A report published by the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) warns China could gain “coercive leverage” – in essence, blackmail material – over Asian, African, and Latin American countries thanks to telecom giant Huawei’s strategy to provide massive amounts of Internet storage to dozens of governments at discounted prices.
China’s state-run Global Times on Thursday hectored the United States for supposedly being more interested in selling weapons to Taiwan than life-saving coronavirus vaccines, even as Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen accused China of sabotaging a deal that would have brought Pfizer’s vaccine to her country.
Flamboyant Turkish mobster and YouTube sensation Sedat Peker apparently reached the limits of his government’s patience on Thursday, as Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu – a frequent target of Peker’s dirt-dishing videos – filed a lawsuit against him, prompting a warrant for his arrest from the Ankara public prosecutor’s office.
As expected, the regime of dictator Bashar Assad declared him the winner of Syria’s sham “election” on Thursday with over 95 percent of the vote.
Former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, disqualified from running in the June 18 presidential election along with almost all other prospective candidates, claimed on Wednesday that the brutal Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) told him to “keep silent and cooperate” if he wanted to avoid losing more than just his presidential aspirations.
China’s state-run Global Times on Thursday trumpeted results of a Phase III clinical trial on Sinopharm’s coronavirus vaccines, published by the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), that found the Chinese company’s two leading products were over 70 percent effective.
One month after Hong Kong’s Beijing-controlled government signaled it would prohibit the annual candlelight vigil to commemorate the victims of China’s Tiananmen Square massacre, Hong Kong police made it official by banning marches on May 30 and June 4.
China’s state-run Global Times on Wednesday touted the growing alliance between China and Russia as an opportunity to correct the “dangerous trend of disorder” spread around the world by U.S. policy under the Trump administration.
Human rights watchdog group Bitter Winter noted on Wednesday that while China’s hosting of the 2022 Winter Olympics has been roundly criticized over Beijing’s abuse of Uyghur Muslims, a less well-known outrage is China’s decision to hold skiing competitions in the Chahar region, where Catholics were brutally oppressed after World War II.
Syria is holding its “presidential election” on Wednesday, a farcical exercise denounced by international observers but touted by incumbent “President” Bashar Assad as a glorious exercise of popular will.
Dutch virologist Marion Koopmans, a member of the World Health Organization (W.H.O.) task force that visited China in March to investigate the origins of the Wuhan coronavirus, said Tuesday that another “research” trip to China would be useful, but should be kept separate from any effort to “audit” false or incomplete data provided by the Chinese.
A Turkish mob boss named Sedat Peker caused an uproar by setting up a YouTube channel this month to broadcast allegations of corruption against high-ranking officials in the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. As of this week, Peker’s channel has become a viral sensation in Turkey.
Chinese dictator Xi Jinping expressed his support for Iran in a phone call Monday with his nominal counterpart, outgoing Iranian President Hassan Rouhani.
South Sudan’s Health Ministry on Monday announced it will return 72,000 of the 132,000 doses of AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine it received from COVAX, the World Health Organization’s (W.H.O.) program for distributing vaccines to impoverished countries.
China’s state-run Global Times on Sunday hailed Chinese provinces and American state governments for “seeking to boost subnational economic and trade cooperation” — in other words, bypassing U.S. national policy and its restrictions on trade with China.
The Russian Center for Reconciliation of the Opposing Parties in Syria, an organ of the Russian Defense Ministry, said Sunday it has “received information that militants from the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham terrorist group are plotting a provocation with the use of toxic agents in the western areas of the Idlib governorate.”
Oliver Ma, a 22-year-old street musician in Hong Kong, was arrested Friday for causing “public disorder” by singing Glory to Hong Kong, the unofficial anthem of the 2019 protest movement.
The Wall Street Journal (WSJ), citing an alleged previously undisclosed U.S. intelligence report Sunday, claimed three researchers working for the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) were hospitalized with coronavirus-like symptoms in November 2019.
The information technology ministry of Indonesia said Friday that it asked social media platform TikTok to restrict content deemed insulting to Palestinians, and the request was granted, with several audio tracks removed from public circulation.
