Alsephina

Israel

“Congratulations on history’s greatest comeback! Your historic return to the White House offers a new beginning for America and a powerful recommitment to the great alliance between Israel and America. This is a huge victory! In true friendship,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu posted on social media platform X.

Iran

The livelihoods of Iranians will not be affected by the US election, government spokeswoman Fatemeh Mohajerani told reporters after a cabinet meeting in Tehran.

“The US elections are not really our business. Our policies are steady and don’t change based on individuals. We made the necessary predictions before and there will not be change in people’s livelihoods,” she said.

Hamas

Trump’s victory puts to test his earlier statements that he can stop the war in Gaza within hours, Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri told the Reuters news agency. The Democratic party’s loss is the natural price for its leadership’s “criminal stance” towards Gaza, Abu Zuhri said, adding that “we urge Trump to learn from [US President Joe] Biden’s mistakes.”

China

“Our policy towards the US is consistent,” Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Mao Ning said at a news briefing.
“We will continue to view and handle China-US relations in accordance with the principles of mutual respect, peaceful coexistence and win-win cooperation,” she added.

Ukraine

“I appreciate President Trump’s commitment to the ‘peace through strength’ approach in global affairs. This is exactly the principle that can practically bring just peace in Ukraine closer,” President Volodymyr Zelenskyy wrote on X.

United Kingdom

Prime Minister Keir Starmer said, “Congratulations President-elect Trump on your historic election victory. I look forward to working with you in the years ahead. As the closest of allies, we stand shoulder to shoulder in defence of our shared values of freedom, democracy and enterprise.”

NATO

Secretary-General Mark Rutte: “I just congratulated Donald Trump on his election as President of the United States. His leadership will again be key to keeping our Alliance strong. I look forward to working with him again to advance peace through strength through NATO.”

European Union

“The EU and the US are more than just allies. We are bound by a true partnership between our people, uniting 800 million citizens,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said. “So let’s work together on a strong transatlantic agenda that keeps delivering for them.”

India

Congratulating Trump on a “historic election victory”, Prime Minister Narendra Modi posted on X that “as you build on the successes of your previous term, I look forward to renewing our collaboration to further strengthen the India-US Comprehensive Global and Strategic Partnership.”

Russia

“Trump has one useful quality for us: as a businessman to the core, he mortally dislikes spending money on various hangers-on and stupid hanger-on allies, on bad charity projects and on voracious international organisations,” former President Dmitry Medvedev posted on the Telegram messaging app.

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A top Republican lawmaker has accused the Biden administration of not doing enough to prevent China’s Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC) from strengthening the country’s chipmaking industry and military-industrial complex.

Michael McCaul, chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, urged US Commerce Department agents to visit SMIC’s facilities and check whether the company is illegally producing chips for Huawei Technologies, the sanctioned telecommunications equipment company seen as a national champion within China’s chip industry.

In a November 4 letter seen by Reuters, McCaul described what he called “growing bipartisan frustration” that the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) had not acted on reports of Huawei’s efforts to evade US export controls.

McCaul said SMIC’s breakthroughs – including its advanced chip in a Huawei smartphone, and expected production of over a million artificial intelligence (AI) processors for Huawei – are a “smoking gun” for a violation and could help China surpass the US in AI.

The Commerce Department said it had received McCaul’s letter and would respond through “appropriate channels”. Last week, in response to similar criticism, it said that no Commerce Department had been tougher on China.

SMIC did not immediately respond to requests for comment, nor did Huawei.

The Chinese embassy in Washington said in a statement that “certain US politicians” were “overstretching the concept of national security” and politicising “science and technology and economic and trade issues”.

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Deal signed between Chinese firm and Russian aviation engineering institution comes as Beijing and Moscow step up military cooperation.

A Chinese security company and a Russian university have had “extensive interactions” over importing Russian aviation technology, including low-altitude counter-drone technology, according to Chinese state media.

A Chinese company specialising in emergency technology and security services – Guangxi Xinhang Shengjie Emergency Industrial Park Management Company signed a deal on Monday with Russia’s Ufa State Aviation Technical University, a leading centre for aviation engineering, to bring in low-altitude drone defence technology, China News Service reported on Tuesday.

“China and Russia held extensive interactions on topics such as bringing in Russian aviation technology and low-altitude drone defence technology,” the report said. The signing took place in Wuzhou in Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region in southern China.

Under the deal, the Russian university will send experts to China to provide long-term support in areas such as technology, talent training and teaching, according to the report.

The Chinese side also planned to boost its low-altitude equipment manufacturing operations by adapting Russian heavy-lift helicopters and drone technology, it said.

It comes as China and Russia have stepped up military cooperation in recent years amid pressure from the United States and its allies.

