The Chinese Foreign Ministry on Thursday commanded the U.S. Congress to withdraw the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act of 2019, denouncing the bill as interfering in China’s internal sovereign affairs.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s effort to apologize for freshly-discovered photos and videos of himself in blackface was vehemently rejected on Thursday by Rev. Al Sharpton, who the leadership of the U.S. Democrat Party considers an important arbiter of racial affairs.
New Democrat Party (NDP) leader Jagmeet Singh, Canada’s first nonwhite party leader and a serious contender in the October federal elections, said on Thursday that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s blackface photos and videos were a “troubling” and “insulting” slap at Canadian minorities.
Chinese media tends to be very astute at picking up and exacerbating hot-button American political issues, doing everything it can to highlight controversies even when China’s authoritarian brutality makes the criticism absurd.
Chinese democracy activists are demanding the release of Lai Rifu, a dissident living in Guangzhou who was snatched off the street on Monday in a bizarre arrest and incarcerated for “picking quarrels and provoking trouble” by posting a video that used the unofficial anthem of the Hong Kong protest movement, “Glory to Hong Kong.”
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif on Thursday threatened “all-out war” to the “last American soldier” if the United States retaliates for last weekend’s attack on Saudi Arabian oil facilities by Iran and/or its proxies in Yemen, the Houthis.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau responded to questions about newly uncovered images of himself in blackface by repeatedly stating he “should have known better” and admitting he has “been more enthusiastic about costumes than is sometimes appropriate.”
China’s state-run Global Times gave a big thumbs-down on Tuesday to the September 9 Wall Street Journal editorial penned by left-wing billionaire political activist George Soros, in which Soros praised President Donald Trump for adopting the right trade strategy toward China and urged Trump to stay the course against Chinese telecom giant Huawei.
Speaking from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, on Thursday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said last weekend’s drone and missile attack on Saudi oil facilities was an “act of war” perpetrated by Iran.
A Hong Kong courtroom on Tuesday was packed with hundreds of supporters of three young protesters accused of rioting and assaulting police officers. The crowd outside the courtroom chanted “Fight for freedom” and “Stand with Hong Kong, while many seated in the public gallery wore the type of face masks favored by protesters.
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte was venting his frustrations about corruption and drugs before a group of government officials on Tuesday when he blurted out that he ordered an assassination attempt against the former Daanbantayan mayor Vincente Loot in 2018 and was severely disappointed the “son of a bitch” survived.
Saudi Arabian energy minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman said on Tuesday that oil production will be fully restored by the end of September following a drone and missile attack on oil facilities Yemen’s Houthi rebels have claimed.
China’s state-run Global Times on Monday took the occasion of the International Day of Democracy to scoff at the image of the United States as a “beacon of democracy” and argue the American concept of democracy is an “outdated fantasy” idolized only by misguided souls such as the “rioters” in Hong Kong.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) announced through state media on Monday that it has seized another ship near the strategically vital Strait of Hormuz. The IRGC accused the crew of smuggling diesel fuel to the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
Islamic State media on Monday released an audio clip purportedly containing a new message from fugitive “caliph” Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
A report published by Yahoo News on Monday described a “brazen Russian counterintelligence operation that stretched from the Bay Area to the heart of the nation’s capital” during the presidency of Barack Obama. The operation penetrated FBI communications to a “stunning” degree, according to officials quoted in the story, but was misunderstood and downplayed by the intelligence community and the Obama administration, which was ostentatiously attempting to “reset” relations with Russia when the operation began.
Pro-democracy Hong Kong legislator Tanya Chan told the U.N. Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in Geneva on Monday that an investigation of police brutality in Hong Kong is urgently needed.
The military coalition assembled by Saudi Arabia to intervene in Yemen’s civil war said on Monday that the weekend attack on Saudi oil facilities was conducted with Iranian weapons, and those weapons were not launched from Yemen, despite claims to the contrary by the Iran-backed Houthi insurgency.
The international response to an apparent Iranian attack on Saudi Arabia’s oil fields urged caution and a careful investigation before assigning blame for the strike or taking retaliatory action. Many of these responses suggested the world’s oil supply is robust enough to absorb the loss of Saudi production without major economic disruptions.
An op-ed at China’s state-run China Daily on Thursday denounced American sanctions against nations like Iran and North Korea as “human rights violations” on the grounds that they cause ordinary civilians to suffer much more than the leadership of rogue regimes.
