- This topic is empty.
Viewing 1 post (of 1 total)
-
Posts
-
The World That Was Feb 4, 2025 #ANC, #China, #Donald Trump, #Russia, #South Africa, #USA
Adrian Olivier,
Sunday 26 January – Sunday 2 February:
On Sunday night, Swedish prosecutors announced they had launched an investigation into suspected sabotage of an underwater fibre optic cable connecting Latvia and the Swedish island of Gotland. The Vezhen, operated by a Bulgarian shipping company, Navibulgar, is suspected of using its anchor to rupture the cable. Navibulgar CEO Alexander Kalchev said in a statement it was possible that the Vezhen ship had caused a cable to break but dismissed any possibility of sabotage or any other action on the part of the crew. Kalchev cited information obtained from the crew that the ship was sailing late on Sunday in extremely bad weather. Eventually, the crew discovered that the left anchor was apparently being dragged along the seabed. He added that the automatic ship identification system clearly showed that the Vezhen passed over the cable and that it was not clear when exactly it was cut. The Maltese-flagged Vezhen was sailing to South America, loaded with fertilizer. The 32,000-ton vessel was launched in 2022, Kalchev said. This is just the latest in a string of suspected Russian sabotage attacks on European infrastructure.
On Sunday, Belarus’ leader, Alexander Lukashenko, was declared the winner in that country’s election, extending his 31-year rule. Unlike in 2020, when Lukashenko allowed an unusually competitive election and faced the greatest threat to his regime since he came to power in 1994, Sunday’s result was never in doubt. Official results released early Monday found Lukashenko had won in another landslide with 86.8% of the vote. Lukashenko also told reporters that he did not care whether the West recognizes Belarus’ election or not. The European Union’s foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said the vote was “neither free nor fair,” calling it “a blatant affront to democracy.” The Kremlin, however, hailed Lukashenko’s victory. China’s President Xi Jinping also congratulated him.
On Monday, U.S. President Donald Trump issued an executive order titled “The Iron Dome For America.” The order instructs Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth to submit to the White House within 60 days a reference architecture, capabilities-based requirements, and an implementation plan for the next-generation missile defence shield. The order goes on to list the elements that should be part of this architecture, including plans “against ballistic, hypersonic, advanced cruise missiles, and other next-generation aerial attacks from peer, near-peer, and rogue adversaries.” Mr. Trump wants plans for deploying new sensors for tracking missiles, including in space, as well as for the “development and deployment of proliferated space-based interceptors,” and more. Implementing these plans will be a mammoth task and will likely take many years.
On Monday, the release of the Chinese large language model (LLM) DeepSeek-R1 sent American tech stocks nosediving to the tune of a trillion dollars. The largest loss was suffered by Nvidia, which dropped 17% and wiped out $600 billion in value. Chip stocks Broadcom and Micron Technology fell more than 10%. The S&P 500’s technology sector lost 5.6%, its worst one-day decline in more than four years. DeepSeek is the brainchild of Liang Wenfeng, a Chinese technologist who runs an $8 billion hedge fund called High-Flyer. Liang plunged headlong into the business of advanced AI systems about two years ago when he established DeepSeek and made it his mission to compete with the biggest and most well-funded AI startups in the world. Until recently, DeepSeek went largely below the radar.
On Tuesday, Serbia’s prime minister, Milos Vucevic, resigned in an attempt to calm weeks of massive anti-corruption protests. The protests were sparked by the collapse of a concrete overhang at a recently renovated train station in the city of Novi Sad that killed 15. “It is my appeal for everyone to calm down the passions and return to dialogue,” Vucevic said at a news conference announcing his resignation, which was followed hours later by Novi Sad’s mayor stepping down. The prime minister’s resignation could lead to an early parliamentary election or to the ruling majority, led by the right-wing Serbian Progressive Party founded by President Aleksandar Vucic and led by Vucevic, trying to form a new government. Vucic said at a news conference hours after Vucevic resigned that the decision would be made within the next 10 days. He rejected an opposition request for a transitional government and warned that Serbia’s stability has been shaken.
On Wednesday, Reuters reported on a December 8 meeting between Russian officials and the de-facto leader of Syria, Ahmed al-Sharaa. Russia’s delegation included Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov and President Vladimir Putin’s special envoy for Syria, Alexander Lavrentyev. The outcome of the meeting was an ultimatum from the Syrians on the continued Russian presence in the country. They reportedly want the extradition of former president Bashar al-Assad and “concrete measures such as compensation, reconstruction, and recovery.” Russia faces a major dilemma over maintaining its military presence in Syria, particularly in the key port cities on the Mediterranean, or protecting Assad, who has been a key ally of the Kremlin for over 10 years of war.
On Wednesday, the German Bundestag saw the breaching of what has become known as the “AfD firewall.” This firewall refers to a post-war consensus that there would be no cooperation between democratic parties and the far right. The breach occurred when the leader of the Christian Democrats (CDU) put forward a non-binding motion for strict immigration laws, which passed with the support of the AfD. The AfD had made it known they would support the measure, and party co-leader Alice Weidel even wrote on social media site X ahead of the vote that her party had coordinated with the CDU. Ahead of the vote, Merz repeatedly stated he did not care who supported his resolution as long as it passed — which it did, with votes from his bloc, the AfD and some members of the FDP. Afterward, the CDU leader said he very much regretted that the AfD had helped him gain the majority. On Friday, parliament narrowly rejected a bill to significantly tighten asylum laws with supporting votes from the CDU, the AfD, the Christian Socialists (CSU), the neoliberal Free Democrats (FDP) and the populist Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW). The German leftwing went crazy and Antifa stormed CDU headquarters. CDU members had to evacuate and death threats were issued.
