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Ukrainian drones struck a large military depot in a town deep inside Russia overnight.
… The exploding pagers used in the apparent Israeli attack on Hezbollah were made in Hungary, the company that owns the pagers’ brand said.
… South Korea and Japan say North Korea test-fired multiple ballistic missiles toward its eastern seas on Wednesday.
… China’s military is rapidly building up space capabilities, including more than 970 recently deployed satellites, according to an unclassified Space Force intelligence report.
… There’s a new twist in Google’s European Union battle, as the American tech giant just won a legal bid to overturn a $1.6 billion antitrust fine.
… And voting is underway in Indian-controlled Kashmir for the first time since Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government stripped the disputed region of its special status.
Taiwanese company Gold Apollo said Wednesday that it authorized its brand on the pagers that exploded in Lebanon and Syria in an apparent Israeli operation targeting Hezbollah’s communications network but that another company based in Budapest manufactured them.
Lebanon’s health minister said at least 12 people were killed and about 2,800 were wounded by the exploding handheld pagers across Lebanon on Tuesday, with two children among those killed.
Experts say the pager explosions showed signs of a long-planned operation, though the means were not immediately known. Investigators have not said whether they believe the pagers were detonated or if explosives had somehow been sneaked into each pager.
A second wave of device explosions was reported in Lebanon on Wednesday, with a Hezbollah official telling The Associated Press that walkie-talkies used by the group exploded as part of blasts heard in Beirut.
The war in Ukraine has shown the U.S. must do better at rapidly integrating new technology and capabilities with older systems, says former Rep. Jane Harman.
Ms. Harman, a California Democrat and chair of the congressionally mandated Commission on the National Defense Strategy, says she recently visited a drone factory in Ukraine, where workers were constructing drone casings using a 3-D printer and ordered the software from Amazon. “They can produce a drone for $350. I don’t think the Pentagon can produce a cup of coffee for $350,” Ms. Harman told the Defense Writers Group on Tuesday.
She and commission vice chair, Ambassador Eric Edelman, spoke about the commission’s work a day before their Wednesday testimony to the House Armed Services Committee about the National Defense Strategy. In a scathing report released in July, the bipartisan commission said the U.S. is not prepared for the large-scale war it waged against Germany and Japan nearly 80 years ago.
China’s military is rapidly building up its space capabilities, including more than 970 recently deployed satellites that would support attacks on U.S. aircraft carriers, expeditionary forces and air wings during a conflict, according to a recently released Space Force intelligence report.
The report also reveals that Russia is building a nuclear space weapon capable of triggering large-scale blasts that could destroy U.S. and other satellites. House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Chairman Mike Turner recently discussed the Russian threat in an exclusive Threat Status Influencers video interview.
China’s military deployments, meanwhile, include 20 satellites launched from March through June, according to the unclassified space threat fact sheet. The satellites are designed to enable “long-range precision strikes against U.S. and allied forces.”
Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is calling on American officials to recognize Taiwan as an independent nation, separate from communist China.
Mr. Pompeo stressed during a gathering Tuesday at the Hudson Institute — an event that included supporters of the Taiwan United Nations Alliance — that America’s commitment to the island was “long and deep and strong.”
Mr. Pompeo, who led the CIA prior to becoming secretary of state in the Trump administration, called on other Americans to echo his advocacy for the island democracy. “I hope more, other senior American officials will join me in this because I think it will create noise,” he said.
Former Taiwanese Defense Minister Michael Tsai praised Mr. Pompeo during Tuesday’s event. Mr. Tsai said he hoped Washington would listen to the plea for Taiwan to join the United Nations, describing it as the island’s national goal.
Threat Status opinion contributor Clifford D. May takes aim at the assertion by the European Union’s top diplomat, Josep Borrell, that “Hamas represents an idea, and one cannot kill an idea with bombs.”
Mr. Borell “doesn’t say what idea Hamas represents. But I will. It’s killing Jews. Exactly what you saw on Oct. 7, 2023,” writes Mr. May, who explains that “antisemitism … has always been a mutating virus.”
“So when contemporary antisemites claim it’s not Jews they hate, ‘only’ Israelis or Zionists, reach for a grain of salt,” writes Mr. May, adding that “the Houthi rebels of Yemen, a proxy of Iran’s rulers, do not bother to equivocate. The slogan on their flag: ‘God Is the Greatest, Death to America, Death to Israel, A Curse Upon the Jews, Victory to Islam.’”
Michael Stumo of the Coalition for a Prosperous America, writes that “while China continues to use slave labor, maintain close ties with both Russia and Iran and build its military arsenal, Wall Street keeps investing in Chinese firms tied to Beijing’s global ambitions.”
The CPA released a report last week on U.S. financial giants — including BlackRock and Goldman Sachs — that have “formed joint ventures with Chinese state banks,” writes Mr. Stumo. “These partnerships are giving Beijing unprecedented influence over major U.S. financial firms. This Wall Street entanglement with Beijing isn’t just reckless — it’s a betrayal of American interests.”
He goes on to assert that Congress “failed to take any meaningful action” during last week’s “China Week” on Capitol Hill. “Lawmakers ignored bipartisan legislation intended to block Chinese companies from exploiting Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) tax credits,” he writes. “And instead of addressing China’s stranglehold on solar markets, Congress allowed Beijing to keep profiting from taxpayer-funded energy incentives. This hurts U.S. manufacturers who have invested billions in new, domestic solar production facilities.”
• Oct. 2 — 2024 Veterans Advanced Energy Summit, Atlantic Council
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