Ecuador’s right-wing presidential candidate, Fernando Villavicencio, was assassinated during an election campaign in northern Quito on Wednesday evening. President Guillermo Lasso confirmed the shooting and suggested that organised crime was behind the killing, which occurred less than two weeks before the 20 August presidential election. Villavicencio was a vocal critic of corruption and organised crime and had warned before his shooting about receiving multiple death threats.
Former Indian army chief General Manoj Naravane (retired), ex-navy chief Admiral Karambir Singh (retired), and ex-IAF chief Air Chief Marshal R.K.S. Bhadauria (retired) visited Taiwan on invitation by the Taiwanese Foreign Ministry to attend the Ketagalan Forum — 2023 Indo-Pacific Security Dialogue. At the crucial defence and security dialogue, which was private, the former navy chief remarked that a conflict in the Taiwan straits would have severe direct and second-order effects related to India’s geopolitical and economic security.
The UK’s Electoral Commission announced Tuesday that it was the victim of a complex cyber attack affecting millions of voters. The agency said that, from August 2021 onwards, unspecified “hostile actors” gained access to copies of the electoral registers containing names and addresses of those registered to vote in the UK between 2014 and 2022, and broke into its emails and “control systems.” However, the authorities became aware of the breach only in October 2022.
Kim Jong Un has replaced the North Korean military’s Chief of the General Staff, Pak Su Il, and urged troops to prepare for the possibility of war. Kim also called on the country to boost weapons production and expand military drills.
A lawmaker close to former Japanese PM Taro Aso said on Wednesday that Aso’s earlier remark — that Tokyo and Washington must demonstrate “the resolve to fight” to defend Taiwan from any attack — is in line with Japan’s official stance.
Ten Chinese air force aircraft entered Taiwan’s air defence zone on Wednesday, including J-10 and J-16 fighters, as well as H-6 bombers, in addition to a fleet of five Chinese warships engaged in “combat readiness” patrols, the self-governing island’s defence ministry said, marking China’s second such incursion this week.