FOCUS – Un consulente senior del chief data officer del dipartimento della Difesa USA ha affermato che il dipartimento si sta muovendo verso una maggiore condivisione dei dati, progressivamente abbandonando l’accumulo. L’esercito americano si concentra su una maggiore comunicazione tra reti e forze. (Colin Demarest per Defense News)
AROUND THE WORLD
Afghanistan
- April 21. By Al Jazeera. A powerful explosion has ripped through a Shia mosque in Mazar-i-Sharif, northern Afghanistan, causing dozens of casualties, according to officials. (read more)
Afghanistan – Pakistan
- April 21. By uch like every other morning last week, 25-year-old Peer Jannat religiously woke up at 2.30am on April 16 to prepare for Sehri (Suhoor) – a pre-dawn meal Muslims consume ahead of their daily fasts in the holy month of Ramadan. “Just as we were sitting down, we heard sounds of drones followed by sounds of jets … seconds later we heard an explosion. They [Pakistan military] were bombing us,” Jannat, a resident of Afghan-Dubai [the name is a reference to the many families that often send members to the Gulf nation for work] in Khost, an Afghan province that lies along the border with Pakistan, told Al Jazeera. (read more)
China
- April 21. By Global Times. The US and its allies have used every means, ranging from staging a walkout during a meeting of the Group of 20 major economies to launching new financial sanctions, in a bid to increase pressure on Russia, while continuing to throw mud at China despite the latter’s repeated announcement of neutrality on the Russia-Ukraine conflict. (read more)
- April 21. By Liu Xin, Global Times. China has ratified two international conventions against forced labor, the International Labour Organization’s Forced Labour Convention, 1930 and the Abolition of Forced Labour Convention, 1957. Analysts said that those who use the event to hype forced labor allegations in China’s Xinjiang region purposely turn a blind eye to China’s decades-long preparations to join the conventions. (read more)
- April 21. By Global Times. China has always been opposed to unilateral sanctions and long-arm jurisdiction that have no basis in international law, and opposes improper prohibition or restriction of Chinese enterprises from engaging in normal economic and trade activities, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson said, commenting on the US government which said it doesn’t want China to provide military support to Russia. (read more)
- April 21. By Chu Daye, Zhao Juecheng, Liu Xin, Global Times. Chinese President Xi Jinping proposed a global security initiative which stressed a commitment to the vision of common, comprehensive, cooperative and sustainable security and to reject a Cold War mentality, group politics and bloc confrontation while delivering a keynote speech via video link at the opening ceremony of the Boao Forum for Asia Annual Conference 2022 in South China’s Hainan Province on Thursday. (read more)
- April 21. By Sophie Richardson, HRW. Chinese authorities executed Akhmal Shaikh, a United Kingdom citizen, without giving him access to UK diplomats or doctors, in December 2009. The following year, Chinese officials indicated to the Philippines that, if its diplomats stayed away from the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony honouring Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo, Beijing would consider sparing the lives of three Philippine citizens facing the death penalty. Manila obliged, but Beijing did not: the three were executed in March 2011. (read more)
China – Solomon Islands
- April 21. By Reuters. China’s security agreement with the Solomon Islands may affect security for the region and is a probable topic for discussions between the leaders of Japan and New Zealand on Thursday, Japan’s chief cabinet secretary said. (read more)
Colombia – Nicaragua
- April 21. By Al Jazeera. The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has ruled that Colombia must “immediately cease” patrolling and trying to control fishing activities and maritime research in parts of the western Caribbean off the coast of Nicaragua. The judges at the United Nations’ top court in The Hague said on Thursday the waters are within Nicaragua’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ), in a ruling that caps decades of dispute between Nicaragua and Colombia over maritime borders. (read more)
East Timor
- April 21. By Al Jazeera. Independence leader and Nobel laureate Jose Ramos-Horta has declared victory in East Timor’s presidential election, calling for unity and dialogue after a final count showed he had secured 62 percent of the vote. (read more)
Egypt
- April 21. By Ayah Aman, Al Monitor. The Egyptian government has been holding meetings to discuss directing foreign investments, especially from the Gulf. Despite the likely relief brought by the return of Qatari investments to the Egyptian market, it remains unclear where they will be directed and how these funds will alleviate pressure on the economy. (read more)
France
- April 21. By Michel Rose, Reuters. French President Emmanuel Macron cleared a major hurdle on the path to re-election with a combative TV debate performance against far-right candidate Marine Le Pen that convinced most viewers, a poll said, even if he was still deemed arrogant. (read more)
