Today's news: China has reorganized its military's cyber warfare unit. The turnout at the polls in India exceeds 60%. New missile tests in North Korea. Russia will receive 1,500 refugees from the Gaza Strip.
ARMENIA – AZERBAIJAN
Armenia agreed to return four villages to Azerbaijan. The spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Azerbaijan, Aykhan Hajizada, announced this yesterday in a tweet, considering it a “long-awaited historic event.” The villages in question are uninhabited but are considered strategically important because they are located near Armenia's main highway and the gas pipeline through which Russia ships gas.
SOLOMON ISLANDS
According to preliminary results, Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare has retained his parliamentary seat, but it is still too early to say whether his party will manage to form the next government. The counting of votes will take a few more days. At stake are the close diplomatic ties that the archipelago has established with China in recent years.
INDIA
According to preliminary data, the turnout at the polls in the first phase of the elections in India exceeded 60%, with peaks even of 80% in some States. However, violence was reported in West Bengal and Manipur, while turnout was extremely low in Nagaland, where some local groups that have long demanded autonomy called for a boycott of the vote.
CHINA
China yesterday announced the biggest reorganization of its military since 2015. President Xi Jinping has created a new unit called the Information Support Force that will have a key role in “coordinating the creation and use of computer systems.” The changes aim to better adapt the Chinese Army to the “informatization” conditions of modern warfare, explained researcher Cao Weidong.
NORTH KOREA
Pyongyang has carried out new missile tests. A warhead designed for the “Hwasal-1 Ra-3” cruise missile was launched yesterday and a new anti-aircraft missile was also tested and landed in the Yellow Sea. “Both tests were part of the normal activities of the administration and defense scientific institutes for the rapid development of technologies and had nothing to do with the surrounding situation,” state news agency KCNA said.
RUSSIA – GAZA
Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin announced that Russia will receive about 1,500 Palestinian refugees from the Gaza Strip, of which 100 in Tatarstan and 250 in Chechnya and Bashkortostan, which has already welcomed more than 200 in recent months. The rest will be distributed between the regions of the North Caucasus, Central Russia and the Volga. In Chechnya there are plans to use them in the production of weapons for the war in Ukraine.
