds ’to finance its military’, rebuild its economy, and ensure social stability. While giving military aid with one hand at the taxpayers’ expense, these same governments allow individuals like Lahun to hide sums in European jurisdictions that are potentially equivalent to the annual aid of small nations. (Source: EU Reporter, a Brussels-based news website publishing content relating to the European Union)

North America

United States
August 13, 2024  The U.S. has approved $20 billion in arms sales to Israel, including scores of fighter jets and advanced air-to-air missiles, the State Department announced. The impending sale includes more than 50 F-15 fighter jets produced by Boeing, Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missiles, or AMRAAMs, 120 mm tank ammunition and high explosive mortars and tactical vehicles. The jets comprise the biggest portion of the $20 billion in sales with the first deliveries expected in 2029. The contracts will also include upgrade kits for Israel to modify its existing fleet of two dozen F-15 fighter jets with new engines and radars, among other upgrades. Much of what is being sold is to help Israel increase its military capability in the long term, the earliest systems being delivered under the contract aren't expected until the 2026 timeframe. It comes at a time of intense concern that Israel may become involved in a wider Middle East war. The United States is committed to the security of Israel, and it is vital to U.S. national interests to assist Israel to develop and maintain a strong and ready self-defense capability. This proposed sale is consistent with those objectives, the State Department said in a release on the sale. The Biden administration has had to balance its continued support for Israel with a growing number of calls from lawmakers and the U.S. public to curb military support there due to the high number of civilian deaths in Gaza. It has curbed one delivery of 2,000-pound weapons amid continued airstrikes by Israel in densely populated civilian areas in Gaza. (Source: VoA / Associated Press = U.S.)

Aug 13, 2024  Former US President Trump was interviewed by SpaceX and Tesla CEO Musk, which aired live on X and lasted for more than two hours. Trump claimed that US President Biden "might not have any IQ at all", and termed Vice President Harris his ’border czar’. The Republican presidential nominee, who has the endorsement of Musk, also praised the X owner for his cost-cutting measures at the social media company. During the chat, Musk pitched himself for a role in Trump's potential administration, which earned him praise from the former US President. (Source: India Today)

13.08.24  Harris is a radical left lunatic, more incompetent than Biden: Trump - who has 88.8 million followers on X - tells Musk. He accused Harris of having failed miserably on border security as hundreds and thousands of people entered the country illegally. (Source: The Telegraph  - India)

13 August 2024  In the eyes of voters, if there is anyone more incompetent than President Biden it is his VP, said the (Republican) pollster Johnson last September. She is faced by Trump, a bully, a loud-mouthed liar and a compulsive fantasist who is apparently unable to speak a single grammatically-correct sentence. But he did build a skyscraper in New York, which is nearly as difficult as getting a submarine into the nimbus. Viktor Orbán was probably right when he said that had Trump been President, Putin would never have sent his tanks into Ukraine because the Russian leader would have had absolutely no idea of how Trump in the White House would react. He knew full well what the Biden-Harris team would do to prevent it: exactly what they did on the Mexican Border. /Photo/ (Source: Brussels Signal - Belgium)
by Myers, an Irish journalist, author and broadcaster who has reported on the wars in Northern Ireland, where he worked throughout the 1970s, Beirut and Bosnia.

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Europe

Cyprus
12.08.2024  British amphibious assault ships have docked off the coast of Southern Cyprus, with over 1,000 commandos positioned at the UK's military base airport in Akrotiri. The number of foreign military forces increases amid heightened tensions in the Middle East. Earlier this month, the Pentagon announced that the US will deploy additional military assets to the Middle East ahead of possible Iranian retaliation after the assassination of Hamas political bureau chief Haniyeh on July 31, in Iran's capital, which Tehran blamed on Israel. (Source: Anadolu Agency - Turkey)

Georgia
August 12, 2024  Georgia must adapt its national security strategies to counter not only traditional aggression but also the ‘grey zone operations’ that threaten its sovereignty in what is a low-intensity, yet persistent, conflict. The purpose of ‘grey operations’ in a ‘low-intensity’ format is to disrupt the state resilience of the target country and deplete its resources. An aggressor employs a strategy that seeks to obtain a desired economic, military, diplomatic, and political outcome while avoiding a direct and costly response from the other side. The aggressor country may take care to maximise the diplomatic isolation of the target country from third countries and it is limiting the target country’s access to a promising market of the aggressor. At the national level, ‘low-intensity’ operations usually aim to encroach on Georgian air, maritime and economic space and will continue to do so in the future. A number of major projects, including the Middle Corridor and the Black Sea Electric Cable should give Georgia a unique role in the larger regional geo-economic structure, at least for several decades to come. (Source: Emeging Europe - Romania)
by Kipiani

North America

United States
12 August 2024  The US has sent a guided missile submarine to the Middle East. The Pentagon said Mr Austin had sent the USS Georgia guided missile submarine to the region. The submarine can carry up to 154 Tomahawk cruise missiles, which are used to strike land targets. Defence Secretary Austin also said an aircraft carrier which was already heading to the area would sail there more quickly. The USS Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group is carrying F-35C fighter jets. The move comes in response to fears of a wider regional conflict, after the recent assassination of senior Hezbollah and Hamas leaders. It signals the US's determination to help defend Israel from any attack by Iran. Iran is being closely watched for any indication of how and when it might respond to the assassination of Hamas's top political leader Haniyeh in Tehran on 31 July. The Iranians blamed Israel for the assassination. Israel has not commented but is widely believed to have been behind it. It remains unclear what Iran could be planning to do. The Hezbollah group, the Iranian-backed militia and political movement in Lebanon.has vowed to respond to the killing by Israel of senior commander Shukr, which happened just hours before Mr Haniyeh’s assassination, in Beirut’s southern suburbs. German airline Lufthansa said it was suspending flights to Tel Aviv in Israel, Lebanon's capital city Beirut, the Jordanian capital Amman, Erbil in Iraq, and the Iranian capital, Tehran, until 21 August based on its current security analysis. Swiss Air has also cancelled its flights scheduled to travel to Tel Aviv and Beirut over the same period. Air France extended its suspension of flights to Beirut. The Biden administration believes a ceasefire in Gaza that frees Israeli hostages would be the best way to calm tensions in the region, and has called for talks to resume. Finance minister Smotrich had urged Israel to reject the US push for ceasefire talks, saying it would be a surrender to Hamas. Meanwhile the leaders of the UK, France and Germany echoed calls for ceasefire talks to resume. We agree that there can be no further delay, said their statement. (Source: BBC - United Kingdom)

NATO

August 12, 2024  Three visions for NATO air and missile defense. At the recent 75th anniversary of NATO, the allies paid close attention to their air and missile defense capabilities. The allies now recognize their low capacity in low-altitude sensors and missile interceptors and are investing in their defense industrial base and in off-the-shelf technologies. The alliance has also expanded its focus from defeating enemy aircraft and cruise missiles to defending against a wider spectrum of threats, including ballistic missiles and small drones. Policymakers, scholars, and military officers continue to critique the broader framework in which allies research, develop, acquire, and deploy air and missile defenses on a largely ad hoc, country-first basis. The current federated approach prioritizes domestic politics and economic interests over allied cooperation and interoperability. NATO allies, they argue, should do more to integrate their air defenses into a stronger, collective architecture. 'The visions that emerge from these critiques and ensuing debates aspire for greater NATO involvement in allied air defense development and deployment plans, aim for Europe to expand air defense procurement of common systems to quickly boost defenses, create economies of scale, improve allied interoperability and predict that a federated approach to air defense will continue for years to come, but suggests that NATO can do more at the margins to encourage air and missile defense coordination. (Source: Center for Strategic and International Studies - U.S.)
by Shaikh, a fellow in the International Security Program and the deputy director of the Missile Defense Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

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Russia
(11  August 2024)  A fire broke out at a cooling tower of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, under the control of Russian forces. Moscow-installed officials said the blaze at a cooling tower had been completely extinguished. Russia and Ukraine trade blame for fire. /Video/ (Source: France 24)
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France
2 August 2024  Destroying the world in French style, anything goes, nothing stands. What we saw a week ago at the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympiad, the meticulous cancellation of the Western culture that the French organisers presented to the world is the result of many decades of cultural preparation - ’wokeness’, the outcome of cultural Marxism, which sprang from Europe and took over the United States through the so-called Frankfurt School, before returning to the Old Continent via France. Leftist intellectuals, who fled from wartime Europe to the United States and nested in Ivy League universities, began their campaign of undermining and dismantling Western values in the first post-war decades. And while the United States have been at the forefront of this global movement, its European hub has undoubtedly been France. After the first generation of mostly German-born intellectuals laid the foundations, it was French thinkers who picked up and cemented the campaign of Western deconstruction. Theorists like Horkheimer, Adorno, Marcuse, Benjamin and Habermas passed the baton to thinkers like Derrida, Foucault, Lyotard, Baudrillard, Deleuze, Barthes, or Guattari. The word is ’postmodernism’ and it succeeds the so-called critical theory. Also known as post-structuralism, it has created a cultural environment where anything goes, nothing stands, no authority is to be respected anymore. Its repercussions are actually to be found everywhere. Linguists will say that language is but an arbitrary field, where nothing can be safely signified. Philosophers will claim that formal logic does not hold water anymore. Architects and artists will challenge traditional norms and notions of beauty and harmony only to replace them with brutality and shock value. Classical ethics and aesthetics are therefore revisited in order to be cancelled. This is the prevalent ideology of a world where there is no good and bad, no right and wrong, male or female, no genders or nations and of course, no Christian God. What Nietzsche first suggested in the context of farce and folly has now become the norm. Present day multiculturalism, demographic substitution, erosion of the nuclear family, LGBTQ cult frenzy and the ’woke’ movement as a whole would not have been possible without the post-structural movement. And the post-structural movement would not have been possible without the French. Under this light, we shall understand that the monstrosity unveiled before our eyes last week’s Paris Olympics opening ceremony was no circumstantial phenomenon. The French did not just manifest, but also celebrated and showed off what they have been doing to us all for about half a century. So do we just say c’est la vie and move on? For the time being it looks like the French way has taken over on a global systemic level. But in order to battle this overall degeneration, we first need to properly understand what it is, and where it comes from. Interestingly enough conservatism as a movement has been founded exactly on the opposition of Burke to the French revolution. In his 1790 pamphlet Reflections on the Revolution in France, the Irish-born British intellectual foresaw and predicted the bloodbath and consequent European war that would come out of the violent toppling of the French monarchy. Almost two and a half centuries later, it is conservatism once again that offers a realistic perspective of what is happening in today’s world, and presents the only set of values and principles which give an alternative to the destruction of our world. The Marathon of our generation has begun. (Source: Brussels Signal - Belgium)
By Bogdanos

