A report surfacing after a long day of talks between Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and Secretary of State John Kerry claims China has placed up to ten fighter jets in the Paracel Islands, disputed territory in the South China Sea. The report follows satellite evidence that Beijing has added surface-to-air missiles and an advanced radar system to its arsenal in the region.
A new think tank report asserts that China has begun building a high-frequency radar installation in the contested Spratly Islands of the South China Sea, which would greatly expand its surveillance capabilities in one of the most trafficked trade routes in the world.
15,000 American soldiers and 290,000 of their South Korean counterparts will simulate the invasion of a collapsed North Korea in early March, as part of two military drills named Key Resolve and Foal Eagle. North Korea’s communist dictatorship has responded to the proposed largest-ever drill with threats of a preemptive strike.
The Turkish newspaper Cumhuriyet reported Monday that a prosecutor’s investigation had uncovered phone conversations between Turkish military officers and a senior Islamic State jihadist that indicate the military was aiding passage of ISIS jihadists into the Syrian war theater. The Cumhuriyet report,
North Korean defector organizations say that the U.S. State Department is willing to fund projects to help liberalize North Korea’s population, including information drops and agitating movements working within the communist country’s borders.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi will be in the United States from Tuesday to Thursday, meeting with his counterpart, Secretary of State John Kerry, and other high-level officials on everything from North Korea’s growing belligerence to China’s own provocations in the South China Sea.
Residents of Venezuela’s capital, Caracas, had no access to drinking water this past weekend, allegedly due to a “maintenance” project aimed at keeping water levels high through the annual drought season. The capital’s woes have shed a spotlight on what is becoming a nationwide crisis fueling widespread unrest in the nation’s more remote states.
Cuba’s communist propaganda newspaper Granma has published an article claiming that President Barack Obama’s scheduled visit to Havana in March “disproves” decades of evidence that the Cuban government violates the human rights of its citizens, on a weekend in which Cuban state police arrested almost 200 dissidents for peaceful marches against communism.
North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un has announced his plans to launch more rockets into space, asserting that Pyongyang seeks to “conquer space” as part of a “fierce class struggle” against capitalism.
The Nigerian military has announced the liberation of 195 Boko Haram captives after a raiding they described as a terrorist-operated market and pharmacy outlet in northeastern Borno State. Nigeria has struggled to prevent the jihadist group from staging more terror attacks since the nation declared victory in January.
The Cuban dissident community has reacted with alarm and dismay at the news that President Obama will visit the island in March, calling the move “an error” that will likely bring pro-democracy activists “a lot of collateral damage.”
A former Colombian drug lord who has been freed after serving an 18-year sentence in the U.S. prison system has accused Diosdado Cabello, a senior official in Venezuela’s socialist government, of leading a drug cartel that has sold cocaine to the Islamic State and al-Qaeda.
Secretary of State John Kerry has vowed to engage the Chinese government in “a very serious conversation” over satellite images released this week that show China has placed surface-to-air missiles in the Paracel Islands, a contested territory in the South China Sea.
As Latin America scrambles to help explain the Zika pandemic that has affected over a million people in the Western Hemisphere so far, conspiracy theories pushed by Russia and anti-Western outlets have begun to gather steam in social media and alternative news outlets.
President Barack Obama confirmed on Twitter Thursday morning that he will visit the rogue communist dictatorship of Cuba in March, more than a year after implementing a series of concessions to the Raúl Castro regime that has enabled it to further oppress political dissent and create a refugee crisis in the Western Hemisphere.
A number of factions within Venezuela’s socialist left are seeking a way to remove President Nicolás Maduro, in a last-ditch effort to “save the Revolution” begun by late dictator Hugo Chávez.
Cuban doctor Yoahn Batista succeeded on his second try to escape the oppression of the Castro communist regime, fleeing a mission in Brazil and arriving in the United States this week. Among the first words spoke upon landing in Miami, Batista tells the world, “They are using us as slaves. That is the reality.”
A 23-year-old former nursing home worker has confessed to the murder of three of the facility’s residents, a gruesome crime that is shedding light on rampant abuse of elders in Japan’s overpopulated nursing homes.
New satellite images indicate that the Chinese government has placed “an advanced surface-to-air missile system” on illegally constructed artificial islands in the South China Sea, threatening both the nations who claim that territory and any passersby navigating those international waters.
Satellite images published in The Diplomat indicate that China has begun an extensive construction operation in the South China Sea’s Paracel Islands, following years of work building artificial islands in the Spratly Archipelago.
