Today, China is angry at NATO in Japan. Ron DeSantis is about to announce his bid for president. A Russian politician dies in suspicious circumstances. The Polish Supreme Court weighs in on a writer calling the president a moron.
And France bans short-haul flights. From TLDR News, this is your daily briefing for Wednesday, 24 May 2023. Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has announced plans by NATO to open a liaison office in Tokyo, which would be the military alliance's first in Asia. The intention would be to enable NATO to coordinate more closely with its Asia-Pacific allies like Japan, South Korea, Australia, and New Zealand.
Kishida did make it clear, though, that Japan had no intentions of joining NATO as a member or semi-member state. In response to the plans to open an office in Tokyo, China's foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said the Asia-Pacific region does not welcome group confrontation and does not welcome military confrontation. She added that Japan should be extra cautious on the issue of military security, given its history of aggression. China has previously accused NATO of extending its tentacles to the Asia-Pacific and exporting Cold War mentality and bloc confrontation.
In NATO's strategic concept unveiled last year, the alliance described Russia as the most significant and direct threat to allied security, but also described China as posing systemic challenges to Euro-Atlantic security through its malicious hybrid and cyber operations and its confrontational rhetoric and disinformation. As such, NATO is seeking to engage more with allies in the Asia-Pacific. In July this year, NATO will hold its leader's summit in Lithuania, and the Japanese Prime Minister is reportedly planning to attend. 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 just search for us on your podcast app to listen along.
Ron DeSantis is expected to launch his presidential bid today in a live interview with Twitter CEO Elon Musk on Twitter Spaces. This is expected to happen at 6pm local time, with a subsequent campaign video to release just after. In the last few months, DeSantis has become the suspected key rival to Donald Trump in the upcoming Republican primary elections. It should be noted that, despite the former president's current legal troubles, he still leads in the polls by more than 30 points.
Right now, it's not clear whether DeSantis and Musk will meet in person or virtually, nor is it clear whether Musk will be supporting DeSantis. Musk has previously expressed support for DeSantis, claiming that his preference is for someone sensible and centrist, although he has previously stated that he's not planning an endorsement. Speaking about this announcement, Mr Musk claimed that this is the first time that such an announcement has taken place on social media. So I hope that's what's been happening in the US today.
Let's move and discuss what's been happening in Russia. It's been reported this morning that a Russian politician has died after falling ill on a plane on Saturday. Peter Kutsherenko, the Russian deputy minister of science and higher education, first felt ill on his trip back from Cuba. The ministry said of this that Kutsherenko was feeling ill while on a plane with a Russian delegation that was returning from a business trip to Cuba.
The plane landed in the city of Mineralnye Vody, where doctors tried to assist. They added that the minister could not be saved. His family said that his death could have been the result of a heart condition. This being Putin's Russia, there may be a more sinister explanation for the death.
Journalist Roman Super reportedly met Kutsherenko just days before he fled Russia. He claimed that Kutsherenko feared for his life. Super quoted Kutsherenko as saying, Save yourself and your family. Leave as soon as possible.
You cannot imagine the degree of brutalization of our state. In a year, you won't recognize Russia at all. By leaving, you are doing the right thing. Super added that Kutsherenko admitted that he himself is not able to leave Russia, as they take away our passports.
There is no such world where they will now be happy with a deputy Russian minister after this fascist invasion. If you want more content like this from TLDR, then make sure you check out Nebula, where each week we release a roundup of what's been happening in Westminster in our series This Week in Parliament. Poland's Supreme Court has ruled in favor of a writer that described the country's president, Andrzej Duda, as a moron, deciding that he should not be punished for the insult. It's a crime in Poland to insult the head of state and can be punished by up to three years in prison.
Back in November 2020, Polish writer Jakub Zolczyk complained on Facebook about the way in which President Duda had congratulated US President Joe Biden on his election victory. Zolczyk wrote, Joe Biden is the 46th president of the United States. Andrzej Duda is a moron. Prosecutors deemed this offensive and unacceptable, and he was charged under Article 135 of the Polish Penal Code.
At the beginning of last year, a regional court in Warsaw discontinued the proceedings, but the National Prosecutor's Office filed an appeal at a higher court. More than a year later, the Supreme Court has dismissed that appeal as manifestly unfounded, saying that Zolczyk had not committed a crime and that his words had negligible social harm. Writing on Facebook, he expressed his relief at being finally acquitted. France has banned short-haul domestic flights in what is said to be a world first.
The move is designed to reduce aviation emissions and encourage more climate-friendly methods of travel. Specifically, the ban is on domestic flight routes that can be covered by a train journey of less than two and a half hours, which includes, for example, flights between Paris, Lyon and Bordeaux. The ban doesn't cover connecting flights with short legs, nor does it cover international flights of less than two and a half hours, such as those between Paris and Brussels. The law also states that train journeys must be frequent, timely and well-connected enough to meet the needs of passengers who would have travelled by air.
There's been some criticism of the new rules, including, unsurprisingly, from the airline industry, who say it will have a minimal effect on emissions, and also from those who don't think the ban goes far enough. The Citizens Convention on Climate, established by Presidents Macron in 2019, have called for a ban on flight routes that could have been covered by train journeys of up to four hours, which would have included flights between Paris and Marseille. In the final uplifting story today, we discuss a new UK ban on imports of ivory from hippos, orcas and walruses. Ministers in Westminster have today announced that they will be attempting to close a loophole that was present in the Ivory Act of 2018 that meant that ivory from animals other than elephants could be imported.
Ministers have argued that after elephants, hippopotamuses are most at risk from the trade of ivory. Talking about this new plan, Trudy Harrison, Biodiversity Minister at the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, or DEFRA, said, This is a pivotal moment in delivering one of our key manifesto commitments on international conservation. That's all we have time for on YouTube, but the briefing isn't over. That's because we explain why Boris Johnson is being investigated by the police again in the extended, ad-free edition of The Daily Briefing, only on Nebula.
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