European Commission
02/08/2024 23:46 GMT+2  In a letter addressed to Hungary's Ministry of Interior, dated 1 August, Johansson, the Europen Commissioner for Home Affairs questions the fresh changes to the country's National Card scheme, which simplifies visa procedures and security background checks for "guest workers" in specific sectors. The permit lasts for two years and can be renewed for an additional three, paving the way for qualifying for permanent residency. The country opened the National Card to applicants from Ukraine, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Moldova,  Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia. In early July, coinciding with the start of Hungary's presidency of the EU Council and Viktor Orbán's trip to Moscow, the country extended the National Card to citizens from Russia and Belarus. Budapest says many of these workers will be employed in the construction of a nuclear plant using Russian technology. The update initially went unnoticed until Weber, the chair of the centre-left European People's Party (EPP), sent a letter in late July to European Council President Michel, demanding a discussion at the leaders' level. The ’questionable’ new rules ’create grave loopholes for espionage activities’ and could enable large numbers of Russians to enter Hungary ’with minimal supervision, posing a serious risk to national security,’ Weber said in his letter. Each member state is entitled to design and implement its own visa requirements. Orbán's spokesperson described Weber's words as "absurd and hypocritical" and said Hungary's migration system was the "strictest" in the bloc. ’We must remain vigilant as Russia employs every unconventional tool to destabilise the European Union and its values,’ Johansson says in her missive. Russian and Belarusian citizens are still allowed to enter EU territory.  (Source: Euronews - Lyon, France)

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Europe

European Commission
AUGUST 1, 2024 4:55 PM CET ’EU snubs Hungary and Slovakia over Ukraine oil sanctions’. Following Moscow’s 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the EU imposed an embargo on imports of Russian oil but exempted pipeline supplies — including those coming to Hungary and Slovakia via the Druzhba pipeline — to give those countries time to find alternative sources, with the understanding they would do so rapidly. In June, Ukraine was blocking the transit of pipeline crude sold by Moscow’s largest private oil firm, Lukoil, to Central Europe, prompting fears of supply shortages in Budapest and Bratislava. Kyiv was violating a wide-spanning 2014 trade agreement with Brussels. Last month, the two countries sent a letter to the EU executive, urging it to open emergency consultations with Ukraine over the move — a precursor to legal action. But the European Commission rebuffed the demand. The Commission has no plans to begin formal talks with Ukraine after Kyiv imposed a partial ban on exports of Russian oil to Hungary and Slovakia, the EU executive said on Thursday. ’Urgent consultations do not appear to be guaranteed,’it said, arguing that in the Commission's preliminary assessment, the sanctions do not pose ’an immediate risk to [both countries'] security of supply.’ The Commission was still ’verifying facts’; it had responded to the Slovak and Hungarian letter with a request for more information. European Commission declines to open formal talks with Kyiv after its Central European neighbors complained it was violating the 2014 trade deal. After meeting with Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal on Thursday, EU trade chief Dombrovskis said that oil exports to Hungary and Slovakia were ’not affected, as long as Lukoil is not [the] owner of the oil.’ (Source: Politico - U.S.)

Russia
8:21 PM CEST, August 1, 2024  Who’s in the massive civilian prisoner swap between Russia and the West?        Released by Russia and Belarus:    Fadeyeva, 32, Chanysheva, 42, and Ostanin, 47 - former coordinators of regional offices of the late opposition figure Navalny - arrested after Navalny’s political network was outlawed in 2021; later convicted of extremism. Fadeyeva, and Ostanin, each sentenced to 9 years in prison, Chanysheva, convicted in 2023 of extremism charges, widely seen as politically motivated, got a 9 1/2-year term.    Gershkovich, 32, a Wall Street Journal reporter, detained in the Russian city of Yekaterinburg in March 2023, accused of “gathering secret information” at the CIA’s behest about a military equipment factory,     Kara-Murza, 42, a dual Russian-U.K. citizen and opposition politician. He fell ill in 2015 and 2017 from near-fatal poisonings he blamed on the Kremlin. A columnist for The Washington Post, he was arrested in 2022 after criticizing the war in Ukraine; convicted in 2023 of treason and other charges; sentenced to 25 years in prison in a case he rejected as politically motivated. His wife said his health deteriorated in prison as a result of the poisonings. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize this year.     Krieger, a German medical worker, convicted in Belarus of terrorism charges in June, sentenced to death; pardoned Tuesday by President Lukashenko.    Kurmasheva, 47, a dual U.S.-Russian national, the Prague-based editor for the U.S. government-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s Tatar-Bashkir service, arrested visiting her ailing mother in 2023 in her hometown of Kazan; accused of not self-reporting as a “foreign agent”; convicted in July of spreading false information about the Russian military; sentenced to 6½ years in prison.     Lik, 19, a dual Russian-German national, arrested in southern Russia in 2023, accused of taking photos of a military unit and sending them to a “representative of a foreign state.” Court officials said he opposed to the war in Ukraine. He was convicted of treason and sentenced to four years in prison. Lik was 17 at the time of his arrest.    Moyzhesm, a dual Russian-German national, a migration lawyer who helped Russians apply for European Union residence permits; arrested in May in St. Petersburg, reportedly accused of treason. ’Little else is known about his case’.    Orlov, 71, co-chairman of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning human rights group Memorial, a veteran human rights campaigner, convicted of repeated, publicly discrediting the Russian military, sentenced to 2 1/2 years in prison in February for his protests of the war in Ukraine. He has rejected the charges as politically motivated.    Pipovarov, 42, headed the opposition group Open Russia, outlawed in 2021; pulled off a flight and arrested that same year. In 2022, convicted of carrying out activities of an “undesirable” organization, sentenced to four years in prison. He has rejected the charges as politically motivated.    Skochilenko, 33, artist and musician, convicted for replacing several price tags in a supermarket with anti-war slogans; sentenced to seven years in prison in November 2023.    Schoebel, a German national, arrested in February 2024 at Pulkovo Airport in St. Petersburg when gummies containing a psychoactive component of cannabis were allegedly found in his possession; detained since then, facing drug-smuggling charges.     Yashin, a former municipal deputy of the Krasnoselsky district in Moscow,, a Kremlin critic, serving an 8 1/2-year sentence for criticizing Russia’s war in Ukraine. He was one of the few well-known opposition activists to stay in Russia since the war.    Voronin, a dual Russian-German national, a political scientist who ran a consultancy that reportedly collaborated with journalists, arrested in 2021, convicted of treason in 2023 and sentenced to 13 years and three months in prison. He was implicated in the treason trial of Safronov, who allegedly passed him information on Russian military activities, which Voronin allegedly then gave to German intelligence.    Whelan, 54, a corporate security executive, attending a friend’s wedding, arrested in 2018 in Moscow,, accused of espionage, convicted in 2020 and sentenced to 16 years in prison.         Released by the West:    Dultsev and Dultseva, a Russian couple arrested on espionage charges in Ljubljana, Slovenia, in 2022. Posing as Argentine citizens, they reportedly had used Slovenia as a base since 2017 to travel to neighboring countries and relay Moscow’s orders to other Russian sleeper agents. They have two children. They pleaded guilty Wednesday, sentenced to 19 months in prison, and released on time served.     Klyushin, 43, a wealthy businessman with ties to the Kremlin, convicted in Boston in 2023 of charges including wire fraud and securities fraud in a nearly $100 million scheme, relied on secret earnings information stolen via hacking U.S. computer networks. He was said to have personally pocketed $33 million in the scheme. Klyushin was arrested in Switzerland and extradited to the U.S. in 2021; sentenced to nine years in prison.    Konoshchenok, a suspected officer in Russia’s Federal Security Service, extradited to the United States from Estonia last year to face charges he smuggled ammunition and dual-use technology to help Moscow’s war in Ukraine. U.S. prosecutors say he was detained in 2022 while trying to return to Russia from Estonia with about three dozen types of semiconductors and electronic components.     Krasikov, 58,convicted in 2021 of shooting to death “Tornike” Khangoshvili, a 40-year-old Georgian citizen of Chechen ethnicity, in a Berlin park. The German judges concluded it was an assassination ordered by the Russian security services. He was sentenced to life imprisonment. President Putin this year hinted at a possible swap for Krasikov.    Mikushin, arrested in Norway in 2022 on espionage charges. Norway’s domestic security agency PST said Mikushin entered the country saying he was a Brazilian citizen. He was in Norway under a false identity while working for a Russia’s intelligence service, Norwegian investigators said.    Rubtsov, also known as Gonzalez, a journalist working for Spanish media; arrested on espionage charges in eastern Poland, near the Ukrainian border, in the first days after Russia’s full-scale-invasion in 2022. Poland’s Internal Security Agency identified him as a Russian intelligence agent, although some rights groups criticized Warsaw for holding him for more than two years without charge. Reporters Without Borders called for his release.    Seleznev, a Russian citizen, son of a Russian lawmaker, convicted in the U.S. in 2017 of hacking into more than 500 businesses and stealing millions of credit card numbers, which he then sold on websites. He was sentenced to 27 years in prison and ordered to pay nearly $170 million in restitution to his victims. (Source: Associated Press - U.S.)
by Litvonova

European Commission
AUGUST 1, 2024 4:55 PM CET  ’EU snubs Hungary and Slovakia over Ukraine oil sanctions’. Following Moscow’s 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the EU imposed an embargo on imports of Russian oil but exempted pipeline supplies - including those coming to Hungary and Slovakia via the Druzhba pipeline - to give those countries time to find alternative sources, with the understanding they would do so rapidly. In June, Ukraine was blocking the transit of pipeline crude sold by Moscow’s largest private oil firm, Lukoil, to Central Europe, prompting fears of supply shortages in Budapest and Bratislava. Kyiv was violating a wide-spanning 2014 trade agreement with Brussels. Last month, the two countries sent a letter to the EU executive, urging it to open emergency consultations with Ukraine over the move - a precursor to legal action. But the European Commission rebuffed the demand. The Commission has no plans to begin formal talks with Ukraine after Kyiv imposed a partial ban on exports of Russian oil to Hungary and Slovakia, the EU executive said on Thursday. ’Urgent consultations do not appear to be guaranteed, ’it said, arguing that in the Commission's preliminary assessment, the sanctions do not pose ’an immediate risk to [both countries'] security of supply.’ The Commission was still ’verifying facts’; it had responded to the Slovak and Hungarian letter with a request for more information. The European Commission declines to open formal talks with Kyiv after its Central European neighbors complained it was violating the 2014 trade deal. After meeting with Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal on Thursday, EU trade chief Dombrovskis said that oil exports to Hungary and Slovakia were ’not affected, as long as Lukoil is not [the] owner of the oil.’ (Source: Politico - U.S.)

Ukraine
Aug 01, 2024, 07:04 AM  Zelenskiy speaking to French media outlets said on Wednesday that Kyiv does not want China to act as a mediator in its conflict with Russia but hoped Beijing would apply greater pressure on Moscow to end the war. China, which hosted Ukrainian Foreign Minister Kuleba last week and has a "no limits" partnership with Russia, has advanced its own peace plan to end the war based on non-escalation, direct negotiations and humanitarian assistance. Russian forces currently occupy a little less than 20% of Ukrainian territory and have been making incremental gains in the eastern part of the 1,000-km front. Russian President Putin last month said Moscow was willing to negotiate an end to the war, but talks were contingent on Ukraine giving up the four regions Russia annexed in 2022. It's impossible, Zelenskiy said. ’And it is an issue that is up to us alone,’ he said. (Source: The Straits Times - Singapore / Reuters - United Kingdom)

Pacific Ocean

11:56 ET, Thu, Aug 1, 2024  The United States military has sent a warning to China by blowing up a decommissioned naval ship, the 820-foot USNAVY helicopter carrier USS Tarawa in the Pacific. A bomb was dropped by an Air Force B-2 stealth bomber in a powerful act of surprise. ’This capability is an answer to an urgent need to quickly neutralize maritime threats over massive expanses of ocean around the world at minimal costs,’ the US Navy said in a statement. The ship, weighing in at 39,000 tons, was active from 1976 to 2009. The sinking exercise was conducted with other nations, including South Korea and Malaysia. ’Once the ship is sunk, authorities try to remove harmful elements from the ocean’ that could degrade the environment. (Source: Daily Express U.S.)

