🇺🇸 🇨🇳 🇹🇼 China's recent military exercises surrounding Taiwan "looked like a rehearsal" for an invasion, U.S. Indo-Pacific Commander Samuel Paparo told Nikkei.

🗳 The large-scale exercises took place just after new Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te took office. The drills are a part of China's pressure campaign to bring the island under its control as Beijing regards Lai as a troublemaker.

🏗 Asked about the possibility of China invading Taiwan, Paparo stressed, "What matters is [China's] own assessments," warning that Beijing continues to "build capability at an alarming rate."

💥 If shooting did break out in the region, Paparo said he is confident the U.S. and its allies and partners would "prevail in a conflict."

🇯🇵 The U.S. has been promoting "integrated deterrence" with these allies and partners. Calling the U.S.-Japan alliance "the most important alliance on the planet," Paparo touted the countries' joint operational capability. "Japanese units are within the formation, and are nearly indistinguishable in how we share, track and [in] our ability to operate tactically," he said.

🇵🇭 As for the tensions in the South China Sea, where Chinese ships have repeatedly harassed Philippine ships, Paparo said, "We're monitoring the situation, and we stand ready to come to the aid of our treaty ally, the Philippines." He added that the Netherlands, Italy and Germany will enhance deterrence in the South China Sea through efforts such as dispatching vessels.

🇰🇵 Elsewhere in the Indo-Pacific region, North Korea attempted to launch a rocket carrying a military reconnaissance satellite on Monday. Although the attempt failed, the threat to the security of Japan and the United States has been increasing.

⚡️ "The lessons of the last five years have shown that we're living in an increasingly chaotic and disordered world," Paparo said.

https://asia.nikkei.com/Editor-s-Picks/Interview/China-s-drills-appear-to-be-rehearsal-for-Taiwan-invasion-U.S.-admiral

https://archive.ph/RGODo

🇳🇮💥 — The dictator Daniel Ortega called his brother, retired General Humberto Ortega, head of the Army during the Sandinista revolution, a “traitor to the homeland.” Last week, Humberto criticized the Nicaraguan regime in an interview

💬 Daniel Ortega referred to his brother for the first time since the interview, at an event celebrating the 45th anniversary of the final guerrilla offensive that overthrew the dictatorship of Anastasio Somoza Debayle in July 1979.

🇺🇸 During the event, the dictator revoked through a presidential decree the awarding of the Camilo Ortega gold medal that the Army, led by his brother, had given to Lieutenant Colonel Dennis F. Quinn, head of the U.S. Government’s Military Attaché Office in Managua.

"In the neoliberal government, they appointed their defense minister, an enemy of the people and the Army itself. But he established a very good relationship with the Army chief at that time, who committed the sacrilege of awarding that gold medal for valor to the U.S. government's military delegate in Nicaragua. Giving the Camilo Ortega gold medal to the Yankee. What a shame, a betrayal of the people, of the homeland!"

⛓ The Nicaraguan police have kept Humberto Ortega under virtual house arrest following the interview that the dictator’s brother gave to Infobae.

⚠️ Humberto Ortega also reported that he has learned of intentions to assassinate him by members of the power group due to his critical positions against the regime. However, he said he does not believe these actions would be carried out under orders from his brother.

Source 🖇

💳 Mastercard Crypto Credential goes live with first peer-to-peer pilot transactions, adds new partners to the ecosystem Mastercard Crypto Credential goes live with first peer-to-peer pilot transactions, adds new partners to the ecosystem

➡️For the first time, crypto exchange users will be able to send and receive crypto using their Mastercard Crypto Credential aliases, instead of the typically long and complex blockchain addresses.

➡️The live transaction capabilities are enabled on the Bit2Me, Lirium and Mercado Bitcoin exchanges, allowing them to enable blockchain transactions simply and securely between Latin American and European corridors.

https://www.mastercard.com/news/press/2024/may/mastercard-crypto-credential-goes-live-with-first-peer-to-peer-pilot-transactions-adds-new-partners-to-the-ecosystem/

https://support.bit2me.com/es/support/solutions/articles/35000237726-mastercard-crypto-credential-preguntas-frecuentes

🌐 🇷🇺 Image shows a 7-layer defensive line planned for the border between NATO and Russia

🇵🇱 Poland unveiled a plan for new defenses along its borders with Russia and Belarus. Poland and other European NATO members are warning that Russia could launch an attack. An image showed a wall, barbed wire, anti-tank obstacles and vegetation.

