Space Wars Looming?

France
France Hosts Modi

🎖️ Modi’s French Honor. After being conferred with the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour yesterday, which is France's highest civilian and military honor, PM Modi joined President Macron in celebrating France's Bastille Day festivities.

🇫🇷🇮🇳 Modi joins Macron for Bastille Day. The Indian PM is the guest of honor at the French national celebration, marking 25 years of strategic partnership. They watched a joint march of French and Indian troops, and a fly-past of Rafale jets, which India bought from France in 2015.

💰 Big defense deals. Modi’s visit saw the two countries agree on significant defense deals. India gave a thumbs-up to acquiring 26 extra Rafale jets for its navy, along with three Scorpene-class submarines. The total price tag of these acquisitions is estimated to be ~$9.75 billion.

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Belarus
Wagnerites Are Training Belarusian Troops

Here’s another addition to the long list of rumors about Wagner’s whereabouts:

👀 Wagners in Belarus? The Wagner Group is busy training Belarusian troops at a camp near Asipovichy, according to the official Belarusian military news channel VoenTV

🤔 What’s the plan? Belarusian dictator Lukashenko initially denied that the camp is for Wagner mercenaries, claiming it is for its own “territorial defense forces.” Some media reports also suggest that Prigozhin’s troops are preparing for a possible intervention in Ukraine.

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US vs China
Space Wars Looming?

🚀 Space Wars Ahead? China is accusing the US of “accelerating the militarization of space” and warns of future space wars in orbit. The US Space Force, established by then-president Trump in 2019, is said to have had a “great negative impact on space security and global strategic stability’” Was this Trump’s master plan after all?

🌎 China wants peaceful space. It claims to adhere to the peaceful use of space, opposing weaponization and any form of an arms race in space. Despite this, many experts predict that the types of battles we see in Star Wars may be how international conflicts in the future are settled. We seem to be trending toward it.

🌕 Moon Base with Russia. To increase the tension even more, Beijing signed a memorandum with Russia in 2021 to jointly build a permanent Moon base known as the International Lunar Research Station. By when do they plan to do it? 2030. China even has its own space station called Tiangong Space Station (trans. “Sky Palace”) and it will prove useful in such a mission.

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🌐 Opinion

Yesterday’s poll results were much closer than I thought. Here’s the question as a reminder:

• Most of you chose “Yes,” but not by a significant margin. However, almost everyone who selected this option expressed concerns not about the current state of AI, but rather about the trajectory of its growth.

• But those of you who chose No - it’s a marketing ploy held a wider range of opinions. One particular comment stood out, written by a reader who commented that scaremongering is not an effective marketing strategy due to its potential for calling for regulation. However, regulations often favor large firms like OpenAI, as they create barriers to entry by imposing high initial costs and high compliance burdens on smaller companies. Essentially, they become the gatekeepers. Moreover, these regulations are typically developed through consultation with these very same large firms. It raises the question of who would advocate for regulations that primarily disadvantage them.

🔎 Nevertheless, I totally agree that scaremongering may not be the best marketing approach… That being said, thank you for all your thoughtful comments, they really do shape how this newsletter is written!

North Korea
North Korea to Release Dam Water?

☎️ No response from NK. South Korea’s request for prior notice from North Korea regarding the release of water from its border dams has gone unanswered. The request was made in late June, as the annual monsoon season arrived on the Korean Peninsula.

🚰 Dam agreement ignored. The two countries had an agreement signed in 2009, where North Korea agreed to notify South Korea in advance of its plan to release dam water. This was in response to 6 South Koreans getting killed because of the North’s sudden dam water release. However, last year, North Korea pushed ahead with the water release anyway without notifying the South.

🌧️ Heavy rains hit SK. This is especially problematic since South Korea’s suffered from heavy rains pummeling the country this week, leaving some 4,000 households in Seoul without electricity and forcing 134 people nationwide to evacuate. The wider capital area is expected to experience additional downpours of up to 50 millimeters per hour.

Japan
Japan and China Clash over Nuclear Wastewater Dumping

🌊 China vs Japan: Water Fight. Japan wants China to calm down about its plan to dump radioactive water from the Fukushima nuclear plant into the Pacific Ocean. Japan says it’s safe and scientific, but China argues it’s dangerous and irresponsible. To be fair, it’s not only China that is outraged by Japan’s dump plan.

🔥 Japan Fires Back at China. Japan’s foreign minister, Yoshimasa Hayashi, met with China’s top diplomat, Wang Yi, on Friday and defended the plan, blaming China for making claims “not rooted in scientific evidence” and imploring China to respond in a “scientific manner.”

What could go wrong by dumping “treated” nuclear wastewater?

Thank You

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