CNN
 — 

The US military will gain access to four more bases in the Philippines under an agreement announced as US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin visited Manila on Thursday.

In addition, the two allies said projects at five bases already covered in the 2014 Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) were almost completed.

The EDCA allows the US to rotate troops to specific bases and build facilities for both countries to use.

“The EDCA is a key pillar of the US-Philippines alliance, which supports combined training, exercises, and interoperability between our forces. Expansion of the EDCA will make our alliance stronger and more resilient, and will accelerate modernization of our combined military capabilities,” a joint announcement said.

The announcement did not give the location of the bases to which the US military will gain new access.

It said only that the new locations “will allow more rapid support for humanitarian and climate-related disasters in the Philippines, and respond to other shared challenges,” without specifying what those challenges are.

The five installations previously covered under the EDCA were Cesar Basa Air Base, Fort Magsaysay Military Reservation, Lumbia Air Base, Antonio Bautista Air Base, and Mactan Benito Ebuen Air Base.

Several US defense officials told CNN earlier this week that Washington was seeking to expand its access to bases in the Philippines with an eye toward China, as part of an ongoing shift in force posture in the Indo-Pacific region.

Washington has been aggressively making deals in the Indo-Pacific, including announcing just a day earlier plans to share defense technologies with India, and earlier this month plans to deploy new US Marine units to Japanese islands.

And last week, the Marine Corps officially opened a new base on Guam, a strategically important US island east of the Philippines. Camp Blaz is the first new Marine base in 70 years and one day is expected to host 5,000 Marines.

Increased access to military bases in the Philippines would give US armed forces a strategic footing on the southeastern edge of the South China Sea just 200 miles south of Taiwan, the democratically ruled island of 24 million that the Chinese Communist Party claims as part of its sovereign territory despite never having controlled it.

Chinese leader Xi Jinping has refused to rule out the use of military force to bring Taiwan under Beijing’s control, but the Biden administration has been steadfast in its support for the island as provided by the Taiwan Relations Act, under which Washington agrees to provide the island with the means to defend itself without committing US troops.

Beijing also claims much of the disputed South China Sea as its territory.

The US has been steadfast in calling on the Chinese government to abide by its obligations under international law and cease its “provocative behavior” in the South China Sea.

A 2016 ruling by the Permanent Court of Arbitration at the Hague dismissed China’s claims to the South China Sea outright, while making clear that Beijing was infringing on Philippine sovereignty through activities such as island-building in Manila’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ).

Beijing has disavowed the tribunal ruling and continued to build up and militarily reinforce its positions in the South China Sea. It claims the US and other countries are increasing tensions in the region by sending their warships there in violation of its sovereignty.

In November, US Vice President Kamala Harris visited the Philippines to discuss expanded US base access with the recently elected President Ferdinand “Bong Bong” Marcos Jr. Some experts said her visit sent an unambiguous message to Beijing that the Philippines is moving closer to the US, reversing the trend under the previous president, Rodrigo Duterte.

Washington and Manila are bound by a mutual defense treaty signed in 1951 that remains in force, making it the oldest bilateral treaty alliance in the region for the United States.

In addition to the expansion of the EDCA, the US is helping the Philippines modernize its military and has included it as a pilot country in a maritime domain awareness initiative. The two countries also recently agreed to hold more than 500 activities together throughout the year.

Earlier this month, the Philippines announced that 16,000 Philippine and US troops would take part in the annual Balikatan exercise, which is set to take place from April 24 to April 27.

That exercise will include “a live fire exercise to test the newly acquired weapons system of the United States and the Philippines,” an announcement from the state-run Philippine News Agency said.

Formal US ties to the Philippines go back to 1898, when as part of the Treaty of Paris that ended the Spanish-American War, Madrid ceded control of its colony in the Philippines to the US.

The Philippines remained a US territory until July 4, 1946, when Washington granted it independence – but a US military presence remained in the archipelago nation.

The country used to be home to two of the US military’s largest overseas installations, Clark Air Base and Subic Bay Naval Station, which supported the US war effort in Vietnam in the 1960s and early ’70s.

Both bases were transferred to Philippine control in the 1990s, after a 1947 military basing agreement between Washington and Manila expired.