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Europe

Hungary
4:22 PM CEST, July 31, 2024  In the months leading up to elections for the European Parliament, Hungarians were ’warned’ that casting a ballot against Prime Minister Viktor Orbán would be a vote for all-out war. Orbán used a pro-government media empire that’s dominated the country’s political discourse for more than a decade. The right-wing Fidesz party cast the June 9 election as an existential struggle, one that could preserve peace in Europe if Orbán won -  or fuel widespread instability if he didn’t. The party came first in the elections. To Fidesz’s 44%. an upstart party which attracted disaffected voters led by Magyar, a former Fidesz insider, took 29% of the vote. Since 2010, Orbán’s government 'has promoted hostility to migrants and LGBTQ+ rights, distrust' of the European Union, and a belief that Soros - one of Orbán’s enduring foes - is engaged in secret plots to destabilize Hungary. ’Such messaging’ has delivered Orbán’s party four consecutive two-thirds majorities in parliament and, most recently, the most Hungarian delegates in the EU legislature. Public television and radio channels consistently echo talking points communicated both by Fidesz and a network of think tanks and pollsters that receive funding from the government and the party. Their analysts routinely appear in affiliated media to bolster government narratives, while ’independent’ commentators rarely, if ever, appear. According to press watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF), Orbán has used media buyouts by government-connected, to build “a true media empire subject to his party’s orders.' In 2016, Hungary’s oldest daily newspaper was suddenly shuttered after being bought by a businessman with links to Orbán. In 2018, nearly 500 pro-government outlets were simultaneously donated by their owners to a foundation headed by Orbán loyalists, creating a sprawling right-wing media conglomerate. The RSF group estimates that such buyouts have given Orbán’s party control of some 80% of Hungary’s media market resources. In 2021, RSF put Orbán on its list of media “predators,” the first EU leader to earn the distinction. A study showed up to 90% of state advertising revenue is awarded to pro-Fidesz media outlets, keeping them afloat. 'Hungary spent nearly $4.8 million on political ads on platforms owned by Facebook’s parent company, Meta, in a 30-day period in May and June', outspending Germany. The vast majority of that spending came from Fidesz or its proxies. One major spender is Megafon, a self-declared training center for aspiring conservative influencers. The government is the largest advertiser in Hungary. A network of ’independent’ journalists and online outlets continue to function and struggles to remain competitive. ’Independent’ lawmaker Hadházy said abuses go largely unaddressed because the majority of voters are unaware of them. The people that consume those media simply don’t hear about these things. The government controls state media by hand and ’spends about 50 billion forints ($135 million) a year on advertisements’ … that sustain their own TV networks and websites. Far more people hear their messages than the facts, he said. On a recent day in Mezőcsát, a small village on the Hungarian Great Plain, Hadházy inspected the site of an industrial park that was built with 290 million forints ($795,000) in EU funds. The problem, he said, is that since the site was completed in 2017, it has never been active, and ’the money used to build it has disappeared’. (Source: APNews – U.S.)
by Spike
An AP note: „This story has been corrected to show that the building of the industrial park in the village of Mezőcsát involved EU funds in the amount of 290 million forints, not 290 million euros’.

France
31/07/2024 - 19:06  The sporting competitions at the Paris Olympic Games are being staged at some of France’s most emblematic locations. /Photo(s)/ (Source: france24)

Ukraine
31/07/2024 - 19:17  With Russian forces gaining momentum on the front and aid from allies ebbing or in doubt, yesterday Zelensky said Russia should be represented at a second peace summit set for November after a first summit convened by Ukraine in Switzerland did not feature Russia on the invitee list and China shunned. Zelensky gathered leaders and top officials from dozens of countries at the Swiss mountainside resort of Burgenstock in June for a first summit. Since the whole world wants them to be at the table, we cannot be against it; if China wants, it can force Russia to stop this war, Zelensky said.. His push focuses on a sweeping 10-point plan that 'would restore Ukrainian territorial integrity, return prisoners of war and give Ukraine energy and economic guarantees'. Russian President Putin has said he is open to negotiations, but would only order a ceasefire if Kyiv effectively surrendered territory that Moscow claims as its own. The United States is a challenge today, Zelensky said. A victory for Republican candidate Trump - who claims he will be able to force the sides into a negotiated settlement - would bring Washington's continued support into question. (Source: AFP - France)

Asia

Iran
Wednesday 31 July 2024 23:10 BST  Today morning, at an emergency meeting of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, Iran’s Supreme Leader Khamenei has issued an order for direct retaliation against Israel, following the killing of Hamas’ top political leader Haniyeh who was in Tehran for the inauguration of Iran’s new president, Pezeshkian. Israel has previously vowed to kill Haniyeh and other leaders of Hamas over the group’s October 7 attack. Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard has claimed that Haniyeh was assassinated and has laid the blame for his death at the feet of Israel. The two nations risked plunging into war earlier this year when Israel hit Iran’s embassy in Damascus in April, Iran retaliated, and Israel countered. Through almost 10 months of war in Gaza, Iran has tried to strike a balance, putting pressure on Israel with sharply increased attacks by its allies and proxy forces in the region, while avoiding an all-out war between the two nations. Iran and the regional forces it backs - Hamas, Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen and multiple militias in Iraq - form what they call the 'axis of resistance.' Leaders of those groups were in Tehran for the inauguration of Pezeshkian yesterday. Haniyeh was assassinated at about 2 am local time, after attending the ceremony and meeting with Khamenei. (Source: independent – United Kingdom)

North America

United States
July 31, 2024  Trump questions Harris' race during the National Association of Black Journalists convention. /Video */ (Source: YouTube / APNews = U.S.)
* 86 823 views

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Europe

Poland
30 July 2024  A new ’pro’-EU government came to power in Poland in December, drawing a line under a period when Warsaw and Budapest were regularly allies in disputes with the bloc over issues such as the rule of law or LGBT rights. Relations between Poland and Hungary have soured over Budapest’s decision to maintain warm economic and diplomatic ties with Russia, and more recently its blocking of European Union refunds for member states that gave munitions to Kyiv. On Saturday, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán delivered a speech in which he accused Poland of hypocrisy and of buying Russian oil through intermediaries. “They lecture us on moral grounds, they criticise us for our economic relations with Russia, and at the same time they are blithely doing business with the Russians,” he said. Simmering tensions concerning Warsaw and Budapest’s differences over Ukraine erupted into a diplomatic spat. Online magazine Visegrad Insight published an interview on Monday in which Polish Foreign Minister Sikorski said that his Hungarian counterpart, Szijjártó, appeared to change his mind about a Polish proposal to hold an EU meeting in Ukraine after receiving instructions from Budapest. (Sikorski) has crossed another line and lied when he claimed that I enthusiastically supported his nonsense proposal to hold the next informal meeting of EU foreign ministers in Ukraine, Szijjártó posted on his Facebook page. (Source: euractiv - Headquarters Brussels, Belgium; „with Reuters” - United Kingdom)

Jul 30, 2024 at 2:28 PM EDT  A convoy of American military vehicles has been pictured rolling across Poland's highways as the U.S. Army moves equipment to a site within the NATO member country to boost the alliance's eastern flank. Polish news outlet Radio Zet published an image of tanks next to a report of how residents in the regions of Lubuskie and Wielkopolska had noted an increase in military vehicles traveling on the roads. The outlet said that, until the end of September, the U.S. Army will move equipment from a military base in Mannheim, Germany, to warehouses in Powidz, where there is a NATO-funded Army Prepositioned Stocks (APS) storage facility. The warehouses in Powidz are adjacent to the airport, which allows for the rapid transfer of equipment by air, along with ammunition stocks if necessary, the outlet reported. The site will eventually host 87 tanks, over 150 infantry fighting vehicles and 18 self-propelled howitzers. In June, the U.S. Army said that 14 M1 Abrams tanks and an M88 armored recovery vehicle had arrived at the site, located around 250 miles west of Poland's border with Ukraine. Wojcik, a retired U.S. Army colonel, a senior fellow at The Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA) told last month that the site would eventually be fully equipped for an armored brigade. ’It could be deployed to fight within a few days’, rather than waiting for a month for the equipment to arrive by ship. (Source: newsweek - U.S.)

Slovakia
July 30, 2024  Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico said a technical solution is on the table involving several countries which could renew the Lukoil transit. He has threatened to stop sending diesel fuel to Ukraine in response to the halting of Lukoil's crude oil transit through Ukraine, following Kyiv's imposition of sanctions on the Russian oil giant last month. If the transit of Russian gas through Ukraine won’t be renewed shortly, Slovnaft [the country’s Slovnaft refinery, controlled by Hungary's MOL] won’t continue with fuel supplies to Ukraine which covers one-tenth of the Ukrainian consumption, Fico said in a video message. Fico pointed out he called in the Ukrainian ambassador Kastran for a meeting in which he said he reminded him that the Slovak public very negatively assesses the step of the Ukrainian president against Lukoil. Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs Szijjártó has described the situation as an oil security risk, stating that Hungary will continue to block the disbursement of funds from the European Peace Facility (EPF) for Ukraine. Slovakia and Hungary have protested to the EU over Kyiv's move but have so far received a cool response, given that other countries have already taken painful steps to cut their dependence on Russian oil supplies. Hungary, Slovakia, and Czechia were exempted from EU sanctions on Russian crude oil pipeline imports until the end of this year due to their high dependency on it but were expected to use that time to reduce their dependence; instead Hungary has actually increased its dependence on Russian oil imports. The European Commission is not rushing to settle the dispute as the Ukrainian move did not cause 'an immediate problem, given that it only affects Lukoil imports' – which amount to 2mn tonnes a year. All oil flows through Druzhba are due to end at the end of this year anyway unless Ukraine agrees to continue the transit contract with Russia. Fico also reiterated that the war in Ukraine needs to be ended with an immediate ceasefire. Fico concluded by saying that he refuses the politics of a new iron curtain between Russia and the EU and that the EU if it wants to get out of total influence of the USA, it will have to think about forms of cooperation with the Russian Federation which should include cooperation in the area of strategic goods. (Source: intellinews - Germany)

Asia

India
30 Jul 2024  Landslides in southern India triggered by torrential monsoon rains have killed dozens of people with hundreds more feared trapped under mud and debris in the southern coastal state of Kerala. (Source: aljazeera - Qatar)

