Miscellaneous News

ACuriousPLAFan said:

ROFL at the amazing amount of cope coming from this one guy over a 12 second-long Ehang eVTOL video.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1802428212318024176

Click to expand...

Russia's Putin to visit Vietnam, sparking US rebuke of Hanoi​

HANOI (Reuters) -Russian President Vladimir Putin will visit Hanoi this week, Vietnamese and Russian state media said on Monday, highlighting Communist-ruled Vietnam's loyalty to Russia and triggering a U.S. rebuke.

The visit follows Hanoi avoiding a Ukraine peace summit in Switzerland last weekend, while sending its deputy foreign minister to a BRICS meeting in Russia earlier last week.

Putin, who was sworn in for a fifth time just over a month ago, is expected to meet Vietnam's new president, To Lam, and other leaders during the two-day visit to Hanoi on Wednesday and Thursday, officials said.

The United States, which upgraded relations with Hanoi last year and is Vietnam's top trading partner, reacted harshly.

"No country should give Putin a platform to promote his war of aggression and otherwise allow him to normalise his atrocities," a spokesperson for the U.S. embassy in Hanoi told Reuters when asked about the impact of the visit on ties with the United States.

"If he is able to travel freely, it could normalize Russia's blatant violations of international law," the spokesperson added, referring to the invasion of Ukraine that Putin launched in February 2022.

Vietnam's foreign ministry did not reply to a request for comment.

The Hague-based International Criminal Court (ICC) issued in March 2023 an arrest warrant for the Russian president over alleged war crimes in Ukraine. Vietnam, Russia and the U.S. are not members of the ICC.

The European Union, another key economic partner for Vietnam, did not comment ahead of the visit, but it expressed dissatisfaction last month over Hanoi's decision to delay a meeting with the EU envoy on Russian sanctions - a delay that officials linked to preparations for Putin's visit.

From Hanoi's perspective, the visit is meant "to demonstrate that Vietnam pursues a balanced foreign policy that does not favour any of the major powers," said Ian Storey, senior fellow at the Singapore-based ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute, after the country hosted Joe Biden and Xi Jinping in recent months.

ENERGY, ARMS, TECH

In his first state visit to Vietnam since 2017 and his fifth in total, Putin is expected to announce agreements in sectors including trade, investment, technology and education, two officials told Reuters, although that was subject to change.

However, discussions with Vietnamese leaders are likely to focus on more sensitive issues, the officials said, declining to be identified as the matter was not public.

Those talks would include arms, of which Russia has historically been Vietnam's top supplier; energy, with Russian companies operating in Vietnamese gas and oil fields in areas of the South China Sea claimed by China; and payments, as the two countries have struggled to carry out transactions because of U.S. sanctions on Russian banks, one of the officials said.

It is not clear whether announcements on these topics will be made.

"The main issues relate to shoring up economic and commercial ties, including arms sales," said Carl Thayer, a senior expert on Vietnam security at the Australian Defence Force Academy in Canberra.

Putin and Vietnam's leaders will likely agree to work out rouble-dong currency transactions via the banking system to enable payment for goods and services, he said.

Click to expand...

ACuriousPLAFan said:

ROFL at the amazing amount of cope coming from this one guy over a 12 second-long Ehang eVTOL video.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1802428212318024176

Click to expand...

NATO chief says China should be punished​

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg has called for making China pay a price for allegedly propping up Russia’s military campaign in Ukraine, saying Beijing is “fueling” the conflict by supplying microelectronics and other key components to Moscow.

“The reality is that China is fueling the largest armed conflict in Europe since World War II,” Stoltenberg

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

on Monday in a speech at the Wilson Center in Washington. “At the same time, it wants to maintain good relations with the West. Well, Beijing cannot have it both ways. At some point, unless China changes course, allies need to impose a cost.”

Stoltenberg has repeatedly attacked China since the Ukraine crisis began in February 2022, arguing that Beijing was enabling Russia to fight against Kiev, a “European friend” of NATO. He has made such comments even as NATO states prolonged the conflict by providing hundreds of billions of dollars’ in economic and military aid to Ukraine.

Monday’s rebuke marked some of his most pointed criticism yet, suggesting that NATO may ramp up sanctions against China. He also called out North Korea and Iran for being supportive of Russia’s defense-industrial complex.

Stoltenberg reiterated an assertion that NATO – a military bloc originally formed against the Soviet Union – needs to get more involved in the Indo-Pacific to counter the “growing alignment between Russia and its authoritarian friends in Asia.” He noted that he invited the leaders of Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand to next month’s NATO summit in Washington to work together on upholding the “international rules-based order.”

China is providing Russia with semiconductors and other key technologies with military applications, including parts needed to make missiles and tanks, Stoltenberg said. He added that Beijing also has supplied Russia with improved satellite and imaging capabilities. “All of this enables Moscow to inflict more death and destruction on Ukraine, bolster Russia’s defense-industrial base, and evade the impact of sanctions and export controls.”

The NATO chief also spoke of his China concerns in an interview with the BBC on Monday. Asked about what the Western military bloc might do about the issue, he said there was an “ongoing conversation” about possible sanctions. “At some stage, we should consider some kind of economic cost if China doesn’t change their behavior,” he said.

Beijing has repeatedly defied demands from the US and other NATO nations to join in sanctioning and isolating Russia. Chinese leaders have pushed a peace plan to end the fighting and have pointed out that Russia’s legitimate security concerns cannot be ignored.

Earlier this year, the Chinese Foreign Ministry denounced NATO as a “walking war machine that causes chaos wherever it goes.” Beijing has accused NATO of meddling in Asian affairs, saying the bloc is a “terrible monster” and has extended a “black hand” toward the region.

Click to expand...

“At some stage, we should consider some kind of economic cost if China doesn’t change their behavior,” he said.

Click to expand...

luminary said:

I've actually met Brett before, bet he's super salty since Archer Aviation only just got FAA approval (merely an intermediate step to eVTOL) like two weeks ago, after fighting the Palo Alto government for years. I think he just quit working there too. Classic Anglo copium + tears.

Click to expand...

Xiongmao said:

It is really hard to store hydrogen, since the atoms are so small they fit through the tiny gaps in many materials over time.

Click to expand...

Randomuser said:

Assuming the Chinese company is serious, I expect them to prevail. Chinese are orientated towards engineering. Xia the first dynasty was founded by Yu the great who was technically an engineer who specialized in flood control. Ever since then, it is our responsibility to find problems and solve them.

It's why the west are constantly getting China wrong when they think India is a replacement. Those guys at the core of it all hate engineering. They want to be the ones managing engineers not fixing problems.

Click to expand...

Bellum_Romanum said:

The Foreign Policy of Trump: More of the same. Peace through Strength.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1802964618710769947

Click to expand...