Defence`s Feeds

The People's Republic of China (PRC) and Hong Kong-based officials continue to dismantle the promised autonomy and freedoms of Hong Kong through politically motivated arrests.

The United States has levied sanctions against four Chinese officials in Hong Kong's security establishment for what it says is their role in cracking down on dissent.

An international coalition of elected lawmakers have called on the International Criminal Court (ICC) to launch an investigation into whether rights abuses in China's Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) amount to genocide and other crimes against humanity, based on a complaint submitted four months ago.

The United States recognizes that Burma's parliamentary elections, the second competitive national election since the end of military rule, mark an important step in the country's democratic transition.

Today, the Department of State and the Department of the Treasury sanctioned 19 individuals and entities under the Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act of 2019 and other sanctions authorities.

Today, the U.S. Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) took action against Syrian military officials, members of the Syrian Parliament, Government of Syria entities, and Syrian and Lebanese persons attempting to revive Syria's deteriorating petroleum industry.

Turkish Finance Minister Berat Albayrak has announced his resignation for health reasons, a day after the central bank chief was fired amid a currency meltdown.

The Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division (NAWCAD) recently acquired a logistics Unmanned Air System (UAS) prototype to demonstrate long-range naval ship-to-ship and ship-to-shore cargo transport at Naval Air Station Patuxent River.

The United States has been, and always will be, a leader in transparent, rights-respecting governance. Our continued commitment to the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) process underscores the United States' long-standing role as a global leader in advancing human rights.

Should You Join the Military After College?

A group of U.S. Marine Corps instructors are visiting Taiwan as part of an annual project to help train Taiwanese troops to beef up their combat preparedness, a military source told CNA Monday.

Kazakh President Qasym-Zhomart Toqaev has ordered a new variation of the Kazakh-language alphabet based on Latin letters that would replace the current alphabet based on Cyrillic by 2025.

At the initiative of the FEMM Committee, the European Parliament held its first ever European Gender Equality Week during the last week of October 2020.
2020 is a special year, marking the 25th anniversary of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action. This important milestone provides an excellent opportunity to discuss the achievements and future challenges for the advancement of girls' and women's rights and gender equality. Therefore, the European Parliament held for the first time its European Gender Equality Week, which gave much-needed input to the long lasting battle for women's empowerment and gender equality as well as more visibility and recognition to gender mainstreaming in all policy areas.

Many committees took part in the Gender Equality Week and organized events during the last days of October, while some others will look into gender mainstreaming aspects in their fields of competences later this year.

Please consult below the Programme and details of events happening during the European Gender Equality Week.

Location : European Parliament
Programme of the Gender Equality Week
Watch again the committee events
Public Hearing on "Trafficking in human beings" (Joint LIBE - FEMM) (26 October 2020)
Public Hearing on “Beating Breast Cancer: Challenges and opportunities” (BECA, in association with FEMM) (27 October 2020)
Public Hearing on "Women and digitalisation" (FEMM, in association with AIDA) (28 October 2020)
Presentation on "Placing care at the heart of the EU’s recovery efforts" (EMPL) (28 October 2020)
Public Hearing on "Women in Transport" (TRAN) (29 October 2020)
Exchange of views on the "UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security" (SEDE) (29 October 2020)
Presentation of the Gender Equality Index 2020 (FEMM) (29 October 2020)
EP Research Service Topical Digest on "Gender Equality - A review in progress"
Communication
     Press release: "Parliament launches its first European Gender Equality Week"
     #EPGenderEqualityWeek on Twitter
     #EPGenderEqualityWeek on Facebook
     Speech of David Sassoli, President of the European Parliament
     Photos : [EN] - [EN] - [EN] - [EN] - [EN] - [EN] - [EN] - [EN] - [EN] - [EN]
Gender Equality week - Presentation video
Source : © European Union, 2020 - EP

The implementation of EXCEED, the last of the three defence research projects selected under the 2018 call for proposals for the EU Preparatory Action on Defence Research (PADR), was officially launched at an online kick-off meeting held this Wednesday and Thursday (4/5 November). It followed the signing, last week, of the grant agreement worth €12 million between EDA and the winning consortium led by STMicroelectronics (France). 