- April 21. By Al Jazeera. French President Emmanuel Macron tore into his far-right challenger Marine Le Pen about her links with Russia and her plan to ban Muslim women from wearing the hijab in public in a fractious television debate ahead of Sunday’s second and final vote for the presidency. The only head-to-head confrontation of the second round campaign was peppered with appeals of “don’t interrupt me” and accusations the other was not up to the job of leading France, a veto-holding UN Security Council member and Europe’s second-largest economy. (read more)
Guinea Bissau
- April 21. By Bram Posthumus, Al Jazeera. April has always been a significant month in Guinea Bissau’s political calendar. In April 1974, soldiers in Portugal began the Carnation Revolution, which ended the war its reluctant army had been waging against independence fighters in five of its colonies, including Guinea Bissau. (read more)
India
- April 21. By Mainomoti Soren, a 42-year-old farmer in Dewanganj village in eastern India, was one of at least 100 women who clashed with supporters of a political rally in her village over the government’s attempts to buy her land to mine the coal buried there. As the police beat the protesters with sticks last December, Soren, who was two months pregnant at the time, felt blood oozing down her legs and she fainted. Villagers rushed her on a motorcycle to a hospital but she had already lost the baby. (read more)
India – Pakistan
- April 21. By Samir Ahmad, ORF. Within hours after Shehbaz Sharif took over as the new Prime Minister of Pakistan, political commentators speculated about the revival of India–Pakistan diplomatic relations, starting with restoring the diplomatic offices by reinstating high commissioners in each other’s countries. Lest we forget, in August 2019, immediately after the Government of India led by Narendra Modi abolished Jammu and Kashmir’s special status and bifurcated the state into two Union Territories, the diplomatic ties between the two neighbours were suspended after Pakistan decided to downgrade its diplomatic relations with India. Consequently, relations between the two neighbours have been at a historic low. (read more)
Iran – Yemen
- April 21. By Maziar Motamedi, Al Jazeera. As Saudi Arabia continues to play a key role in influencing neighbouring Yemen’s political future, the kingdom’s main regional rival, Iran, has maintained its place on the other side of the equation. In Yemen’s devastating seven-year war, Iran has supported the Houthi rebels, who took parts of the country in 2014 and began fighting a Saudi-led coalition in 2015. Tehran denies arming the Houthis, despite claims from the United Nations and others, while the Houthis say their drones and missiles are domestically made. (read more)
Israel – Palestine
- April 21. By Eric Goldstein, HRW. On April 14, 2002, Israel’s cabinet approved construction of a “separation barrier,” ostensibly to halt a wave of deadly attacks inside Israel by Palestinians from the occupied West Bank. (read more)
- April 21. By Al Jazeera. The Damascus Gate, or Bab al-Amud – as it is known in Arabic, has re-emerged as a flashpoint between Palestinians and Israeli forces in occupied East Jerusalem. Since the start of Ramadan on April 2, Israeli forces, including undercover units, have assaulted and arrested Palestinian residents in the Damascus Gate area on an almost daily basis. Hundreds of others were arrested from Al-Aqsa Mosque compound. (read more)
- April 21. By Al Jazeera. Israel has carried out air raids in central Gaza for the second time this week, according to witnesses, with its military saying its fighter jets attacked an underground complex used to produce rocket engines. The raids took place before dawn on Thursday. (read more)
Nigeria
- April 21. By Al Jazeera. The Islamic State in West Africa Province (ISWAP) armed group has claimed responsibility for an explosion that it said killed or injured 30 people at a market where alcohol was sold in Nigeria’s Taraba state, marking an expansion of the area where the ISIL affiliate operates in the country. The explosion took place on Tuesday in the rural town of Iware and local police initially said three people were killed and 19 injured. They could not immediately be reached on Thursday to comment on the ISWAP claim or casualty count. (read more)
Russia – Ukraine (impact, reactions, consequences)
- April 21. By Seema Sirohi, ORF. The ongoing war in Ukraine is pushing the world back to a bipolar world order with former rivals rebooting for a prolonged standoff. The new round of competition will create second-and third-order effects and increasingly force unpleasant choices on countries like India. (read more)
- April 21. By HRW. Russian forces committed a litany of apparent war crimes during their occupation of Bucha, a town about 30 kilometers northwest of Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, from March 4 to 31, 2022, Human Rights Watch said in a detailed report released today. (read more)
- April 20. By Valerie Insinna, Breaking Defense. The US military’s electronic warfare enterprise needs to take a page from SpaceX when it comes to responding to new threats, the Pentagon’s director for electromagnetic warfare said today. (read more)
- April 20. By Jaspreet Gill, Breaking Defense. US federal agencies, allied cyber authorities and industry today released their most stark warning yet that Russian cyber attacks are likely to increase against both private industry and public infrastructure targets, as the war in Ukraine enters its 56th day. (read more)
