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[…] CCTV: On June 13, the G7 summit concluded and issued a communiqué, which made groundless accusations on China with regard to Xinjiang, Hong Kong and other issues. What is your comment?

Zhao Lijian: We have noted that the G7 summit communiqué mentions China-related issues, deliberately slandering China on issues related to Hong Kong, Xinjiang and Taiwan as well as maritime issues, and interfering in China’s internal affairs. Such moves seriously contravenes the purposes and principles of the UN Charter and the trend of the times for peace, development and win-win cooperation. It reveals the bad intentions of the US and a few other countries to create confrontation and estrangement and widen differences and disagreements. China is strongly dissatisfied with and firmly opposed to this.

Issues related to Xinjiang, Hong Kong and Taiwan are purely China’s internal affairs that brook no foreign interference. China is firmly resolved in safeguarding its sovereignty, security and development interests.

I want to emphasize that multipolarization and democratic international relations are irresistible trend of the times. The era of one country or a bloc of countries dictating world affairs is over. Under the current situation, the international community need to strengthen solidarity and cooperation and practice true multilateralism more than ever. Countries should not seek bloc politics on the basis of the interests of small cliques, suppress different development models by holding ideology as the yardstick, and still less confuse right with wrong and shift blames onto others. The US is ill, very ill indeed. We’d like to advise the G7 to take its pulse and come up with a prescription for the US. Läs intevjun

NATO Air Command tweeted: ”NATO and Partner nations scrambled fighters to meet increased Russian air activity across the Baltic Sea. Spanish, Italian, Polish and Danish fighters met the Russian aircraft to ensure the safety and security of the Baltic Sea Airspace. Partners Sweden and Finland also joined.”

This comes just days after the Kremlin intercepted a US spy plane.

The Russian Pacific Fleet carried out a military exercise in the Pacific Ocean that involved 20 warships and several ships. The drill was carried out on June 10 to practice responding to a simulated enemy attack. On the same day as the drill, Russia’s Eastern Military District reported they intercepted an RC-135 strategic reconnaissance plane over the Pacific Ocean.

We, President of the United States of America Joseph R. Biden and President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin, note the United States and Russia have demonstrated that, even in periods of tension, they are able to make progress on our shared goals of ensuring predictability in the strategic sphere, reducing the risk of armed conflicts and the threat of nuclear war.

The recent extension of the New START Treaty exemplifies our commitment to nuclear arms control. Today, we reaffirm the principle that a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought.

Consistent with these goals, the United States and Russia will embark together on an integrated bilateral Strategic Stability Dialogue in the near future that will be deliberate and robust. Through this Dialogue, we seek to lay the groundwork for future arms control and risk reduction measures. Läs uttalandet

Ett flygplan som tillhör den svenska kustbevakningen misstänks ha kränkt finländskt luftrum nära Kemi, meddelar Försvarsministeriet.

Den misstänkta kränkningen inträffade på tisdag eftermiddag.

Ministeriet uppger att Gränsbevakningsväsendet utreder fallet och informerar mer om undersökningen senare.

På Twitter skriver Utrikesministeriet att man kontaktat Sveriges ambassad i Helsingfors och bett dem utreda den misstänkta kränkningen. Läs pressmeddelande

Jackup rig Perro Negro 8 this week arrived in Murmansk for preparations before upcoming operations in the Gulf of Ob. The installation that is owned by Italian oilfield service company Saipem is due to engage in the far northern bay in early July, Russian state seaport authority Rosmorport informs.

The rig that is built in 2010 was transported to Murmansk from Dubai by Norwegian heavy loads carrier Falcon. It is likely to drill either at the the Severo-Obskoye and Geofysicheskoye license areas, or possibly the Kamennomysskoye-More or the Semakovsky project.

The Gulf of Ob and adjacent Yamal and Gydan peninsulas are currently top priority areas for the Russian oil industry with heavy presence from companies like Novatek and Gazprom Neft. Läs artikel

Flyøvelsen Arctic Challenge startet forrige mandag og skal pågå til og med fredag.

Det er femte gang øvelsen arrangeres. I år ledes den av Norge som for første gang deltar med sine nye F-35A-kampfly. Det er rundt 70 fly som nå øver i luftrommet nord i Norge, Sverige og Finland. Det liker naboen i øst dårlig:

Dagen etter at øvelsen startet, protesterte den russiske ambassaden i USA mot øvelsen som de hevder strider med en bærekraftig og fredelig utvikling av Nordområdene.

Som Russland riktig påpeker, deltar USA på Arctic Challenge Exercise (ACE).

Til den svenske flystasjonen Kallax har de deployert F-16-fly, som til daglig er stasjonert på Spangdahlem-basen i Tyskland, mens de har to KC-135 tankfly i Rovaniemi. Flere tilsvarende tankfly deltar også i øvelsen og flyr ut fra hjemmebasen RAF Mildenhall i England.

USAs budskap er tosidig: Det understrekes både at dette er en øvelse som arrangeres rutinemessig hvert andre år og ikke er knyttet til noen aktuelle hendelser, samtidig som at US Air Force uttaler at øvelser som ACE-21 demonstrerer evnen de har til å samarbeide med sine nordiske allierte og partnere og sender et kraftig avskrekkende budskap. Läs artikel

NATO leaders have expanded their mutual defence clause to include a collective response to attacks in space.

