Category: International Conflict

UN chief Antonio Guterres addresses envoys during talks on Afghanistan in Qatar on May 2, 2023 The UN reaffirmed its “commitment to stay” in Afghanistan on Friday, in a review assessing its operations in the country in light of the Taliban banning women from working for the world body. The United Nations announced on April 4 that the Taliban had barred Afghan women from employment in UN offices countrywide, a prohibition that had previously only affected NGOs but spared the…

(Bloomberg) — Canada is assessing the consequences of potentially expelling a Chinese diplomat accused in media reports of targeting a Canadian lawmaker’s family for sanctions as political punishment. Foreign Minister Melanie Joly said her department summoned China’s Canadian ambassador to Canada to discuss the matter Thursday morning. “We’re assessing the consequences that we’ll be facing in case of diplomatic expulsion, because there will be consequences,” Joly told a parliamentary committee. The blowback could take the form of punishing Canada economically…

Ukraine — Russia attacked several Ukrainian cities with explosive drones overnight, though Ukraine said Thursday that it had managed to shoot most of them down. Russia called the attack payback for what it claims was an alleged attempt by Ukraine to attack the Kremlin in Moscow using drones on Wednesday.

The Kremlin claimed the attack was an attempt by Ukraine to assassinate President Vladimir Putin and, on Thursday morning, Russia’s government accused the U.S. of planning it.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy denied any Ukrainian role in an attack on the Kremlin, insisting that his country’s forces were acting only to defend Ukraine’s sovereign territory — though there has been evidence over the last week that they’re also stepping up attacks, using drones, on Russian infrastructure, both in occupied territory and across the border inside Russia.

In Huawei’s head office last month, staff gathered to celebrate the in-house development of software to replace a US system that, thanks to Washington’s export controls, the Chinese technology company was no longer able to purchase. “Three years ago, we were cut off from the old ERP [enterprise resource planning] system,” said Tao Jingwen, a Huawei board member and president of its quality, business process and IT management department. “Today we are proud to announce that we have broken through…

The Chinese government has significantly increased the use of exit bans to stop people – Chinese and foreign nationals alike – from leaving the country since top leader Xi Jinping took power in 2012, according to a new report describing how a web of vague laws are being expanded for political reasons.

The report comes amid growing concern about the environment for foreign businesses in China, after the wide-ranging overhaul last week of the country’s espionage law and raids on corporate consultancies Mintz Group and Bain & Co.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told the Washington Post in an interview published on Tuesday that the White House did not inform him about a leak of secret US documents that grabbed attention around the world in April.

“I did not receive information from the White House or the Pentagon beforehand,” Mr Zelensky was quoted as saying.

“It is unprofitable for us,” he added. “It is not beneficial to the reputation of the White House, and I believe it is not beneficial to the reputation of the United States.”

The materials posted online offered a partial, month-old snapshot of the war in Ukraine.

Ukraine’s Defence Minister Oleksii Reznikov said on April 12 that the Pentagon document leaks contained a mixture of true and false information about his country’s military, and downplayed its negative impact.

The U.S. is sending Ukraine about $300 million in additional military aid, including an enormous amount of artillery rounds, howitzers, air-to-ground rockets and ammunition as the launch of a spring offensive against Russian forces approaches, U.S. officials said Tuesday.

The new package includes Hydra-70 rockets, which are unguided rockets that are fired from aircraft. It also includes an undisclosed number of rockets for the High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, or HIMARS, mortars, howitzer rounds, missiles and Carl Gustaf anti—tank rifles. The weapons will all be pulled from Pentagon stocks, so they can go quickly to the front lines. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the aid has not yet been formally announced.

The latest shipment comes as Ukrainian officials say they are readying a counteroffensive — with Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov declaring they are in the “home stretch, when we can say: ‘Yes everything is ready.’” Ukrainian officials have said they are stockpiling ammunition to stow it along potentially long supply lines.

Reznikov said Monday that the key things for the assault’s success would be “the availability of weapons; prepared, trained people; our defenders and defenders who know their plan at their level, as well as providing this offensive with all the necessary things — shells, ammunition, fuel, protection, etc.”

Last weekend, Russian authorities moved one step closer towards potentially locking up Oleg Orlov, one of Russia’s most prominent and outspoken human rights defenders. On April 29, the prosecutor’s office formally indicted him on charges of repeatedly “discrediting” the Russian military, for which he faces a maximum three-year prison sentence. Authorities should immediately drop the charges.

Orlov is co-chair of Memorial, a leading Russian rights group. The government shut down Memorial in 2022 as part of the Kremlin’s effort to stifle critics and human rights work. Yet Memorial’s core activists continued their human rights work, some from abroad, and some, like Orlov, from inside the country.

On March 21, criminal investigators in Moscow interrogated Orlov, informing him they had opened a criminal investigation against him for repeated acts of “discrediting” Russian armed forces, based on his single-person anti-war pickets and his social media post containing his trenchant criticism of the war and of the government’ slide toward totalitarianism and fascism.  They released him later that day on his own recognizance.

WASHINGTON – President Joe Biden told Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos Jr at the White House on Monday that the US commitment to the defence of its ally was “ironclad,” including in the South China Sea where Manila is under pressure from China.

Mr Marcos, on the first White House visit by a Philippines leader in 10 years, stressed the importance of the United States as his country’s sole treaty ally in a region with “arguably the most complicated geopolitical situation in the world right now.”

US officials said the leaders would agree new guidelines for stronger military cooperation, as well as stepped up economic cooperation, underscoring a dramatic turnaround in US-Philippine relations over the past year.