- April 21. By Al Jazeera. Russia says it has “liberated” the strategic port city of Mariupol, apart from the sprawling Azovstal steel plant which Ukrainian forces have made their last stronghold. Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu told President Vladimir Putin on Thursday that the Azovstal steel plant, where Ukrainian forces and hundreds of civilians have been holed up, was “securely blocked” while the rest of the city was “liberated”, which Putin hailed as “success”, according to The Associated Press news agency. (read more)
- April 21. By Al Jazeera. Antonio Guterres, the UN secretary-general, has separately requested meetings with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskyy in their countries’ capitals to try to negotiate an end to the nearly two-month war in Ukraine. UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said on Wednesday that Guterres had sent letters to the UN missions of Russia and Ukraine, asking Putin to receive him in Moscow and Zelenskyy to welcome him in Kyiv. (read more)
- April 21. By Al Jazeera. Members of Ukraine’s team with negotiating Russia say they are ready to head to Mariupol to negotiate the evacuation of troops and civilians from the last main pocket of resistance in the destroyed southeastern city. “Mykhailo Podolyak and I are ready to arrive in Mariupol to hold talks with the Russian side on the evacuation of our military garrison and civilians,” Ukrainian presidential adviser David Arakhamia said on Telegram on Wednesday evening. (read more)
- April 20. By Jacqueline Feldscher, Defense One. Poland will not recognize land captured by Russia during the war in Ukraine as Russian territory, the Polish ambassador to the United States said Wednesday. (read more)
- April 20. By Jonathan D. Moreno, Defense One. Foreign Minster Sergei Lavrov said on Tuesday that Russia was not considering using nuclear weapons in the Russia-Ukraine conflict “at this time.” Even if that assurance could be trusted, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s reckless threats and statements in reference to nuclear arms should cause NATO commanders at least to prepare their forces for a battlefield that could include tactical nuclear weapons. (read more)
- April 20. By Mark Cancian, CSIS. U.S. aid packages to Ukraine have become routine—four in the last three months—but the recently announced $800 million package is different. It expands support by including major crew-operated weapons and, for the first time, major U.S. weapons. The latter requires Ukrainians to be trained by U.S. troops. The package acknowledges the provision of Soviet-era weapons and, by what it does not include, implies that supplies of Javelins and Stingers may be getting low. The inclusion of items that will take weeks to deliver indicates that the United States now expects a long war. Finally, the U.S. record of providing about $52 million a day of military support means that the next aid package will be announced in late April and may involve another escalation. (read more)
- April 20. By Stephen Losey, Reuters. Russia’s halting efforts to conduct electromagnetic warfare in Ukraine show how important it is to quickly respond, and immediately shut down, such attacks, Pentagon experts said Wednesday. But the U.S. needs to get much better at its own EW rapid response, they said during the C4ISRNET Conference Wednesday — and can learn a lot from how the private sector has handled these situations. (read more)
- April 21. By Kevin Yao, Reuters. Chinese President Xi Jinping reiterated China’s opposition to unilateral sanctions and “long-arm jurisdiction” in a speech on Thursday, without directly mentioning the West’s punitive actions against Russia for its invasion of Ukraine. China has repeatedly criticised western sanctions, including those against Russia, but it has also been careful not to provide assistance to Moscow that could lead to sanctions being imposed on Beijing. (read more)
- April 21. By Andrew Macaskill, Reuters. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said any peace talks over Ukraine are likely to fail, as he compared holding talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin to negotiating with a crocodile. (read more)
- April 21. By Reuters. President Joe Biden will deliver an update on the Russian invasion of Ukraine on Thursday as he works to complete a new arms package for its military. (read more)
- April 21. By Andrea Shalal, David Lawder and David Milliken, Reuters. Top officials from Britain, the United States and Canada walked out on Russia’s representatives at a Group of 20 meeting on Wednesday and many members spoke to condemn Moscow’s war in Ukraine, exposing deep divisions in the bloc of major economies. Indonesian Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati, who chaired the meeting of G20 finance officials in Washington, acknowledged the body faced unprecedented challenges but called for cooperation to overcome headwinds slowing global growth. (read more)
- April 21. By Natalia Zinets, Reuters. A top ally of President Vladimir Putin said Russian forces will seize the last main stronghold of resistance in the besieged city of Mariupol on Thursday, after Ukraine proposed talks on evacuating troops and civilians there. (read more)
