MOSCOW (AP) — Russia’s navy has successfully test-fired a prospective hypersonic missile, the military said Monday.
The Defense Ministry said the Admiral Gorshkov frigate in the White Sea launched the Zircon cruise missile, hitting a practice target 400 kilometers (215 nautical miles) away. The launch was the latest in a series of tests of Zircon, which is set to enter service next year. Russian President Vladimir Putin has said Zircon would be capable of flying at nine times the speed of sound and have a range of 1,000 kilometers (620 miles). Putin has emphasized that its deployment will significantly boost the capability of Russia’s military. Zircon is intended to arm Russian cruisers, frigates and submarines. It is one of several hypersonic missiles under development in Russia. The Kremlin has made modernizing the country’s arsenals a top priority amid the tensions with the West that followed Russia’s 2014 annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula.

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BEIJING (AFP) -- China’s President Xi Jinping on Monday pledged to offer one billion Covid vaccine doses to Africa, in a speech made via videolink to a China-Africa summit near Senegal’s capital Dakar. The Chinese leader said that his country would donate 600 million doses directly. A further 400 million doses would come from other sources, such as investments in production sites. Xi’s promise comes as part of forum between China and African states with an emphasis on trade and security, held in the city of Diamniadio near Senegal’s seaside capital. China invests heavily in Africa, and is the continent’s largest trading partner with direct trade worth over $200 billion in 2019, according to the Chinese embassy in Dakar.

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NEW DELHI (AFP) – India’s parliament voted Monday to scrap agricultural reform laws that sparked a year of huge protests by farmers, after a surprise U-turn by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Thousands of farmers have been camped out on the outskirts of the capital New Delhi since last year -- one of the biggest challenges to Modi’s Hindu nationalist government since he came to power in 2014. The rallies became a lightning rod for discontent in a country where two-thirds of the 1.3 billion population rely on agriculture for their livelihood. In its first meeting for the winter session, both houses of India’s parliament rushed through a bill to scrap the laws, after Modi’s shock decision to reverse course earlier this month. But farmers’ unions have vowed to keep up the fight against the government until they secure further concessions.

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BANGOR, Maine (AP) — University of Maine researchers are trying to produce potatoes that can better withstand warming temperatures as the climate changes. Warming temperatures and an extended growing season can lead to quality problems and disease, Gregory Porter, a professor of crop ecology and management, told the Bangor Daily News. “The predictions for climate change are heavier rainfall events, and potatoes don’t tolerate flooding or wet conditions for long without having other quality problems,” Porter said. “If we want potatoes to be continued to be produced successfully in Maine, we need to be able to produce varieties that can be resistant to change.” Around the world, research aimed at mitigating crop damage is underway. A NASA study published this month suggested climate change may affect the production of corn and wheat, with corn yields projected to decline while wheat could see potential growth, as soon as 2030 under a high greenhouse gas emissions scenario.

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- Former U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper on Sunday filed a lawsuit against the Department of Defense for withholding parts of a memoir about the time he spent in the administration of Donald Trump. The book, “A Sacred Oath”, sheds light on events that occurred during the second half of Trump’s presidency, Esper said. The Department “arbitrarily” redacted the manuscript after he submitted it to DoD officials for review, he said in a statement. “Significant text is being improperly withheld from publication ...under the guise of classification. The withheld text is crucial to telling important stories discussed in the manuscript,” Esper’s lawsuit, filed in a federal court, said. Esper served as Trump’s defense secretary from June 2019 to November 2020, when he was fired over a range of differences on policy issues. They included Esper’s public opposition to Trump’s threats to use active duty military forces to suppress street protests over racial injustice after police killed George Floyd in Minneapolis.

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STOCKHOLM (Reuters) -- Sweden’s first female prime minister Magdalena Andersson was reappointed on Monday days after she quit amid political turmoil and jostling ahead of elections. Lawmakers narrowly elected her premier for the second time in less than a week after she set out plans for a minority government made up of only her Social Democrats. The former finance minister had won a similar vote on Wednesday but threw in the towel hours later after a junior coalition partner left the government over a lost budget vote. The leader of the right-wing opposition Moderate Party, Ulf Kristersson, described the incoming administration as a “nine-month caretaker government” and said it would not be able to achieve much in the run-up to elections due in September 2022. Gang violence plagues the suburbs of major cities. The health service barely coped with the pandemic and needs strengthening, while the government will need to manage a promised transition to a zero-emissions economy.