Philippines
Jul 30, 2024  Amid heightened tensions in the disputed South China Sea, just months before the U.S. votes in a November presidential election that will have broad ramifications for Asia, the United States unlocked an "unprecedented' $500 million in security assistance for the Philippines during high-level talks in Manila on Tuesday, U.S. Defense Secretary Austin said. He and Secretary of State Blinken met with Philippine defense chief Teodoro and Foreign Secretary Manalo for the countries’ first-ever two-plus-two talks in Manila since the format began in 2012 as the officials agreed on key steps to bolster the Philippine military and continue modernizing the alliance. A large portion of the latest U.S. military assistance, described as a “once-in-a-generation investment,” would go into modernizing the Philippine military and coast guard to help Manila shore up its defenses in response to a recent series of violent clashes between Chinese and Philippine vessels in and near disputed waters, particularly around a Philippine outpost on Second Thomas Shoal. Over $128 million would be used to upgrade facilities within nine Philippine military sites U.S. forces have access to under the allies’ 2014 Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA). Funding was also made available to support Manila's cybersecurity capabilities. The roadmap is expected to see Manila continue to receive equipment such as radars, military transport aircraft and drones, as well as coastal- and air-defense systems. The two sides also said negotiations on a General Security of Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA) were progressing and would be finalized within the year. The officials also again emphasized that the 1951 U.S.-Philippine mutual defense treaty applies to armed attacks on either nation's armed forces or public vessels “anywhere in the Pacific and in the South China Sea.” Coming only days after a similar two-plus-two gathering Sunday between U.S. and Japanese officials, these meetings are indicative of a broader U.S.-led regional defense strategy that aims to restrict China’s maritime reach within the so-called first island chain, of which the Philippines is on the front lines. This strategy features multilateral coalition-building and relies on critical contributions from several countries, including Japan, the Philippines and Australia. A number of countries - allies and partners - have been attempting to shore up ties with the camp of Republican nominee and former leader Trump, who as president repeatedly expressed a disdainful view of the U.S. alliance system. Austin sought to reassure Manila that the current momentum in bilateral ties “enjoys bipartisan (congressional) support.” The Philippines’ proximity to both Taiwan and key sea lanes in the South China Sea makes it an attractive staging point for the U.S. and its allies that could boost their ability to respond to regional crises. Manila granted U.S. forces access to four additional military locations last year - in addition to five previous ones. Three of the new EDCA sites face north toward self-ruled Taiwan, while the other is near the South China Sea. China claims large parts of the South China Sea, including the Second Thomas Shoal, where the Philippines maintains a small military garrison atop a rusty naval ship, the Sierra Madre, that it deliberately grounded in 1999 to reinforce its claims in those waters. The two sides agreed to allow Philippine resupply missions for purely humanitarian purposes, meaning allowing Manila to provide its contingent on Second Thomas Shoal with food and medical supplies but not military equipment or construction materials. (Source: japantimes)

Turkey
July 30, 2024 11:06 am CET  President Erdoğan told a meeting of his ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) earlier on Monday that Turkey ’must be very strong so that Israel can’t do these ridiculous things to Palestine.' ’Just like we entered Karabakh, just like we entered Libya, we will do [something] similar exactly to them,’ Erdoğan said, referring to Turkey’s past military interventions. In light of Turkish President Erdoğan's threats to invade Israel and his dangerous rhetoric, Foreign Minister Katz instructed diplomats … to urgently engage with all NATO members, calling for the condemnation of Turkey and demanding its expulsion from the regional alliance, the Israeli foreign ministry said Monday. Turkey joined NATO in 1952 and has the alliance’s second-largest army. NATO does not have a specific mechanism to suspend or expel a member, though members may voluntarily withdraw. Dutch ’far-right’ leader Wilders, whose party is the largest in the Netherlands, called Erdoğan an Islamofascist in a social media post on Sunday, adding that Turkey should be kicked out of NATO. Wilders has long proposed expelling Turkey from the alliance. The Netherlands, unlike Israel, is also a NATO member. NATO Secretary-General Stoltenberg dismissed the possibility of creating such a mechanism in 2021, saying it would never happen. (Source: politico - U.S.)

North America

United States
July 30, 2024, 5:00 AM  'Would the U.S. consider assassinating Putin?’ Regime change has not worked out well for U.S. interests: the overthrow of Hussein in Iraq was no small factor in bringing about the Arab Spring, with effects that continue to reverberate across the Middle East as reflected by unresolved civil wars in Libya, Syria, and Yemen, as well as ’ongoing political instability in Egypt’ and Tunisia. The U.S. occupation of Iraq also facilitated the rise of the islamic state. And the Taliban ultimately outlasted the United States in Afghanistan by returning to power despite 20 years of American blood and treasure, and they now give sanctuary to insurgent groups threatening Pakistan, Iran, its Central Asian neighbors, ’and China’. More recently, the United States made no pretense in concealing its hand in killing Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force Commander Suleimani in January 2020, an action that historic precedent would suggest was an act of war. Only the strike against Suleimani occurred while he was abroad. Operations to depose Mosaddegh in Iran depended rather on internal elements to facilitate the plots. The U.S. governments have arguably favored the status quo of a predictable adversary. Should the United States and its allies seek to depose Putin by 'enabling' a coup in his absence, or assassinating him during such travels? The answer lies in assessing the risk versus gain. If the bar was juxtaposing the status quo with the consequences of Putin’s violent removal, would Russia’s threat to the United States and its allies be degraded? Would Russian troops withdraw from Ukraine and cease posing a threat to NATO allies in the Baltics and Eastern Europe? Or might Russian intentions become even more hostile and less predictable? "Putin is fairly predictable. The inclination to accept the known status quo is further strengthened when that country is armed with nuclear weapons". As regards Russia, ’even under the most ideal circumstances’ in which the U.S. government could remove Putin and conceal its hand in doing so, how confident is Washington that a stable and less hostile leadership would succeed him? In Russia, like most autocracies, power rests with those who control the nation’s instruments of power - primarily the guns, but likewise the money, infrastructure, natural resources, connections, and knowledge of where the skeletons are to be found. That power is currently concentrated within a small circle of septuagenarians, almost all of whom have long ties to Putin, the Cold War-era KGB, and St. Petersburg. The Russian Armed Forces might have the numbers in terms of troops and tools, but under Putin, as it was in Soviet days, they are kept on a tight leash and closely monitored, with little discretionary authority for drawing weapons or coming out of their garrisons. The three organizations most capable of moving on Putin and the Kremlin are the Federal Security Service, or FSB; the Rosgvardia, or National Guard; and the Presidential Security Service within the Federal Protective Service, or FSO. The FSB is Russia’s internal security and intelligence arm through which Putin governs given its relatively massive and ubiquitous presence across all the country’s institutions. The FSB enforces Putin’s rule, monitors dissent, intimidates, punishes, and liaises with organized crime. Bortnikov leads the FSB, having succeeded Patrushev, who followed Putin and has served since as one of his chief lieutenants. Until recently, Patrushev served as Russian Security Council chief and was most likely the Kremlin’s no. 2, and might still be, despite having been made a presidential advisor for shipping. Bortnikov, like Patrushev, shares Putin’s world view, paranoia for the West, political philosophy, and glorification of the old Soviet empire. Bortnikov is considered by Kremlinologists to be Putin’s most relied-upon and trusted subordinate, and in turn, the individual best positioned to overthrow him, should he desire. Uncorroborated rumors suggest health issues. His deputy, Korolev, some 10 years younger, is regarded as effective, similarly ruthless, but perhaps too ambitious and ostentatious in his relationships with Russian organized crime. It’s likely that Putin sees a bright future for Korolev but has enough reservation to justify more seasoning and evaluation before having him succeed Bortnikov. The Rosgvardia is Putin’s brute force. It was established in 2016 from among the interior ministry’s militias variously responsible for internal order and border security to be Putin’s long red line against protests, uprisings, and armed organized coup attempts. The roughly 300,000-strong Rosgvardia is commanded by longtime former Putin bodyguard Zolotov. Likewise a part of Putin’s septuagenarian St. Petersburg crowd, with extensive past ties to organized crime, Zolotov emerged somewhat from the shadows following then-Wagner Group leader Prigozhin’s June 2023 revolt. Zolotov claimed credit for protecting Moscow and mused publicly at how his organization would likely grow and secure more resources to facilitate its critical responsibilities. Zolotov might not be as educated or sophisticated as Putin’s traditional siloviki associates, all former Cold War-era KGB veterans, but making his way up the ladder as he did from a St. Petersburg street thug, he’s not averse to using force to achieve his aims. Little is publicly known concerning Zolotov’s politics apart from loyalty to his boss, but there’s no evidence he might offer a progressive alternative less hostile to the West. As Putin has done for all of those in his inner circle to secure their loyalty, Zolotov’s family members have been awarded land, gifts, and key posts. Patrushev’s son, for example, is now a deputy prime minister. The FSO includes the Presidential Security Service, some 50,000 troops, and is responsible for Putin’s close physical protection. Little is known about its director, Kochnev, now 60, whose mysterious official bio indicates that he was born in Moscow, served in the military from 1982 to 1984, and then went into “the security agencies of the USSR and the Russian Federation” from 1984 to 2002, after which time he was officially assigned to the FSO. If Kochnev wanted Putin dead, he’s had plenty of time to pursue that goal, but he is unlikely to have the means and network to go further on his own in seizing power. Kochnev would still need the FSB and the Rosgvardia to accomplish the mission so would likely be an accomplice, but he would not be at the forefront of such a plot. There are likewise a handful of others close to Putin who might influence his succession, or be the face of it, such as Sechin, former deputy prime minister and current Rosneft CEO; former KGB Col. Gen. Ivanov, also a former defense minister and first deputy prime minister; and former KGB Col. Gen. Ivanov, who also had a stint as the Federal Narcotics Service director. All are known to be ideologically in line with the Russian leader and seek a restored empire unwilling to subscribe to a world order and rules created by the West that they believe aim to keep Moscow weak and subservient. If Putin were assassinated abroad, regardless of the evidence, the old guard would likely accuse the United States and use it as a lightning rod to consolidate power and rally the public. And sharing Putin’s paranoia over the West’s existential threat, the risk is credible that they would retaliate militarily, directly, and with uncertain restraint. Believing themselves insecure, they would likewise crack down at home in an indiscriminately ruthless manner that might unleash long-contained revolutionary vigor among the population, which would throw a large, nuclear-armed power into chaos. But could the United States do it if it wanted to? History shows that foreign leaders are not immune to assassination. Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico survived being shot at close range by a disgruntled citizen in May. Unlike in the movies, however, assassinations are complicated, particularly against well-protected and deliberately unpredictable targets in foreign environments over which one has no control. According to leaked documents and the account of Karakulov, a former engineer and FSO captain, Putin is paranoid concerning his safety and health. Karakulov’s observations, Putin’s limited travel, and his proclivity to cloister himself from direct contact with but a small number of insiders for his safety makes him a hard target. Scrupulous care for his movements includes the intense vetting, quarantining, and close monitoring of those involved with his transportation and his personal routine as well as in securing the cars, trains, and planes he uses. For any such operation to succeed, close target reconnaissance and good intelligence are required to determine patterns and vulnerabilities on which to construct a plan. But while foreign head-of-state visits follow certain protocols and have predictable events, there are no long-term patterns within which to easily identify vulnerabilities. Other considerations include a means to infiltrate and exfiltrate the various members executing the operation as well as their tools. ’North Korea is not an easy place to visit’ let alone operate in for a foreign intelligence service to clandestinely steal secrets or conduct an observable action such as an assassination. There are certainly additional risks when Putin or any foreign leader ventures beyond the layered, redundant, and tested security protocols enjoyed in their home cocoons. Visiting dignitaries must rely on the host government for a variety of resources and needs too numerous and costly to pack, and when doing so would offend the locals. And that extends to perimeter and route security, emergency medical support, and infrastructure integrity. ’The threat to a foreign leader’s communications security, habits, health information, and that of their entourage is higher while in transit abroad - and therefore an attractive intelligence target’. The multiple moving pieces and complicated logistics associated with such visits produce information that must be shared with the host governments and span agendas, itineraries, dietary requirements, flight and cargo manifests, communication frequencies, telephone numbers, email addresses, travelers’ biographic details, and weapons, to name a few. 'Even with the best-laid plans for protecting Putin, one weak link could be the Russian leader’s self-imposed vulnerability, depending on the aging and problematic Soviet-designed Ilyushin Il-96 series jets he uses, as he did in recent travels to North Korea and Vietnam. Even if Russia builds and updates the replacement parts, there is long-term structural fatigue and limitations when trying to reconfigure so old an airframe design. While there’s arguably an element of Putin’s pride in wishing to use Russian equipment, it can be suspected that his inclination is driven more by paranoia for what adversaries might implant on his transport that prevents him from adopting newer Western aircraft, as his country’s commercial airlines have'. There are also significant bureaucratic hurdles to lethal operations. For the moment, at least, the U.S. practice of covert action is dictated by the rule of law. These are primarily executive orders rather than public laws, like EO 12333, which 'ironically forbids assassination', and the various presidential memos issued by Obama in 2013, Trump in 2017, and Biden in 2022 guiding the use of 'direct action,' the euphemism for drone strikes and other kinetic operations, against terrorist targets outside of conflict zones. But while the United States killed Suleimani as a terrorist who fit these guidelines, 'killing foreign leaders based on credible intelligence reflecting their ongoing efforts to do harm to the United States would reasonably still meet the legal bar for preemptive self-defense'. When it comes to killing Putin or any prominent adversary, the biggest challenge is not necessarily if it can be done, but whether it should be done. Russia, as Putin frequently reminds the West in his saber-rattling speeches threatening nuclear war, is another matter. What happens if you fail? (Source: foreignpolicy - U.S.)
by London, a professor of intelligence studies at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service and a nonresident scholar at the Middle East Institute, a former CIA operations officer. He served in the CIA’s Clandestine Service for more than 34 years - including three assignments as a chief of station and as CIA’s counterterrorism chief for South and Southwest Asia. He is the author of The Recruiter: Spying and the Lost Art of American Intelligence.

