Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, 44, officially announced on Wednesday that he will run for the 2024 Republican presidential primaries hoping to be the party nominee for next year’s election. “I am running for president of the United States to lead our great American comeback,” DeSantis said during an audio conversation on Twitter Spaces with Elon Musk. DeSantis would challenge ex-President Donald Trump, who is leading the Republican candidate field by a wide margin. According to a Morning Consult survey, DeSantis trails Trump by 38 percentage points, but his standing among the Republican electorate is slowly improving.
North Korea’s construction of a satellite launching station has reached a “new level of urgency,” most likely in anticipation of a launch, US-based think tank 38 North said in a report citing evidence from commercial satellite imagery.
Argentina is in talks to potentially expand its currency swap line with China, as it tackles dwindling foreign reserves that threaten its ability to meet payments.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken unveiled a new visa policy for Bangladesh with the intent of helping the country in holding peaceful, free, and fair national elections. Under the new policy, the US can limit visa issuance for any Bangladeshi person suspected of meddling in Dhaka’s electoral processes.
Pakistani Defence Minister Khawaja Asif said that the government was considering a ban on Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party owing to the attacks by his supporters on the country’s military installations following his arrest on 9 May. The matter will be referred to the parliament for a final decision by the government. The minister added that by “challenging the defence installations,” Khan’s party had challenged the foundation of the state. Meanwhile, PTI has rubbished the possibility of a ban.
The Director of a top Russian science institute was detained on allegations of treason, along with two other specialists in hypersonic missile technology. They are suspected of leaking secrets to China. Alexander Shiplyuk, the Director of the Khristianovich Institute of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics in Siberia, is suspected of disclosing highly classified data during a 2017 scientific conference in China. According to sources, the information in question was not classified and was publicly available online. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov stated that the security services were looking for potential cases involving “betrayal of the motherland.”
The Sanctions Coordinators for the US, Canada, and the UK, as well as the EU and European External Action Service agencies in charge of sanctions policy and implementation, assembled to evaluate and coordinate ongoing actions related to sanctions against Myanmar. The partners focused on the broad range of measures taken after the February 2021 military coup and the significance of continuing intelligence and target sharing to support sanctions packages. They underlined the need for persistent close cooperation to mitigate the regime’s ability to commit crimes against the people of Myanmar and push the junta to restore an inclusive democracy.
Kenya has reportedly fallen victim to a series of extensive digital intrusions conducted by Chinese hackers over three years, Reuters reported on Wednesday. The hacks primarily aimed at obtaining information regarding Nairobi’s debt owed to Beijing, as the country holds significant importance as a key participant in the Belt and Road Initiative. Kenya’s presidential office has responded that such hacking endeavours are not exclusive to the Chinese government, and American and European hackers have tried to do the same. However, China’s foreign ministry expressed unawareness of any such hacking activities, and the Chinese embassy in Britain emphasised that Beijing actively opposes and “combats cyberattacks and theft in all their forms.”