Last month, Washington announced sanctions against two Chinese companies accused of cooperating with Russia to design and build long-range attack drones.

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It also includes a ratification bonus, as well as improved retirement and health care benefits, and overtime rules.

After seven weeks on strike, Boeing workers voted Monday to ratify a new contract that includes a 43.65% wage increase over four years — a significant improvement over the 25% increase that the aerospace giant offered in September.

Members of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) Districts 751 and W24 approved the contract in a 59%-41% vote around two weeks after rejecting a tentative deal that called for a 35% pay increase over a four-year period.

The contract approved by workers also includes a $12,000 ratification bonus, improvements to retirement and healthcare benefits, and improved overtime rules.

“Strikes work,” labor journalist Kim Kelly wrote in response to the contract vote.

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Three suspects are accused of involvement in the murder of scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh and spying for Israel.

Mohsen Fakhrizadeh was killed when his car was ambushed on a highway outside the capital in November 2020.

“The preliminary legal proceedings took place in Urmia, where these individuals were sentenced to execution; the case is currently in the appeals process,” Asghar Jahangir, spokesman of the Iranian judiciary, told a news conference in Tehran on Tuesday.

“After some investigations, three people out of eight arrested in West Azarbaijan province, were accused of committing espionage for the occupying regime of Israel,” Jahangir said.

He added that the three are also “accused of transporting equipment into Iran for the assassination of martyr Fakhrizadeh under the guise of smuggling alcoholic beverages”.

Fakhrizadeh was widely seen by Western intelligence as the mastermind of clandestine Iranian efforts in the early 2000s to develop nuclear weapons behind the facade of a declared civilian uranium enrichment programme – a claim rejected by Iran.

Iranian officials say the killing took place when a weapon using an advanced camera and controlled by a satellite zoomed in on the scientist while he was driving outside the Iranian capital. Tehran blamed the assassination on Israel, which has neither confirmed nor denied its involvement.

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Taiwan’s laboured energy transition is straining its industry, with sudden electricity price jumps and growing outage risks affecting companies including Asia’s biggest — the semiconductor giant TSMC.

Following a series of price increases, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company now expects to pay more for power in its home country than anywhere else. The world’s largest chipmaker operates plants in the US and Japan and is building one in Germany.

“Basically, the price has doubled in the past few years. So next year, we think that [the] electricity price for us in Taiwan will be the highest in all the regions that we operate,” Wendell Huang, chief financial officer, told investors last month.

Although the pace of Taiwan’s power price increases since 2022 is still slower than in some other energy import-dependent advanced economies such as France and South Korea, government researchers expect industrial electricity cost to exceed that in Japan and South Korea, Taiwan’s closest competitors in export markets.

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The blockade costs Cuba an estimated USD 5 billion annually and seriously restricts the country’s ability to purchase vital items such as fuel, food, medicine and medical equipment, spare parts for machines, and other goods necessary for the maintenance of daily life and production.

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A Russian rocket carrying a payload of satellites into orbit – including two from Iran – blasted off successfully, Russia’s Roscosmos space agency said, in a move seen as reflecting the growing cooperation between Moscow and Tehran.

The Soyuz-2.1 spacecraft lifted off as scheduled from the Vostochny Cosmodrome launchpad in far eastern Russia and put its payload into a designated orbit nine minutes after the launch on Tuesday.

Among the 53 small satellites, the two Iranian satellites were identified as the Kowsar, a high-resolution imaging satellite, and Hodhod, a small communications satellite. A Russian-Chinese student satellite, Druzhba ATURK, was also placed into orbit.

The Iranian satellites are the first launched on behalf of the country’s private sector, with the Kowsar manufactured by the Omidfaza company, which began designing the satellite in 2019, Iran’s official IRNA news agency reported.

The latest satellite launch comes as Russia and Iran expand ties in various spheres, and amid mounting criticism from Ukraine and the West that Tehran has provided Moscow with drones for use in attacks on Ukrainian targets.

Moscow and Tehran are also planning to further bolster their ties with a “comprehensive strategic partnership”, set to be signed during Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian’s planned visit to Russia, the date for which has yet to be confirmed.

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Premier Li Qiang has called for better vocational education and cultivation of craftsmanship talent, as the world’s second-largest economy is building up a skilled industrial workforce amid an intensifying tech rivalry with the United States.

China needs to cultivate more sophisticated skilled talents to help the nation achieve “high-level scientific and technological self-reliance”, Li said on Sunday during an inspection tour in Shanghai.

The call follows a plan unveiled by the central government last month to enlarge its highly skilled talent pool as China pushes for independent technological innovation while the US continues with efforts to curb the former’s hi-tech access.

Calling it an adjustment to a changing landscape, Li emphasised “the spirit of model workers, labour and craftsmanship” during his visit to a vocational school in the city, state news agency Xinhua reported.