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Europe

Lithuania
Jul 26, 2024 at 1:31 PM EDT  NATO member state Lithuania is drawing up plans for a mass evacuation of civilians 'in preparation for the possibility of a war breaking out', the country's Interior Ministry said. Lithuania's Interior Minister Bilotaite was cited as saying on Thursday that authorities should be prepared to relocate a quarter of the country's population of 2.6 million - giving priority to pregnant women, families with young children, and people with disabilities. On July 5, Vilnius Mayor Benkunskas outlined some other measures that would allow the country to protect its civilians in the event of an attack, including developing a network of shelters. To date, 41 warning sirens have been installed in the city of Vilnius. They cover approximately thirty percent of the city's territory. (Source: newsweek *)
* an American magazine

Asia

China
26.07.2024  During his meeting with EU foreign affairs chief Borrell, Wang said China will, as always, support the European integration process and support the EU in adhering to strategic autonomy. "(China-EU should) engage in equal dialogue and enhance understanding, and respond to the uncertainty of the international situation with the stability of China-EU relations," he said. (Source: aa - Turkey)

26.07.2024 High representative Borrell met with Foreign Minister Wang in the margins of the ASEAN Regional Forum in Vientiane, Laos on 26 July. They discussed EU-China relations. The HR/VP said that the EU and China needs to acknowledge their respective concerns. (Source: eeas *)
* European Commission, Brussels, Belgium

Kazakhstan
26 July 2024 23:34 (UTC+04:00)  Russia and Kazakhstan are both committed to advancing the International North-South Transport Corridor, according to Overchuk, Deputy Prime Minister of Russia. "Equally important is the enhancement of transport routes towards China, given the increasing access to Chinese agricultural markets. We must support these opportunities with a conducive business environment and modern infrastructure," he stated during a meeting of the Intergovernmental Commission for Cooperation between the two countries in Astana. The North-South International Transport Corridor is a 7,200 km multimodal route linking St. Petersburg with the ports of Iran and India. It serves as an alternative to the traditional sea route through the Suez Canal. The corridor features both western and eastern branches through Iran. The western branch includes road transport via Rasht, while the eastern branch utilizes rail. The corridor ends at the port of Bandar Abbas in Iran, from where cargo can be shipped to India. The western branch also traverses Azerbaijan, while the eastern branch goes through Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan. Overchuk also highlighted ongoing efforts to improve checkpoints and infrastructure connectivity between Russia and Kazakhstan. In trade relations, Kazakhstan and Russia saw a turnover of $9.7 billion from January to May 2024, a 12.5 percent decrease from $11.1 billion during the same period in 2023. Kazakhstan's exports to Russia in the first five months of 2024 totaled $3.36 billion, marking a 21.5 percent decline from $4.3 billion year-on-year. Conversely, imports from Russia fell by 6.7 percent to $6.3 billion, down from $6.8 billion in the same period of 2023. (Source: azernews *)
* a centre-right orientation, weekly newspaper in Azerbaijan

North America

United States
Friday 26 July 2024 19:04 BST  An analysis that Trump may have been hit by shrapnel, his former White House physician Jackson called “wrong and inappropriate.” During testimony Wednesday before the House Judiciary, FBI director Wray said the FBI had collected eight spent rounds from the site of the Pennsylvania rally and had accounted for each shot gunman Crooks fired at Trump. “With respect to former president Trump, there’s some question about whether or not it’s a bullet or shrapnel that hit his ear,' the FBI said. (Source: independent *)
* UK

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Greece
July 25, 2024 1:41 PM  Greece formally approved an offer to buy 20 F-35 Joint Strike Fighters from the United States as part of a major defense overhaul, government officials said Thursday. Delivery of the fifth-generation jet made by Lockheed Martin is expected to start in 2028, while Greece maintains the option to purchase 20 additional F-35 jets as part of an $8.6 billion deal. Athens has been seeking an advantage in the air since Turkey's exclusion from F-35 purchases and has also acquired advanced French-made Rafale fighter jets. Deliveries to the Greek air force began in 2021, starting with jets previously used by France's military that will be supplemented by new aircraft built by French defense contractor Dassault Aviation. Current members of the F-35 program, either as participants or through military sales, are: the United States, Australia, Belgium, Britain, Canada, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Israel, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Norway Poland, Singapore, Korea and Switzerland.. (Source: voanews - U.S.)

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Europe

Hungary
July 24, 2024  Data published by the Finland-based Centre for Research and Clean Air (CREA), show that last year Ukraine transited 14.6m tonnes of oil via the Druzhba (Friendship) pipeline to EU buyers including in Hungary and Slovakia. Another 5.5 million tonnes were shipped in the first half of 2024, and around half of these volumes were sold by privately-owned Lukoil company. The rest was transited by other Russian producers including Tatneft, Gazprom Neft, Russneft, and a few other smaller outfits. Lukoil was the main recipient of the estimated $6bn revenue last year (calculated based on the reported transit volumes and last year’s oil prices), implicitly, aiding the Russian state in its role as the country’s biggest taxpayer. Less than half of last year’s volumes left to ship via the Druzhba network, designed to transport a maximum of 56.4m tonnes. Hungary along with a few other Central and Eastern European countries such as Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Poland, and Bulgaria won a temporary exemption to the EU oil import ban that took effect in 2023. Bulgaria, Poland, and Germany halted imports this year, the Czech Republic is working to cut reliance with a new pipeline to allow imports from Western countries. Hungary imported 56% more Russian oil in the first six months of 2024, compared to the same period in 2021, according to CREA data. At any point, Hungary could have substituted its Russian offtakes with seaborne imports secured via Croatian or Italian ports, and could thereby have aided landlocked Slovakia, with its MOL Group Slovnaft refinery. ’A market source told this author that Russia’s Lukoil had been selling oil to Hungary at a 20% discount to the Urals spot price, although it is unclear whether this discounted price was still on offer at the time of the Ukrainian curtailment’. It may explain the Hungarian government’s ability to control consumer fuel prices. On July 18, Hungary and Slovakia said they were not receiving Russian crude from Lukoil, a major supplier after Ukraine sanctioned the company last month. Is it possible’ Ukraine’s cost of transit might now be much higher than the revenue it receives from transmission tariffs’? Hungary’s Foreign Minister Szijjártó nonetheless called Ukraine’s decision, “incomprehensible, unacceptable and unfriendly,' while Prime Minister Orbán complained that his country was facing an imminent energy crunch. His Slovak counterpart, Robert Fico, called his Ukrainian counterpart on July 20 to say his country was being held hostage to a Ukrainian-Russian dispute. Hungary once again blocked €6bn ($6.5bn) in EU military aid to Ukraine at a meeting on July 22. Riled by Kyiv’s decision, Budapest and Bratislava are now calling on the EU to take action against Ukraine. The cut in supplies to Slovakia was doubly painful for Hungary since the country’s main refinery is owned by Budapest-based MOL, which is Hungary’s most profitable firm. It is likely to raise fuel prices in both countries, with all the political costs that may entail. ’The question still remains ’why Ukraine did not halt all flows and only imposed a partial ban’. Since the two countries are the biggest proponents for the extension of the Russian gas transit contract via Ukraine from 2025, it is hard to believe they intend to make any serious change in policy at all. It is unclear what solution might be found. (Source: cepa)
by Sabadus, a senior energy journalist writing for Independent Commodity Intelligence Services (ICIS), a London-based global energy and petrochemicals news and market data provider and a Non-resident Senior Fellow with the Democratic Resilience Program at the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA).

