Miscellaneous News

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pmc

Major
Registered Member
siegecrossbow said:
Might be a ghost phoenix.

Then again homemade Houthi drones could ignore the likes of Patriot missiles and out a massive dent in Aramco. US made drones could obviously to the same and more.
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Patriot is last line of defense. i dont think it can intercept this size drones more than few kms.
only modern Russian airdefense is S350 and Pantsir SM. but they are too few to be every where.
I think UAE ordered GaN AWACS to deal with these kind of threats as previous Saudi AWACS/Fighter not much in drone fight.
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Strangelove

Strangelove

Colonel
Registered Member
Bellum_Romanum said:
Malcolm Nance has been itching to join the war against Russia in Ukraine. While I don't find this action of his to be noble or even laudable, he's at least putting his own skin on the line or wall. I just don't know what kind of difference he's going to be able to make against Russia. He's either drank the American mythos a little too much, sprinkled with Rambo stuff or he's one of them military dudes who didn't get to see any "real action" while on active duty. My hunch is that this dude is looking to sell another book, and use this episode as his platform for a political office for the "Dems with balls" if he comes out of this stunt in one piece.

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Oh really?! The Azov will lynch him before a Russian sniper shoots him in the eye.


Ukr nazis 2.jpg
 
R

Rettam Stacf

Junior Member
Registered Member
Appix said:

Solomon Islands: Japan sends envoy as Australia warns of Chinese military base ‘red line’​

  • Kentaro Uesugi is expected to convey Tokyo’s concern about the islands’ security pact with China, and discuss bilateral and regional issue
  • It comes after Australian PM Scott Morrison said on Sunday that a Chinese military base in the Solomon Islands would be a ‘red line’ for his government

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dispatched a foreign vice-minister to the Solomon Islands on Monday amid worry over
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that the South Pacific nation struck with
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that could increase Beijing’s military influence in the region.

Kentaro Uesugi’s three-day trip to Solomon Islands comes on the heels of a visit by a senior US delegation, who warned that Washington would take unspecified action against the South Pacific nation should the security deal with China pose a threat to US or allied interests.

The security pact, which China and the Solomons confirmed last week, has also alarmed neighbouring countries and Western allies, including Japan, that fear a military build-up in the region.

“We believe the deal could affect the security of the entire Asia-Pacific region and we are watching the development with concern,” Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi said on Friday.

Uesugi, during his visit to the Solomon Islands, is expected to convey Japan’s concern about the security pact and discuss bilateral and regional issues.

Japan sees China’s increasingly assertive military activity in the East and South China seas as a threat in some of the world’s busiest sea lanes. Tokyo is especially concerned about Chinese military and coastguard activity in the East China Sea near the disputed Diaoyu Islands, which Japan controls and calls the Senkakus.

Tokyo has in recent years significantly stepped up security cooperation and expanded joint drills with the United States and other Western partners, including Australia, India, France, Britain and Germany, that share its concerns about China’s growing influence. The Solomon Islands switched diplomatic ties from Taipei to Beijing in 2019.

On Sunday,
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’s Prime Minister Scott Morrison said a Chinese military base in the Solomon Islands would be a “red line” for his government, adding at a press conference that his determination to avoid a naval base there was shared not just by the US but by the Pacific nation’s prime minister, Manasseh Sogavare.

Morrison said Sogavare had assured him personally there would be no military base in the Solomons. “This is a shared concern, not just Australia. This is Australia with regional governments,” he said. When asked by journalists what he would do in the event of the announcement of a Chinese military base in the Solomons, Morrison did not say.

Australia’s Liberal National coalition is working to contain the political fallout from the announcement in the past week that the Solomon Islands had signed a security agreement with China, the details of which have not been made public. A draft of the agreement leaked in late March would allow Chinese naval vessels a safe harbour just 2,000km (1,200 miles) from Australia’s coastline.

The opposition Labor Party described the pact as the “worst failure of Australian foreign policy in the Pacific since the end of World War II”. Speaking to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation on Monday morning, Labor’s shadow defence minister Brendan O’Connor said he would request a briefing from the government on what it would do if the “red line” was crossed by China.

“The fact that we have to turn to using that type of language is too little, too late. We should have been doing more,” he said. Morrison’s government is currently campaigning for a fourth term in power at a national election due to be held on May 21. Despite Australia’s strong economy and record low unemployment, Morrison’s centre-right government is trailing Labor in opinion polling.

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Both Japan and Australia host foreign troops and foreign bases in their own respective country. And they are telling Solomon Islands not to do that.

Do what I say and not what I do !
 
T

taxiya

Brigadier
Registered Member
supersnoop said:
UnionPay is definitely used in western markets, at least definitely in Canada
All the major payment processors here support it, sending promo emails and window stickers to "reach more global customers" etc. etc. Of course this means Chinese customers, lol.

You can look at UnionPay keeping away from Russia as a form of bullying by the US, yes. However, another way to look at it, UnionPay first and foremost is serving Chinese nationals, many of which are overseas. Their interests should be a priority as a matter of practicality.
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I will borrow your post to present my thought about "UnionPay withholding card to Russian bank".

Let's assume that US follows its own sanction law, not bullying people doing business with Russia so long as they don't break the sanction of Russian banks.

When a Russian customer buying things in China with UnionPay card, UnionPay will transfer RMB to the Chinese business and drawing Rubels from the Russian account. UnionPay will need to balance its RMB and Rubel holding through the capital pool established by China and Russia's currency swap program. This program has a cap of the total volume of trade between the two. If the Russians do no switch to buying Chinese products from buying west. This total volume won't change. So there won't be any problem for UnionPay to handle it. It does not involve any EURO and USD transaction on behalf of sanctioned Russian bank. So if the west honors their sanction rule, UnionPay is safe.

When a Russian customer buying things in Europe with UnionPay card and if he has his account in a sanctioned bank, UnionPay would have to pay Euro first, then draw Rubel from his account. Since the Russian bank is cut off from western financial system, direct exchange of Rubel to Euro from the Russian bank is impossible. UnionPay would have to (theoretically) buy Euro with its RMB reserve. Now UnionPay would have Rubel drawn from the Russian account. It need to buy back its RMB with Rubel. This is an extra volume of RMB and Rubel trade which is not in the RMB/Rubel swap program. The end result of such practice is that Chinese central bank has more Rubels that it does not need because these Rubels are used for EU/Russian trade. Because RMB is not free trading currency (therefor the swap program), Chinese central bank won't allow such practice.

Two alternatives:
Russians switch from buying products from unfriendly countries.
Russian change the oil and gas contract with China from Euro payment to Rubel payment, so China can spend the "extra" Rubels. However, the Russians may be hesitate to the change because Rubel is volatile in the current situation.

In any ways, UnionPay stopping issuing card to sanctioned banks should not be seen as following US/EU sanctions. China's neutrality means that China will neither follow the order from the west, nor will China force its business to fight on behalf of Russia. If there is anything China want to do for Russia as a friend, it will be done on the state level, not by a company.
 
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