THE WATCH STAFF The Royal Military Academy Sandhurst (RMAS) recently commissioned three members of the fledgling Turks and Caicos Islands Regiment. The officers, Capt. Dixie Smith, Lt. Jahiem Glinton and Lt. Earl Henry, were the second cohort of Marines from the reservist Turks and Caicos Islands (TCI) Regiment to be trained at the British military academy, according to an April 1, 2022, story in the Turks and Caicos Weekly News. Their two months of instruction included a range of military skills and physical training. “It was quite a unique experience … I definitely learned a lot,” Henry told Caribbean news…
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THE ASSOCIATED PRESS A researcher was convicted on April 7, 2022, of illegally concealing work he was doing for China while employed at the University of Kansas. U.S. District Judge Julie Robinson continues to weigh a defense motion, however, to dismiss the case against Feng “Franklin” Tao of Lawrence, Kansas. Jurors found him guilty of three counts of wire fraud and one count of false statements for not disclosing on conflict-of-interest forms that he had been named to a Chinese talent program, the Changjiang Professorship, on grant applications. As part of that program, he traveled to China to set up…
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Facing higher oil prices after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, U.S. President Joe Biden is planning to invoke the Defense Production Act to increase the mining of critical minerals for the batteries used in electric vehicles. A person familiar with White House plans said production will occur under strong environmental and labor standards. Greater federal support for alternatives to fossil fuels would reduce the leverage of Russian President Vladimir Putin and others on matters of U.S. national and economic security, though it reflects a long-term play rather than an immediate response to the economic damage caused by the…
THE WATCH STAFF Defense leaders from 21 nations — including the Bahamas, Canada, Mexico and the United States — discussed their challenges during the recent 2022 Caribbean Nations Security Conference (CANSEC) in Bridgetown, Barbados. The April 5-7 conference, co-hosted by the Barbados Defence Force (BDF) and U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM), highlighted the enduring relationships between the U.S. and its Caribbean neighbors. The talks focused on ways to enhance regional cooperation to confront threats that range from natural disasters to transnational organized crime to “competition between authoritarianism and democracy,” according to an April 7 news release from SOUTHCOM. “These areas of…
THE WATCH STAFF As the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has worked to increase its influence in the Western Hemisphere over the past two decades, one thing is apparent: Beijing has no plans to slow its activity. A Joint Action Plan (2022-2024) from the China-Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) reinforces the PRC’s intentions to increase engagement in the region across a range of economic sectors, according to a January 12, 2022, report in The Diplomat online magazine. The PRC is South America’s leading trade partner and a major source of direct investment and loans in energy and…
THE WATCH STAFF Illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing has become a scourge of the “blue economy,” contributing to the depletion of global fish stocks. In the Caribbean, many countries are classified as “fish dependent” and IUU fishing has a large impact on the region’s food security, according to a July 19, 2021, report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). The report said local catches have decreased because of IUU actors, forcing some nations to increase imports of seafood and impose catch quotas. “It is our quest in the Caribbean to partner with all international agencies to…
REUTERS Finland will decide whether it will apply to join the U.S.-led NATO alliance in the next few weeks, Prime Minister Sanna Marin, pictured, said on April 13, 2022, underlining a shift in security perspectives since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Finland and fellow Nordic state and neighbor Sweden are close partners with NATO but have shied away from joining the 30-member alliance, founded in 1949 to counter the Soviet Union during the Cold War. “We have to be prepared for all kinds of actions from Russia,” Marin told reporters at a joint news conference in Stockholm with her Swedish counterpart. She said the option to…
REUTERS Canada will boost military spending slightly over the next five years and review its overall defense policy in the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the government said on April 7, 2022. The annual budget promised to spend more than U.S. $6.4 billion extra between 2022-23 and 2026-27 on the Armed Forces. Officials said this meant the defense budget in 2022-23 would be 2.7% higher than had initially been forecast. Canada currently spends 1.36% of GDP on defense, and a senior government official said the new spending should push that up to 1.5% by 2026-27. That is still…
THE WATCH STAFF U.S. Chief of Space Operations Gen. John W. “Jay” Raymond often asserts that Earth’s orbital domain must remain “accessible, stable and secure.” The U.S. Space Force (USSF) is taking an important step to realize that goal by acquiring technology to provide Raymond’s service with a real-time picture of space. The USSF awarded Slingshot Aerospace a U.S. $25-million, 39-month contract March 31, 2022, for its Digital Space Twin, according to a news release from the contractor. The contract was funded by Space Systems Command and the USSF’s venture branch, SpaceWERX, according to the news release. It also includes pilot programs…
THE WATCH STAFF With a record-setting flight test, the U.S. Air Force and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) have reached another milestone in the development of a Hypersonic Air-breathing Weapon Concept (HAWC). The vehicle tested was the Lockheed Martin version of a HAWC cruise missile, which set a record for hypersonic flight — greater than five times the speed of sound — under scramjet power, DARPA reported in an April 5, 2022, news release. The test was the second successful flight in the agency’s HAWC program. In 2021, a vehicle configuration from the contractor Raytheon also reached hypersonic…