European Commission
24 July 2024  2024 Rule of law report - Communication and country chapters
(Source: European Commission - Brussels, Belgium)

European Parliament
24 July 2024  The election of committee chairs and vice chairs yesterday was the last item on the agenda before the Parliament goes into a month-long recess. The cordon sanitaire, the mainstream’s agreement to exclude ’far-right’ groupings proved to hold. In none of the 24 committees and sub-committees did the Patriots for Europe, the Parliament’s third biggest grouping, or the smaller far-right Europe of Sovereign Nations, have members elected to committee chair or vice-chair. The Patriots claimed the Committee on Culture and Education and the Committee on Transport and Tourism - and saw their candidates lose out to Green MEP Riehl and EPP’s Vozemberg-Vrionidi. Members of the Patriots for Europe, led by France’s Rassemblement National and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz party, expressed their disappointment and called out the Parliament’s biggest group EPP. 'It clearly shows that they are not ready to accept democratic election results and cannot accept the fact that the Patriots are the third largest group,” vice-president of Patriots, Gál told after appointments finished. However, the ’hard-right’ ECR, the conservative Eurosceptic group led by Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, saw its members access to senior positions in the parliament. The election of two vice presidents and one questor from the ECR suggested that the group is an acceptable partner for the centrist coalition. The ECR received three chairs and ten vice-chairs. The group now presides over the Committee on Budgets, the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, and the Committee on Petitions. Asked about the ECR’s cooperation with "pro-European forces' to get chairs and vice-chairs elected, Austrian Patriots vice-president Vilimsky said: “They have made a deal with the devil'. (Source: euractiv)

Russia
July 24, 2024 8:34 pm CET  The Russian parliament adopted a law Wednesday hiking the penalty for personal use of internet devices by frontline soldiers fighting in Ukraine. Open-source investigators are concerned that the new rules could make it harder to identify and document Russian activities on the frontline. Ukrainian Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) agency Molfar, which analyzes Russian activities on the battlefield daily, told they have observed a decrease in the data published by the Russian military on social media for some time. The law classifies possession of devices that allow military personnel to store or send video, photos or geolocation data on the internet as a grave offense, punishable by up to 15 days detention. It also forbids the transmission of any information that could be used to identify any Russian troops and their whereabouts. Dva Mayora, a pro-war blogger, slammed the move as an showing an outdated understanding of modern mobilization. "They decided that a soldier should fight without thinking about his family, and the family of a mobilized person should, like the family of a soldier in WWII or the family of a Cossack, be proud that a man was mobilized," the blogger, who has over 700,000 followers, wrote on Telegram. The new law also prohibits transferring information about citizens called up for military training, as well as those discharged from the army, and members of their families. (Source: politico)

July 24, 2024  The Kremlin appears to be making a grab for Russia’s biggest online marketplace Wildberries. But it has already de facto taken over search engine Yandex and social media company VK. Now it turns out that the founder and driving force of the company, Bakalchuk, who is also Russia’s richest woman, is divorcing her husband, Vladislav, who only holds 1% of the company. Vladislav has turned to Chechen President Kadyrov for help, who said he would 'fix it”. Wildberries is in a very weird merger with an outdoor billboard company called Russ that is ten times smaller than it. The deal was personally endorsed by Russian President Putin. Russ is linked to billionaire Kerimov of Polyus Gold and veteran technocrat Shuvalov. Kerimov was born in Dagestan and is close to Kadyrov, but is also a Duma deputy, a billionaire and deeply ingrained into Russia’s elite politics, but has always maintained a measure of independence from the Kremlin. This is potentially a problem for Putin. Shuvalov is one of the most powerful men in the country and is totally loyal to Putin. He heads up the state investment company VEB. As Shuvalov will do what Putin tells him to do and Putin backs Tatiana, Kerimov clearly wants to get some control over Wildberries, which is worth billions, and is probably using Kadyrov, who has backed Vladislav, to facilitate that. Putin has been following a hybrid free market/state control model. Typically he sets up two competing giants that are under state control in some way (but can still nominally be privately owned companies) to ensure there is competition. The Kremlin can still pull the strings if it needs to, but day to day the company is expected to be efficiently run on market principles and do real, profitable business. Amongst these pairs are: VTB & Sberbank in banking; Gazprom and Novatek in gas; Rosneft and Gazprom Neft in oil; and so on. At the end of this process Putin may be in charge of the Russian equivalents of Google, Amazon and Facebook. With Kerimov in the company, which is still privately owned by Tatiana, Putin will clearly get a lot more control over it. Putin wants to see a state-owned, or at least a state-controlled, internet giant like Amazon or Alibaba set up that has global reach. Tatiana was already in the process of building that, as Wildberries has been rolling out in lots of new countries in the last few years, including a popular Ukrainian service – until the war started. Since then, Wildberries has still been expanding, but has redirected its focus south and east. No one really knows what is going on - Tatiana is now swimming with the sharks. (Source: intellinews)

Arctic

Wednesday 24 July  Arctic is emerging as one of the most strategically important regions on the planet – and a key arena in the confrontation between Moscow and the West. Pyramiden sits at the foot of a stepped, snow-covered mountain that gives the settlement its name. Pyramiden is in Svalbard, a part of Norway. This is the most north-eastern Soviet town in the world. Pyramiden was once a thriving Soviet mining settlement. At its peak it was home to as many as 2,000 people. Norwegians and Russians have lived side by side on this archipelago, about a thousand kilometres from the North Pole. Pyramiden was a model Soviet settlement, and life here for the Russian miners and their families was good. There was a heated swimming pool, a school, and a canteen with free food. The miners would eat in the dining room underneath palm trees set on plinths. An enormous mosaic of the Arctic landscape still covers the back wall – a bright, colourful respite for the miners’ eyes after long shifts digging coal deep in the frozen dark. A Soviet-era Playboy model smiles hanging in the men’s dormitory, Russian car magazines were stuck here more than 30 years ago by Russian coal miners, something on the wall to just dream about during the long Arctic winters. The room became frozen in time; the miners left. After the fall of the Soviet Union it was eventually abandoned. But there are signs this ghost town is stirring back to life. A colony of kittiwake seabirds has taken over an apartment block in the town centre. Only two of the several dozen buildings in the settlement are still in use: the hotel, and a cultural centre, which has a working cinema. At the start of this year, just 12 workers lived in Pyramiden, mostly hospitality and maintenance staff. They’re workers for Trust Arktikugol, the Russian state-owned coal mining company that owns the land and Russia’s operations in Pyramiden. There are no roads into Pyramiden. Depending on the time of year, it’s only accessible by boat, helicopter or snowmobile. That hasn’t stopped visitors making the journey, and there are plans for more to come. In recent years, the company has tried to attract more visitors to the ghost town, describing it as an “Arctic phoenix that is more alive than ever”. But the COVID pandemic, coupled with sanctions in the wake of the war in Ukraine and a boycott by tourism companies, who don’t want any money going towards the Putin regime, have made that challenging. Over the past decade and a half, it’s become something of a tourism oddity, an open-air museum offering glimpses into life at the height of Soviet power. From the square, a stone bust of Russian Soviet leader Lenin stares down over the abandoned buildings. Pyramiden remains a tiny Russian foothold on NATO soil. Lately, though, tensions are on the rise. Moscow’s interest in Svalbard has increased. Russian provocations on the archipelago of Svalbard are driving up tensions at the top of the world. In recent years, Russians have been accused of using the archipelago as a backdrop for propaganda and patriotic stunts, and even sabotage. Still, Russian authorities allegedly have grand visions to bring this place back to life. The men’s dormitory has been gutted for renovations. Russian authorities have said they want to bring more tourists here via direct flights from the Russian mainland and on cruise ships. They’ve also said repeatedly in domestic forums that they want to build a new science centre in Pyramiden, inviting what Russia calls “friendly countries” – including China and India – to be a part of it. Meanwhile, the Kremlin has labelled Norway an “unfriendly country”, despite the fact that Svalbard is a Norwegian territory and one of the few places where official contact has been maintained between the two countries. It’s not clear if Norway would allow the science centre to ever become a reality. But for Russia, being seen as ambitious and defiant on a NATO member’s territory is potentially good propaganda for a domestic audience. Part of what makes Svalbard such hot property geopolitically is its location as a gateway to the Arctic. As temperatures rise, there are predictions the Arctic could be ice-free in the summer in coming decades, opening up new shipping routes - including what China calls the “Polar Silk Road”. It’s also close to the Kola Peninsula, where Russia keeps much of its nuclear arsenal and naval fleet. “At the end of the Cold War, the idea was that Svalbard would be basically a perfect location to control activity in the North Atlantic,” says Dr Østhagen, a senior researcher in Arctic security and geopolitics at the Fridtjof Nansen Institute in Oslo. Svalbard is governed by a century-old treaty that gives Norway sovereignty but allows non-Norwegian citizens – including Russians – to live and work there visa-free. The treaty forbids the archipelago from being used for “war-like” purposes, but if war ever broke out, that may not hold. In recent times, Russians have been accused of pushing the boundaries in Svalbard. In Longyearbyen, the main town on the archipelago, Russians put up a huge red neon sign on their guesthouse without permission from Norwegian authorities. It reads “Visit Spitsbergen”, the Russian word for “Svalbard”. Last year, in Pyramiden, the Russian state-owned coal mining company released a video of staff and a visiting Russian Bishop erecting a seven-metre-high Russian Orthodox cross on a hillside, again without Norwegian permission. Then there are allegations of sabotage. In early 2022, one of two undersea cables that connect Svalbard to the mainland was damaged. The cables are the main point of connectivity for SvalSAT, the world’s largest satellite ground station located above Longyearbyen, the main Norwegian settlement on Svalbard. The number one suspect was a Russian fishing trawler that allegedly sailed back and forth over the cable more than a hundred times. The ship owner denied it. Last year, on Victory Day Russian locals held what has been labelled by some as a “military-style” parade in the main Russian settlement of Barentsburg. Vehicles with Russian flags drove down the main street while a helicopter flew above. “We are used to seeing flag parades in Russia, but we never saw them in Barentsburg,” says Terje Aunevik, the mayor of Longyearbyen. “We are not invited there anymore. So it’s a massive change on that and it happened just overnight, more or less.” Early one morning, the silence over Pyramiden is shattered by the beating rotors of a Russian Mi8 helicopter. The abandoned buildings have been decorated with bright red Soviet flags, their yellow hammer and sickle emblems flapping in the wind. About 20 Russians file out of the helicopter onto the snow. In the lead is a man who unfurls a giant Russian tri-colour flag – Neverov, the head of the Russian state-owned coal company that runs Pyramiden. The visitors have come from Barentsburg. Over the next few hours, three more helicopter loads of people arrive. They’re here to mark Victory Day with a special commemoration for the “Immortal Regiment”. It’s an event that’s held all over Russia, but this is the first time it has ever been held in Pyramiden. They parade up the main square holding images of relatives who took part in the war, before laying poppies at the foot of a monument to the “Great Patriotic War”. “We are here in archipelago for 93 years ... it is place with rich history,” says Neverov. Several workers from the company are filming the parade, which was later shown on a major state-controlled news channel back in Russia. For Norwegian authorities, activity in and around Svalbard by non-Norwegian actors like Russia and China is high on their radar. The Norwegian government has recently said it wants to strengthen control over Svalbard. (Source: abc *)
* Australia

Asia

China
24/07/2024 - 17:01  Kuleba told his Chinese counterpart Wang that Russia was not ready to negotiate an end to the war in „good faith”, that currently there is no such readiness on the Russian side. ’I am convinced that a just peace in Ukraine is in China's strategic interests, and China's role as a global force for peace is important,' Ukrainian Foreign Minister Kuleba was saying on visit to China for talks. His trip is scheduled to last until Friday. Kyiv would likely seek this week to convince China that it should participate in a second peace summit. China did not attend a peace summit in Switzerland last month in protest against Russia not being invited. A key Russian ally, China presents itself as a neutral party in the war. China has sought to paint itself as a mediator in the war, sending envoy Li to Europe on multiple visits, and releasing a paper calling for a "political settlement" to the conflict. Western countries said the plan, if applied, would allow Russia to retain much of the territory it has seized in Ukraine. The United States and Europe have also accused China of selling components and equipment necessary to keep Russia's military production afloat. Beijing has refuted claims that it is supporting Russia’s war in Ukraine, and says it is seeking to bring both Kyiv and Moscow to the negotiating table. It says it is not sending lethal assistance to either side, unlike the United States and other Western nations, fuelling the conflict through arms shipments to Kyiv. (Source: france24 / AFP)

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Europe

Hungary
July 23, 2024 11:50am EDT  Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s self-proclaimed "peace mission" trips to Moscow and Beijing this month aimed at brokering an end to the war in Ukraine. EU partners 'overwhelmingly' saw it as undermining their support for Kyiv, EU foreign affairs chief Borrell said yesterday in Brussels. He had decided that the upcoming foreign and defense ministers' meeting would take place in Brussels instead of Budapest. Borrell said that EU member states had been divided between those who wanted to attend in Budapest and those who did not. Ultimately he said it was within his power to decide. Hungary currently holds the rotating EU presidency, and as such had expected to host the annual late August gathering known as the Gymnich in late August. This gathering should now be held in the EU capital in September, Borrell announced. Before the decision was announced, Hungarian Foreign Minister Szijjártó slammed what he called a 'concerted, hysterical, often mocking series of attacks' on Orbán’s recent surprise meetings with Russian President Putin and Chinese President Xi. Only Slovakia’s deputy foreign minister had vocally offered support to Hungary’s "peace mission," he noted. Hungary took over the six-month rotating role July 1, and since then Orbán has visited Ukraine, Russia, Azerbaijan, China, and the United States on a world tour he’s touted as "peace mission" aimed at brokering an end to Russia’s war in Ukraine. (Source: foxnews - U.S.)

