RED EYE ON THE NEWS . . .July 5, 2023

French army prepares for coming war
Economist, 6/18–In 2021, a year before Russia invaded Ukraine, General Thierry Burkhard told The Economist that the French army had to “harden” itself and prepare for “high-intensity war”, possibly on the European continent. One hypothetical adversary was Russia. Today, the former head of the army is France’s top soldier, in charge of all its armed forces…For 17 days in April and May General Burkhard led a full-scale division-level exercise in eastern France, on land that the great powers fought over more than a century ago. In his office in Paris, where a print featuring Valery Zaluzhny, Ukraine’s most senior general, hangs opposite a portrait of Emmanuel Macron, France’s president, General Burkhard reflects on the lessons emerging from the exercise and from the war in Ukraine. “A high-intensity war is fought on a completely different scale,” he says. “I probably underestimated that.” During two decades of counter-insurgency in Afghanistan and the Sahel, the death of ten soldiers was a “national tragedy, and rightly so,” says the general. “That is what is happening in Ukraine every half hour—for weeks on end.”

China bringing South China Sea to the Gulf of Mexico
Al Jazeera, 6/20–China has been negotiating the creation of a new joint training facility on the Caribbean island nation of Cuba, creating concerns it could lead to the stationing of Chinese troops in the waters off the U.S…discussions between the two countries are in advanced stages, but had not concluded…officials from the administration of President Joe Biden have been trying to discourage their Cuban counterparts from finalising the deal. The latest report came days after the Biden administration confirmed that China has maintained surveillance operations in Cuba for years, which were upgraded in 2019.

Fair elections? Not so fast say New York Democrats
New York Times, 6/8–For generations, deep-pocketed donors have called the shots in New York State politics, leaving ordinary voters with less power and less of a voice in their government. Incumbent lawmakers are bankrolled by moneyed special interests and are routinely re-elected with little competition, and there has been no real alternative to the traditional system of big campaign contributions influencing candidates and politics. A law passed in 2019, one of the most promising New York campaign reforms in decades, was supposed to change that…But this week, in the final days of the legislative session, the Democratic lawmakers who dominate the capital are preparing to severely weaken those reforms. The changes proposed by lawmakers would protect incumbents and discourage challengers — the opposite of the program’s goal…“They don’t want to be primaried,’’ said John Kaehny, the executive director of Reinvent Albany…“They know the public match will mean they will get more primary opponents, and so they’re making it harder to run. It wrecks the core idea of the program, which is to make these races more competitive.”

Medical supplies in short supply
BBC, 6/7–Experts say the U.S. is currently suffering one of the most severe shortages of chemotherapy drugs it's seen for three decades. As of this week, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said over 130 drugs were in short supply, 14 of which are cancer treatments…Experts say a myriad of factors have contributed to the shortages, which this time have heavily affected two front-line therapies - carboplatin and cisplatin - used to treat a host of cancers, including head and neck, gynaecologic and gastrointestinal cancers…As a result, some providers have been forced to extend the time period between patients' chemotherapy sessions, while some patients have had to drive several hours to get treatment at different cancer centres…While the medications are cheap to manufacture, pharmaceutical companies are not incentivised to do so because they don't bring in large profits, said Dr Karen Knudsen, CEO of the American Cancer Society. The drug shortage issue has also worsened as U.S. life expectancy has increased, meaning more people are becoming ill with cancer.