Changwon, South Korea
CNN
 — 

With a blinding yellow flash and a concussion that shakes bones, K9 self-propelled howitzers launch artillery shells onto a hill that’s simply been hit by rockets fired from helicopters. Then K2 tanks roar in, dashing up roads and firing as they go.

This is a part of DX Korea, a four-day South Korean protection expo held in September at a firing vary in Pocheon, about 30 kilometers (18.6 miles) from the North Korean border.

The show – offered to a crowd of two,000 individuals together with navy officers from greater than two dozen international locations – is a method South Korea sells weapons.

And President Yoon Suk Yeol needs to promote extra of them – sufficient for Seoul to jump four places up the ranks to become the world’s fourth-biggest arms exporter.

“By entering the world’s top four defense exporters after the United States, Russia and France, the (South Korean) defense industry will become a strategic industrialization and a defense powerhouse,” Yoon mentioned.

To try this, South Korea must outsell – in ascending order – the United Kingdom, Italy, Germany and eventually China, which held 4.6% of the export market in the 2017-2021 interval, in line with the authoritative Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).

That’s no straightforward activity, but Seoul is already nicely on its manner. From 2012 to 2016, it had simply 1% of the global market. It greater than doubled that in the following five-year interval, capturing 2.8% – by far the largest enhance amongst any of the world’s prime 25 arms exporters.

In 2021, it bought $7 billion value of weapons abroad, in line with the Export-Import Bank of Korea.

And the South Korean protection industry believes it has the arsenal to seize a good larger slice of the pie.

South Korea’s weapons exports have ballooned in current years, however the nation has been constructing its arms industry for many years, spurred on by its troubled relationship with its northern neighbor.

As of 2020, navy expenditures represented 2.8% of South Korea’s gross home product, in line with SIPRI, nicely above the 2% threshold thought of a minimal by many US allies.

“The North Korean threat has given us a good reason, a motivation to make sure that our weapons are very good,” says Chun In-bum, a former lieutenant basic in the South Korean Army.

Technically, the Korean War by no means ended, as a result of the doc that stopped the fight in 1953 was an armistice, not a peace treaty.

In the first many years after the combating ended, South Korea’s protection was closely depending on American troops and weaponry.

Things started to alter in the Seventies, when the US was distracted by the battle in Vietnam and the Cold War with the Soviet Union.

South Korea started to take extra accountability for its personal protection and invested $42 million in US navy support in factories to supply M-16 rifles, in line with the Korea Development Institute (KDI).

By the finish of the decade, Korean researchers underneath the path of the nation’s National Defense Science Institute had succeeded in making all primary weaponry, in line with a 2014 KDI report.

With the ever-present threats from the North, Seoul initiated a National Defense Tax to pay for the improvement of a contemporary navy, together with the armored programs and different navy tools that Korean protection corporations are advertising as we speak.

Back on the hillside after the live-fire demonstration, potential prospects listened intently to the pitches of the South Korean representatives.

Delegations had arrived from as far afield as Mexico, Thailand, Nigeria and the Philippines. An Indian basic requested for the ranges of a weapon on show. Qatari officers inspected a K2 up shut.

Conspicuously, none of the potential prospects have been from Ukraine.

But that doesn’t imply South Korea’s arms industry isn’t seeing a job in Ukraine’s battle with Russia.

A US protection official advised CNN this month that Washington intends to purchase 100,000 rounds of artillery ammunition from South Korean arms producers to offer to Ukraine.

The rounds shall be transferred to Ukraine through the US, permitting Seoul to stay to its public pledge that it will not ship deadly support to the war-torn nation.

In an announcement issued after the deliberate buy was first revealed in The Wall Street Journal, the South Korean Defense Ministry mentioned it had not modified its place on transport weapons to Ukraine, and that it believed the “end user” of the ammunition was the US.

Russian President Vladimir Putin had mentioned late final month that South Korea had determined to ship “arms and ammunition” to Kyiv, which might “ruin our relations” with them – a declare denied a day later by President Yoon.

A South Korean presidential decree that enforces the nation’s Foreign Trade Act says its exports can solely be used for “peaceful purposes” and “shall not affect international peace, safety maintenance, and national security.”

