G7 leaders have warned China and North Korea against expanding their nuclear arsenals, as they prepare for the arrival of the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy. The war in Ukraine has dominated discussions in Hiroshima, with Zelenskiy set to arrive in the city late on Saturday, a day after the White House announced it would permit allied countries to supply Ukraine with US-built F-16 fighter planes. Zelenskiy described the decision as “historic”, adding that he looked forward to “discussing the practical implementation” in Hiroshima. Russia’s war in Ukraine has raised fears…
Tag: Russia
Sunak to urge G7 support for collective action against ‘economic coercion’
The UK and other G7 countries are planning collective action against Russia and China if they threaten trade boycotts for political reasons, announcing a new body to deal with “economic coercion”. Rishi Sunak will urge “bold and pragmatic collective action” against hostile states that stop trading with other countries when they disagree with their geopolitical decisions. He will cite Russia’s stranglehold on European gas supplies last year as a situation that could have been met with a collective response. Other examples include China’s punitive tariffs on Australian wine after Canberra…
Ukraine tells China envoy it will not give up territory to Russia as price of peace
Ukraine’s foreign minister has met China’s special envoy to Kyiv and insisted that the war-torn country would not accept a peace plan that relied on giving up territory after Russia’s invasion. In the Ukrainian capital, China’s envoy Li Hui is seeking to promote Beijing-led negotiations to resolve the conflict. He is the most senior Chinese diplomat to visit Ukraine since Russia invaded in February 2022. China, a close ally of Moscow, has not publicly condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, whose foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba said that peace depended on “respect…
Beijing tells foreign embassies to remove ‘politicised propaganda’
Foreign embassies in Beijing have been asked to remove “politicised propaganda” from their buildings, apparently a reference to the Ukrainian flags that many missions have displayed on their exterior since the Russian invasion. The notice from China’s foreign ministry, sent on 10 May, said: “Do not use the building facilities’ exterior walls to display politicised propaganda to avoid inciting disputes between countries,” according to Reuters. Four Beijing-based diplomats interviewed by the news agency said “politicised propaganda” was a reference to the Ukrainian flag. The notice was addressed to “all embassies,…
Biden Team to Counter Tech Espionage Unveils Cases Involving China and Russia
The Biden administration announced arrests and criminal charges on Tuesday in five cases involving sanctions evasion and technology espionage efforts linked to Russia, China and Iran. Two Russian nationals were taken into custody last week under accusations of sending aircraft parts to Russia in violation of sanctions imposed after the invasion of Ukraine. In another case, a former Apple engineer is accused of stealing the company’s autonomous vehicle technology to provide it to a Chinese competitor. The announcements were the work of a recently established “technology strike force,” which aims…
Putin was indicted by the ICC … so why not the butcher of Damascus? | Simon Tisdall
The grotesque rehabilitation of Bashar al-Assad’s regime – Syria’s criminal president has been cordially invited to this week’s Arab League summit in Saudi Arabia – makes sense to cynical Arab governments. They hope to reduce Damascus’s dependence on Iran, encourage refugees to return, halt state-sponsored drug rackets and cash in on reconstruction. But from a human perspective, their decision is utterly shameful. More than 300,000 civilians have died since Assad turned his guns on Syria’s 2011 Arab spring pro-democracy uprising. About 14 million people, half Syria’s population, have fled their…
Ukraine’s Offensive Could Set Stage for Diplomacy With Russia, U.S. Officials Say
Ukraine’s planned counteroffensive against Russia has overshadowed talk of a potential negotiated settlement in the conflict, but some U.S. and European officials say the next phase of the war could create momentum for diplomacy. It is unclear how the officials will define success in the counteroffensive, which could last many months, or how its outcome might affect their approach. Opinions range widely among military strategists about whether Ukraine is likely to regain territory after more than a year of war. For now, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia has shown no…
EU tells ministers they must ‘recalibrate’ China policy over support for Russia
A Russian defeat in Ukraine will not derail China’s rise, while relations between Beijing and the EU will be “critically affected” if Xi Jinping does not push Vladimir Putin to withdraw his forces, European ministers have been told. The message comes in a paper drawn up by the EU foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, who is meeting the EU’s 27 foreign ministers on Friday in Stockholm to discuss how the bloc should “recalibrate” its policy towards Beijing. Along with the war in Ukraine, relations with China have become Europe’s most…
The Next Fear on A.I.: Hollywood’s Killer Robots Become the Military’s Tools
The assassination of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, Iran’s top nuclear scientist, was conducted by Israel’s Mossad using an autonomous machine gun, mounted in a pickup truck, that was assisted by artificial intelligence — though there appears to have been a high degree of remote control. Russia said recently it has begun to manufacture — but has not yet deployed — its undersea Poseidon nuclear torpedo. If it lives up to the Russian hype, the weapon would be able to travel across an ocean autonomously, evading existing missile defenses, to deliver a nuclear…
Blocked, censored, jailed or laid off: why it’s never been harder to be a journalist
Taisia Bekbulatova, Russia In December 2021, I was declared a “foreign agent” by Russia’s justice ministry. I now have to declare this status on every post, even on Instagram selfies. I refuse to comply. As a result, I could face criminal charges in Russia at any moment. After the Ukraine war began, I had to evacuate the editorial team of my news website, Holod, from Russia because even writing the word “war” became illegal, and sharing unapproved information risked up to 15 years in prison. It’s difficult for me to…