Diplomacy & Crisis News

Trump is a pariah for top security experts, Biden won’t end U.S. trade wars, and Saudi Arabia’s bid to rejoin the U.N. Human Rights Council.

Just when the U.S. public needs clarity about Trump’s health, tradition and the president’s proclivities make that unlikely.

Luis Jose Faife, a UN refugee agency (UNHCR) worker from Mozambique, survived the devastation of Cyclones Idai and Kenneth, which killed more than 600 people in Mozambique, Malawi and Zimbabwe, and displaced some 2.2. million people, in March 2019. Now COVID-19 is posing a new challenge to humanitarian workers, and they people they help.

The president has treatment options for his coronavirus infection. None are very good.

Stolen funds undermine public spending on health care, education, and infrastructure, a U.N. report finds.

The list of former national security staff and senior officials who endorsed the president this week is one of the most unimpressive ever assembled by a candidate.

In an earlier age, the Democratic and Republican front-runners reserved their sharpest criticism for the Soviet Union and treated each other with respect.

With strong leadership and comprehensive strategies it’s never too late for countries to change the trendlines of the COVID-19 pandemic, despite passing the tragic milestone of one million deaths this week amid regional surges in infections, said the head of the World Health Organization (WHO) on Friday.

Trump is far from the first world leader to face the political implications of his own positive COVID-19 test. What happens next?

The UN human rights office OHCHR, called on Friday for urgent action to address the “unimaginable horrors” faced by migrants attempting to cross the central Mediterranean Sea in search of safety in Europe.

Authorities are struggling as protesters break anti-monarchy taboos.

A wave of insurgent Islamism arrived in the West 20 years ago—and disappeared just as quickly.

New Delhi has a long history of harassing international NGOs. But under Modi, things may reach a tipping point.

The technology to build new green economies is mostly produced in China. That’s bad for the United States.

Officials are warily watching for adversaries like Russia, Iran, and North Korea to exploit the moment.

The elimination of nuclear weapons is vital to the “survival of life on this planet”, the UN chief told the final major event of the General Assembly’s high level week on Friday.  

Thatcher and Mitterrand nearly stopped it from happening, but 30 years on, reunification remains the world’s most successful geopolitical experiment.

UN-appointed independent rights experts have urged the Iraqi authorities to investigate the murder of a female human rights defender, and the attempted killing of another, targeted “simply because they are women”.

Ethen Kim Lieser

Technology,

Does it provide the right features at the right price? 

If you have a strong desire to dip your toes into the waters of Samsung’s QLED HDTV offerings, the 65-inch Q70R Series would be a great place to start.

Sporting a reasonable price tag of $1,600, know that the Q70R is much cheaper than its OLED TV rivals—which can easily dig deep into the $2K to $4K range. Despite the smaller investment, you can be rest assured that you’ll still be getting the second-best panel on the planet.

With this particular model, you’re on the receiving end of outstanding overall image quality with plenty-deep black levels. The high light output—a major strength of QLEDs—and next-generation full-array local dimming also work wonderfully well, so you’ll surely enjoy the lively and accurate colors.

You’ll also be blessed with a true 120Hz panel, which does improve the TV’s overall motion performance, and know that it fully supports HDR content in HLG and HDR10+ formats. The set’s robust video processing is known to be a welcome boon for hardcore gamers and lovers of intense action films.

Other reviewers had a similar take. “With a 120Hz refresh rate and software features to reduce motion blur and optimize the smallest of details (dew flying off a football, for example), and an approachable price tag, the Samsung Q70R is the perfect TV to catch up on all your favorite sports action,” Digital Trends recently wrote.

“It’s one of the best in its class, and the QLED screen with its higher brightness potential brings to life scenes brimming with natural light, like baseball, football, and soccer.”

Be aware that wide-angle viewing falls a bit short of the Q80 Series model, so if you have wider or wraparound seating arrangements, make sure to take note of that. And if you find yourself often watching TV during the daytime or in a bright room, the Q70R really does an honorable job of masking those annoying glares and reflections.

For the Q70R and many other QLED models, Samsung employs its own built-in digital assistant Bixby—but many users have shared their frustrations with this feature.

