At the Munich Security Conference last week, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif stressed the Islamic Republic’s right to “sophisticated means of defense,” alluding to the ballistic missiles whose flight tests and transfers the Trump administration has sought to curb.
Why it matters:Multiple U.S. intelligence community assessments have judged Iran’s ballistic missile arsenal to be large and diverse. Some have even assessed that ballistic missiles would be Tehran’s “preferred method of delivering nuclear weapons, if it builds them.”
China accused the U.S. government Monday of trying to block its tech development with its claims that Chinese tech companies, including Huawei Technologies, might be used for espionage, per AP.
Why it matters: The charge comes at a time when the Trump administration has been urging its allies not to use Huawei for next-generation 5G wireless networks. But AP reports there's also a new twist: Britain’s National Cyber Security Centre now says it's possible to manage the risk of using Chinese equipment in the networks.
Seven members of the United Kingdom's Parliament resigned from the Labour Party today, citing dissatisfaction with party leader Jeremy Corbyn's approach to Brexit and anti-Semitism within the party, the BBC reports.
The details: The Labour Party, which overwhelmingly supported remaining in the European Union in the 2016 referendum, continues to be plagued with charges of rising anti-Semitism within its ranks, with one departing MP calling the party “institutionally anti-Semitic" at a press conference announcing her resignation.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held a secret meeting with Moroccan Foreign Minister Nasser Bourita on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly meeting in New York last September, an Israeli official told me.
Why it matters: Israel hasn't had diplomatic relations with Morocco since start of the second intifada in 2000. The two countries had full diplomatic relations between 1995 and 2000 after the Oslo Accords were signed between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization.
Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki canceled a planned trip to Israel this week amid ongoing diplomatic fallout over comments by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about Poland's role in the Holocaust, per AP.
Backdrop: At a Middle East conference in Warsaw last week, Netanyahu said that "Poles cooperated with Nazis" during the Holocaust, but had been quoted in the Jerusalem Post as saying "the Poles," implying the whole nation of Poland was at fault. Israel and Poland have clashed on this semantic issue before, holding secret backchannel talks last year over a controversial Polish law that criminalized attributing crimes committed during the Holocaust to Poland.