The World Health Organization (W.H.O.) said on Friday that official death tolls from the coronavirus pandemic are probably a “significant undercount,” and the true number of fatalities could be “two to three times higher.”
Kenya on Thursday opened a new port in the northern city of Lamu, financed with a $3 billion investment from the China Communications Construction Company (CCCC), an enterprise owned by the Chinese government.
China’s state-run Global Times on Wednesday compared Beijing’s brutal oppression of the Uyghur Muslims to Israel’s defensive actions against Palestinian terrorist attacks.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Thursday celebrated a “constructive” conversation with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, saying Blinken shared his “understanding of the need to overcome the unhealthy situation that developed between Moscow and Washington in previous years.”
Prominent Baghdad physician Dr. Hamid al-Lami was arrested on Tuesday morning for making “unscientific statements” about the Wuhan coronavirus that contributed to “spreading a dangerous disease.”
A U.S. Navy spokeswoman confirmed on Monday that USS Independence and USS Freedom, the Navy’s first two Littoral Combat Ships (LCS), will be decommissioned in July and September of this year, respectively.
China’s state-run Global Times on Tuesday declared total victory in the “ambitious war to shape global opinion” during the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic.
The World Uyghur Congress (WUC), an international organization headquartered in Germany, on Tuesday released the 2020 edition of its annual Human Rights Report. The WUC described its report as “a detailed review of China’s egregious crimes against the Uyghurs and other Turkic people.”
The Chinese government on Wednesday denounced U.S. Customs officials for blocking a shipment of shirts from Japanese casual wear designer Uniqlo because they violated a ban on slave-picked cotton in China’s Xinjiang province.
Malaysian “halal activists” – ostensibly groups that pressure vendors into selling food that complies with Islamic dietary laws – on Wednesday announced a boycott against Coca-Cola and other companies seen as supporting Israel during its clash with Palestinian terrorists.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday accused Israel of being a “terror state” and said U.S. President Joe Biden is “writing history with blood on his hands” for signing a recent arms deal with the Israelis.
World Health Organization (W.H.O.) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who hails from the troubled Tigray region of Ethiopia, on Monday denounced the situation in his home country as “very horrific” due to “rampant” starvation, violence, population displacement, and rape.
China’s latest boycott threat is directed at streaming giant Netflix for daring to violate the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) speech codes by carrying a Thai drama that used a Taiwanese flag in one of its advertising posters.
Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu told a meeting of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) on Sunday that an international Muslim “protection force,” supported by “military and financial contributions from willing countries,” should be deployed in Gaza.
Chinese state media on Sunday and Monday unleashed a blizzard of editorials portraying Beijing as the most important world power in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, stepping forward to fill the leadership vacuum created by President Joe Biden at the United Nations.
The government of Sierra Leone appears to have concluded a deal this month with China to convert 250 acres of beachfront property and protected rainforest into a fishing plant and harbor.
SuperJob.ru, a Russian jobs portal similar to LinkedIn, published a survey on Sunday that found 42 percent of Russians are unwilling to be vaccinated against the Wuhan coronavirus under any circumstances, while another 20 percent said they found it difficult to decide if they should be inoculated.
The government of Japan completed an investigation Thursday that found a disturbing number of Chinese-funded land purchases near Japanese defense facilities, including the Japanese Self-Defense Force (SDF), coast guard, and space research laboratories, as well as bases used by the American military.
The remote Indonesian village of Kalemago held a mass funeral Wednesday for four coffee farmers murdered by Islamist militants the previous day. The primarily Christian residents of the village demanded “firm action” against the killers and seemed skeptical they would get it.
The Associated Press reported on Friday that donors to the World Health Organization (W.H.O.) and diplomats from member nations are voicing “serious concerns” about sexual abuse allegations emanating from W.H.O.’s mission to fight the 2018-2019 Ebola epidemic in the Congo.
After initially blocking a U.N. Security Council meeting on Friday to discuss “the situation in Israel and Gaza,” the Biden administration agreed to participate in such a meeting on Sunday. Secretary of State Antony Blinken hoped the delay would “give time for diplomacy.”
