OSINTSUM: Monday 6 May 2024

OSINTSUM
Global Situation Update
Monday 6 May 2024

Africa

Chad: Chad is holding the first presidential poll in the Sahel since the wave of coups in the region began in 2020. The country’s military leader, Mahamat Idriss Deby, who seized power the day after rebels killed his long-ruling father in April 2021, is expected to win, but his main opponent is drawing larger than normal crowds while campaigning.
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DR Congo: The government of Rwanda has denied reports by the US Department of State that it was fatally shelling refugee camps around the Congolese city of Goma.
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Kenya: Transport ministers from Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, and DR Congo have convened in Mombassa to firm up an agreement on the expediting of the integration of the Standard Gauge Railway across the Northern Corridor, an initiative aimed at increasing connectivity between the Indian Ocean and the Atlantic.
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Togo: Togo’s parliamentary elections have resulted in a majority for the ruling party, President Faure Gnassingbe’s Union for the Republic party, paving the way for him to extend his rule under a controversial reform to the country’s constitution which his opponents have called a constitutional coup.
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Sudan: The UN issued a warning that time is running out to prevent starvation in Sudan’s Darfur region due to increasing violence around the northern capital of El Fasher which is hindering efforts to deliver vital humanitarian aid.
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Asia/Oceania

Australia: Social media platform owner Meta has refused to enter into new deals with Australian media publishers for the use of their content on Facebook, indicating another ban on news content on the social media platform. Meta says news content is only responsible for 3% of user engagement on the site.
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Azerbaijan: This year’s Cop29 UN climate summit - to be held in the Azeri capital of Baku - will be the first “Cop of peace”, focusing on prevention of future climate-fuelled conflicts and using international cooperation on green issues to help heal existing tensions.
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Indonesia: Indonesia has proposed cutting its share of payments towards its joint KF-21 fighter jet project - aimed at providing a cheaper but less stealthy alternative to the US F-35 - with South Korea’s Korea Aerospace Industries (KAI) to around $442.47m - a third of the original amount.
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Philippines: President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. said his country’s navy would not use water cannon or any offensive weapons in the South China Sea against China despite recent actions by the Chinese coast guard, saying its mission was to lower tensions in the strategic waterway.
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Europe

Central/Eastern Europe: Central and Eastern European countries have purchased millions of Chinese-made surveillance cameras over the last five years, despite the devices’ security vulnerabilities and their manufacturers’ lax data practices and ties to the Chinese state, according to a survey by Radio Free Europe.
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EU: Opinion polls suggest there will be a significant increase in support for far-right parties in the EU elections next month, but that the mainstream in parliament, made up of the centre-right EPP, the left-leaning Socialists and Democrats, and the centrist Renew Europe will still end up with more votes.
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EU: Campaign group Transparency International EU found 70% of the European Parliament’s 705 members have side jobs, of which 26% are paid, in a report which raises concerns about potential conflicts of interest.
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France: EU head Ursula von der Layen said she will press for “fair” competition with China in face-to-face talks with its president, Xi Jinping, who is in Paris for a state visit, and France’s President Emmanuel Macron.
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Germany: Turkey’s ambassador to Germany, Ahmet Basar Sen, said his country is aiming to reach a $60bn annual bilateral trade target with Germany, which would surpass the $50bn achieved in 2023, while speaking at the 8th Turkish-German Economy Day event in Dusselorf.
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Hungary/Serbia: After his visit to France today, China’s President Xi Jinping will spend most of his five-day trip to Europe in Hungary and Serbia. Their leaders have aggressively courted economic ties with China which has seen the Asian superpower invest billions of dollars in both of their economies in recent years.
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Israel/Hamas

Gaza: Israel has closed the Karem Abu Salem crossing point - a main crossing point for humanitarian aid into the Gazan city of Rafah - after Hamas launched ten rockets at Israeli forces from the area.
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Gaza: Both Israel and Hamas have accused each other of failures to agree on a ceasefire agreement. Hamas is demanding a permanent ceasefire and a complete withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza, while Israel says this would allow Hamas to conduct another assault on its territory in future.
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Gaza: The Israeli Defence Forces have ordered tens of thousands of people in the southern city of Rafah to begin evacuating, indicating a long-predicted assault on the city may be imminent.
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Israel: Authorities have shut down the offices of Qatar’s Al Jazeera media outlet, after the government voted to pass new laws allowing it to do so hours earlier. Officials say the move was justified as the network posed a national security risk, opponents of the move called it a “dark day for the media” and said it raised concerns about the government’s attitude to free speech.
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Latin America

Argentina: President Javier Milei’s office has condemned an accusation by Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez that he was a drug user, and in turn accused Sanchez of “endangering Spanish women by allowing illegal immigration” and bringing “death and poverty” with his policies.
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Brazil: More than 80,000 people have been evacuated from their homes across the southern state of Rio Grande do Sul due to flooding which has caused landslides, collapsed bridges, and seen the water level in some cities rise to its highest level in over 150 years.
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Panama: Panama's former security minister Jose Raul Mulino has won the country’s presidential election in a poll, and said his government would be “pro-investment” and “pro-business”, adding he would ensure the country honoured its debts but did not forget the poor.
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Middle East

Iran: US sanctions on Iranian energy exports have been rendered largely ineffective as Tehran develops increasingly successful ways of circumnavigating them in addition to China’s willingness to buy record amounts of oil from the Islamic Republic.
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Iran: Teachers across Iran have rallied in support of reforms in the education sector and for an end to what they describe as discriminatory and oppressive treatment by authorities. Security forces detained four participants during the protests in Tehran, with one teacher still being held in custody.
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Russia/Ukraine

Cuba: The Cuban ambassador to Russia, Julio Antonio Garmendia Pena, said his government has nothing against Cubans who wish to “legally take part in [the invasion of Ukraine] alongside the Russian army, after an investigation by UK media outlet the BBC found hundreds of Cubans had been recruited by Russia to fight in the war.
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Russia: Russia is recruiting women, including female inmates, to address the need for new recruits in its invasion of Ukraine. The recruitment strategy involves offering military contracts of $2,000 a month - more than ten times the national minimum wage - and features women in military advertisements across the country.
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US/Canada

Canada: India’s foreign minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar has criticised the arrest on Friday of three people in connection with the assassination of Sikh separatist Hardeep Singhj Nijjar last year as “political compulsion”.
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US: The FBI reports that tactics being employed by hostile states such as China and Iran to hunt for dissidents on US territory are increasingly crossing “serious red lines” from harassment into violence as they seek to project power abroad, including the hiring of private investigators and organised crime leaders to intimidate them.
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US: Almost 2,500 people have now been arrested at pro-Palestinian rallies at campuses across the US, with demonstrations expected to continue over the coming weeks as graduation ceremonies take place.
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