South Asia
The United States plans to send Deputy National Security Advisor Daleep Singh to India ahead of Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s visit on Friday. Daleep is expected to discuss the Ukraine war and New Delhi’s support for Kyiv with External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar. [The Hindu]
Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi has embarked on a visit to China for a summit on Afghanistan that will also be attended by the foreign ministers of Afghanistan’s neighbours. Envoys are expected to discuss the prospects of promoting “durable peace” as well as economic and connectivity projects in the war-ravaged country. [Dawn]
Central Asia and the Caucasus
Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said on Tuesday that Russian peacekeeping forces are “making active efforts” to try to defuse the tensions between Armenia and Azerbaijan in Nagorno-Karabakh. Armenia has accused Azerbaijani troops of frequently violating the ceasefire and breaching the line of contact established after the 2020 war by sending troops to Artsakh. [Armen Press]
Georgian Foreign Minister David Zalkaliani has been invited to attend the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO) upcoming foreign ministers’ summit from April 6-7 in Brussels. Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24, Tbilisi has been urgently seeking NATO membership. [Agenda.ge]
East and Southeast Asia
Senior officials from the United States, China, Russia, and Pakistan will meet in Tunxi, China this week to discuss issues in Afghanistan. China has reportedly invited Taliban representatives to the meeting as well. [Channel News Asia]
Social media platforms operating in Vietnam have removed more than 3,200 posts and media that contained “offensive, false, and anti-state content” and violated the country’s laws in the first quarter of this year, its Information Ministry said on Tuesday. [The Straits Times]
Europe
As part of sanctions against Russia, the United Kingdom has seized its first superyacht in British waters. The £38m yacht, named Phi, is owned by an unnamed Russian businessman with “close connections” to Russian President Vladimir Putin. The luxury vessel has been subject to intense media attention, as the identity of its owner was “deliberately well hidden.” While the company the ship is registered to is based in the Caribbean islands of St Kitts and Nevis, the superyacht carried Maltese flags to hide its origins. [BBC]
During a phone call on Tuesday, the leaders of Germany, the United States (US), France, Britain, and Italy agreed to persuade Russia to agree to a ceasefire and withdraw its troops from Ukraine. A spokesperson for the German government Steffen Hebestreit said the leaders also called on the Russian President Vladimir Putin to allow the delivery of urgently required humanitarian aid for Ukrainians and ensure effective humanitarian corridors, particularly in the besieged city of Mariupol. The leaders also said the sanctions would continue. [Reuters]
On Tuesday, opposition politicians in Hungary demanded Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó’s immediate resignation in light of reports claiming that the Russian secret service for years had “practically unlimited access” to Budapest’s Information Technology (IT) infrastructure. The opposition alliance said “Prime Minister Viktor Orbán had delivered Hungary to Russia.” The Orbán administration dismissed the allegations as “campaign lies” ahead of the upcoming election early next month. [HUNGARY Today]
Latin America and the Caribbean
Peruvian President Pedro Castillo survived an impeachment vote after just 55 lawmakers in the country's unicameral Congress voted to oust him, well short of the 87 votes required. Opposition lawmakers had accused him of corruption. Despite surviving his second impeachment vote in just eight months, Castillo’s public approval rating remains at around 25%. [Reuters]
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has fired General Joaquim Silva e Luna, the president of state-owned oil company Petrobras, due to tensions between the pair over increases in fuel prices. He has been replaced by Adriano Pires. [Folha]
Middle East and North Africa (MENA)
Five people were killed in Tel Aviv, Israel on Tuesday in a shooting attack carried out by a Palestinian. It was the third attack that took place in Israel in less than a week, bringing the total number of Israeli deaths in recent days to 11. While the attack was condemned by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, Hamas praised the killings. [Times of Israel]
During a meeting with Moroccan Foreign Minister Nasser Bourita in Rabat on Tuesday, United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken endorsed Morocco’s autonomy plan for the disputed Western Sahara region as “serious, credible, and realistic” and noted that it could possibly “meet the aspirations of the people of Western Sahara.” [US Department of State]
North America
United States (US) President Joe Biden on Tuesday signed into law the historic Emmett Till Anti-Lynching Act, which now makes lynching a federal hate crime that can see individuals face up to 30 years in prison. Since 1918, lawmakers in the US have tried to pass nearly 200 iterations of an anti-lynching law without any success. The new law describes lynching as a “uniquely American weapon of racial terror,” adding that it is a prevalent problem in American society. [Huffington Post]
In a move welcomed by the White House, Congressional lawmakers forwarded the America Competes Act to the US House of Representatives with a bipartisan 68-28 vote. The legislation addresses US competition with China by providing billions of dollars in funding for domestic manufacturers, particularly in the semiconductor industry. The bill also boosts US-Taiwan relations under Washington’s Indo-Pacific strategy. [The Voice of America]
Oceania
Daniel Watson, a cybersecurity expert in New Zealand, warned local businesses of cyberattacks by Russian hackers. Russia recently added the country to its list of “unfriendly” nations for enacting sanctions against it over the Ukraine invasion. Watson said the attacks might not necessarily be “state-sponsored” and could be undertaken by a malicious attacker with political motivations inspired by the Kremlin-sponsored disinformation campaign. [RNZ]
On Wednesday, the Australian government expanded its migration program to allow thousands of extra Afghan refugees to settle in Australia. An additional 16,500 humanitarian places have been set aside for the Afghan refugees over four years in a humanitarian program that is otherwise capped at 13,750 places. Since the fall of Kabul in August 2021, the government has received 32,500 asylum applications. [news.com.au]
Sub-Saharan Africa
The armed forces of the Democratic Republic of Congo reported that a helicopter belonging to United Nations peacekeeping mission MONUSCO was shot down by M23 rebels in North Kivu, killing eight peacekeepers in the process. The Congolese army alleged that Rwanda is backing rebel groups in eastern DRC, a claim that Rwanda has denied. In fact, even UN investigators have previously made accusations that Rwanda and Uganda have been supporting the M23. [Africanews]
Statistics South Africa revealed that unemployment in the fourth economic quarter of 202 rose by 0.4% to 35.3%, with the number of unemployed people rising by 278,000 to 7.9 million from the previous quarter. [South African Government News Agency]