UN Chief Closes UNGA Warning Against ‘Madness’ of Nuclear Arms Race |
UN Secretary-General António Guterres called for countries to reverse a brewing nuclear arms race (UN News) as he addressed the UN General Assembly (UNGA) on its final day yesterday. The number of nuclear weapons could rise for the first time in decades, undermining the global hard-fought gains to prevent their use, he said, calling the saber-rattling “madness” that risks “a humanitarian catastrophe of epic proportions.”
His warning came as North Korea, which has conducted repeated missile tests (AFP) in recent months, claimed in the same session that the United States was driving the Korean Peninsula “closer to the brink of nuclear war.” Meanwhile, China is the country that has increased its nuclear stockpile the most over the last year, according to research by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. Guterres asked countries to commit (Al Jazeera) to not using nuclear weapons under any circumstances.
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“Deteriorating relations between the major nuclear powers have stymied progress on nuclear arms control and disarmament for more than a decade. Russia’s war against Ukraine and its brazen threats of nuclear weapons use have further heightened the risk of nuclear conflict and unconstrained nuclear competition in ways unseen since the darkest days of the Cold War,” the Arms Control Association’s Daryl G. Kimball writes.
“The long-term trends of arsenal modernization, planning of nuclear force employment and deployment, et cetera, were there already [before Russia invaded Ukraine],” Princeton University’s Sébastien Philippe told Carnegie Reporter. “Many people didn’t think that Russia would invade Ukraine, that a nuclear weapons state would be in such a major and strategic and possibly existential war for their regime.”
On this episode of The President’s Inbox, Fiona S. Cunningham discusses China’s expanding nuclear arsenal.
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Bloomberg: China Puts Chairman of Real Estate Giant Under Police Control |
Hui Ka Yan of China Evergrande Group is being monitored by police at an unknown “designated location,” Bloomberg reported. The step is short of formal detention but comes amid increased government scrutiny of the property giant, underscoring how Beijing does not consider any developer too big to fail, one analyst said.
North Korea: Pyongyang will expel (Reuters) U.S. soldier Travis King but did not announce how, when, or where this would occur, state media reported. King crossed into North Korea on foot in July.
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WaPo: Facebook Repeatedly Allowed Indian Users to Misuse Platform for Hate |
Facebook executives repeatedly failed to take down videos and posts of Hindu nationalist leaders that openly called for the killing of Indian Muslims and did not publish an outside law firm’s report that highlighted these failures, the Washington Post reported. Facebook denied acting to favor the ruling Hindu nationalist party to the Post.
Sri Lanka: Due to a potential shortfall in government revenue generation, Sri Lanka failed to reach an agreement (Reuters) with the International Monetary Fund as part of a review process that would have allowed a $2.9 billion bailout package to move forward.
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Middle East and North Africa |
Flare-Ups in Yemen Conflict Put Peace at Risk |
Yemen’s Houthi movement said a Saudi-led coalition killed twelve Houthi soldiers (Reuters) in the last month, while the coalition said the Houthis killed two Bahraini army personnel and attacked facilities near the Saudi border, breaking a relative lull in recent fighting. U.S. and UN envoys called for restraint and continued peace talks.
This Backgrounder by CFR’s Kali Robinson details the war in Yemen.
Lebanon: Demonstrators stormed the building (Al-Monitor) of the state electricity company in Beirut yesterday to protest high power bills and chronic power outages as the country’s economic crisis persists.
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CFR’s Ian Johnson details how China’s underground writers, filmmakers, and artists created a movement to challenge the Communist Party’s control of history. |
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Nigeria’s Two Main Unions Announce Indefinite Strike Over Cost of Living |
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Armenia Reports Over Forty Thousand People Have Entered From Azerbaijan |
More than a third of the ethnic Armenian population of the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh have now fled (AP) to Armenia after an Azerbaijani offensive last week, Armenian authorities said. Azerbaijan’s border guard service said today that it arrested the former head of Nagorno-Karabakh’s separatist government as he tried to cross into Armenia.
For Foreign Affairs, Thomas de Waal explains how Western inaction enabled Azerbaijan and Russia.
Portugal: Six young Portuguese people filed a case against thirty-two governments (BBC) at the European Court of Human Rights, accusing them of failing to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions enough to prevent global warming and thereby violating their fundamental human rights. The case, the first of its kind, will hold its first hearing today.
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Canadian Lawmaker Resigns as House Speaker After Inviting Nazi Veteran to Legislature |
Liberal lawmaker Anthony Rota said he profoundly regretted his decision (CBC) to invite a former Ukrainian soldier who fought in a Nazi unit to Canada’s parliament last week.
Nicaragua: The government has confiscated the homes of several of its political opponents, including those of two former foreign ministers, the New York Times reported.
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FTC, Seventeen States Sue Amazon in Landmark Antitrust Case |
The lawsuit by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and seventeen state attorneys general alleges that Amazon unfairly promotes its own platform (CNN) and services at the expense of third-party sellers who rely on it. It follows other antitrust suits against tech giants Meta and Google. Amazon’s general counsel said that the company has helped spur competition.
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