GERMANY
Scholz issues pledge
Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Wednesday pledged not to ignore “controversies” during a high-stakes trip to China this week, which has sparked a storm of criticism. “We seek cooperation, when it is in the interest of both sides. We will not ignore controversies,” he wrote in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper, ahead of his visit today together with a business delegation. Scholz listed “difficult topics” that he would raise, including respect for civil liberties, the rights of ethnic minorities in Xinjiang and free and fair world trade. He would be the first EU leader to visit China since late 2019.
BRAZIL
Bolsonaro urges calm
Outgoing President Jair Bolsonaro on Wednesday asked his supporters to “unblock the roads” and demonstrate elsewhere as they push for military intervention to keep him in power. The far-right leaders’ supporters are rallying in front of military installations in major cities and have blocked highways in more than half the country’s states. The demonstrators, unwilling to accept the results of Bolsonaro’s Sunday election defeat to leftist ex-president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, have clogged roads and caused nationwide disruptions for three straight days.
BELGIUM
Meloni to meet EU leaders
Italy’s new far-right Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni was to meet EU chiefs in Brussels yesterday for the first time since her election, with the energy crisis expected to dominate the agenda. Meloni has vowed to put Italy’s interests first and the trip would be closely watched amid fears of turbulent relations ahead between the populist government in Rome and the bloc’s powerhouses. “Brussels should not do what Rome can do best,” Meloni was quoted as saying in a book to be published today, slamming “a Europe that is invasive in small things and absent in big matters.”
BAHRAIN
Francis aims to foster ties
Pope Francis, leader of the world’s 1.3 billion Catholics, was yesterday to travel to the Persian Gulf state to foster ties with Islam in a voyage overshadowed by criticism of human rights abuses. The second voyage by a pope to the Arabian Peninsula after Francis’ 2019 trip to the United Arab Emirates is similarly aimed at encouraging interfaith dialogue between Muslims and Christians, and would include the pontiff leading a prayer for peace at a vast cathedral opened last year. Francis, 85, who would likely use a wheelchair due to recurring knee pain was to conduct a “courtesy visit” to King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa following a welcoming ceremony.
BELIZE
Storm causes flooding
Tropical Storm Lisa yesterday slowed after making landfall in the country, causing flooding and plunging parts of the nation into darkness as it churned westward. The US National Hurricane Center has downgraded Lisa from a hurricane to a tropical storm, saying that as of midnight the eye hovered about 135km outside of Belize City and was moving toward Guatemala and southeastern Mexico at 19kph. For the next day or so, the storm system is expected to pack a gusty punch and deliver heavy rain, swells and flash flooding to Central America’s northern coast and the tip of the Yucatan Peninsula, further weakening as it moves inland.
X-37B COMPARISON: China’s spaceplane is most likely testing technology, much like US’ vehicle, said Victoria Samson, an official at the Secure World Foundation China’s shadowy, uncrewed reusable spacecraft, which launches atop a rocket booster and lands at a secretive military airfield, is most likely testing technology, but could also be used for manipulating or retrieving satellites, experts said. The spacecraft, on its third mission, was last month observed releasing an object, moving several kilometers away and then maneuvering back to within a few hundred meters of it. “It’s obvious that it has a military application, including, for example, closely inspecting objects of the enemy or disabling them, but it also has non-military applications,” said Marco Langbroek, a lecturer in optical space situational awareness at Delft
AIRLINES RECOVERING: Two-thirds of the flights canceled on Saturday due to the faulty CrowdStrike update that hit 8.5 million devices worldwide occurred in the US As the world continues to recover from massive business and travel disruptions caused by a faulty software update from cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, malicious actors are trying to exploit the situation for their own gain. Government cybersecurity agencies across the globe and CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz are warning businesses and individuals around the world about new phishing schemes that involve malicious actors posing as CrowdStrike employees or other tech specialists offering to assist those recovering from the outage. “We know that adversaries and bad actors will try to exploit events like this,” Kurtz said in a statement. “I encourage everyone to remain vigilant
‘TERRORISM’: Israel slammed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, saying that he has revealed his ‘true face’ by embracing the ‘rapists and murderers of Hamas’ Hamas yesterday announced that it had signed an agreement in Beijing with other Palestinian organizations, including Fatah, to work together for “national unity,” with China describing it as a deal to rule Gaza together once the war ends. Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅), who hosted senior Hamas official Musa Abu Marzuk, Fatah envoy Mahmud al-Aloul and emissaries from 12 other Palestinian groups, said they had agreed to set up an “interim national reconciliation government” to govern post-war Gaza. “Today we sign an agreement for national unity and we say that the path to completing this journey is national
Soaring high across a gorge in the rugged Himalayas, a newly finished bridge would soon help India entrench control of disputed Kashmir and meet a rising strategic threat from China. The Chenab Rail Bridge, the highest of its kind in the world, has been hailed as a feat of engineering linking the restive Kashmir valley to the vast Indian plains by train for the first time. However, its completion has sparked concern among some in a territory with a long history of opposing Indian rule, already home to a permanent garrison of more than 500,000 soldiers. India’s military brass say the strategic benefits