North America

United States
Jul 23, 2024 09:02 AM IST  Musk felt 'tricked' into consenting for his biological son, who is coming out as transgender, to go on puberty blockers. Musk expressed that to Canadian psychologist Dr Peterson. They discussed the controversial topic of doctors performing sex change procedures on minors, a practice both Musk and Peterson denounced as 'evil.' The tech mogul's recent decision was to move X and SpaceX headquarters from California after Governor Newsom signed the new Assembly Bill 1955, which will allow school forms not to notify the parents of their children's gender. A preprint study from the Mayo Clinic earlier this year indicated that puberty blockers could cause long-term fertility issues in boys. Musk shared his personal experience with his child Xavier, who now identifies as Vivian. He said it was pivotal in making him aware of 'the woke mind virus,' which he has vowed to “destroy”. 'It happened to one of my older boys, where I was essentially tricked into signing documents for one of my older boys, Xavier. This is before I had any understanding of what was going on. COVID was going on, so there was a lot of confusion and I was told Xavier might commit suicide if he doesn't…' Musk recounted. Vivian came out as transgender in June 2022. 'The people that have been promoting this should go to prison.” He didn't know puberty blockers are actually just sterilization drugs. He criticized the term 'gender affirming care' as a 'terrible euphemism.' (Source: hindustantimes - India)

23/07/2024 - 19:23 GMT+2  US Secret Service Director Cheatle resigned following a security failure during the assassination attempt on former President Trump, a position she had held since being appointed by President Biden in 2022. (Source: euronews - Lyon, France)

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Europe

Hungary
July 22, 2024 6:09 pm CET  Following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, the EU banned imports of Russian oil arriving at the bloc by sea, but allowed landlocked countries like Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic to continue buying supplies via the Russia-to-Europe Druzhba pipeline transiting Ukraine until they could find an alternative solution. Kyiv last month adopted sanctions blocking the transit to Central Europe of pipeline crude sold by Moscow’s largest private oil firm, Lukoil, sparking fears of supply shortages in Budapest. Hungary relies on Moscow for 70 percent of its oil imports - and on Lukoil for half that amount. 'They should have foreseen the fact the EU was intending to end their exemption allowing them to keep buying Russian oil,' Levy, an analyst at the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air think tank said, 'and this should have been something that they planned for … because as we've seen, this is a real risk for their energy security.' Hungary had asked the European Union to take action against Ukraine for imposing a partial ban on Russian oil exports transiting the country, arguing the move was jeopardizing Budapest’s energy security. Budapest argues it’s facing an energy crunch. Kyiv's move "clearly violates’ the EU's 2014 association agreement with Ukraine, Hungary's Foreign Minister Szijjártó claimed at a meeting of EU envoys in Brussels. Hungary and Slovakia - also affected by the ban -  have now begun talks with the European Commission, he added, a precursor to legal action. Slovakia relies heavily on Moscow for oil as well. The sanctions drew a fierce reaction from Slovak PM Robert Fico. “Slovakia doesn't intend to be a hostage to Ukrainian-Russian relations,' he said on Saturday, following a call with Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal. The ban means the country's central Slovnaft refinery would “receive 40 percent less oil than it needs,” Fico said, arguing it would also reduce Slovak fuel exports to Ukraine that make up a 10th of Kyiv's consumption. 'Russian oil spat escalates' (Source: politico)

European Commission
22/07/2024 - 20:04 GMT+2  Borrell accuses Orbán of disloyalty and 'joins' boycott against Hungary's EU presidency. The informal meeting of foreign ministers scheduled to take place in Budapest at the end of August will instead be held in Brussels. Today evening, Borrell refused to use the word 'boycott' to describe 'his decision' and insisted the Hungarian representative would nevertheless be invited to the Gymnich meeting in Brussels. 'We have to send a signal, even if it's a symbolic signal, that being against the foreign policy of the European Union and disqualifying the policy of the European Union as the "party of war' has to have consequences,' he added, noting the strong criticism labeled at Orbán's actions 'had been echoed by 25 members states' with "one single exception," widely considered to be Slovakia, which shares Budapest's viewpoint. The foreign policy chief took the opportunity to denounce, once again, Hungary's perennial veto of the bloc's military assistance for Ukraine, which currently affects €6.6 billion in reimbursements. 'Member states insisted that this was something unacceptable and terrible, but unhappily, the situation of blockage remains," he said. Borrell admitted he had "lost the hope" that Budapest would soon change its mind and warned the absence of reimbursements could disincentivise some capitals from providing Kyiv with further military assistance. (Source: euronews)

Monday, 22 July 2024  “What a fantastic response they have come up with,” Hungary’s Foreign Minister Szijjártó said after the meeting. “I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings, but it feels like being in a kindergarten.” ’In a rebuke’ of Hungary’s controversial solo diplomatic efforts on Ukraine, the EU’s informal meeting of foreign and defence ministers will take place in Brussels instead of Budapest, the EU’s top diplomat Borrell said today. The EU’s informal foreign and defence ministerial on 28-30 August was the only one left, as it is the bloc’s only ministerial configuration that is called not by the rotating EU presidency, but by the EU’s chief diplomat. The step came after several EU member states said they would downgrade their participation in informal meetings planned in Budapest during Hungary’s EU presidency. Hungary chairs the rotating EU Council presidency until 31 December. According to several EU diplomats, 13 member states wanted the meeting to take place in Budapest, five said they would not attend and eight left it up to Borrell to decide. Some had even floated the idea of Borrell potentially calling the meeting symbolically in Kyiv, instead of Budapest. However, its backers remained in the minority. But given that 25 EU countries - minus Slovakia and Hungary itself - supported the condemnation of Orbán’s initiative, Borrell decided to go ahead with the decision, he said. ’EU countries rebuked Hungary and its Prime Minister Viktor Orbán for his self-declared “peace missions” to „Ukraine, Russia, China, and Florida’ (United States). Budapest never explicitly explained whether they had been conducted in the national or EU presidency capacity. “We fully support Hungary and the initiative for peace,” Slovakia’s Interior Minister Šutaj Eštok told reporters heading into a separate, informal EU home affairs ministers meeting today in Budapest. Hungary over the past weeks had accused the EU of having a 'pro-war policy' by maintaining military and financial support for Ukraine. (Source: euractiv)

Asia

China
22 July 2024 22:35 (UTC+04:00)  China will gradually raise the retirement age, to combat demographic problems, to reduce the growing pressure on pension funds and slow down potential workforce reductions. The government's statement was part of a major policy document that also outlined plans to improve the strategy to combat the falling birth rate, which fell for the second year in a row in 2023 and is expected to decline for decades. Life expectancy in China has increased from 44 years in 1960 to 78 years by 2021. The national health authorities expect the number of people aged 60 and over to grow from 280 million to 400 million by 2035. By 2050 it is projected that people's life expectancy will exceed 80 years. Currently, the retirement age for men in China is 60 years. This limit is 55 years for women working in the office and 50 years for women working in factories. The reforms mentioned in the document are planned to be completed by 2029. According to estimates by the Chinese State Academy of Sciences, the pension system will run out of funds by 2035. (Source: azernews)

Philippines
July 22, 2024  Manila announced Sunday it had reached a “provisional agreement” with Beijing aimed at establishing an arrangement in the South China Sea that both sides can live with - without renouncing territorial claims. The text of the deal has not yet been released.
* GZERO Media, a digital media firm in America, founded by American political scientist Bremmer.

North America

United States
07/22/24 4:14 PM ET  The Pentagon today announced a new strategy - the 2024 Department of Defense Arctic strategy, packaged into a 28-page report - to build up its presence in the Arctic region, which is becoming more contested militarily as climate change drives the melting of sea ice and opens up new passageways. The Defense Department, pushing to counter Russia and China in the Arctic, outlined a new effort that includes: investing in more Icebreaker ships, training forces for the Arctic, investing in regional bases and building out advanced technology for Arctic-based missions such as aircraft and communications infrastructure. The Defense Department plan focuses on a strategy to improve sensors, intelligence and information-sharing; engage with allies and partners to strengthen the U.S. presence; and launch more training and exercises in the Arctic to accustom troops to the cold and deploy new technology designed for the icy region. That includes modernizing the network of radars and sensors under the command of the North American Aerospace Defense Command and investing in satellites to provide coverage of the Arctic. “The strategic can quickly become tactical, ensuring that our troops have the training, the gear and the operating procedures for the unique arctic environment, [which] could be the difference between mission success and failure,” Deputy Secretary of Defense Hicks said. Ferguson, deputy assistant secretary of defense for Arctic and global resilience, whose team crafted the new strategy, said they were looking at the “art of the possible” when it comes to building out new drones and aircraft, including research and development. The Pentagon also aims to invest in Arctic-specific manned aircraft and drones, along with investments in cold weather equipment and technology to enable troops to deploy in temperatures of minus 50 degrees Fahrenheit. A couple of weeks ago the U.S. announced the Icebreaker Collaboration Effort, a multibillion dollar and multiyear pact with Finland and Canada to build more Icebreaker ships that can navigate the region. While the western security alliance NATO includes seven of eight Arctic states, Russia has the largest share of regional territory and the most developed military presence there. Russia has some 40 Icebreakers, according to the Pentagon, while the U.S. Coast Guard only has two operating ones that are expected to soon reach the end of their life. Russia is also continuing to invest heavily in the Arctic and renovate its installations. China has three Icebreakers and is not an Arctic state. But it often conducts research there that the U.S. says is military related, and Beijing is seeking to promote the Arctic as a shared space while gaining access to the region through investments. (Source: thehill)

Jul 22, 2024 at 11:28 AM EDT  Harris would have to pick her own running mate if she were to become the nominee. A governor, who is popular, and has a strong economic record in their state, would be the most valuable foil for competing with Trump, Vance - Pennsylvania Governor Shapiro; North Carolina Governor Cooper; Michigan Governor Whitmer; Kentucky Governor Beshear or California Governor Newsom. (Source: newsweek *)
* an American weekly news magazine