South Korea can be a signatory to the United Nations’ Arms Trade Treaty, ratified in 2014 with the intention of preserving shut management on who will get weapons and underneath what circumstances they can be utilized. Ukraine is a signatory however hasn’t ratified it.

But the deliberate US ammunition switch isn’t the solely manner the affect of South Korea’s arms industry shall be felt in Ukraine.

In September, South Korea signed a take care of Poland for its greatest arms sale ever, in which it should provide Warsaw with nearly 1,000 of Hyundai Rotem’s K2 tanks, greater than 600 of Hanwha’s K9s, and dozens of fighter jets from Korean Aerospace Industries.

The deal will allow Poland to switch lots of the weapons that Warsaw has despatched to Kyiv.

“Poland needed weapons to defend themselves, and that’s exactly what we’re providing,” Chun says. “We Koreans understand that without weapons to defend yourself, the end result is a tragedy.”

The fixed risk of a North Korean assault is one cause navy manufacturing strains have been established in the southern port metropolis of Changwon, the cradle of South Korea’s fashionable arms industry.

The metropolis is in a pure basin, surrounded by mountains on all sides, making it simpler to defend. The metropolis’s foremost highway, Changwon-daero, has a 14.9-kilometer (9.25-mile) stretch that may double as a runway in instances of nationwide emergency.

At its southern finish is the Changwon National Industrial Complex, established in the Seventies and residential to the Hanwha Defense and Hyundai Rotem factories, the place artillery items and tanks trundle off the meeting strains.

Overseas orders are rolling in this 12 months, notably the landmark take care of Poland which the Korea Defense Industry Association estimates to be value $15.3 billion.

Hanwha places its share of that settlement at $2.4 billion, its largest contract for the K9.

Poland is one in all 9 international locations – alongside South Korea, Turkey, Finland, India, Norway, Estonia, Australia and Egypt – to purchase the howitzer from Hanwha.

Lee Boo-hwan, an government vp of Hanwha Defense’s abroad enterprise division, says the firm needs to be a long-term companion to international locations that purchase its weapons. To that finish, it’s organising new manufacturing amenities in Australia, Egypt and Poland.

“My workers are very happy to share our technology,” Lee says. “It is our main strategic focus to enter (new) markets.”

It’s additionally about repeatedly updating and bettering the product, he says, and that’s occurring inside South Korea.

The firm has already prototyped the K9A2 tank, which situates the crew outdoors the turret to make them much less susceptible to assault, and is growing “a more futuristic, next generation version,” Lee says.

“It is fully automated operation, unmanned platform,” with synthetic intelligence to let it be taught on the battlefield, he says.

At a sprawling, fashionable complicated in Changwon, Hanwha’s robots churn out the artillery items for K9s at the charge of 1 unit each three to 5 days.

A mixture of robots and people mix on a seven-station meeting line to place collectively what is going to finally be 47 metric tons of metal, equipment and electronics.

One robotic, greater than two tales excessive, welds the turrets, the brightness of the white-hot process lighting up the cavernous meeting constructing.

Further down the line, one other robotic bores holes in the green-painted metal, switching bits routinely because it goes about its work with an accuracy of 1/one centesimal of a millimeter, thinner than a human hair, in line with a Hanwha Defense official.

Once the robots are completed, it’s the flip of Hanwha’s staff. Each hull because it goes alongside the line bears the photos of 11 of them.

“We provide excellence by name,” says Lee, the Hanwha government vp.

At every meeting station, there’s a “tollgate,” with inexperienced, yellow and pink lights. Any employee can cease the line with a pink gentle and summon engineers in the event that they spot an issue.

At the remaining cease is the bore sighting, the place the accuracy of the K9’s gun is examined on a goal at the far finish of the workspace.

The accomplished models then go outdoors for efficiency testing, inflicting the floor to vibrate as they roar alongside a paved highway close to their prime pace of 67 kilometers per hour (42 mph).

Test drivers spin the tracked howitzer a method then the different, the rubber pads on the tracks leaving donuts on the concrete.

