Financial Times - Felicia Schwartz, James Politi and Henry Foy / US and G7 warn Israel against strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities

• The US and its western allies are trying to limit Israel’s response to Iran’s ballistic missile attack in the hope of preventing a widening regional conflict from spiralling out of control. 

• US President Joe Biden on Wednesday spoke with the other leaders of the G7 to co-ordinate sanctions on Tehran for the attack and advise Israel on its response. 

• Israel is weighing several response options to retaliate against Iran, including attacks on missile launchers or oil infrastructure. Some Israeli officials have called for strikes against its nuclear facilities, though a person familiar with the matter said this is not being considered. Biden has also said he would oppose such an attack.  

• Jonathan Panikoff, a former senior intelligence official now at the Atlantic Council, said that while some in Israel are arguing for targeting Iranian oilfields, “US officials are probably concerned that an Israeli decision to target oilfields could result in Iran striking back by targeting oilfields of US companies and allies in the Gulf”.

   

The Washington Post - Rebecca Tan / Escalating contest over South China Sea disrupts international cable system

• Competition for control of the South China Sea is disrupting the repair and badly needed construction of subsea cables, raising costs and at times straining telecommunications, according to interviews with more than 30 people in the subsea cable industry and unpublished industry data.

• As China presses its claim over most of the strategic waterway, companies have found it harder to get approval from Beijing to operate there and riskier to do so without Chinese permission, said executives at cable companies, consultants and government regulators. Some cable repairs have been delayed months because of lags in Chinese permitting. At least two new cable projects are years overdue. 

• Increasingly, telecommunication companies are steering clear of the strategic waterway to avoid facing such challenges or getting ensnared in the wider dispute over cables between China and the West, in particular the United States, which has been stepping up pressure on companies and governments to avoid working with Chinese firms.

• In the past four years, the U.S. government has blocked at least three cable projects that would have linked the United States to Hong Kong because of concerns that China could spy on or sabotage communications. Cable companies, including both American and Chinese firms, were forced to abandon thousands of miles of cable that had already been laid on the seafloor or soldered in factories.

   

Euractiv - Aleksandra Krzysztoszek / Far right Patriots for Europe group joined by Polish members

• Far-right Confederation MEPs Anna Bryłka and Tomasz Buczek announced that they had joined the recently formed far-right EU group, the Patriots for Europe. 

• “After several weeks of work in the European Parliament, Tomasz Buczek and I have joined the Patriots for Europe group, where we will cooperate work Marine Le Pen's National Unity, Santiago Abascal's VOX party, and Viktor Orban's Fidesz, among others," she wrote on X. 

• With the two additional MEPs, the group gains “an important member country,” Poland, a country that “will remain a tower of strength, not only when it comes to preserving peace, freedom, and prosperity, but also in terms of defending its borders against rampant illegal migration,” PfE added.

• Despite the two joining the new far-right group, Grzegorz Braun, another Confederation MEP, remains independent. Although no group has commented on the issue, unofficial sources say that the reason could be his radical views and controversial behaviour, for which neither ESN nor Patriots want to be associated with him.

   

Al Jazeera / US prosecutors detail new evidence in Trump election subversion case

• A federal judge in the United States has made public new evidence against Donald Trump in an ongoing election subversion case in Washington, DC. 

• Judge Tanya Chutkan unsealed a 165-page court filing on Wednesday that details the prosecution’s argument that Trump — in his final months as president — acted in a private capacity to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

• The brief also relays numerous interactions in which the former president was told repeatedly there was no evidence his 2020 election battle with Joe Biden was “rigged” or stolen through massive voter fraud, as Trump repeatedly claimed.

• According to the filing, three days before the 2020 election day, one adviser described Trump’s plan as: “He’s going to declare victory. That doesn’t mean he’s the winner, he’s just going to say he’s the winner.”.

   

Our opinion reads for today:

• Politico - Liselotte Odgaard / Russia and China’s cooperation in the Arctic is a rising nuclear threat
• Project Syndicate - Yu Yongding / China’s Economy Needs a Stimulus Package