CHE SUCCEDE ALLA CHIESA ORTODOSSA RUSSA ?

• An interesting look at the war in Ukraine concerns the movements of the national Orthodox Churches and their progressive detachment from Moscow. It is the turn, writes Paul Globe for The Jamestown Foundation, of the Republic of Latvia (Moscow Losing Another Nation’s Orthodox Church—This Time Latvia’s)
• The US military is preparing for more flexibility to adequately prepare for a possible war with China and Russia. Colin Demarest writes about this for Defense News (US Army customizing communication gear for regional challenges)
• The ‘diplomatic tensions’ in space. Samuel Strickland for The Strategist (The diplomatic rift in outer space)
• The space race, between civil uses and defence needs. Jacqueline Feldscher and Lauren C. Williams for Defense One (Space Chief Nominee Worried About Launchpad ‘Traffic Jams’)
• More than 1,200 people have died in the Mediterranean Sea in 2022, adding to the horrifying tally of almost 25,000 deaths since 2014. Judith Sunderland for Human Rights Watch (Endless Tragedies in the Mediterranean Sea)
• China and photoresists for the semiconductor industry. Rebecca Arcesati for The Strategist (Foreign collaboration continues in China’s drive for technology self-reliance)

TOPICS

• (Cybersecurity) September 13, 2022. Alessandro Mascellino, Infosecurity. A group of threat actors previously associated with the ShadowPad remote access Trojan (RAT) has adopted a new toolset to conduct campaigns against various government and state–owned organizations across multiple Asian countries. ShadowPad-Associated Hackers Targeted Asian Governments
• (Cybersecurity) September 13, 2022. Alessandro Mascellino, Infosecurity. Hackers are targeting Steam credentials using a new phishing technique called ‘Browser–in–the–Browser’ (BitB), according to new data by security researchers at Group–IB. Hackers Steal Steam Credentials With ‘Browser-in-the-Browser’ Technique
• (Defense – Military – Security) David Fawcett, The Strategist. The $1 billion failure of the Super Seasprite helicopter project was a low point in Australian government procurement. It seems incomprehensible that the Department of Defence could ever replicate it. Urgent change needed in Defence’s processes for major acquisitions
• (Defense – Military – Security) September 13, 2022. Daehan Lee, Naval News. The Korean naval shipbuilding industry is facing a drastic change in its environment. DSME and HHI were so far the main players in the industry where they had won most of the contracts and deals from the DAPA and the ROK Navy, but medium-sized shipbuilding companies such as Samkang M&T and Samwon Heavy Industries joined the list of contract-winning players, creating more severely competitive conflicts. South Korean shipbuilders’ bidding conflicts
• (Defense – Military – Security) September 13, 2022. Bilal Y. Saab, Defense One. U.S. Central Command is quietly making a historic transition from a wartime command center to something like a hub for cajoling the region’s partners large and small toward stouter collective defense. But since CENTCOM’s new commander has vastly fewer resources for his tough new mission, defense and national security leaders in Washington need to back him up with a larger measure of policy coherence. CENTCOM’s Got a New Mission. It Needs More Support
• (Defense – Military – Security) September 13, 2022. Todd South, Defense News. For the Army to fight the way its top civilian leader envisions by the next decade, the organization must fulfill at least six objectives in that ever-shrinking window. How the Army is tackling these six goals for future wars
• (Defense – Military – Security) September 13, 2022. Colin Demarest, Defense News. The chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee said he is encouraged by the Department of Defense’s push to align military networks and improve information-sharing between services, amid rising concern about Joint All-Domain Command and Control coordination. Reed ‘encouraged’ by JADC2 push amid questions on service coordination
• (Food Security) September 14, 2022. Xinhua. More than 900 experts from 67 countries came together at the 2nd International Wheat Congress (IWC) in Beijing on Monday to exchange ideas on how to improve the development of the wheat industry worldwide, calling for global cooperation on wheat science and technology innovation to ensure global food security. China Focus: Chinese, foreign experts discuss food security at wheat congress
• (Global economy) September 12, 2022. Maurice Obstfeld, Peterson Institute for International Economics. Central banks nearly everywhere feel accused of being on the back foot. The present danger, however, is not so much that current and planned moves will fail eventually to quell inflation. It is that they collectively go too far and drive the world economy into an unnecessarily harsh contraction. Just as central banks (especially those of the richer countries) misread the factors driving inflation when it was rising in 2021, they may also be underestimating the speed with which inflation could fall as their economies slow. And, as often is the case, by simultaneously all going in the same direction, they risk reinforcing each other’s policy impacts without taking that feedback loop into account. The highly globalized nature of today’s world economy amplifies the risk. Uncoordinated monetary policies risk a historic global slowdown
• (Global education) September 13, 2022. Amanda Datnow, Vicki Park, Donald J. Peurach, and James P. Spillane, Brookings. The period since the founding of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in 1945 has been marked by an accumulating global agenda for transforming education for students in fundamental ways—including the recognition that education is a human right and a public good, that access is not tantamount to learning, and that academic learning is but one dimension of holistic student development. Each of these calls for global educational transformation has been invoked in response to crises regarding educational equity, quality, and purpose. These crises have been underscored by the COVID-19 pandemic, which brought the needs of the whole child to the forefront. Transforming education for holistic student development
• (Health & Digital) September 13, 2022. Shania Kennedy, Health IT Analytics. Researchers at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore) have found that individuals exhibit less trust in artificial intelligence (AI)-suggested preventive care measures than those from health experts, but emphasizing human involvement in AI-suggested interventions may help. Patients Show Less Trust in Preventive Care Interventions Suggested By AI
• (Health & Digital) September 13, 2022. Shania Kennedy, Health IT Analytics. California-based multi-specialty medical group UP Medical has announced a partnership with clinical intelligence company Memora Health to leverage artificial intelligence (AI) and automation for enhanced chronic care management, patient engagement, and patient-provider communications. Clinical Intelligence Partnership Aims to Enhance Chronic Disease Management