As the drivers put the models by their paces, Lee explains how Hanwha customizes K9s for its abroad prospects: these certain for northern climates like Norway get additional warmth sources for the crew; these made for hotter locations like India or Egypt get extra air con. Some of the manufacturing facility’s K9s are headed for Poland this 12 months.

Jack Watling, senior analysis fellow for land warfare at the Royal United Services Institute in London, says South Korea is the excellent testing floor.

Its seasons vary from deep-freeze winters to monsoons and summer time warmth of 30 levels Celsius or increased – and it has each flat and mountainous terrain.

“That is a pretty unique set of complex variables in terms of having a vehicle that’s reliable across climatic conditions,” Watling says.

And that’s attracted overseas consumers, he says.

Just a couple of miles from the place the K9 artillery items are being examined, the K2 tanks at the Hyundai Rotem manufacturing facility are being put by their paces.

Again, the newest buyer is Poland.

“This is our first time directly exporting our (K2),” says Kim, the Hyundai Rotem VP.

Orders from South Korea’s navy preserve the K2 meeting line busy sufficient – however the Polish order means Hyundai Rotem can add capability.

This is actually like shopping for a brand new automobile off the lot. In the tank world, you may’t fairly drive your new K2 residence that day, however you get the concept.

“The most important thing is that it is currently being produced,” Kim says.

Hanwha Defense has its eyes on one market in explicit – the United States, the world’s largest protection market.

“We want to enter the US market with support from a US local company and also, we want to contribute to the US Army and the US local defense industry,” says Lee, the Hanwha VP.

In 2021, US navy spending was $801 billion. But South Korean weapons and ammunition exports to the US accounted for solely $95 million, in line with the US Commerce Department.

Overall, US navy spending was greater than the subsequent 9 international locations mixed, in line with SIPRI. South Korea ranked tenth.

But the South Korean protection industry must be seen as a companion that enhances its American counterpart, reasonably than competes with it, Chun says.

That large US navy finances consists of big expenditure on top-shelf gadgets. That’s not what Seoul is promoting, he factors out.

“There are portions of a spectrum of weapons that the United States does not make, because they feel they don’t need to. It doesn’t make a profit for their industry. That’s what we’re targeting. The systems that we have sold to Poland are exactly those kind of systems,” he says.

“I’m hoping that the United States understands that this is a partnership,” Chun provides.

“The United States makes the greatest and best weapons in the world,” he says, “but they don’t make all of them.”

CNN
 — 

Brazil’s hotly contested presidential election is lower than 24 hours away, and for a lot of Brazilians, the stakes couldn’t be increased.

Two family names – former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and present chief Jair Bolsonaro – are battling to turn into the nation’s subsequent president. Depending on who finally wins, Latin America’s largest financial system will probably both proceed on Bolsonaro’s conservative, pro-business path, or else take a left flip beneath Lula.

In latest weeks, each candidates have ramped up efforts to woo voters. But that is an arduous process in a rustic the place 85% of voters say they’ve already made up their minds, in accordance to a Datafolha ballot launched Thursday.

For Lula, extra votes may imply victory within the first spherical of voting, without having for a runoff. Meanwhile, Bolsonaro wants to catch up, after slipping 14 factors behind his rival in the identical survey.

Brazilians will vote for his or her subsequent president on Sunday, October 2, within the first spherical of the elections. On the identical date, governors, senators, federal and state deputies for the nation’s 26 states plus the federal district can even be chosen.

Voting is scheduled to begin at 8 a.m. native time in Brasilia (7 a.m. ET) and concludes at 5 p.m. native (4 p.m. ET).

In the Brazilian electoral system, a successful candidate should acquire greater than 50% of the vote. If no candidate crosses that threshold, a second spherical of voting will probably be organized, by which the choices will probably be narrowed down to the 2 frontrunners from the primary spherical.

In Brazil, opinion polls at all times estimate candidates’ potential efficiency within the first spherical (competing towards with all different candidates) and within the second spherical (with simply two prime candidates).

Over 156 million Brazilians are eligible to vote.

Bolsonaro and Lula are by far the candidates to watch. Though different candidates are additionally within the race, they’re polling with one-digit percentages and are unlikely to pose a lot competitors.

