- The Guardian
- Issue #2187
BRAZIL: Brazilian union headquarters called on citizens to take part in the Workers’ March in the capital Brasilia. The mobilisation followed the Workers’ Conference which approved the priorities of the labour demands agenda for the next five years. Among the demands are: reducing the workweek without cutting pay; regulating app-based work; fighting subcontracting; rejecting violence against women; regulating collective bargaining for public employees. “This agenda shows what we consider strategic from the point of view of labour participation in the country’s development. It addresses wage increases, improving living conditions, labour protection and social security”, said Clemente Ganz, coordinator of the union Federations Forum. Brazilians are also calling for reducing the workweek from 44 to 40 hours, which would allow for a 5×2 schedule, meaning five days of work with eight-hour days and two mandatory days of rest.
INDONESIA: Indonesia’s President Prabowo Subianto visited Moscow recently where he met with the Russian president and signed a major energy deal. Indonesia, a BRICS member, will purchase crude oil and LPG from Russia amid global energy supply shock. Russian crude could be shipped from its Pacific ports in the Far East, with tankers transiting the South China Sea and the Strait of Malacca. This route is already used to supply China and other Asian buyers.
UKRAINE: Ukraine has set up a new military expert council known as ARES – Allied Reform and Expert Support. “The council task is to share best practices and help implement institutional changes in the command system of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. It will support the army’s transformation and improve its overall effectiveness,” the statement said. The ARES council includes several prominent figures, among them former CIA Director David Petraeus and former chiefs of the armed forces of the United Kingdom, Canada, the United States, and Germany.
RUSSIA: The Kalashnikov Concern has begun testing of an air defense system designed to destroy drones. The Krona system includes detection and control assets, as well as mobile combat vehicles or stationary combat modules integrated into a unified network. The system is intended to protect various facilities from aerial attacks with unmanned aerial vehicles identified as its primary targets.
IRAN: Russia has reiterated its willingness to accept enriched uranium from Iran as a part of efforts to address tensions around the Iranian nuclear issue. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov stated that while Russia remains open to the idea, it is not currently under discussion in ongoing negotiations. “At the moment, this proposal is not on the negotiating table, as far as we understand. Russia is open to it – this has been repeatedly stated by president Vladimir Putin. Yet, it is not much in demand for the United States right now,” he said.
USA: The US plans to deploy small nuclear reactors at its military bases in Guam and other areas of the Indo-Pacific region to “ensure power supply,” Army secretary Daniel Driscoll said. “Small nuclear reactors is something the army’s been tasked with on behalf of the federal government and the Pentagon, to get on an army base by 2028 and what we’re cautiously optimistic is the learnings from that will be able to be pushed forward to the Indo-Pacific and to places like Guam that just have inconsistent power supplies,” he said at a hearing in the Appropriations Committee of the House of Representatives.