WORLDS

• (Aukus – Southeast Asia) September 14, 2022. Melissa Conley Tyler, The Interpreter. When Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States announced the AUKUS trilateral security cooperation agreement a year ago, it didn’t get a uniformly positive reception in Southeast Asia. Has Southeast Asia warmed to AUKUS one year on?

• (Iran) September 13, 2022. Elaheh Sajadi, Human Rights Watch. Earlier this summer, crowds of Iranians stood outside a Stockholm court anticipating a verdict. Inside, Hamid Noury, a former Iranian official, was convicted of war crimes and murder for his role in the mass execution of political prisoners in Iran in 1988. Landmark Prosecution of Iranian Official Gives Diaspora Hope

• (Quad) September 14, 2022. Rena Sasaki, The Interpreter. The Quad has declared itself “a force for good”. At a summit in Tokyo in May, the leaders of Japan, the United States, Australia and India pledged to bring tangible benefits to the Indo-Pacific region, including cooperation on challenges such as Covid-19, climate change and infrastructure. The Quad needs a stronger economic message
• (Russia – Ukraine) September 13, 2022. CSIS. CSIS’s Seth Jones joins the podcast to discuss Ukraine’s stunning battlefield advances.  Russia Falls Back

• (Russia – Ukraine) September 14, 2022. Lawrence Freedman, The Strategist. As with bankruptcy so with military defeat. What appears to be a long, painful grind can quickly turn into a rout. A supposedly resilient and well-equipped army can break and look for means of escape. This is not unusual in war. We saw it happen with the Afghan Army in the summer of 2021. Ukraine war: gradually, then suddenly
• (Russia – Ukraine) September 13, 2022. Ihor Kabanenko, The Jamestown Foundation. On July 22, the Initiative on Safe Transportation of Grain and Foodstuffs From Ukrainian Ports (“Grain Agreement”) was signed in Istanbul, Turkey. The document unblocked three of Ukraine’s Black Sea ports for grain transportation. The first grain vessel left the port of Odesa on August 1 (Minfin.com.ua, August 1). Overall, 50 days after the agreement was signed, 113 vessels have transported about 2.37 million tons of Ukrainian agricultural products to the ports of Egypt, Yemen, Israel, Iran, India, China, South Korea, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Djibouti, Turkey and European Union member states (Ports.ua, September 8). Four to five vessels with a total tonnage of up to 90,000 tons of Ukrainian agricultural products leave Ukraine’s ports every day (Pravda.com.ua, September 8, Mtu.gov.ua, September 10). The largest caravan of six vessels loaded with 147,200 tons of Ukrainian grain left the port of Odesa on August 28 (UNIAN, August 28). The Ukraine Grain Deal After 50 Days
• (Russia – Ukraine) September 13, 2022. Mykola Bielieskov, The Jamestown Foundation. Ukrainian forces’ Balakliya-Kupyansk offensive operation (September 6–12) could likely be treated as the turning point in the all-out Ukrainian-Russian war—when Ukraine gained the initiative. In approximately one week, Ukraine liberated more than 6,000 square kilometers (km) of its sovereign territory in Kharkiv region—much more than Russia has managed to occupy since mid-April 2022 (President.gov.ua, September 12). Although an unexpected turn of events for the majority of observers, the offensive was not a miracle but rather a simultaneous demonstration of Russian forces’ growing degradation and Ukrainian formations’ improved professionality and exceptional staff work, as successful counteroffensives are some of the most challenging maneuvers. Ukrainian Balakliya-Kupyansk Offensive: Sequence of Events, Mechanics and Consequences