Lula, 76, was Brazil’s President for 2 phrases – from 2003 to 2006 and 2007 to 2011. A family identify, he first got here into the political scene within the Nineteen Seventies as a pacesetter of employee strikes which defied the army regime.

In 1980, he was one of many founders of the Workers’ Party (PT), which went on to turn into Brazil’s predominant left-wing political drive. Lula’s presidential phrases had been marked by applications aimed toward lowering poverty and inequality within the nation but in addition rocked by revelations of a corruption scheme involving the fee of congressional representatives to assist authorities proposals. Due to lack of proof of his involvement, Lula himself was by no means included within the investigation of this scheme.

Lula’s marketing campaign for the presidency now guarantees a brand new tax regime that can enable for increased public spending. He has vowed to finish starvation within the nation, which has returned in the course of the Bolsonaro authorities. Lula additionally guarantees to work to cut back carbon emissions and deforestation within the Amazon.

Bolsonaro is a former military captain who was a federal deputy for 27 years earlier than operating for President in 2018. A marginal determine in politics throughout a lot of this time, he emerged within the mid-2010s as a number one determine of a extra radically right-wing motion, which perceived the PT as its predominant enemy.

As a President, Bolsonaro has pursued a conservative agenda, supported by essential evangelical leaders. His authorities additionally grew to become recognized for its assist for ruthless exploitation of land within the Amazon, main to document deforestation figures. Environmentalists have warned that the way forward for the rainforest may very well be at stake on this election.

In his program, Bolsonaro guarantees to improve mining, privatize public corporations and generate extra sustainable vitality to deliver down vitality costs. He has vowed to proceed paying a R$600 (roughly US$110) month-to-month profit often called Auxilio Brasil.

Vote counting begins proper after ballots (largely digital) shut on Sunday.

Brazil’s electoral authorities say they count on ultimate outcomes from the primary spherical to be formally introduced that night, on October 2. They will probably be printed on the electoral courtroom’s web site.

In the previous couple of elections, outcomes had been formally declared two to three hours after voting completed. If the main candidate doesn’t handle to muster greater than half of all legitimate votes, a second spherical will happen on October 30.

Observers will probably be watching carefully to see if all candidates settle for the vote end result publicly. Bolsonaro, who has been accused of firing up supporters with violent rhetoric, has sought to sow doubts in regards to the end result and stated that the outcomes must be thought-about suspicious if he doesn’t acquire “at least 60%.”

Both he and his conservative Liberal Party claimed that Brazil’s digital poll system is vulnerable to fraud – a completely unfounded allegation that has drawn comparisons to the false election claims of former US President Donald Trump.

There have been no confirmed cases of voter fraud within the digital poll in Brazil.

The Supreme Electoral Court has additionally rejected claims of flaws within the system, as “false and untruthful, with no base in reality.”

Telfs-Buchen, Austria
CNN
 — 

President Joe Biden could also be abroad in the Bavarian Alps, however the political division and bitter temper he left behind shall be troublesome to ignore as he begins this 12 months’s Group of seven summit.

Rising prices – pushed partially by the Russian invasion of Ukraine – shall be central to Sunday’s agenda, the place leaders will concurrently work to maintain their stress on Moscow whereas additionally in search of methods to ease worth spikes which have price them every politically.

That might show a difficult process. Bans on Russian vitality have contributed to a spike in international oil costs, but leaders are detest to ease up on sanctions they consider are having an impact on Russian President Vladimir Putin’s financial system. One space they’ve introduced motion: Banning imports of recent Russian gold.

“This is a key export, a key source of revenue, a key alternative for Russia, in terms of their ability to transact in the global financial system. Taking this step cuts off that capacity,” a senior administration official stated.

At the identical time, Biden continues to confront fallout from Friday’s ruling fundamentally altering abortion rights for women in the United States, a call that’s drawn condemnation from several of his fellow world leaders.

The ruling put into sharp aid the divisions roiling American politics and establishments, which have acted as a worrying subtext for leaders observing Biden’s makes an attempt at restoring American management.

