🇯🇵🇰🇷🇨🇳 South Korea, China, and Japan held their first economic dialogue in five years on Sunday as they prepare for tariffs imposed by Trump.

According to a joint statement reported by Reuters, the trade ministers of the three countries agreed to "closely cooperate to conduct comprehensive high-level negotiations" on a free trade agreement between South Korea, Japan, and China to promote "regional and global trade."

The report highlights that Beijing, Seoul, and Tokyo are major trading partners of the United States, though only the latter two are political allies of Washington.

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🇺🇸❌🇾🇪❗️ — Media aligned with Houthi terrorists say that US Navy is carrying out extensive, large-scale bombings in Saada area

🇩🇪🇺🇸 Where’s the gold? Germany’s conservatives sound the alarm over reserves in the US

Can the United States be trusted with Germany’s gold?

[S]ome politicians in Germany are worried that what was for decades seen as one of the world’s most reliable storehouses might not be so secure after all.

Germany holds the world’s second-largest gold reserves, and keeps 37 percent of them — some 1,236 metric tons, worth €113 billion — in the vaults of the New York Federal Reserve. Those holdings of precious metal guarantee that, should the need ever arise, the Bundesbank has access to something it can change into U.S. dollars (or any other hard currency).

The very idea that they might not be safe would have been considered ridiculous from 1945 ... until a couple of weeks ago. But the certainties of Germany’s postwar existence have been turned on their head and — as the recent scrapping of a notorious cap on public borrowing showed — the unthinkable is suddenly very thinkable indeed. All the more so given evidence of U.S. President Donald Trump’s willingness to push the limits of his powers and assert presidential primacy over the judicial system.

German tabloid Bild, owned by POLITICO parent company Axel Springer, reported on Thursday that outgoing Christian Democratic Union (CDU) lawmaker Marco Wanderwitz is one of those concerned.

Already in 2012, Wanderwitz had unsuccessfully requested to inspect the gold holdings as part of an effort to pressure the bank to either take a more active role as a custodian, or to repatriate it to Germany.

“Of course, the question now arises again,” Wanderwitz said in comments reported by Bild.

https://www.politico.eu/article/gold-germany-conservatives-sound-alarm-over-reserves-usa/

🇨🇳🇹🇼 China launches joint military exercises around Taiwan, practicing a “blockade on key areas”

On 1 April, PLA Eastern Theater Command deployed Army, Navy, Air Force, & Rocket Forces to “close in on Taiwan from multiple directions.”

- Sea-air combat readiness patrols
- Joint seizure of comprehensive superiority
- Assault on maritime & ground targets
- Blockade on key areas & sea areas

“It is a stern warning & forceful deterrence against ‘Taiwan Independence’ separatist forces.”

The PLA released a theme poster called “Closing In: Sinister Moves of Taiwan Separatists Courting Disaster Upon Themselves.”

https://fxtwitter.com/ianellisjones/status/1906867532646031666

🤖 Humanoid robot company Figure released a new video of its robot working on BMW's production line.

"This isn't a test environment—it's real production operations."

🔗 Sawyer Merritt

🇮🇱🇯🇴 Israel to begin building new $1.4 billion border barrier with Jordan

Israel will begin building a long-promised new fence along the border with Jordan in June, the Times of Israel has learned. The work is expected to take three years.

The fence will run from Hamat Gader at the southern edge of the Golan Heights to the Ramon International Airport north of Eilat. A 30-kilometer (18-mile) portion of the border with Jordan, from Eilat to Ramon Airport, was already upgraded in a similar fashion to Israel’s border barriers with Egypt and the Gaza Strip in the 2010s.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/israel-to-begin-building-new-1-4-billion-border-barrier-with-jordan/

🇪🇬🇮🇱 Egypt military buildup in Sinai threatens peace with Israel, source warns

Israel has recently observed a military buildup by Egypt in the Sinai Peninsula, according to a security source who spoke with reporters on Monday.

“Egypt has deployed forces beyond the permitted quota, expanded port facilities, and extended runways at airports,” the source said. The source added that these actions violate the peace agreement between the two nations.