🇪🇺 Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk also said in March that Europe was in a "pre-war era" and needed to prepare urgently.

🇱🇻 Other countries near Russia are also increasing their border defenses. Baltic countries also plan big fortifications on their borders with Russia and Belarus, including bunkers. Six NATO countries — Poland, Finland, Norway, and the three Baltic states — are also reportedly planning a "drone wall" to defend against Russia.

🇧🇾 Poland already has a border wall between it and Belarus, built by its previous government last year to prevent migration.

https://www.businessinsider.com/image-planned-7-layer-defensive-border-between-nato-and-russia-2024-5

🏹 🇺🇸 🇺🇦 Pentagon Opens Ammunition Factory to Keep Arms Flowing to Ukraine

🔶️ The factory will soon turn out about 30,000 steel shells every month for the 155-millimeter howitzers that have become crucial to Kyiv’s war effort.

🔶️ Ukraine fired between 4,000 and 7,000 such shells daily for several months in 2023, according to NATO’s secretary-general, before infighting among House Republicans held up further funding for Pentagon arms shipments. Large shipments of American artillery ammunition resumed in April after Congress passed an aid package that included $61 billion to Ukraine.

🔶️ To keep Ukraine’s artillery crews supplied, the Pentagon set a production target last year of 100,000 shells per month by the end of 2025. Factories in Scranton and Wilkes-Barre, Pa., together make about 36,000 shells per month. The new General Dynamics facility in Mesquite, Texas, will make 30,000 each month once it reaches its full capacity.

🔶️ The 100,000-per-month goal represents a nearly tenfold increase in production from a few years ago.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/29/us/pentagon-ammunition-ukraine-russia.html

🌐🤝🇱🇹 — 📰 British Media, Sky News on Twitter/X:

NATO is carrying out its largest exercises since the Cold War in the Baltic state of Lithuania.

Over the past six months, 90,000 troops have been involved in NATO exercises, carrying out drills across the member states.

🔗 Sky News (@SkyNews)

🇫🇷🤝🇺🇦 — 📰 Reuters: France could announce sending military trainers to Ukraine soon, diplomats say

➡️ France could soon send military trainers to Ukraine despite the concerns of some allies and criticism by Russia, and may announce its decision next week during a visit by the Ukrainian president, three diplomatic sources said.

➡️ The diplomats said Paris hoped to forge and lead a coalition of countries offering such assistance to Kyiv's war effort even though some of its European Union partners fear it could make a direct conflict with Russia more likely.

➡️ France would initially send a limited number of personnel to assess the modalities of a mission before dispatching several hundred trainers, two of the diplomats said.

🔗 Link
https://archive.is/PZNtS

#URGENT

🇺🇸⚖️⚠️❗️ — Manhattan Court declares Former US President Donald Trump GUILTY on EVERY SINGLE of the charges!

🇷🇺💸🤝🇨🇳 — 🇺🇸 Bloomberg: Russian commodities firms struggling to execute financial transactions with Chinese counterparts have started tapping a new method for settling deals — stablecoins.

At least two top metals producers, both of which are unsanctioned, have begun to use Tether Holdings Ltd.’s stablecoin and some other cryptocurrencies to settle some of their cross-border transactions with mostly Chinese clients and suppliers, top executives at the companies said, declining to be identified as the information isn’t public.

🇰🇵❌🇰🇷 — 📰 Yonhap News Agency: North Korea sends over 260 balloons carrying trash into South Korea: Seoul military

➡️ North Korea has launched hundreds of balloons carrying trash and manure across the inter-Korean border, Seoul's military said Wednesday, after the North warned of "tit-for-tat action" against anti-Pyongyang leaflets sent by the South's activists.

➡️ As of 4 p.m., the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said it had detected some 260 balloons sent from the North since Tuesday night, which fell in various locations across the country, including border areas, Seoul and even the southeastern province of South Gyeongsang.

➡️ It marked the largest number of North Korean balloons sent into the South, compared with previous similar instances between 2016 and 2018, the JCS said, noting that none of the balloons were still floating in the air.

➡️ The fallen balloons appeared to have carried various pieces of trash, such as plastic bottles, batteries, shoe parts and even manure, a JCS official said, with no major damage being reported so far.

🔗 Link
https://archive.is/wip/5t06a