Today, Poland strengthens its border with Belarus, Trump is charged with trying to overturn the 2020 election, Thailand's election winning party is excluded from government and NASA loses contact with its Voyager 2 spacecraft. From TLBR News, this is your daily briefing for Wednesday 2nd August 2023. Poland is reinforcing its border with Belarus after accusing it of violating Polish airspace with two military helicopters. Belarus dismissed the allegation as far fetched, saying the Polish military and political leadership were using it to justify the buildup of forces and means at the Belarusian border.
Initially, Polish authorities said that there hadn't been a violation after local residents reported seeing the helicopters overhead. However. However, after consultation, Poland stated that an intrusion had actually taken place at a very low height, hard to intercept by radar around the eastern Polish village of Bieloesa, adding that the helicopters had been training near the border before they crossed into Poland. In response to this, Poland will send more troops and military hardware, including combat helicopters, to the border and has summoned the Belarusian envoy to Warsaw to demand an explanation, the Polish Foreign Ministry said.
The Polish side emphasized that the incident is perceived as another element of the escalation of tension on the Polish Belarusian border. Poland expects Belarus to refrain from such activities. There has long been tension between the two neighboring countries, with things getting worse since Belarus was used as a springboard by Russian forces invading Ukraine last year. Last weekend, the Polish prime minister raised concerns that 100 or so Wagner Group mercenaries had relocated closer to the border and accused them of aiming to help migrants into Poland with the goal of destabilising the country.
Earlier in the week, Belarusian President Lukashenko taunted Poland by saying Poles should thank him for keeping the Wagner fighters provided for and in check. Previously, Lukashenko joked that some of the fighters had been keen to press ahead into Poland and go on a trip to Warsaw. There's more on the way, but be sure to subscribe and ring the bell to make the daily briefing part of your daily routine or to search for us on your podcast app to listen along Donald Trump has been indicted for the third time in four months with the latest charges against him relating to his wide ranging efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election. The former US president was charged on Tuesday with four felony counts by Special counsel Jack Smith.
Specifically, the four counts are conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding, and conspiracy against rights. These are the most serious charges levelled so far against Trump, who will make an initial appearance in federal court in Washington, D.C. on Thursday. Here's what Special counsel Jack Smith said after the indictment was made public.
The attack on our nation's capital on January 6, 2021 was an unprecedented assault on the seat of American democracy. To describe in the indictment it was fueled by lies, lies by the defendant targeted at obstructing a bedrock function of the US Government, the nation's process of collecting, counting and certifying the results of the presidential election. The indictment says Trump pushed claims of fraud despite knowing they were untrue and put pressure on officials at the state and federal level to act to overturn his loss to Joe Biden. The indictment describes one scene in which Trump tried to pressure his Vice president, Mike Pence, to intervene in the counting of Electoral College votes.
When Pence told him that this was improper and the vice president didn't have this authority, Trump is alleged to have responded with, you're too honest. In response to Tuesday's new charges, Pence tweeted, today's indictment serves as an important reminder anyone who puts himself over the Constitution should never be president of the United States. The Justice Department is seeking a speedy trial and the case has been assigned TO Obama appointed U.S. district Judge Tanya Chutkan.
So that's the latest news from the US let's move and discuss what's been happening in Thailand. The Move Forward Party, which won Thailand's election in May, has been excluded from a multi party coalition aiming to form the country's next governance, the alliance announced on Wednesday. Despite pulling off a shock victory, emerging as the largest party and pulling together an eight party coalition, the progressive Move Forward party failed in its attempt to make its leader, Peter Limja Romerat prime minister after being blocked by conservative establishment opponents and the military appointed Senate. The Futai Party, which came second at the election and was the second largest in the Move Forward's planned coalition, said it would now try to form a government without Move Forward and nominate its own candidate to become prime minister.
Move Forward Move Forward's exit from the coalition comes after the party refused to drop its pledge to amend Article 112, a strict law that makes it illegal to insult the royal family. Whether Futai managed to form a government remains to be seen, but they have much better odds than Move Forward did. Now that amending royal insult laws are not on the agenda, Move Forward supporters have gathered in Bangkok to protest the party's exclusion. Recently, NASA lost contact with one of its probes after issuing it with a false command Voyager 2, launched in 1977 and has been slowly making its way out into the universe ever since.
Right now it's more than 19.9 billion kilometers away from Earth, traveling at an estimated 55,346 kilometers an hour, or about 34,390 miles per hour. However, on July 21, NASA issued it with a command from the Deep Space Network, an array of giant radio antennas across the world. The command was mistakenly for it to tilt to point two of a degree away from Earth, meaning that it cannot receive any further commands from Earth. NASA is trying to rectify the area by bombarding the area that Voyager 2 is in with the correct command.
If this doesn't work, then the probe is designed to reset its orientation multiple times a year, with the next one due to happen on the 15th of October. Fortunately, spirits have been buoyed after NASA said it detected a so called heartbeat signal, meaning they know the spacecraft is alive and operating. To end the main section of the briefing and so lifting news, we look to South Korea, where shipping giant Maersk is launching the first ever container ship that runs on green methanol, which is made from methane taken from food waste at landfills. The ship will set sail this week from South Korea on a long journey to Denmark.
So called green fuels are obviously not a perfect solution and have the downsides. However, green methanol is set to be able to cut a ship's emissions by 65 to 70%, so it could contribute to cleaning up the shipping industry which is responsible for almost a billion tons of CO2 emissions per year. That's all we have time for on YouTube. But the briefing isn't over.
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