• (Russia – Ukraine) September 13, 2022. IAEA. Ukrainian engineers have made further headway in repairing vital power infrastructure in the vicinity of the Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP), providing the plant with renewed access to a third back-up power line, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) was informed at the site today. Update 102 – IAEA Director General Statement on Situation in Ukraine
• (Russia – Ukraine) September 13, 2022. Kateryna Stepanenko, Karolina Hird, Katherine Lawlor, George Barros, and Frederick W. Kagan, ISW. The Kremlin acknowledged its defeat in Kharkiv Oblast, the first time Moscow has openly recognized a defeat since the start of the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, September 13
• (Russia – Ukraine) September 13, 2022. Andriy Zagorodnyuk, Atlantic Council. The stunning success of Ukraine’s recent counteroffensive has exposed the rotten reality behind Russia’s reputation as a military superpower. More than six months since the onset of Vladimir Putin’s Ukraine invasion, it is now obvious that his army is in fact a deeply flawed institution that bears almost no resemblance to the immaculate fighting force of Red Square parades and Kremlin propaganda. Instead, the Russian military suffers from endemic corruption, low morale, and poor leadership, with individual initiative in short supply and commanders deeply reluctant to accept personal responsibility. Last week’s disastrous defeat in northeastern Ukraine will only worsen the situation, with officers gripped by fear as Moscow seeks scapegoats for what is shaping up to one of the most shameful military defeats in Russian history.. Ukrainian victory shatters Russia’s reputation as a military superpower
• (Ukraine) September 13, 2022. Caitlin Welsh, Emma Dodd, CSIS. Crippling Ukraine’s agriculture sector has been a primary goal of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and in seven months, Russia has successfully targeted Ukraine’s farms and fields, warehouses and transportation infrastructure, and agricultural research institutes. These attacks have affected a series of wheat harvests at once: the wheat planted in 2020 and harvested in 2021, which was being exported in early 2022; the wheat planted in 2021, still in the ground at the time of attack and harvested in summer 2022; and future harvests, whose sowing and reaping will depend on the availability of inputs and state of infrastructure this year and for years to come. Rebuilding Ukraine’s Agriculture Sector: Emerging Priorities
• (USA) Christopher M. Tuttle, CFR. The Electoral Count Reform Act offers the opportunity to address a potentially existential national security threat with a relatively small number of keystrokes revising the U.S. Code—but time is short to get it done. Heading Off a Future Constitutional Calamity
• (USA) Rohit Acharya and Rhett Morris, Brookings. If you live in a U.S. city, you are probably only a few miles away from a neighborhood with concentrated poverty—and there’s a good chance that you are even closer. Reducing poverty without community displacement: Indicators of inclusive prosperity in U.S. neighborhoods
• (USA – China) Catherine Buchaniec, Defense News. The U.S. is approaching a “critical moment” in the global technology race, and the price of losing could be a world beholden to China, according to a report by defense and technology experts. US approaching ‘critical time’ in tech race with China, report says
• (USA – Ukraine) Bryant Harris, Defense News. A bipartisan group of 15 senators has unveiled legislation aimed at expediting the Defense Department’s ability to backfill U.S. weapons stockpiles sent to Ukraine through non-competitive contracts. Senators push to expedite replacement of US weapons sent to Ukraine