It, unfortunately, doesn’t come close to the skills of Google Assistant or Amazon Alexa, which can often be found on rivals from LG to Sony. Keep in mind that the 2019 and later versions, though, will be able to respond to voice commands issued via Alexa and Google Assistant smart speakers.

The set also comes with the ultra-cool Ambient Mode, enabling you to display a digital photo that matches the wall behind the panel.

The design of the Q70R Series can be described as classic Samsung. The panel is as thin as you can get for a QLED TV right now and it does exude a slick and refined look.

Ethen Kim Lieser is a Minneapolis-based Science and Tech Editor who has held posts at Google, The Korea Herald, Lincoln Journal Star, AsianWeek and Arirang TV. Follow or contact him on LinkedIn.

Image: Samsung. 

Kris Osborn

Security,

A new upgrade means that the battle-tested drone just got more deadly.

The U.S. Air Force MQ-9A Reaper drone is getting nearly double the amount of firepower, due to a new software upgrade that enables the aircraft to carry eight Hellfire missiles instead of four. 

The Reaper flew with eight live AGM-114 Hellfire missiles September 10 as part of what the service calls the drone’s “persistent attack” role. More weapons, coupled with longer-range, higher-fidelity sensors and improved fuel tanks naturally increases dwell time over enemy targets, an ability to re-task to new targets as intelligence emerges and of course put more effects on target when needed. 

The added weapons are part of an Air Force software upgrade program called the MQ-9 Operational Flight Program 2409. 

“Previous to this software, the MQ-9 was limited to four AGM-114s across two stations. The new software allows flexibility to load the Hellfire on stations that previously were reserved for 500-pound class bombs or fuel tanks,” an Air Force report states. 

The Reaper can still be armed with 500-pound bombs on any of the stations as well, so the platform will retain its attack flexibility, depending upon mission requirements. 

The Reaper will now fire the AIM-9X in addition to the AGM-114 Hellfire missile, a 500-pound laser-guided weapon called the GBU-12 Paveway II, and GBU-38 Joint Direct Attack Munitions or JDAMs. These are free-fall bombs engineered with a GPS and Inertial Navigation Systems guidance kit.

This added Hellfire attack possibility introduces several new tactical possibilities and, one could certainly observe, helps transition the platform into a modern warfare posture in an area of great power competition. Certainly in a large-scale mechanized warfare scenario, additional tank-killing Hellfire missile attack options could prove tactically useful.

During the last fifteen years of war in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Reaper operated with great success conducting precision-drone strikes against terrorists and other high-value targets. 

Now the Air Force seems to be working toward further transitioning the combat-tested drone into preparations for great power warfare. This appears to be a sensible next step along an evolving trajectory for the drone through which the Air Force has consistently added new weapons and expanded mission scope for the aircraft. 

The move to fire an AIM-9X is significant as well, given that it adds additional possibilities for major power warfare, such as air-to-air combat. Earlier this year, the MQ-9 Reaper successfully destroyed a drone cruise missile target with the well-known and highly effective AIM-9X precision air-to-air missile. The AIM-9X fires from the F-35 and F-22 stealth fighter jets and has in recent years been upgraded with improved precision-guidance technologies. Other upgrades also include “off boresight” targeting, enabling pilots to destroy enemy targets behind the aircraft. This is quite significant, as “off-boresight” technology can actually guide the AIM -9X to turn around and change course while in-flight using a pilot’s helmet-mounted cueing system. This massively expands the Reaper’s target envelope. 

Engineering a Reaper for air-to-air combat missions does seem to represent a sensible and technically advanced evolution of the platform, greatly expanding its mission purview. Armed with an AIM-9X, a Reaper can perform new offensive or defensive operations by virtue of using the missile as an “interceptor” stopping approaching enemy cruise missiles or an offensive attack against enemy aircraft. 

Kris Osborn is defense editor for the National Interest. Osborn previously served at the Pentagon as a Highly Qualified Expert with the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army—Acquisition, Logistics & Technology. Osborn has also worked as an anchor and on-air military specialist at national TV networks. He has appeared as a guest military expert on Fox News, MSNBC, The Military Channel, and The History Channel. He also has a Masters Degree in Comparative Literature from Columbia University.

Image: Reuters