“The United States remains ironclad in our commitment to the defence of the Philippines, including the South China Sea,” Mr Biden told Mr Marcos in the Oval Office, reaffirming a 1951 Mutual Defence Treaty that calls for the United States to act in the event of an armed attack on the Philippine military.

Lordstown Motors is at risk of failing — again.

The EV startup that went public via a SPAC merger cautioned investors Monday that it may be forced to file for bankruptcy because Foxconn may pull out of a critical funding deal, according to a regulatory filing.

Taiwanese manufacturer Foxconn sent a letter April 21 to Lordstown stating the automaker was in breach of the investment agreement because its stock price fell below $1 for 30 days and was at risk of being delisted on the Nasdaq exchange. Foxconn warned it would terminate the investment agreement if the breach is not resolved within 30 days.

While Lordstown disagreed with Foxconn’s assertion and said it intended to enforce its rights, the company also warned that withholding key funding would be detrimental to the company.

Taipei, April 29 (CNA) The United States should engage with other democracies around the world to help Taiwan fend off threats from China, former U.S. national security adviser and outspoken China hawk John Bolton told a pro-Taiwan independence event in Taipei on Saturday.

“The U.S. response to help Taiwan against the Chinese threat has to be fully global,” Bolton said at the Global Taiwan National Affairs Symposium hosted by the World Taiwanese Congress, suggesting the establishment of “new structures of deterrence” against China.

Taiwan is “the center of gravity of the Chinese threat” to the world, said Bolton, who served as national security adviser under President Donald Trump from April 2018 to September 2019 and U.S. ambassador to the United Nations from 2005 to 2006.

Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi on Saturday slammed the United States’ presence in the Middle East, as he hosted his counterpart from neighbouring Iraq for wide-ranging talks.

Decades-old arch enemies the United States and Iran have vied for influence in Iraq since the 2003 US-led invasion toppled dictator Saddam Hussein.

Both helped Iraq to defeat the Islamic State group, and the United States still has 2,500 non-combat troops in the country to provide it with advice and training.

About 900 US troops remain in Syria, most in the Kurdish-administered northeast, as part of a US-led coalition battling remnants of IS.

And the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet is based in the Gulf state of Bahrain.

The US military is set to deploy nuclear-armed submarines to South Korea in a purported move to show its resolve to protect Seoul against the North Korea.

The US will send an Ohio-class US Navy nuclear-armed ballistic missile submarine (SSBN) to South Korea as part of a so-called Washington Declaration — unveiled Wednesday at the White House during a summit meeting between US President Joe Biden and visiting South Korean counterpart Yoon Suk Yeol — to reassure Seoul and quell talk there of developing homegrown nuclear weapons.

On April 26, after months awaiting a response, Japan’s Foreign Ministry announced it had received confirmation from Myanmar’s military junta that it misused two Japan-funded civilian vessels to transport soldiers and weapons in Rakhine State in September 2022.

A Japanese Foreign Ministry spokesperson said Japan protested the misuse and the junta “expressed regret over the situation,” saying it will do its “utmost to prevent recurrence.”

Human Rights Watch first revealed the incident in October 2022 after analyzing letters from Myanmar officials that stated that two of three vessels delivered by Japan between 2017 and 2019 had been used to transport more than 100 soldiers and materiel to the town of Buthidaung in Rakhine State, where the military is fighting the Arakan Army, an ethnic armed group. The Japanese government had been requesting information from the junta following that reporting.

The U.S. is imposing sanctions on groups in Russia and Iran associated with the wrongful detainment of its citizens, CNN reported on April 27. Former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan and Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich are currently being held in Russia on trumped-up espionage charges. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov attempted to justify Russia detaining the two U.S. citizens while speaking to journalists at the United Nations on April 25, claiming they were detained “when committing a crime.” People familiar with the matter told Bloomberg in mid-April that Russian dictator Vladimir Putin “personally approved” Gershkovich’s arrest on espionage charges. In Iran, Siamak Namazi, Emad Sharghi and Morad Tahbaz are all being held in a prison where where there have been reports of torture, CNN wrote. According to CNN, the sanctions imposed by the U.S. would target Russia’s Federal Security Service and the Intelligence Organization of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Four individuals in Iran would also be targeted by the sanctions. “We are showing that one cannot engage in this sort of awful behavior using human beings as pawns, as bargaining chips, without paying consequences and these are some of the consequences,” a senior U.S. administration official said, as quoted by CNN. However, as CNN pointed out, “questions remain about the real impact of these sanctions because many of the entities hit on Thursday were already sanctioned under different authorities by the U.S.”

Officials from Army Human Resources Command recently alerted hundreds of active duty aviation officers that their service commitments are about three years longer than previously thought, Army Times has learned.

The move, which shocked impacted pilots interviewed by Army Times, came due to a previously incorrect interpretation of “branch of choice active duty service obligation” contracts the officers signed during their pre-commissioning training at West Point or ROTC.

“We acknowledge that there were errors in the application of aviation officers’ active duty service obligation[s],” said Lt. Gen. Douglas Stitt, chief of the service’s personnel directorate. “We are fixing those errors.”

The chaos comes from the soldiers’ overlapping service obligations — agreements controlling when an officer can leave the Army — some of which are contract-based and some of which are set by federal law. Aviation officers have different requirements than those in other roles, adding to the confusion.

Dozens of impacted officers signed a letter to members of Congress claiming that officials fed them inaccurate information about their contract lengths. Among its enclosures, which Army Times obtained from multiple sources, were briefing materials and messages from branch managers, the Army’s official career advisors, that affirmed a shorter-length interpretation of their obligations.