Bilateral cooperation programmes aim to improve scientific and technological cooperation between South Africa and a partner (bilateral) or two partner (trilateral) countries and to enable young researchers in South Africa to contact researchers abroad in order to develop and strengthen networks. The agreements are intended for global support for regional brands. The main focus of the document is on promoting the investment and export potential of Russian regions and supporting projects of social importance. During SPIEF 2018, the Roscongress Foundation and the National Association of Lawyers resumed signing trilateral cooperation agreements with the Russian regions. The first agreements were concluded at the Russian Investment Forum in Sochi. The cooperation document is concluded with the following regions: Leningrad, Kaliningrad, Kirov, Murmansk, Novgorod, Penza, Pskov, Rozan, Samara, Saratov, Sverdlovsk, Tver, Tomsk, Chelyabinsk, and with the following republics: Adygeya, Altai, Buriatien, Karachay-Chekesien, Krimia. The signing will continue with other parts of the country. Since the talks began more than a year ago, it was clear that Canada and Mexico needed to make concessions in the face of Trump`s threats to dissolve NAFTA, and relief was felt in both countries on Sunday that the agreement was largely intact and had not broken supply chains between weaker bilateral agreements. The United States and Russia can exercise the option of extending the agreement by a maximum of five years, but the Trump administration is considering doing so and has expressed concern that the extension of the agreement is undermining its goal of including China in the arms control process. This raises the possibility that one of the last elements of the arms control framework, which governs nuclear competition between the United States and Russia, could collapse if no progress is made on Trump`s new nuclear agenda, which focuses on China – and thus, for the first time in nearly half a century, leaves no limits to nuclear proliferation. “This is a very ambitious idea and time is very short,” Steven Pifer, an arms control expert at the Brookings Institution and former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, told RFE/RL.
“The new start deadline is approaching and there is a U.S. election with the potential of a new government. It is not money for some kind of agreement. Despite growing demands from Washington, the Chinese government still refused to participate and Beijing refused even to send a representative to Austria for the talks. This sparked a twitter battle between the US and Chinese leaders on the eve of the nuclear talks, which does not bode well for the White House`s desire for a trilateral agreement. Just before the talks began, Billingslea tweeted a photo of Chinese flags around an empty negotiating table, calling China a “no-show” and writing that Beijing is “hiding behind #GreatWallofSecrecy on its nuclear crash and so much else.” In particular, his insistence on bringing China to broader negotiations with Russia to limit the nuclear arsenals of the three countries. A three-way nuclear arms control deal has been a target of U.S. President Donald Trump for more than a year. The White House, which has already withdrawn from other arms control treaties because it accused Moscow of violations and believed the agreements benefited Russia more than the United States, asked Beijing to join Moscow and Washington in finding a replacement for New START, the 2010 treaty that limits the number of strategic warheads used by the United States and Russia to 1,550.
