US State Department Spokesperson Matthew Miller said the US supports direct dialogue between India and Pakistan on issues of concern, and this has been the US’ position for a long time. Miller’s comments came in response to a question during a media briefing regarding the US position on Pakistani PM Shehbaz Sharif's recent remarks that Pakistan is ready to talk to India.
India and Sri Lanka will soon begin technical discussions for a multi-product petroleum pipeline between the two countries. The project was announced during Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe’s visit to New Delhi in July and will help Colombo improve its energy security at an affordable cost.
A Nigerian power company source said Nigeria had cut its electricity supply to Niger after West African neighbours imposed sanctions following the military coup in Niamey. Niger depends on Nigeria for 70 per cent of its power which it buys from the Nigerian company Mainstream, according to Nigelec, the country’s monopoly supplier.
Taiwan has detained a lieutenant colonel surnamed Hsieh and other collaborators suspected of being recruited by China to leak national defence secrets and other classified information, the island nation’s defence ministry said on Wednesday.
An Australian Senate committee called the Committee on Foreign Interference through Social Media recommended that the country’s ban on the Chinese-owned video-sharing app TikTok from federal government devices should be extended to the Chinese social media platform, WeChat. On Wednesday, committee chair James Paterson said the move would make it harder to target Australia from serious foreign interference risks.
Russian Ambassador to the US Anatoly Antonov claimed that the US’ initiatives for addressing New START — a 2010 nuclear arms reduction treaty — issues apart from the wider geopolitical context are unjustified as it seeks information regarding Russia’s strategic weapons. According to Antonov, Washington has long violated the treaty. It has not only abandoned the values enshrined in the Preamble to New START, but also violated the treaty’s key restrictions on the number of strategic weapons.
The Lithuanian Energy Ministry announced on Wednesday that the operators of the energy systems in Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia signed an agreement to withdraw from the Russian power system and link synchronously to the European grid. The disconnection and simultaneous connection with the European grid will occur in February 2025. The three countries will also withdraw from the Russian-controlled BRELL (Belarusian, Russian, Estonian, Latvian, and Lithuanian) system by the summer of 2024, six months before the synchronisation.
Mongolia will strengthen its cooperation with the US to mine rare earths, Mongolian PM L. Oyun-Erdene said during a visit to Washington on Wednesday. Mongolia contains large quantities of rare earths and copper, essential for high-tech such as defence equipment and US President Joe Biden’s initiatives to electrify the auto industry to tackle climate change.