North Koreans in Russia. North Korea will send five thousand construction workers and one thousand combat engineers to Russia’s Kursk region, Russian Security Council Secretary Sergei Shoigu told reporters yesterday during a visit to Pyongyang. Shoigu said the workers would help fix infrastructure damage and that the two countries were aiming to restart direct flights between their capital cities for the first time in more than thirty years.
G7 debate on Ukraine. An unnamed official from Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s office told reporters early yesterday that a joint statement on Ukraine had been discussed at the G7 summit but did not move forward due to U.S. objections. A spokesperson for Carney backpedaled this news later in the day, saying that no joint statement had been planned. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told G7 leaders that “diplomacy is now in a state of crisis” and they should continue urging Trump to force an end to the war, he wrote on Telegram.
Trump’s TikTok extension. The White House yesterday announced a third ninety-day extension of a deadline for TikTok’s Chinese owner to divest its U.S. operations or face a national ban. Trump “does not want TikTok to go dark,” the White House press secretary said. The deadline was set to expire tomorrow. Unnamed U.S. officials told the Wall Street Journal that a resolution of TikTok’s impasse had become tangled up in trade tensions with China.
Canada-India thaw. Carney and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi agreed to name new ambassadors to their respective countries in a meeting yesterday, Carney’s office said. Bilateral relations had been chilled after Carney’s predecessor alleged that Indian government agents were involved in the 2023 killing of a Sikh activist on Canadian soil, which New Delhi denied.
Oil demand forecast. The International Energy Agency projected yesterday that global oil supply will exceed demand in 2025, despite conflict in the Middle East. In a new report, the agency also maintained a prediction that worldwide oil demand will peak by 2029; producer alliance OPEC projected late last year that demand will keep rising through 2050.
Taiwan’s submarine trial. Taiwan completed the initial sea test for its first domestically built submarine, the Narwhal, yesterday. The Indigenous Defense Submarine program is a main pillar of Taiwan’s efforts to modernize its military amid fears of potential conflict with China. Taiwanese forces plan to eventually have eight locally produced submarines, with two deployed by 2027.
Probe of Spain’s blackout. Both the country’s electric grid operator and power plants contributed to the massive blackout that occurred across Spain and Portugal on April 28, according to a Spanish government investigation made public yesterday. The grid operator did not calculate the proper mix of energy to be used, while power plants failed to help keep the correct voltage level in the system. Madrid said it would propose steps to strengthen the grid.
Attack in rural Nigeria. President Bola Tinubu is visiting Benue state in north-central Nigeria today after an assault by gunmen that began on Friday night killed dozens of people there. Amnesty International said the death toll numbered around 100, while witnesses estimated 150. No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, which occurred against the backdrop of local conflicts over access to land and water.
