Play The Diplomat’s Quiz: June 5, 2016 Edition

On Saturday and Sunday, with stops in Afghanistan and Qatar, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi wrapped up the first two legs of a busy five-day, five-nation tour. On Sunday evening, Modi departed to Switzerland, after which he will head to the United States and Mexico.

In Afghanistan, Modi and President Ashraf Ghani inaugurated the $290 million Salma Dam hydroelectric power project in Herat province. The meeting between the two leaders is the second in a span of weeks. In late-May, Ghani had traveled to Iran for the signing of the trilateral India-Iran-Afghanistan agreement for the development of the Chabahar port. Moreover, on Saturday, Modi emphasized India’s ongoing commitment to Afghanistan’s development and thanked Afghanistan’s military and police forces for protecting Indians in Afghanistan.

Last Friday, an Indonesian Navy Van Speijk-class frigate, the Oswald Siahaan, intercepted and fired shots at a Chinese fishing trawler in waters off the Natuna Island, in the South China Sea. The Indonesian frigate ultimately seized the fishing vessel, the Gui Bei Yu-27088, and arrested its eight crewmembers. According to a spokesperson fro the Indonesia Navy, Major Budi Amin, the incident took place in Indonesia’s exclusive economic zone, part of which overlaps with China’s ambiguously defined nine-dash line claim in the South China Sea.

“This arrest was made to show the world that Indonesia will take firm action against ships that violate our territory,” Amin said. He further noted that shots fired from the Indonesian frigate hit the stern of the Chinese fishing trawler, but that no one was injured. “We strongly suspect they were poaching fish in our territory because we found fresh fish on the boat,” he added. “The boat engine was faulty so we had to tow the boat to a port in Natuna. We also arrested eight Chinese crew to question their activities.”

North Korea has few friends in the world and it’s about to have fewer yet.

Uganda, one of Pyongyang’s few allies, announced that it will put an end to its cooperation with North Korea. The announcement came following a meeting between South Korean President Park Geun-hye and Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni.

After his meeting with Park on Sunday, Musevini announced that he’d decided that Uganda would cease its military cooperation with North Korea to comply with increasingly harsh United Nations sanctions against the country for its nuclear weapons program.

In Uzbekistan, bearded football fans were reportedly turned away from a friendly match between Bukhara and Navbahor on May 29. According to RFE/RL’s Uzbek service, several men said that when they tried to enter the stadium plainclothes police told them, “Go and remove your beard and then you can enter.” One bearded fan said, “I had no choice but to run to a nearby barber shop.”

As soon as the inaugural festivities are over, President-elect Rodrigo Duterte’s administration will begin preparing for one of the most important diplomatic events of his presidency: the 2017 Philippine chairmanship of ASEAN. Not only will the occasion be significant for the country, it will also be milestone for the organization, which will celebrate the 50th anniversary of its founding during Manila’s watch.

On Wednesday, the U.S. Treasury Department announced new sanctions against North Korea, further isolating the most sanctioned country in the world from the U.S. financial system. The new sanctions designate North Korea a “primary money laundering concern” under Section 311 of the USA PATRIOT Act. The designation gives the U.S. Treasury Department the ability to “require U.S. financial institutions to take appropriate countermeasures.” The U.S. sanctions take effect as North Korea reels from the effects of unusually harsh United Nations sanctions implemented earlier this year, under the rubric of United Nations Security Council resolution 2270.

Having resolved long-standing issues regarding intellectual property concerns, India and Russia may be ready to offer up their jointly developed BrahMos supersonic cruise missile for export. According to a recent report by IHS Jane’s Defence Weekly, India plans to reinvigorate plans to offer the missile to Vietnam. As I’d discussed in The Diplomat in September 2014, Hanoi had shown interest in the platform for some time. Indian Defense Minister Manohar Parrikar will visit Vietnam later this month to discuss the sale with his Vietnamese counterpart.

The flagship of the Russian Navy, the aircraft carrierAdmiral Kuznetsov, will undergo modernization in the first quarter of 2017, according to an unidentified Russian defense industry official, TASS news agency reports. The modernization of the aircraft carrier is expected to take three years.

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The ship is currently docked at the 35th Ship Repair Plant in Murmansk for repairs and will depart for the eastern Mediterranean in late June. Russia’s sole aircraft carrier was commissioned in 1990 and has not undergone any major overhauls since a two-year refit between 1996 and 1998. It has never been deployed longer than six months and spent most of its service life in port.

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A significant highlight of the visit will be Modi’s address to a joint session of U.S. Congress. This will provide him an opportunity to chart out his vision for the future of India-U.S. ties and how the two large democracies can collaborate to ensure peace, security, stability, and prosperity in the world. The U.S. Congress has always been supportive of closer India-U.S. ties and Modi can be assured of a warm, enthusiastic reception by members. Modi will be only the fifth Indian Prime Minister to speak to the joint session, the earlier ones having been Dr. Manmohan Singh (2005), Atal Behari Vajpayee (2000), Narasimha Rao (1994), and Rajiv Gandhi (1985). The address will be followed by a rare lunch with Speaker Paul Ryan, which will be attended by Vice President Joe Biden and several Cabinet secretaries. This demonstrates the wide and bipartisan support that India and Modi enjoy in the two houses of Congress.

Woody Island has been at the center of China’s slow but sure bid to increase its power projection capabilities in the South China Sea. J-11 fighters have been long spotted on the island—the largest in the Paracels. Moreover, early this year, China’s HQ-9 surface-to-air missile systems made an appearance on the island as well (joining advanced anti-ship cruise missiles, among other armaments).

The latest addition to Beijing’s growing repertoire of military technology on Woody Island is the Harbin BZK-005 surveillance drone. New satellite imagery acquired by ImageSat international, taken in early April 2016, shows the drones sitting on China’s Woody Island airstrips for the first time. It’s unclear if China has the requisite logistical support necessary to operate BZK-005 drones on a permanent basis from Woody Island. April’s imagery showed a single drone sitting out in the open on the airstrip; the BZK-005 could have been on Woody Island for a unique patrol.