NATO creeping into Asia – North Korea

North Korea’s Foreign Ministry has claimed NATO is seeking to increase its influence in Asia, citing growing “military collusion” with Japan, which hosted a delegation from the military bloc last month to discuss ways to step up cooperation. 

In comments carried by the state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on Monday, an official with the Foreign Ministry’s Japan Research Center, Kim Seol-hwa, said Washington is gradually pushing NATO into Asia through partnerships with regional powers.

It is an open secret that the United States… has been trying to create a military alliance like this in the Asia-Pacific region,” he said, adding that the “recent unprecedented military collusion between Japan and NATO is arousing great concern and alertness in the international community.”

Kim went on to cite recent reports that NATO is now in talks to open a “liaison office” in Japan, its first such facility in Asia. The office would be used to “conduct periodic consultations with Japan and key partners in the region such as South Korea, Australia and New Zealand,” according to the Nikkei Asia news website.

All facts clearly show that NATO’s attempt to advance into the Asia-Pacific region through military collusion with Japan has entered a dangerous implementation phase,” the Foreign Ministry official continued, also pointing to other “confrontational alliances” such as the ‘Quad’ bloc – which Beijing has described as an “Asian NATO” – and AUKUS pact between Australia, the UK and the US.

Last month, Japan hosted a delegation from NATO’s Cooperative Security Division, which met with senior military leaders to “discuss the current military cooperation and opportunities to foster a stronger partnership,” as well as future joint drills with Japan’s armed forces. 

Further highlighting the increased cooperation, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg sat down with Japanese Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi at the alliance’s headquarters in Brussels on April 4, where the two officials  vowed to further strengthen their partnership. Prime Minister Fumio Kishida also met with NATO chief earlier this year, after attending an alliance summit in 2022, a first for a Japanese premier.

Kim argued that NATO’s overtures to countries like Japan and South Korea were part of plans to “build a huge anti-China and anti-Russia encirclement” in the broader region, claiming the US-led alliance hopes to “keep neighboring countries in check” while expanding its military footprint across the continent.RT

Xi Jinping holds a phone conversation with Zelensky

April 26- President of China, Xi Jinping held a phone conversation with Ukrainian President Zelensky for the first time since Moscow launched its military operation in Ukraine.

It is said that Chinese President Xi Jinping has told his Ukrainian counterpart Zelensky that China will push for an early ceasefire in Ukraine and China is determined to facilitate the peace process and a ceasefire as soon as possible.

“Chinese authorities have no intention to quietly observe the escalation of the Ukrainian crisis, but at the same time will not fuel the flame,” President Xi said during a phone call with Ukrainian President Zelensky.He aslo said that “dialogue and negotiations are the only viable way out.”

President Zelensky also tweeted that the dialogue was “long and meaningful.” He said the call, along with the appointment of an ambassador to China, will “give a powerful impetus to the development of our bilateral relations.”

Jack Teixeria charged over leaked classified files of US Intelligence

Jack Teixeira, the US airman suspected of leaking hundreds of classified documents online, appeared for the first time in a Boston court on Friday.

The alleged leaker faced formal charges of unauthorized removal, retention, and transmission of classified national defense information.

Teixeira, an enlisted airman first class and member of the 102nd Intelligence Wing based in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, was arrested at his home by the FBI on Thursday.

The leaked Pentagon documents had been circulating online for weeks already before drawing the attention of the media – and of the US government – last week. The documents, which were color-printed and then photographed, ended up being uploaded to a gaming chat server.

A significant part of the trove of documents are related to the US and NATO war-planning effort in Ukraine, and included data on arms deliveries, training schedules, and estimates of losses sustained by both Moscow and Kiev, among other information.

Ukraine will disappear: Medvedev

Ukraine is a mistake created by the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has said that Ukraine will disappear because its Western backers, the rest of the world, and even its own citizens have no need for the troubled country to keep existing.

“Why would Ukraine disappear? Because nobody needs it,” Medvedev, the deputy head of Russia’s Security Council, wrote in a post on the VK social network on Saturday.

The EU doesn’t need Ukraine because supporting the country amid the conflict with Russia “on the order of their American mentor, plunged the Europeans into a real financial and political hell,” he insisted. Detrimental anti-Russia sanctions, spiking inflation, high energy prices, and the “decay” of businesses have already led to protests in various parts of the continent, the official pointed out.

“The prospect of decisively planting Ukrainian blood-sucking parasites on the neck of the shriveling EU” is real and, if it happens, it’s going to signal the demise of the bloc, Medvedev warned.

Kiev’s prime backer, the US, doesn’t need Ukraine either, because most ordinary Americans have no idea where it’s located and consider it “some abstract part of Russia,” the post read. They wonder “why the establishment in the US isn’t trying to deal with inflation and [the lack of] jobs or emergencies in their home states, but is instead occupied with this 404 country,” the former president wrote, referring to the “404 error” protocol in network communications.

Former president urges Russians to pirate Western content
Only “political demagogues” in Washington, “who have long conceded their impotence and dementia, are trying to make PR gains from military and sanctions campaigns,” he added.

Africa and Latin America reject Ukraine because the “billions that the US is wasting on senseless battles somewhere in Ukraine would’ve been enough to fund many social-development programs” in those regions, Medvedev wrote.

Asian countries don’t need Ukraine because, through the example of the conflict between Moscow and Kiev, “they see how the technologies of ‘color revolutions’ are being developed to eliminate the largest competing powers. They understand what scenario the collective West, led by the US, has prepared for them in case of disobedience,” the official explained. Besides, Russia is much closer to such nations as China and India in a geopolitical sense and has historically proven to be their reliable partner, he added.

Medvedev also claimed that Russia doesn’t need Ukraine because the country is “a mistake created by the collapse of the Soviet Union,” .

Russia cuts off gas supply to Poland and Bulgaria

Russia’s state-owned energy company Gazprom has said it will cut off Russian gas supplies to Poland and Bulgaria, two countries that have been supporting and providing military aid to Ukraine.

Russia has said it has cut off gas supplies to Poland and Bulgaria because of their continued military support to Ukraine and its reluctance to pay in rubles.

Russia’s move has been opposed by most European nations since the Kremlin proposed that Russian enemies pay in rubles. However, in response to the economic sanctions imposed on Russia, Russia demanded that the payment to be made in Russian rubles in every trade with Russia.

Oil and gas prices in the United States and European countries have risen to 40-year highs since Russia cut off supplies.