A statement said attacks ”from, or within space” could be a challenge that threatens ”national and Euro-Atlantic prosperity, security and stability, and could be as harmful to modern societies as a conventional attack”. Läs artikel

Russia and Belarus will practice stealthy military deployments in the upcoming Zapad-2021 (West-2021) joint strategic drills, Commander of Russia’s Western Military District Colonel General Aleksandr Zhuravlyov said in an interview with the Defense Ministry’s Krasnaya Zvezda newspaper on Friday.

”Enhanced attention is being paid to the early readiness of the system of command and control and all the types of logistics support, as well as the stealthy deployment of the required contingent,” the commander said. Läs artikel

Note: The following text is based on a speech delivered at a rally Thursday night, June 10, in New York City in support of Julian Assange, currently imprisoned at Belmarsh Prison in the United Kingdom under threat of possible extradition to the United States.

A society that prohibits the capacity to speak in truth extinguishes the capacity to live in justice.

This why we are here tonight.  Yes, all of us who know and admire Julian decry his prolonged suffering and the suffering of his family.  Yes, we demand that the many wrongs and injustices that have been visited upon him be ended.  Yes, we honor him up for his courage and his integrity. But the battle for Julian’s liberty has always been much more than the persecution of a publisher.  It is the most important battle for press freedom of our era.  And if we lose this battle, it will be devastating, not only for Julian and his family, but for us.

The long campaign against Julian and WikiLeaks is a window into the collapse of the rule of law, the rise of what the political philosopher Sheldon Wolin calls our system of inverted totalitarianism, a form of totalitarianism that maintains the fictions of the old capitalist democracy, including its institutions, iconography, patriotic symbols and rhetoric, but internally has surrendered total control to the dictates of global corporations. Läs talet

[…] Regeringen vill införa två nya brott, utlandsspionage och obehörig befattning med hemlig uppgift inom internationellt samarbete där Sverige deltar. Utlandsspionage innebär att någon ”för att gå en främmande makt eller liknande sammanslutning tillhanda obehörigen befordrar, lämnar eller röjer en hemlig uppgift” vars uppenbarande kan ”medföra allvarliga men” för Sveriges möjlighet att delta i säkerhets- och fredsbevarande internationella operationer.
Enligt förslaget ska brotten inte bara införas i brottsbalken utan även tas in i tryckfrihetsförordningens brottskatalog. Det innebär att sådana publiceringar som sker inom yttrandefrihetsgrundlagens tillämpningsområde.
Därtill föreslås att utlandsspionage ska upptas i TF 7 kap. 3 § där de brott som bryter meddelarfriheten anges. Där återfinns redan idag brottet ”grov obehörig befattning med hemlig uppgift” […]

Sannolikheten för att den som med uppsåt vill offentliggöra uppgifter för att sabotera eller störa en internationell insats skulle välja att göra det genom en publicering i grundlagsskyddade medier framstår som långsökt. För det första skulle ”gärningsmannen” exponera sig och dra till sig uppmärksamhet från Säkerhetspolisen eftersom ett utgivningsbevis kräver att ägaren anmäler en utgivare för verksamheten. Uppgifter om namn och adress registreras hos Myndigheten för press, radio och tv.
För det andra finns överhuvudtaget ingen anledning för den som vill störa eller sabotera en internationell insats att offentliggöra uppgifter om en säkerhets- eller fredbevarandeinsats. För att uppnå maximal effekt torde det vara effektivare att lämna uppgifterna till ”en främmande stat eller liknande sammanslutning” direkt för att de som för befälet över insatsen inte ska kunna vidta motåtgärder. […]

Sammanfattning
• Utlandspionage bör inte göras till ett tryck- och yttrandefrihetsbrott.
• Meddelarfriheten bör lämnas orubbad oavsett om utlandsspionage görs till ett yttrandefrihetsbrott eller inte. Läs yttrandet

Statsminister Erna Solberg (H) kommer til NATO-toppmøtet i Brussel mandag med en helt ny avtale mellom Russland og Norge. De to landene er enige om å redusere faren for misforståelser og sammenstøt i nord ytterligere.

 -Vi må lete etter de områder som kan gjøre verden bedre. Hvis vi ikke klarer å bli enige om de store samarbeidene, så må vi ta tak i de små, sier Erna Solberg til VG i Brussel.

Mandag møter hun USAs president Joe Biden og 28 andre stats- og regjeringssjefer på et halvdags toppmøte i militæralliansen. […]

Avtalen som Norge og Russland nylig ble enige om, er en oppdatering av en avtale om sikkerhet til sjøs og i luften fra 1990. Den kommer på plass etter lang tids eskalering av den militære aktiviteten i nordområdene. Ifølge forsvarsminister Frank Bakke-Jensen (H) regulerer den adferden til de to lands militære skip og fly i internasjonalt farvann og luftrom. Nytt i avtalen er at den også gjelder ubemannede fly og fartøyer. Läs artikel