Here are a number of issues to watch at Sunday’s G7 summit:

Biden and fellow G7 leaders will talk about methods to punish Russia whereas nonetheless managing an unsteady international financial system throughout their first day of talks Sunday in the Bavarian Alps. The conversations will produce some bulletins and “muscle movements,” in accordance to a senior White House official.

“A large focus of the G7 and the leaders are going to be, you know, how to not only manage the challenges in the global economy as a result of Mr. Putin’s war, but how to also continue to hold Mr. Putin accountable and to make sure that he is being subjected to costs and consequences for what he’s doing,” stated John Kirby, the coordinator for strategic communication at the National Security Council, as Biden was flying to Europe.

Biden’s first engagement Sunday shall be a bilateral assembly with the summit’s host, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, adopted by the opening G7 session targeted on international financial points which have been aggravated by the Ukraine conflict.

“I think leaders are going to be looking for ways to do two things: One, continue to hold Mr. Putin accountable and to increase the costs and consequences of his war on him and his economy,” Kirby stated. “And two, minimizing as much as possible the effect of these rising oil prices and the way he has weaponized energy on nations, particularly on the continent but also around the world.”

That stability will outline this 12 months’s G7, as leaders work to maintain their stress marketing campaign on Putin whereas additionally confronting rising inflation that has price some leaders’ politically at residence. Biden remarked on the solidarity of the G7 and NATO on Ukraine and the Russian invasion, telling Scholz forward of the two leaders’ assembly that the teams should stay unified.

“We have to stay together. As Putin has been counting on from the beginning, that somehow NATO and the G7 would splinter, but we haven’t and we’re not going to,” Biden stated.

The leaders have agreed to announce an import ban on new gold from Russia, Biden stated on Twitter Sunday morning. Gold is the second largest export for Russia after vitality.

Biden has weathered a few of the harshest blowback as he’s seen his approval rankings drop amid an increase in costs.

“There may well be rising pressure in US politics, in the sense of some people in the primaries we’ve seen already have said I don’t care about Ukraine. What matters is cost of living,” one European official stated forward of this week’s trip. “And if the President did get a bounce in the polls because of his leadership on Ukraine, that’s very fast being dissipated. So there’ll be that effect.”

Biden declared Friday the Supreme Court’s conservative majority “made the United States an outlier among developed nations in the world” by stripping the nationwide proper to abortion.

Two days later, he’ll come face-to-face with the leaders of these nations in the Bavarian Alps, forsaking a quickly dividing nation whose fractious politics have drawn the world’s concern.

The White House doesn’t consider the ruling or the fractures now splitting America will issue into Biden’s discussions.

“There’s real national security issues here that have to be discussed and the President is not at all concerned that the Supreme Court’s decision is going to take away from that at all,” Kirby stated.

Yet 4 of the six fellow leaders Biden is becoming a member of in Germany discovered the ruling monumental sufficient to weigh in themselves.

“I’ve got to tell you, I think it’s a big step backwards,” stated British Prime Minister Boris Johnson. It’s a “devastating setback,” stated Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. French President Emmanuel Macron and Scholz had been additionally important.

Whether the ruling comes up in Biden’s non-public discussions stays to be seen. But the basically modified and divided nation he left behind won’t ever be far from thoughts as he represents it on the world stage.

At final 12 months’s G7 summit on the Cornish coast in England, Biden pressed fellow leaders into inserting powerful new language condemning China’s human rights violations right into a remaining communiqué. Leading up to the doc, the group had at-times heated conversations behind closed doorways about their collective method to China.

The subject could make for fraught conversations since some European leaders don’t essentially share Biden’s view of China as an existential risk. Yet the President has made repeatedly clear he hopes to persuade fellow leaders to take a harder line. And Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has amplified the President’s oft-spoken warnings of autocracies versus democracies.

On Sunday afternoon, Biden is predicted to unveil, alongside different leaders, an infrastructure funding program concentrating on low- and middle-income nations designed to compete with China’s Belt and Road Initiative.

Beijing has poured billions into constructing roads, railways and ports worldwide to forge new commerce hyperlinks and diplomatic ties. Biden has pitched an identical program in the previous, dubbing it Build Back Better World.

But with that identify apparently retired, the White House is renewing the effort in Germany.