With a goal of strengthening the nation’s technological self-reliance, he underscored the urgency of developing expertise in fields critical to emerging technology and advanced industries amid a global industrial transformation.

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Retired Jewish professor Haim Bresheeth, a child of Holocaust survivors and founder of the Jewish Network for Palestine, was arrested under a UK anti-terrorism law after speaking at a recent pro-Palestinian protest in London.

Indonesia and Russia have begun their first joint naval exercises, as Jakarta’s new leader Prabowo Subianto seeks a bigger role for the south-east Asian country on the global stage.

The exercises off the eastern coast of Java island, come just two weeks after Prabowo, a former general and defence minister, took over Indonesia’s presidency.

Prabowo has vowed to maintain Indonesia’s long-standing neutral foreign policy, but he is also seeking a more influential role for the world’s fourth-most populous country, whose natural resources have put it at the centre of global clean energy supply chains.

The five-day joint exercise will be conducted in Surabaya, a port in the east of Java, and its surrounding waters, the Indonesian navy said on Monday. Russia has brought four warships, one helicopter and one tug salvage ship for the exercise, it added.

Indonesia has held joint exercises with Russia in the past as part of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, but this week’s drills are the first bilateral effort between the two countries. Jakarta also holds annual joint exercises with the US and its allies.

As president-elect, Prabowo travelled to more than a dozen countries and met leaders including Russia’s Vladimir Putin and China’s Xi Jinping. Last week, his administration announced its intention of joining the Brics grouping of major emerging economies that includes China and Russia.

“We consider Russia as a great friend,” Prabowo said in a statement after meeting Putin in July, calling to deepen ties with Moscow.

But Julia Lau, senior fellow and co-co-ordinator of the Indonesia studies programme at the Iseas-Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore, warned against interpreting the naval drills and overtures to the Brics bloc of emerging economies as evidence of a tilt towards China and Russia. As president-elect, Prabowo also met Ukraine’s leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy and France’s Emmanuel Macron.

Prabowo “is trying a balancing act vis-à-vis the US, China and Russia,” she said. The military drills with Russia are “part of the new administration’s strategy to show that they are not aligned with any great power”.

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The Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in war-torn Sudan have unleashed yet another depopulation campaign in the towns and villages of Gezira state, killing hundreds, looting, raping, and burning crops in the country’s breadbasket amid a famine that has engulfed over half the population.

“Never in modern history have so many people faced starvation and famine as in Sudan today,” according to UN experts. “Severe levels of hunger” affect more than 25 million people, including 97% of the over 11 million internally displaced people (IDPs). Along with the over three million others who have fled to neighboring countries, 30% of Sudan’s population has been displaced.

Adding to the largest displacement crisis in the world, the wave of attacks since October 20 has forced another 135,000 people to flee from the eastern region of the state, the UN’s International Organization for Migration (IOM) reported on November 1.

The RSF, a paramilitary organization that has been at war with the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) for over a year and a half, invaded Gezira in December 2023. Attacking more than 2,000 villages this February, it had brought agriculture to a near halt in this state whose Nile-watered fields were producing over half of all Sudan’s wheat.

Most of these villages in the western vicinity of the Hasahisa, one of the main towns in the central part of Gezira, remain deserted, said Jamal (name changed) spokesperson of Hasahisa’s Resistance Committee (RC).

A network of RCs across Sudan was spearheading the mass protests against the military junta jointly led by the SAF and the RSF, before the allies turned on each other, hurling the country rocked by revolutionary turmoil into a civil war in April 2023. Since then, the RCs have been organizing and coordinating relief and rescue efforts for civilians caught in the war which has claimed well over 62,000 lives, according to a conservative estimate.

Gezira was a safe haven for those fleeing the fighting in the capital region of Khartoum, until the RSF’s invasion late last year. Following the attacks in February, the eastern area was the only safe region, Jamal said. Its market towns of Rufaa and Tamboul were “serving as the main suppliers of food for the entire state.”

The areas under attack in Gezira are expanding. On October 31, the RSF invaded homes, seized vehicles, looted gold and money, and gave residents a 24-hour ultimatum to desert the village of Mustafa Al-Qureshi in Al-Halawin.

The UN’s Secretary-General “is appalled by reports of large numbers of civilians being killed, detained and displaced, acts of sexual violence against women and girls, the looting of homes and markets and the burning of farms,” his spokesperson said on November 1.

That day, RSF depopulated another village in Al-Halawin, before launching attacks on other localities including Al-Kamlin and Hasahisa to the west and northwest of Tambul. Across Gezira, a total of 120 villages have been affected by RSF attacks since October 20, according to a joint statement by the RCs of Hasahisa and Rufaa on November 1.

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