On Thursday, the Norwegian government collapsed after the Euroskeptic Centre Party left the two-party coalition after weeks of brawling over the adoption of three EU energy directives. Their exit leaves Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre’s center-left Labour Party to govern on its own for the first time in 25 years. Norway, while not part of the EU, has to adopt the bloc’s laws as a member of the European Economic Area (EEA) unless it invokes a right of reservation. The agrarian Centre Party is strongly against the EEA agreement, which gives Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein access to the EU’s internal market. Centre Party leader and Finance Minister Trygve Slagsvold Vedum said he could not accept the directives in the EU’s fourth clean energy package, which aims to increase renewable energy and encourage more energy-efficient infrastructure construction.
On Friday, authorities in Greece said they have arrested a suspect accused of setting up online auctions to sell ancient Greek artifacts across multiple countries, including the United States, Britain, Canada, Australia, and Italy. The suspect, a woman who is described as a foreign national but was not further identified, was detained in Athens by police officers tasked with combating antiquities trafficking. Officers who searched her home seized multiple ancient relics including pottery fragments, figurine pieces, and a statuette of a satyr, a creature from Greek mythology. The suspect was referred to a public prosecutor to be charged. No further details were immediately available. Under Greek law, the transfer of ownership of antiquities without legal authorization is punishable by up to two years in prison, with sentences of up to 10 years for more serious related offences.
On Saturday, the White House announced tariffs against Canada, China and Mexico. Effective Tuesday, the U.S. will impose a 25% levy on imports from Canada and Mexico, a 10% tariff on energy products from Canada and an additional 10% tariff on China. The tariffs will be imposed under emergency economic authority never before used for tariffs “because of the major threat of illegal aliens and deadly drugs killing our Citizens, including fentanyl,” Trump posted on his Truth Social platform. There will be no exemptions to the tariffs, a senior administration official told reporters on Saturday, and the duties will be in place until the White House is satisfied that the trading partners have scrubbed out the illicit fentanyl moving into the U.S. The tariffs also include a retaliation clause that will increase penalties if the trading partners strike back at the U.S. with tariffs, the official said. The U.S. also will suspend what is known as the “de minimis” loophole for Canada, which allows shipments valued under $800 to enter the country duty-free, because of concerns that those packages weren’t being properly inspected under the exemption. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Canada would retaliate by imposing a 25% tariff on more than $100 billion of U.S. products, including vegetables, household appliances, furniture and clothing. Tariffs on roughly $20 billion of goods will go into force on Tuesday, with levies for another $85 billion of goods going into force in 21 days to give Canadian companies time to find alternatives, Trudeau said. Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum posted on social media, accusing the White House of engaging in “slander” for alleging that Mexico’s government is allied with criminal groups. She said Mexico would retaliate with tariff and non-tariff measures. China strongly opposes the new U.S. tariffs and will take countermeasures, a spokesperson for the country’s Commerce Ministry said in a statement.
On Saturday, the U.S. conducted an airstrike against Islamic State militants in Somalia, the first military operation ordered by President Trump returned to the White House – at least publicly. The strike on Saturday targeted an Islamic State operative, Trump said in a social-media post. He said the strike destroyed the caves in which the man, who the president did not name, and other operatives were hiding. “The message to ISIS and all others who would attack Americans is that ‘WE WILL FIND YOU, AND WE WILL KILL YOU!’” he said, using the acronym for Islamic State, while golfing at his club in West Palm Beach. A senior U.S. official said it could take some time to determine if the main target survived Saturday’s airstrike. Islamic State usually announces such deaths a few weeks after they take place. The official said the man wasn’t a top Islamic State leader, but was a key planner of the group’s operations in the Horn of Africa nation. If he was indeed killed, “it will put the group back for six months, maybe a little bit more,” the official said.
On Sunday, after meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Panama’s president reiterated that Panama’s control over the Panama Canal is not up for debate. President Raúl Mulino added, however, that Panama would not renew a 2017 memorandum of understanding to join China’s overseas development initiative, known as the Belt and Road, and suggested that the deal with China could end early. Panama will seek to work with the U.S. on new investments, including infrastructure projects, he said. “I think this visit opens the door to build new relations … and try to increase as much as possible U.S. investments in Panama,” Mulino told reporters on after Rubio’s first foreign trip as the United States’ top diplomat. Under the 1977 treaty, the U.S. returned the canal to Panama’s control with the understanding that the waterway remained neutral. According to the agreement, the U.S. could intervene militarily if the canal’s operations were disrupted by internal conflict or a foreign power.
President Trump has also suspended all financial assistance to South Africa while officials probe alleged government malfeasance. He accused Pretoria of ‘confiscating land and treating certain classes of people very badly’ while referring to a ‘massive human rights violation’. President Ramaphosa recently rejected American interference in the country’s domestic affairs.
Viewing 1 post (of 1 total)
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.