🏴‍☠️ 🇾🇪 🚢 UKMTO has received multiple reports of small boats approaching merchant shipping in the vicinity of 80NM South East of Aden, Yemen. Two small boats are reported to have followed a merchant Vessel for over one hour. The Merchant Vessel reported no weapons were sighted.

📎 UKMTO

🇨🇳 Launch of three new Chinese satellites from an offshore platform in the Yellow Sea.

🚀 🇨🇳 🛰 "World's most capable solid-fuel-only rocket Gravity-1 successfully launched Yunyao-1 18-20 satellites from Haiyang offshore platform. It's China's 4th launch this month, 1st ever for commercial space company OrienSpace."

https://m.weibo.cn/status/NBl9c689C

🚀 🇨🇳 🛰 China to launch 26,000 satellites, vying with U.S. for space power

🔶️ China will start building this year its own version of StarLink, a satellite internet constellation using low Earth orbit, with plans of launching some 26,000 satellites to cover the entire world led by state-run companies. A commercial spacecraft launch site is being constructed for this “StarLink” near the Wenchang Space Launch Site in Hainan.

🔶️ The launch site will be used mainly by the China Satellite Network Group, wholly owned by the Chinese government. The group was founded in 2021 after Beijing informed the ITU of its plan in 2020 to launch some 13,000 satellites to establish a high-speed internet network.

🔶️ China Satellite Network will launch about 1,300 satellites, or 10% of the planned number, from the first half of 2024 until 2029. This is hoped to pave the way for liftoff by 2035 to establish a network supporting high-speed 6G communications.

🔶️ Top executives of the group come from state-owned military-industrial complex enterprises linked to China's PLA: the chairman is from China Electronics Corp, which is in charge of IT for military use, while the president is from China Aerospace Science & Technology Corp (CASC), which develops rockets and other items.

🔶️ A space company partly owned by the Shanghai municipal government has a plan to put 12,000 satellites into low Earth orbit; it will launch more than 600 of them by the end of 2025.

🔶️ GalaxySpace (Beijing) Technology, a private company founded by people from the internet industry, plans to send up 1,000 low-orbit satellites. GalaxySpace will step up its project to build a satellite constellation with support from the government.

🔶️ Military-industrial complex enterprises CASC and China Aerospace Science & Industry Corp are pushing ahead with plans to launch more than 300 and 200 low-orbit satellites, respectively. Chang Guang Satellite Technology, backed by the provincial government of Jilin among others, began sending up low-orbit satellites in 2015 to provide high-definition images to customers. It plans to increase the number of satellites to 138 by 2025.

https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Aerospace-Defense-Industries/China-to-launch-26-000-satellites-vying-with-U.S.-for-space-power

https://archive.ph/jwSz5

📎 Byron Wan

🇨🇳 🤝 🇲🇲 China mediates a ceasefire between the 3 Brotherhood Alliance and Myanmar government.

🔶️ The alliance includes the ethnic Han force of MNDAA who captured all of Kokang region.

🔶️ Myanmar's government would be acknowledging MNDAA's gains, peace in Northern Myanmar only, not the rest.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/1/12/myanmars-military-ethnic-armed-groups-agree-to-china-mediated-truce

📎 Zhao DaShuai

⚓️ 🇺🇸 🚢 U.S. Naval Forces Central Command recommends that U.S.-flagged commercial vessels remain North of 18N in the Red Sea or East of 46E in the Gulf of Aden for the next 72 hours.

https://www.maritime.dot.gov/msci/2024-001a-red-sea-and-gulf-aden-potential-retaliatory-attacks-houthi-forces

🇮🇷🇺🇸Imágenes de la captura del "petrolero estadounidense" por parte del ejército iraní.

🇬🇧Images of the capture of the "American tanker" by the Iranian army.

▫️@ENTRE_GUERRAS▫️

🏴‍☠️ 🚢 💵 Red Sea crisis renews interest in armed guards

🔶️ In the high season of 2011-13, ex-special forces soldiers from Nato countries could command about $100,000-$120,000 for a three-man team for a month. That has fallen to about $30,000, Ruetten said.

🔶️ Guards today make about $650-$1,000 a month and tend to come from India, Nepal or Sri Lanka. They work on three-month contracts so it is hard to tell if higher pay will filter through and attract more people to the job.

🔶️ Attacks by Yemen’s Houthi militia on ships, and recent Somali piracy incidents that many suspect are related, have revived interest in armed teams.

🔶️ Ships at higher risk have gone from taking teams of three guards on board to six to eight. Companies are also taking on guards for longer stretches than before.

🔶️ They cannot stop missile attacks, nor Iranian commandos like those that seized the tanker ST Nikolas, formerly know as the Suez Rajan (IMO: 9524475) yesterday. However, sources have hinted that they have options they can use against drones and remote-controlled boats.

https://www.lloydslist.com/LL1147920/Red-Sea-crisis-renews-interest-in-armed-guards

📎 Sal Mercogliano

🇮🇱 🇵🇸 Top Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth confirms Israel used the "Hannibal directive" on Oct 7th, which calls to kill Israeli hostages along with their captors.

