The Capitals: WEF special meet begins in Riyadh; Kim Jong-Un’s diplomatic top gun in Tehran; and more

North Korea sent its highest-level delegation to Iran in several years. The delegation was led by External Economic Relations Minister Yun Jong Howho had travelled to Russia earlier this month and acted as a key player in trade between Pyongyang and Moscow.

North Korean External Economic Relations Minister Yun Jong-ho speaks during a meeting with Russian Natural Resources Minister Alexander Kozlov (not pictured) in Pyongyang, North Korea, on Nov. 15, 2023 | file via KCNA/Reuters

The Tehran-Pyongyang engagement raised many speculations in the West. Top of which was that there remains a real risk of North Korea mirroring the high-profile nature of its ties with Moscow — to help Putin win war in Ukraine — with Tehran as well amid ongoing conflict in West Asia centered around Israeli bombardment of Gaza.

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South Korea's spy agency issued a rare warning last week about cooperation between Iran and North Korea, and claimed that there is a possibility Pyongyang could have helped Iran in its attack on Israel. South Korea previously said North Korean weapons have been used by Hamas against Israel during war in Gaza.

Read more in The Capitals this week.

Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

The World Economic Forum (WEF) Special Meeting commenced in Riyadh on Sunday (April 28) to find solutions to a host of global challenges including wars and conflict, humanitarian issues, the climate and the economy.

Themed "Global Collaboration, Growth and Energy for Development", the two-day meeting convenes more than 1,000 global leaders from 92 countries, including heads of state and government, thought leaders from public and private sectors, as well as international organisations, academic institutions and non-governmental organisations (NGOs).

Beijing, China

Tesla CEO Elon Musk arrived in Beijing on Sunday in a visit that took media by surprise. Musk is expected tomeet senior officialsto discuss the rollout of Full Self-Driving software, Reuters reported while citing a person with knowledge of the matter.

The US electric vehicle maker rolled out Full Self-Driving, or FSD, the most autonomous version of its Autopilot software, in 2020 but has yet to make it available in China, its second-largest market globally.

Musk said this month Tesla may make FSD available to customers in China "very soon"in response to a query on social media platform X.

Berlin, Germany

A little over a week after Chancellor Olaf Scholz visited Beijing to promote business ties with his country's biggest trading partner,the German leader stood alongside UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak in Berlin and described alleged Chinese espionage in Germany "very concerning".

Calling attempts to spy on Germany "unacceptable", Scholz and Sunak were giving a statement shortly after the spying cases erupted in both countries in the same week.

Also watch |Germany and the UK detain suspected Chinese spies

Uproar erupted in and beyond Berlin's corridors of power after an aide to a European Parliament member for the far right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party was arrested on Tuesday (April 23). He is accused of passing information about discussions in the European Union legislature to Chinese intelligence and spying on the Chinese opposition.

The man, identified by prosecutors as Jian G, has been accused of "an especially severe instance" of espionage. It comes after the arrests of three German citizens accused of industrial spying for China in return for payment.

China has said that the spying accusations are "completely fabricated".

Abuja, Nigeria

High-Level African Counter Terrorism Meeting in Abuja on April 22, 2024 | X/@AUC_MoussaFaki

The Capitals on WION reported on July 31, 2023 how the coup in Niger in Africa's Sahel region led to the ouster of the country's democratically elected President Mohamed Bazoum by his presidential guards.

Now that the status quo of Niamey's power structure lies with the army, and Washington has announced that it will withdraw some 1,000 troops from the country— African leaders met in Nigeria's capital Abuja.

The summit was jointly hosted by Abuja and the United Nations Office of Counter Terrorism (UNOCT) with the aim of strengthening regional security response and cooperation against acts of terror.

"Terrorism snaps at the very fabric of the prosperous and just society we seek to build for ourselves and our children," Nigerian President Bola Tinubu said during remarks at the two-day summit in Abuja.

"This violent threat seeks to frighten the farmer from his field, children from their schools, women from the marketplace and families from their very homes. We must therefore fight this threat together, combining determined national effort with well-tailored and regional and international collaboration."

Tinubu is also the chair of the West African regional bloc ECOWAS. Heurged the proper establishmentof a regional standby military force. This force, initially proposed in response to the July 2023 coup in Niger, would act as a deterrent against acts of violence byterrorists in the region, he said.

According to a new study by the African Center for Strategic Studies, more than 23,000 people were killed in Africa last year — a 20 per cent increase compared to 2022.

That's all for The Capitals this week. See you next weekend.