Regarding the entry of Egyptian forces beyond the permitted quota, security officials emphasized that “such actions are reversible – it is not a problem to pull tanks back.”

https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/article-848313

UPDATE:
🇺🇸🤝🇮🇱-KAN: The commander of U.S. Central Command arrived in Israel and held nearly 10 hours of discussions with Israeli leaders on Iran and the Houthis.

🇨🇳❌🇹🇼❗️ — Communist China's military has announced it is conducting joint army, naval and rocket force exercises around Republic of China (Taiwan), Reuters reports.

"These drills mainly focus on sea-air combat-readiness patrols ... assaults on maritime and ground targets, and blockades on key areas and sea lanes to test the joint operations capabilities of its troops," PLA’s Eastern Theater Command said in a statement.

🇨🇳❌🇹🇼 — Communist China's State media Global Times reports that the People's Liberation Army's Eastern Theater Command started to conduct joint exercises around Taiwan Island on Tuesday, the command released a theme poster called “Closing In”.

“Sinister Moves of Taiwan Separatists Courting Disaster Upon Themselves,”

reads the propaganda poster.

🇨🇳❌🇹🇼❗️ — ROC (Taiwan) Armed Forces says it detected 19x Communist China's warships, part of Shandong aircraft carrier group, around Taiwan island in newest Communist provocation

🇺🇸🚀📹 — 4 astronauts are now sent to orbit both the poles on a privately funded SpaceX mission

On video, Falcon 9 launches the Fram2 to orbit

🇧🇷🤡🔓🇵🇾 — URGENT: The Brazilian Intelligence Agency (Abin), under the current Lula administration, carried out a hacking operation against Paraguayan authorities

➡️ The operation's planning allegedly began when former President Jair Bolsonaro left office, but its execution took place with the authorization of the current Abin director, Luiz Fernando Corrêa. The cyberattack targeted Paraguayan government computers, aiming to obtain classified information regarding tariff negotiations for the Itaipu hydroelectric plant, a long-standing commercial issue between the two countries.

💥 According to testimonies from those involved, the operation resulted in the capture of data from several high-ranking Paraguayan government officials. The hacking took place months before a new agreement was finalized in May 2024 regarding the payments made by Brazil for energy purchased from Paraguay. The agent did not clarify whether the obtained information influenced the negotiations.

✉️ The cyberattack involved the use of Cobalt Strike, a program used to access computer systems. “Cobalt Strike was a tool used to develop an intrusion artifact for Paraguayan government computers to extract data related to the bilateral Itaipu negotiations,” an Abin agent told Brazil’s Federal Police.

💸 Itaipu’s energy is equally divided between Brazil and Paraguay. Since Paraguay consumes less, it sells the surplus to Brazil. The rules for this sale are set in Annex C, which was scheduled for review in 2023. In recent years, Paraguay has pressured Brazil for higher tariffs.

⁉️ This past May, Brazilian Minister of Mines and Energy Alexandre Silveira reached an agreement with Paraguayan President Santiago Peña to increase Brazil’s payments, though the final amount was lower than Paraguay’s demands. Around the same time, the Brazilian government also opened discussions on revising Annex C.

✈️ The Abin operation was not conducted from Brazil. Agents made three trips to Chile and Panama to set up virtual servers and launch the attacks. The targets were “authorities directly involved in the negotiations and the pricing per megawatt,” the agent stated. “The Paraguayan Congress, Senate, House of Representatives, and the Presidency were all hacked.”

💬 In a testimony, one agent reported that an Abin executive “personally presented” the operation to the agency’s current director. “Luiz Fernando was thrilled, he really liked it, saying it was the first time he truly felt involved in intelligence work,” the agent told the Federal Police.

⭐ Luiz Fernando Corrêa, a close ally of Lula, is a retired Federal Police officer who led the agency during the leftist’s second term. His appointment to Abin displeased the current Federal Police director, Andrei Rodrigues, who had sought to appoint someone of his own choosing. Behind the scenes, the investigation into Abin’s current leadership is seen as a reflection of this internal power struggle.

Source 🖇