Venezuela’s socialist president Nicolás Maduro has replaced his vice president of economy after only a month in office. Luis Salas was considered an “alarming” nomination last month for past statements in which he asserted that “inflation does not exist.”
Business is booming for the romance novelists of northern Nigeria, the women who write Kano city’s “love literature” from their homes and defy the morality of both the region’s Sharia police and the ISIS-affiliated terrorist group Boko Haram.
The Jamaican Ministry of Health is using dancehall reggae to warn its citizens to exercise extra caution to avoid creating potential breeding grounds for mosquitoes as the Zika virus pandemic sweeping South America threatens to travel north to the Caribbean.
The President of Somalia, Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, asserted at a security conference Sunday that Islamic State affiliate Boko Haram has sent its jihadists across the country from Nigeria to train in Somalia.
The rogue regime of Cuba has returned an American Hellfire missile that somehow arrived in Havana after NATO operators in Europe shipped it there instead of Florida almost two years ago. American officials have not said whether the missile, a dummy model, shows signs of having been taken apart for study.
Facing growing international pressure to intervene as the nation almost solely responsible for North Korea’s survival, China has decreed the rogue nation’s containment a “U.S. obligation,” protesting that ‘the U.S. should not always try to outsource its problems to China.”
North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un reportedly encouraged the nation’s scientists to develop more rockets for the launching of alleged “satellites” into space, less than a month after receiving wide condemnation from the free world, and even some notes of concern from China, over a rocket launch.
The United Nations is renewing its push to eradicate the practice of female genital mutilation (FGM) from the only community in Latin America known to practice it: the Emberá tribe, native to western Colombia. The centuries-old practice is treated so secretively
The government of Venezuela has confirmed three deaths directly related to the Zika pandemic sweeping Latin America, while medical experts throughout the country report an alarming rise in the number of cases of Guillain-Barré syndrome, a disease Zika is suspected of triggering in certain patients.
Venezuela’s opposition legislature has declared a “nutritional emergency,” proclaiming that the country simply does not have enough food to feed its population. The move comes after years of socialist rationing and shortages that forced millions to wait on lines lasting as long as six hours for a pint of milk, a bag of flour, or carton of cooking oil.
Brazil’s tourism industry is already suffering from the international alarm over the Zika virus outbreak that has infected 1.5 million people, with tour operators and hotel bookers experiencing an increase in the number of cancellations, particularly on the part of pregnant women who were planning to travel.
An American researcher, who identified the Zika virus as a potential threat in 2009, tells the journal Wired that it would have been impossible to attain funding to research Zika exclusively five years ago, as few believed it had the potential to cause an outbreak as large as that currently underway in Latin America.
Sources within the Turkish government claim Ankara has planned to hold a joint military drill with Saudi Arabia, a move that could chill diplomatic relations with Saudi Arabia’s regional rival, Iran. Turkey’s state-run Anadolu News Agency is denying the report.
President of Brazil Dilma Rousseff hosted a meeting among leaders of various Brazilian Christian denominations Tuesday, requesting they actively engage their congregation in awareness and prevention methods to combat the ongoing Zika epidemic in the region.
The government of Nigeria may have declared the war won against Islamic State affiliate Boko Haram, but new evidence has surfaced that they not only remain active, but have deep ties within the Nigerian military. Officials arrested two soldiers this week for having provided government-issued weapons to the jihadist terror group.
American experts believe the satellite North Korea launched into space has finally stopped tumbling and reached a stable orbit, but it is still highly unlikely to be producing data and sending it back to earth.
The South Korean news agency Yonhap is reporting that North Korea has executed the nation’s army chief of General Staff, reportedly on charges of corruption. This disruption in Pyongyang’s leadership follows a string of belligerent acts on the part of the communist regime, most recently the use of a long-range rocket to launch an alleged satellite into orbit.
China has confirmed its first case of Zika, a 34-year-old man who traveled to Venezuela. Authorities are particularly concerned that the man stopped in Hong Kong before reaching his final destination, home to a mosquito species potentially capable of carrying the virus.
Brazil will feature forty refugee children in its largest parade celebrating the national holiday Carnival, including children from Syria, Sudan, Angola, and Libya. The children will march in a procession expected to draw thousands, even amid Latin America’s Zika virus pandemic.
U.S. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said today he expects the Chinese government to continue its illegal construction of artificial islands in the South China Sea, as propaganda in Chinese media becomes increasingly vocal in support of efforts to cement the nation’s hold over the region.
