Wednesday, May 24 — 3 significant news stories

Today ChatGPT read 1009 top news stories and gave 4 of them a significance score over 6.5.

After removing duplicates and repeats, here is today’s significant news:

[6.9] China and Russia aim to boost pragmatic cooperation. — Reuters, CNBC

Chinese Premier Li Qiang expressed China's willingness to enhance pragmatic cooperation with Russia in various fields during a meeting with Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin in Beijing. Li noted that the scale of investment between the two countries is continuously seeing an upgrade, and the pragmatic cooperation has shown a good development trend. Mishustin's visit to Beijing is the highest-ranking Russian official's visit since Moscow sent thousands of its troops into Ukraine in February 2022.

[6.5] Analyzing the $1tn Spent on China's Belt and Road Initiative — ABC News

China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has cost over $1tn so far, with most of the spending going towards energy and transport infrastructure, according to research. The BRI has involved building multiple high-speed rail networks to reach western Europe, and massive ports across Asia and Africa for shipping. The most expensive project undertaken as part of the BRI is the $92.5bn China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, which includes highways, a port, an airport, railways, oil pipelines, and fibre optic cable networks across Pakistan. The BRI has been riddled with complications, including backlash in participating countries against opacity of project governance, massive delays and environmental issues.

[6.7] EU countries provide military aid to Ukraine amid discussions to increase military budget. — The Guardian

European Union (EU) countries have provided Ukraine with 220,000 artillery shells and 1,300 missiles since March, according to the EU’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell. The announcement came as member states discussed raising Europe’s military budget by €3.5bn ($4.1bn), with €1bn earmarked for Ukraine. The European Peace Facility fund is used to reimburse EU member states that supply military aid to Kyiv. The EU has also trained 20,000 Ukrainian soldiers and aims to train 30,000 by the end of the year. The EU is also seeking to build a rapid evacuation task force to avert a repeat of the chaos surrounding the mass evacuations from Afghanistan and Sudan.

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