- April 21. By Crystal Wilde, Al Jazeera. Cut off from international payments systems by Western-led sanctions, Russia has turned to China to obtain the microchips it needs to meet surging demand for its domestic bank cards. But while Chinese manufacturers may be able to provide a quick fix for Russia’s besieged financial institutions, they are unlikely to be able to substantially ease the country’s mounting economic woes, analysts say. (read more)
- April 20. By Vadim Shtepa, The Jamestown Foundation. By the time news of the Russian re-invasion of Ukraine became known in Moscow in the early morning of February 24, 2022, it was already afternoon in Siberia and the Urals. Residents of cities such as Irkutsk, Omsk and Yekaterinburg were the first to take part in protest pickets and marches against the war, breaking common stereotypes that the Russian opposition is concentrated only in the capital, while the “deep people” from the regions unquestionably support the Kremlin (Region.expert, February 24). (read more)
- April 20. By Sergey Sukhankin, The Jamestown Foundation. After Russia’s President Vladimir Putin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24 (Kremlin.ru, February 24), the Western economies introduce several rounds of increasingly harsh economic sanctions against the Russian Federation (Meduza, March 8). So far, Russia’s non-renewable energy sector, which fuels the Kremlin’s war against Ukraine, has been spared the worst of those coercive financial measures; but progressively, the negative impact on this segment of the Russian economy continues to grow (see Part One in EDM, April 11). (read more)
- April 20. By Mason Clark, George Barros, and Karolina Hird, Institute for The Study of War. Russian forces made minor advances in the ongoing offensive in eastern Ukraine on April 19, seizing several small towns and advancing into the key frontline towns of Rubizhne and Popasna. Russian forces continued major assaults with heavy air and artillery support but are continuing to build the logistics and command-and-control capabilities necessary for a larger offensive. Russian forces have not achieved any major breakthroughs, nor have they demonstrated any new capability to conduct multiple successful, simultaneous advances. Russian forces additionally made grinding progress against remaining Ukrainian defenders in Mariupol’s Azovstal Steel Works and announced plans for a May 9 Victory Day parade in the city – indicating Russian forces will declare victory in Mariupol by that date at the latest. (read more)
Sri Lanka
- April 21. By Agnes Felician wears a sombre black dress, a simple silver cross her only adornment, as she joins the tail end of a group of Catholic protesters at Colombo’s iconic seafront protest venue, now dubbed “Gota Go Gama” (Gota Go Home Village). Felician, 41, is among thousands of Sri Lankan protesters who have congregated daily since April 9 to demand President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s resignation, holding him responsible for the worst economic crisis the island nation is facing since its independence from Britain in 1948. (read more)
UK – India
- April 21. By Vivek Mishra, ORF. The announcement of the British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s visit to India on 21–22 April comes as a significant development, in the least because the visit comes on the back of two previous postponements. (read more)
USA
- April 20. By Samantha Gross, Brookings. Members of Congress from both parties are politicizing and spreading bad information on the energy crisis resulting from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Given the acrimony in U.S. politics today, this isn’t surprising, but misinformation on the real cause of high gasoline prices is a disservice to U.S. citizens. Democrats blame the oil and gas industry and Republicans blame President Joe Biden, but global market forces are the real culprit. Better understanding of the energy system, among policymakers and ordinary people, is crucial as the United States and world strive to transition to a system with net-zero greenhouse gas emissions. (read more)
USA – South Korea
- April 21. By Reuters. U.S. President Joe Biden is expected to visit South Korea next month for a summit with the country’s incoming President Yoon Suk-yeol, a person familiar with the matter said. (read more)
DEFENSE – MILITARY – SPACE
- April 21. By Liu Xuanzun, Global Times. Shortly before its 73rd founding anniversary on Saturday, the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Navy announced on Thursday for the first time the commissioning of its second Type 075 amphibious assault ship and its sixth Type 055 large destroyer, as they have already started training exercises. (read more)
- April 21. By Vivek Raghuvanshi, Defense News. About half of India’s offset obligations, which are worth $13.52 billion across a set of 57 contracts, have resulted in either penalties or the threat of them, Defence Ministry officials told Defense News. The government has imposed penalties on several original equipment manufacturers from 2013 to 2021 for defaulting on their offset obligations, potentially deterring foreign defense companies from seeking business in the country. (read more)