This is the exact quote from the paper:

🔶️ "At noon on October 7th, the IDF ordered all of its combat units in practice to use the 'Hannibal Directive', although without clearly mentioning this explicit name. The order was to stop 'at all costs' any attempt by Hamas terrorists to return to Gaza, that is despite the fear that some of them have hostages.

🔶️ It is estimated that about a thousand terrorists and infiltrators were killed in the area between the Otaf settlements and the Gaza Strip. It is not clear at this time how many of the hostages were killed due to the activation of this command. In the week after the attack, soldiers of elite units checked about 70 vehicles that were left in the area between the Otaf settlements and the Gaza Strip. These are vehicles that did not reach Gaza, because on the way they were shot by a combat helicopter, an anti-tank missile or a tank, and at least in some cases everyone in the vehicle was killed."

https://www.ynet.co.il/news/article/yokra13754368

📎 Arnaud Bertrand

📝 🇮🇱 🇵🇸 "Not sure if you remember these photos of burned vehicles reported by all the media as "destroyed by Hamas" (here Reuters)? Well the Yedioth Ahronoth investigation now confirms they were in fact destroyed by the IDF..."

📎 Arnaud Bertrand

📝 🇮🇱 🌍 The Regional War No One Wanted Is Here. How Wide Will It Get? | NYT

🔶️ From the outbreak of the Israeli-Hamas war nearly 100 days ago, President Biden and his aides have struggled to keep the war contained, fearful that a regional escalation could quickly draw in American forces.

🔶️ Now, with the American-led strike on nearly 30 sites in Yemen on Thursday, there is no longer a question of whether there will be a regional conflict. It has already begun.

🔶️ “This is already a regional war, no longer limited to Gaza, but already spread to Lebanon, Iraq, Syria and Yemen,” said Hugh Lovatt, a Mideast expert for the European Council on Foreign Relations. Washington, he added, wanted to demonstrate that it was ready to deter Iranian provocations, so it conspicuously placed its aircraft carriers and fighters in position to respond quickly. But those same positions leave the United States more exposed.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/12/world/europe/mideast-war-israel-yemen.html

https://archive.ph/DgbvE

⚓️ 🇺🇸 🇸🇴 Two U.S. Navy Sailors missing off the coast of Somalia

🔶️ On the evening of January 11, two U.S. Navy Sailors were reported missing at sea while conducting operations off the coast of Somalia. Search and rescue operations are currently ongoing to locate the two sailors. For operational security purposes, we will not release additional information until the personnel recovery operation is complete.

🔶️ Out of respect for the families affected, we will not release further information on the missing personnel at this time.

🔶️ The sailors were forward-deployed to the U.S. 5th Fleet (C5F) area of operations supporting a wide variety of missions.

https://www.centcom.mil/MEDIA/STATEMENTS/Statements-View/Article/3644941/two-us-navy-sailors-missing-off-the-coast-of-somalia/

📢 🇺🇸 🇾🇪 CENTCOM Statement on US Airstrikes In Yemen:

🔶️ At 3:45 a.m. (Sana’a time) on Jan 13., U.S. forces conducted a strike against a Houthi radar site in Yemen. This strike was conducted by the USS Carney (DDG 64) using Tomahawk Land Attack Missiles and was a follow-on action on a specific military target associated with strikes taken on Jan. 12 designed to degrade the Houthi’s ability to attack maritime vessels, including commercial vessels.

🔶️ Since Nov. 19, 2023, Iranian-backed Houthi militants have attempted to attack and harass vessels in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden 28 times. These illegal incidents include attacks that have employed anti-ship ballistic missiles, unmanned aerial vehicles, and cruise missiles.

🔶️ These strikes have no association with and are separate from Operation Prosperity Guardian, a defensive coalition of over 20 countries operating in the Red Sea, Bab al-Mandeb Strait, and Gulf of Aden.

📎 CENTCOM

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Foreign Policy, Non-Interventionism, and the Draft

The Homeland Institute’s latest poll was inspired in large part by the ongoing Gaza crisis. It was conducted between late December, 2023 and early January, 2024. Related topics include the legacy of the Global War on Terror, the US’s relationship with Israel, and opposition to the draft.

Major findings are that:
Only 23.1% of all respondents and 30.2% of Republican respondents can think of a concrete example of Israel aiding American interests off the top of their head.

68.4% of respondents oppose direct intervention in the Gaza conflict with airstrikes or boots on the ground.

25.7% of respondents age 18-29 would oppose a draft through peaceful protest, and 16.9% through non-violent civil disobedience.

4.4% of respondents age 18-29 said they would oppose a draft through violence against government property, and 4.4% through violence against government officials.

The findings of this poll are particularly relevant given the recent US airstrikes on the Iranian-backed Houthis in Yemen, which risk escalating the Gaza crisis into a broader regional or even global conflict.

https://homelandinstitute.org/2024/01/foreign-policy-non-interventionism-and-the-draft/