India vs. Pakistan (and China)
India strikes Pakistan: Last month, there was a terrorist attack in India-controlled Kashmir that killed 26 tourists. Yesterday, India conducted several airstrikes on Pakistan, saying the strikes were retribution for the attack.
The strikes may not have been as successful as the Indian military had hoped. “At least two aircraft were said to have gone down in India and the Indian-controlled side of Kashmir, according to three officials, local news reports, and accounts of witnesses who had seen the debris of two,” reports The New York Times. “Pakistani military officials said that more than 20 people had been killed and dozens injured after six places were hit on the Pakistani side of Kashmir and in Punjab Province. Residents of the Indian side of Kashmir said at least 10 people had been killed in shelling from the Pakistani side since India carried out its strikes.”
Pakistan called the strikes “an unprovoked and blatant act of war.” India said the strikes were “measured, responsible and designed to be nonescalatory in nature” focused only on “known terror camps.”
“The scale of the strikes went far beyond New Delhi’s response to previous attacks in Kashmir it has blamed on Pakistan, including in 2019 and 2016, which some analysts said meant the risk of escalation was higher,” reports Reuters. But “the last time India and Pakistan faced off in a military confrontation, in 2019, U.S. officials detected enough movement in the nuclear arsenals of both nations to be alarmed,” reports The New York Times.
There’s also, of course, the China factor: Pakistan now gets lots of its weapons from China, whereas India is more reliant on the West; relations between India and China have soured in recent years, while China and Pakistan have gotten much closer.
Conclave begins: Pope Francis, who died on April 21, expanded the number of cardinals. The conclave that appointed him a little more than a decade ago was comprised of 115 cardinals from 48 countries, whereas this conclave—which commences today—will have 133 voting-age cardinals (those under 80), from roughly 70 countries. In total, including those over 80, there are now 252 cardinals from more parts of the world than ever before.
Possible contenders for the next pope include Cardinal Pietro Parolin, who is basically the second-in-command and well-liked in the Vatican bureaucracy (but has come under scrutiny for dealmaking with China), and Cardinal Luis
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