- April 21. By Elaine McCusker, Breaking Defense. As the Defense Department prepares to release its detailed fiscal year 2023 budget justifications, including additional program descriptions for the Pacific Deterrence Initiative (PDI), policymakers will want to know what is included to stand up to the China threat and, most importantly, is it enough? The short answer: The defense investment to counter China is much broader than PDI, an incomplete metric at best. (read more)
- April 21. By Theresa Hitchens, Breaking Defense. Remote sensing firm Planet recently unveiled new details on its newest satellite constellation, called Pelican, which the company says will bring customers high-resolution pictures and the ability to take them more often over the same place on Earth. (read more)
- April 20. By Caitlin M. Kenney, Bradley Peniston, Defense One. The U.S. Navy’s new long-range shipbuilding plan is actually three scenarios, reflecting the rising difficulty of looking more than about a decade ahead, service officials said Wednesday. The 30-year plan—this year’s edition of the annual update required by Congress—offers definite quantities of various ship types only out to 2027. To cover the rest of the years through 2052, the 28-page document offers three sets of numbers—albeit with a common plan for ship retirements. (read more)
- April 20. By Marcus Weisgerber, Defense One. The Pentagon’s No. 2 defense-industrial-base policy official is no longer serving in the role, Defense One has learned. Jesse Salazar, a political appointee who served as the liaison between the Pentagon and defense industry, is the latest in a string of recent senior-level departures. (read more)
- April 20. By Patrick Tucker, Defense One. Russia and China are getting better at taking out U.S. satellites, so the Pentagon is reconsidering how it builds them, how it launches them, and how much it relies on commercial partners for both, a top Space Force official said Wednesday. (read more)
- April 20. By Caitlin M. Kenney, Defense One. The much-anticipated replacements for the U.S. Army’s rifle and light machine gun will slowly work their way into soldiers’ hands as gun manufacturer Sig Sauer ramps up production in the coming years, service officials said Wednesday. (read more)
- April 20. By Lauren C. Williams, Defense One. The Pentagon’s security concerns around 5G are pretty well-known and a high priority. But the time it will take to field 5G capabilities is also a major concern, according to a top Navy tech official. (read more)
- April 20. By Courtney Albon, Defense News. As Congress pushes the Space Force to develop a responsive launch capability that can reconstitute assets quickly, the service is looking more broadly at how it can make its entire architecture more responsive. For the last two years, Congress has included language in the National Defense Authorization Act directing the Space Force to establish a Tactically Responsive Space Launch program and develop plans for how the service will execute the initiative. The Space Force has opted not to request funding for the effort, relying instead on congressional largesse including a $50 million add in the Fiscal 2022 Omnibus Appropriations Act. (read more)
- April 20. By The U.S. Space Force stood up the 19th Space Defense Squadron this month in Dahlgren, Virginia, to focus on cislunar space domain awareness, Lt. Col. Matthew Lintker, the force’s Space Delta 2, said during the April 20 C4ISRNET conference. According to the squadron’s Facebook page, the unit was stood up on April 6, and features an insignia of a Kraken wrapped around the Space Force’s Delta symbol. (read more)
- April 20. By
- April 20. By The Pentagon is pursuing the reauthorization and expansion for programs meant to boost small business participation in defense research, set to expire Sept. 30, a lead official said Wednesday. Even as the Biden administration wants to boost small businesses in the defense-industrial base, as an economic and innovation engine, both the Small Business Innovation Research and Small Business Technology Transfer programs are due to run out. (read more)
- April 20. By How ally and partner systems are configured and interact is a critical consideration for those tasked with modernizing U.S. networks and improving the distribution of information across the battlefields of today and tomorrow, Army leaders said at the C4ISRNET Conference. “We will never fight alone again,” Brig. Gen. Jeth Rey, the director of the Network Cross-Functional Team, said at the virtual conference April 20. “We will always fight with our coalition partners, so it’s important that we find a way to share data.”. (read more)
- April 20. By The Associated Press, Defense News. The Russian Defence Ministry has reported the first launch of its new Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missile. The ministry said the missile was launched Wednesday from the Plesetsk launch facility in northern Russia and that its practice warheads hit designated targets at the Kura firing range on the far eastern Kamchatka Peninsula. (read more)
HORIZONS
- April 20. By Daniel F. Runde, Frank Kelly, CSIS. Global indebtedness has soared to unprecedented levels. The fiscal outlook for many low- to middle-income countries remains brittle, with the prospect of interest rate hikes in advanced economies, the economic impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, and geopolitical events such as Russia’s war on Ukraine further complicating the global economic scenario. This underlying “debt tsunami” risks fueling the next global financial crisis if left unchartered. (read more)