Chinese business executives revealed to Reuters on Thursday they were summoned earlier in the week to a meeting in Shenzhen, the city closest to Hong Kong, and urged to invest more heavily in Hong Kong so they could help the Chinese Communist Party exert more control over the city.
University of Hong Kong student union leader Davin Kenneth Wong resigned from his position on Thursday and left the city after he reported being attacked by a man wearing a white T-shirt. Hong Kong protesters favor black clothing, while counter-demonstrators — notoriously including gang-linked thugs hired to assault and intimidate pro-democracy activists — often wear white shirts.
Yasin Aktay, a senior adviser to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his AKP party, fumed at Saudi Arabia on Thursday for allegedly “favoring the Europeans and non-Muslims” over Turkey and Islamic countries because the Saudis do not appear to support Turkish claims on Cyprus.
A 28-year-old Yazidi former sex slave named Shatha Salim Bashar is scheduled to testify in German court next month against one of the fourteen Islamic State jihadis who allegedly enslaved and raped her, used her as a human shield, and forced her to watch her best friend die.
The Financial Times on Wednesday reported that the Pentagon is compiling a list of companies with links to the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) or Chinese intelligence services in order to protect U.S. military secrets and secure America’s supply of military equipment.
Chinese Communist Party chief Xi Jinping has long faced dissent from Communists who think he is insufficiently loyal to Marxist dogma, but he is increasingly provoking unease among Chinese Communist Party (CCP) elders who fear he might be a little too Communist in his outlook – or, more specifically, Maoist.
Hong Kong police on Thursday announced that a protest scheduled for Sunday will be banned on the grounds that it might endanger “public safety.”
Hong Kong police on Tuesday arrested a 57-year-old man who approached a group of student demonstrators, dropped his pants, and dared them to post photos of him online. The students reported him to the authorities instead.
Communist China’s Taiwan Affairs Office confirmed on Wednesday that a Taiwanese man who disappeared last month is in Chinese custody and is under investigation for “activities that endanger state security.”
Iranian officials and state media expressed great pleasure at the termination of U.S. National Security Advisor John Bolton, a trenchant critic of the Iranian regime long derided by Tehran as a “warmonger.” The Iranians appeared confident a softening in U.S. policy would accompany Bolton’s departure.
Each September brings the Muslim holiday of Ashura, commemorated for different reasons and observed in very different ways by Sunnis and Shiites.
Hong Kong activists announced on Wednesday that protests would be suspended to observe the 18th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on the United States. Meanwhile, China’s state-run media accused the protesters of planning 9/11-style terrorist attacks themselves, complete with photos of the planes hitting the World Trade Center in 2001.
A rocket attack was launched in central Kabul near the U.S. embassy in Afghanistan on Wednesday, the 18th anniversary of the 9/11 attack. It was the first major terrorist attack in Kabul since President Donald Trump announced that negotiations with the Taliban are “dead.”
The Dutch government on Friday announced it would budget 23.8 million euros (about $26 million) for the Caribbean islands of Curacao and Aruba to help deal with a massive influx of refugees from Venezuela.
A group of Chinese scholars has suggested that many contemporary Western languages, including English, were derived from Mandarin Chinese. According to their research, the French, German, and Russian languages were also strongly influenced by Chinese culture.
Human rights groups voiced grave misgivings on Tuesday at Hong Kong’s decision to issue telescoping metal batons to police officers “for the purpose of executing constabulary duties whilst off-duty.”
Left-wing billionaire and political donor George Soros wrote an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal on Monday in which he praised President Donald Trump’s policies toward China. He then urged Congress to maintain the president’s firm stand against Chinese telecom giant Huawei – overriding the White House if necessary, should Huawei become a bargaining chip in the larger trade war.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday exposed a secret facility in central Iran that he said was used for nuclear weapons research until the Iranians realized Israel knew of its existence. At that point, according to Netanyahu, the site was hastily “wiped out” and the evidence of nuclear research was “destroyed.”
Hong Kong Executive Council adviser Fanny Law Fan Chiu-fun made waves during a radio interview on Monday by claiming young girls are giving free “comfort sex” to Hong Kong protesters to keep them motivated.
The highly controversial Moscow elections were held on Sunday, and the results were not good for President Vladimir Putin’s United Russia party, although not quite the bloodbath they feared after a summer of surprisingly large protests.