July 22, 2024 7:04 pm CET  Trump chose Vance as his VP candidate largely to boost the Republican ticket in Rust Belt states. The former president has an electability problem among women, and his pick for vice president only compounds it. (Source: politico)

NATO

July 22, 2024  Deterrence through a ‘tripwire' - the evolving ‘Tripwire’ on NATO's Eastern flank. NATO Enhanced Forward Presences (eFPs) are multinational, combat-ready forces which unify soldiers of several NATO members under a single command. Each eFP consists of a leading nation, which provides most of the troops and equipment, a host nation, and contributing nations. The latter are sending, on a rotational basis, their troops and equipment to the host country. The size and composition of each battlegroup varies, being tailored to specific geographical factors and threats. As an example, the eFP based in Latvia (which is notable for being the largest and most multinational of such formations) hosts 1,900 soldiers from eleven countries and is commanded by Canada. NATO’s newest member, Sweden, also plans on deploying its soldiers to Latvia as a contributing nation starting 2025. The tripwire doctrine posited that the death of even a few allied soldiers on host nations’ soil would generate enough political pressure to trigger a large-scale military response. Although a tripwire force lacks significant stopping power on its own, the fear of this subsequent larger reaction would be enough to dissuade potential aggressors. In this sense, the multinational composition of eFPs intended to ensure a broad response, involving several NATO member states. The original strategy underpinning eFP had dual utility. First, these battlegroups were designed small enough not to be perceived as a threat by Russia, while still enhancing host countries’ defensive capabilities. Second, these forces could provide sufficient deterrence despite them being vastly outnumbered by any invading force. A study interviewing Baltic and Polish security professionals, with Russia as a hypothetical aggressor, nevertheless questioned whether tripwire forces instill enough reassurance that allies will actually help in the case of an attack. Following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, NATO enhanced its tripwire strategy by agreeing to scale up these battlegroups from battalion-size to brigade-size units at the Madrid Summit in 2022. The Latvian eFP, for example, has employed a three-step roadmap to accomplish this goal, which involves increasing its troop count to 2,200 by 2026. In addition to bulking up existing battlegroups, NATO established four new eFPs in Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia, extending the Alliance's forward presence from the Baltic Sea all the way to the Black Sea. Last month, Finnish Minister of Defence Häkkänen also revealed that Finland will be hosting a NATO command as well as a land force. The Madrid Summit agreed to enhance NATO’s ability to provide quick back-up by strengthening its high-readiness forces across all domains - land, sea, air, cyber and space. The current NATO Response Force consists of around 40,000 troops, which can be made available within two weeks, whereas the planned New Force Model elevates this number to 300,000. A component of the new model, the Allied Reaction Force, was activated earlier this month, which comprises cyber and space forces elements as well as more light infantry troops. Increasing soldiers and equipment also seems appropriate considering the current personnel problems European militaries are facing today. This is especially problematic due to widespread recruiting difficulties within Europe’s militaries. 'More troops is the name of the game in Europe’s current security environment.' (Source: wilsoncenter *)
* The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, a Washington, D.C based Government organization think tank

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Europe

Russia
Sunday, 10:25 PM CEST, July 21, 2024  Russia claims gains in the east. Russia’s Ministry of Defense said today that its troops had taken control of two villages: Pishchane Nizhne in the Kharkiv region and Andriivka, sometimes referred to as Rozivka, in the Luhansk region. Russia and Ukraine trade drone, missile and shelling attacks today. Overnight into Sunday, Ukraine’s air defenses intercepted 35 of the 39 drones launched by Russia, according to air force commander Oleschuk. Russia launched three ballistic missiles and two guided air missiles, which did not reach their targets, he said. In the Kharkiv region two people were wounded when a village was hit by Russian shells. Three people were wounded by Russian drone strikes in southern Ukraine’s partly occupied Kherson region. Officials in the northern Sumy region said today that Russia launched a missile strike on “critical infrastructure facilities” in the city of Shostka, “Two heating facilities” had been destroyed. Russian air defense systems overnight destroyed eight drones over the country’s Belgorod region and over the Black Sea, the Russian Ministry of Defense said. Russian air defense also shot down two long-range ballistic ATACMS missiles in the sky over the Kherson region heading for Russia-annexed Crimea. Nine people were wounded over the previous day in shelling in the town of Shebekino in Russia’s Belgorod region, bordering Ukraine. Ukrainian shelling of Russia-held areas of the Donetsk region killed two people in the village of Horlivka. (Source: apnews)

North America

United States
Sunday 21 July 2024 at 10:41pm  Biden has announced he will withdraw from the 2024 US presidential race and endorsed Vice President Harris to replace his as the Democratic Party nominee. Calls for his withdrawal from the presidential race have only grown in the wake of a series of gaffes, including at this month's Nato conference in which he introduced President Zelenskyy as "President Putin'. Trump was quick to comment following Biden's announcement, writing on his Truth Social platform: 'Crooked Biden was not fit to run for President, and is certainly not fit to serve - And never was!" He added: 'All those around him, including his Doctor and the Media, knew that he wasn’t capable of being President, and he wasn’t.'It comes as Trump this week accepted the Republican Party's nomination, days after a failed assassination attempt on his life. Biden, who remains at his Delaware beach house 'after being diagnosed with Covid-19 last week', said he would address the nation later this week to provide 'detail' about his decision. 'President Biden completed his eighth dose of Paxlovid this morning,' Dr O’Connor said. 'He continues to perform all of his presidential duties.' Former President Obama and former House Speaker Pelosi are both reported to have expressed concerns in recent days about the likelihood of Biden securing a second term in the White House. Biden will go down in history as a man who accomplished significant achievements in his four-year term, Funny Girl star Streisand, 82, said in a post to X. 'We’ve lived through many ups and downs, but nothing has made us more worried for our country than the threat posed by a second Trump term. He has promised to be a dictator on day one, and the recent ruling by his servile Supreme Court will only embolden him to further shred the constitution, Former US president Clinton and ex-secretary of state Hilary wrote. They endorsed Harris and praised the president as one who 'restored our standing in the world'. (Source: itv *)
* Channel 3, a British public broadcast television network.

Sunday 21 July 2024 22:44, UK  Today, the US president announced that he will no longer be seeking a second term and has thrown his support behind Harris to take on Republican nominee Trump. After a disastrous debate performance and a series of high-profile gaffes, including mistakenly referring to President Zelenskyy as "President Putin', Biden has conceded to the calls within his own party to step aside.     US presidents who decided not to seek a second elected term include:     Polk - 11th president (1845-1849);     Buchanan - 15th president (1857-1861);     Hayes - 19th president (1877-1881);     Coolidge - 30th president (1923-1929);     Truman - 33th (president 1945-1953);     Johnson - 36th (president 1963-1969);     Biden - 46th (President 2020 - )
(Source: sky *)
* Sky News, a British television news channel. Headquarters London, United Kingdom

Sunday 21 July 2024 21:02 BST  Biden announced withdrawal from 2024 race in post on X today - he will ‘stand down” from election ’to focus solely on Presidential duties’. Trump claimed the Democrat will go “down as the single worst president by far in the history of our country.”  He told CNN he believes that Vice-President Harris will be easier to defeat than Biden should she now head the ticket. Biden “was not fit to run for President, and is certainly not fit to serve,”, the former president argued in a post on Truth Social. “We will suffer greatly because of his presidency, but we will remedy the damage he has done very quickly,” Trump added. Harris owns the entire leftwing policy record of Biden, Trump Jr wrote in a post on X today. ’The only difference is that she is even more liberal and less competent than Joe, which is really saying something. She was put in charge of the border and we saw the worst invasion of illegals in our history!!!’ Musk, who announced this month he plans on giving $45m per month to a pro-Trump political action committee, celebrated the decision. “I believe in an America that maximizes individual freedom and merit,” he wrote on X. “That used to be the Democratic Party, but now the pendulum has swung to the Republican Party.” (Source: the-independent *)
* (United Kingdom)

Sunday, 21 July 2024  President Biden announced that he is dropping out of 2024 presidential race. Biden’s letter in full shared on social media today. (Source: the-independent *): https://tinyurl.com/5cv2rt9p
* The Independent, a British online newspaper. Headquarters London, United Kingdom

NATO

12:00 AM EDT, Sun July 21, 2024  Several European nations have reintroduced or expanded compulsory military service ’amid Moscow’s mounting threat’. ’We are coming to the realization that we may have to adjust the way we mobilize for war and adjust the way we produce military equipment and we recruit and train personnel,’ said Hamilton, head of Eurasia research at the Foreign Policy Research Institute (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania), who served as a US Army officer for 30 years. ’It is tragically true that here we are, in 2024, and we are grappling with the questions of how to mobilize millions of people to be thrown into a meatgrinder of a war potentially, but this is where Russia has put us,’ he said. ’Whether this is a new Cold War or an emerging hot war is unclear,’ Clark (Ret.), who served as NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Europe, said. 'We’ve got to rebuild our defenses. Those efforts include conscription, he says.     NATO relies on American forces to meet its target. With conscription remaining an unpopular topic in some countries, NATO is struggling to meet its new goal of having 300,000 personnel ready to be activated within one month and another half a million available within six months. That target would only allow NATO to fight a relatively short conflict of up to six months. ’We have put in place the most comprehensive defense plans since the Cold War, with currently more than 500,000 troops at high readiness,’ NATO spokesperson Dakhlallah told. There is still work to be done in a number of areas. Those include industrial capacity, defense spending and societal resilience – where the question of conscription would come in.    During peacetime, the Finnish Defence Forces employs about 13,000 people, including civilian staff. Finland, has the capacity to activate more than 900,000 reservists, with 280,000 military personnel being ready to respond immediately if needed.      In Germany Defense Minister Pistorius presented a proposal in June this year for a new voluntary military service. ’We must be ready for war by 2029,’ he said.     In Latvia, compulsory military service  was reintroduced on January 1 this year, after being abolished in 2006. Male citizens will be put up for the draft within 12 months of reaching the age of 18, or graduation for those still in the education system.     Since the country reintroduced compulsory military service in 2015, in Lithuania about 3,500 to 4,000 Lithuanians between the ages of 18 and 26 are enlisted each year for a period of nine months.    In April, Norway presented an ambitious long-term plan that will nearly double the country’s defense budget and add more than 20,000 conscripted soldiers, employees, and reservists to the armed forces. Conscription in Norway is mandatory and since 2015 the first member of the NATO to conscript both men and women on equal terms. Norway is maintaining significant numbers of reservists.    Sweden, NATO’s newest member, is maintaining a numbers of reservists, though not as many as Finland. In Sweden conscription is now gender-neutral. It called up around 7,000 individuals in 2024. The number will rise to 8,000 in 2025.     In the United Kingdom the Conservatives floated the idea of military service in their ill-fated election campaign     The way military personnel are recruited and trained is a decision for individual nations, Dakhlallah said, adding: ’Around a third of NATO members have some form of compulsory military service.’ “Some allies are weighing up conscription. However as an alliance we do not prescribe mandatory military service,” he said. “The important thing is that allies continue to have capable armed forces to protect our territory and our populations.” (Source: cnn)