UNITED STATES
Chinese spy balloon sows discord
On February 4, the American army destroyed a Chinese balloon which had been flying over the United States for several days. Shot down by a fighter jet off South Carolina, the aircraft, which had passed over Montana – and its nuclear missile silos – was considered a spy device by the Pentagon. Beijing, for its part, affirmed, without convincing, that it was a balloon intended for meteorological research. This could “be a watershed moment in the dangerous rivalry between the world’s superpowers, notes CNN. For the first time, Americans have experienced a tangible symbol of Beijing’s national security challenge.”
BRAZIL
Navy scuttles aircraft carrier
The former aircraft carrier Foch lies at a depth of 5,000 meters 350 kilometers off the coast of Brazil. The navy of this country announced, on February 3, the scuttling of the former French naval flagship acquired in 2000 and renamed Sao Paulo. The 266-meter ship had suffered a series of waterways and damage, including a fire in 2005. “The hull also contained 9.6 tons of asbestos, a toxic substance whose marketing is prohibited in Brazil” , recalls the magazine Veja. Considered the “only solution” by the Brazilian state, the scuttling has aroused strong criticism from environmental associations.
BELGIUM
Big vagueness on the nuclear
The abandonment of the atom, officially scheduled for 2025, seems more uncertain than ever. Faced with the risk of anticipated power cuts during the winters of 2025-2026 and 2026-2027, the government plans to extend three nuclear reactors. In 2022, he had already decided to maintain two other reactors for ten years. The debate is eruptive in this country which voted to phase out nuclear power in 2003. small week an emergency that was largely preventable”, deplore The Free Belgium.
UKRAINE
Kyiv wants to speed up its EU membership
“Ukraine is the EU, the EU is Ukraine”, launched on February 3 in kyiv the President of the European Council, Charles Michel, at the summit between the European Union and the Ukrainian authorities. Membership is not for now, however, even if President Volodymyr Zelensky has pleaded to start official discussions “this year” for his country, which has obtained candidate status. “EU officials refused to be dragged into a timetable – although Ursula von der Leyen said Ukraine had made ‘impressive progress’ on recommendations” issued by Brussels, notes Politico.
MALI
The head of Russian diplomacy in Bamako
After his tour of South Africa, Angola and Eritrea at the end of January, the Russian Foreign Minister landed in Bamako on February 6. Since the arrival of Wagner’s Russian mercenaries in Mali in December 2021, Moscow and Bamako have continued to expand their political and security partnership, to the detriment of Westerners. The day before Sergei Lavrov’s visit, the Malian authorities expelled the director of the human rights division of Minusma, the United Nations Mission there. “No gesture is obviously too much to please the new Russian lover”, ironically the site Wakat Sera.
TURKEY-SYRIA
Chaos after an earthquake
An earthquake measuring 7.8 on the Richter scale struck Syria and southern Turkey on February 6. The toll is terrifying, with more than 5,000 dead, thousands injured, and cities devastated in both countries. “What happened is worse than all Assad’s bombings that we have experienced during the war, said a Syrian witness from Gaziantep, Turkey, To The East-The Day. It kept shaking, I thought of my children, of the war in Syria, of my city of Aleppo, it was a nightmare.” More than fifty countries sent emergency aid and rescue workers to the affected areas.
CHINA
47 pro-democracy activists face life imprisonment
The biggest trial of pro-democracy activists in Hong Kong opened on February 6. 47 of them “risk life imprisonment in an emblematic affair which could definitively sound the death knell for the once very dynamic political opposition”, underlines the Financial Times. The defendants, including prominent names like Joshua Wong or former MP Claudia Mo, were arrested in January 2021 under Beijing’s national security law. They are accused of wanting to overthrow state power by organizing an unofficial primary election in the opposition in July 2020. Parliament is now entirely occupied by pro-Beijing parties.