EXCEED stands for ‘trustEd and fleXible system-on-Chip for EuropEan Defence applications’. It was selected following an EU-wide PADR call for proposals on the topic of ‘European high-performance, trustable (re)configurable system-on-a-chip or system-in-package for defence applications’ organised by EDA in 2018. 

The project aims at creating a European supply chain of reconfigurable, flexible and trustable programmable system-on-a-chip family targeting a number of ruggedized and secure defence applications such as for radio frequency (RF) sensors and signal processing arrays, flexible radios, secure positioning and navigation, UAV data links, military networks, flexible cryptography engines, dismounted soldier, guidance and mission critical controllers. The security of the System-on-chip architecture is studied in detail to cope with EU Classified information and defence specificities as well as country-specific requirements, through protection, personalisation and life-cycle management. The project also focuses on System Development Tools. The secure chip is fabricated in a trusted environment in Europe. The demonstrator chip will be a mid-scale member of the family.

The winning consortium encompasses a total of 19 participants from 6 EU countries and Norway. More information on the consortium can be found in the EXCEED project page.
 

About the PADR

The EXCEED project is part of the Preparatory Action on Defence Research (PADR) launched by the European Commission in 2017 to assess and demonstrate the added-value of EU supported defence research and technology (R&T). It paved the way for a proper European Defence Programme to come as of next year as part of the European Defence Fund (EDF), under the EU’s next Multiannual Financial Framework (2021-2027).
The PADR implementation is run by EDA following the mandate via a Delegation Agreement between the European Commission and EDA signed on 31 May 2017. By this agreement the Commission entrusts EDA with the management and implementation of the research projects launched within the PADR.  

In the context of the exponential growth of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), the President of the European Parliament has announced a number of measures to contain the spread of epidemic and to safeguard Parliament's core activities.

The current precautionary measures adopted by the European Parliament to contain the spread of COVID-19 do not affect work on legislative priorities. Core activities are reduced, but maintained to ensure that the institution's legislative, budgetary, scrutiny functions are maintained.

The meetings will be with remote participation for Members (being able to view and listen to proceedings, ask for the floor and intervene in the meeting). Other participants are invited to follow the meeting through webstreaming.

Following these decisions, the next meeting of the Subcommittee on Security and Defence (SEDE) will take place on 16 November 2020 (online).

New EP calendar 2020
SEDE meetings' calendar 2020
Press release: Security and Defence Subcommittee MEPs will discuss continuing threat from Daesh - 27 October 2020
Press release: MEPs reiterate their support for Treaty on Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons - 21 October 2020
Press release: - PESCO: MEPs call Member States to deepen defence cooperation at EU level - 21 October 2020
Press release: Implementation of the CSDP: MEPs to discuss the annual draft report 2019 - 15 October 2020
Source : © European Union, 2020 - EP

'Sustaining European Defence' will be the topic of this year's EDA Annual Conference which will take place on 3-4 December 2020 in online format, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Registration is already open with only a restricted number of virtual seats available.

Europe is facing up to the reality of before and after COVID-19. Today, four years after launching the EU defence initiatives, we have the right tools at our disposal to overcome diverse challenges through cooperation. The work of Europe’s armed forces throughout the pandemic has been lauded by our citizens, but it has equally highlighted key capabilities and investment in European defence.

“Sustaining European Defence” is therefore the timely focus of the European Defence Agency’s Annual Conference. The high-level event, to be held over the course of two half days on Thursday, 3 and Friday, 4 December, will provide the annual rendez-vous for the wider European defence community to discuss European defence cooperation and how it can be sustained in light of multiple and varying security challenges.

Due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, this year’s Annual Conference will be held in the format of a ‘virtual event’, allowing all registered participants to join via a virtual event platform. Nevertheless, only a limited number of people will be able to register. Registration will be done on a first come, first served basis. You will receive a confirmation email to validate your registration.

More information about the conference agenda and registration can be found here.