February 23, 2021 Eurasia, Middle Orient
A remarkable meeting occurred in January between Syrian and Israeli officials at the Russian base near Latakia in western Syria. It appears to have been precipitated by Israeli concerns about the increasing sophistication of high-precision Iranian missiles and drones in Tehran’s satellite states. Israel wanted to convey the message to …
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February 23, 2021 Eurasia
On January 22, 2021, the New York Times reported that the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) was acquiring commercially available databases from vendors containing U.S. person location data generated by smartphone applications, and the DIA was periodically using that data to track U.S. person device locations (specifically, the Times reported, “Defense …
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February 23, 2021 Africa, Eurasia
Italy’s ambassador to the Democratic Republic of Congo has been killed in an attack on a United Nations convoy near the eastern Congolese city of Goma. The U.N. World Food Program says at least two other people were killed and several more injured in the attack Monday that killed Italian …
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February 23, 2021 Eurasia, Middle Orient
A nationalist Turkish television station with close ties to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has dug up a 12-year-old map that projects Turkey’s sphere of influence in 2050 as stretching from South-eastern Europe on the northern coast of the Mediterranean and Libya on its southern shore across North Africa, the Gulf …
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February 23, 2021 Eurasia, Middle Orient
Russia has been developing the Hmeimim Air Base in Latakia in western Syria in preparation for it to receive strategic nuclear bombers as part of plans to strengthen the Russian presence in the country, Russian Nezavisimaya Gazeta reported. The paper said Russia is modernising the Hmeimim Air Base by rebuilding …
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February 23, 2021 Eurasia, Middle Orient
A number of Israeli tanks today carried out incursion in the east of the city of Jabalya in the north of the Gaza Strip and opened fire at Palestinian farmers, Palestinian security sources said.
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February 23, 2021 Eurasia, South East Asia
A French Navy vessel will conduct surveillance activities in the East China Sea until early March as part of international efforts to block North Korea from engaging in ship-to-ship transfers of goods at sea in violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions, according to the Japanese Defense Ministry. It will be …
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February 23, 2021 Eurasia, Romania
SHAW AIR FORCE BASE, S.C. (AFNS) — The 25th Attack Group began flying the first active-duty operated U.S. Air Forces in Europe MQ-9 Reaper sorties in Romania via remote-split operations as of Feb. 1. The 25th ATKG is a unit under the command of the 432nd Air Expeditionary Wing. Both …
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February 23, 2021 South East Asia
The North Korean authorities have reportedly ordered the expansion of political prison camps in the country. A source told Daily NK that North Korea, having declared war on the so-called “anti-socialist and non-socialist phenomenon” during the recent Eighth Party Congress, intends to overhaul its incarceration facilities ahead of a major …
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February 22, 2021 Middle Orient
Iraq’s diverse groups have long been pitted against each other. A USIP partner is looking to change that through curriculum reform. Vida Hanna, a director for public relations at Catholic University in Erbil, recalled the first week of her first-grade year when a classmate called her a kafir, or an …
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