Qualcomm Inc., the U.S. company that makes the chips used in many popular smartphone models, has decided to terminate a joint venture with the government of China’s Guizhou province. The company established by this venture in 2016, Huaxintong Semiconductor Technologies (HXT), will reportedly cease operations by April 30.
China’s state-run Global Times on Wednesday pushed back against India’s informal boycott of Chinese products by telling Indians to adopt the brutal “996” work schedule to “catch up” with China’s tech industry instead of resorting to protectionism.
Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai recommended on Wednesday that China Mobile should not be allowed to operate in the United States because the Chinese telecom giant poses “substantial and serious national security and law enforcement risks.”
Felix Tshisekedi, president of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), found it necessary on Tuesday to assure rural citizens of his country that Ebola is “not an imaginary disease” and foreign aid workers are there to help.
North Korean state media on Wednesday announced the test of a “new tactical guided weapon” with a “powerful warhead,” personally supervised by dictator Kim Jong-un. It was North Korea’s first weapons test since the second summit between Kim and U.S. President Donald Trump.
United Conservative Party (UCP) candidate Jason Kenney defeated Rachel Notley and the left-wing New Democratic Party (NDP) in Alberta on Tuesday, ending four years of NDP rule in the conservative-leaning province and moving oil-rich Alberta into the coalition lined up against scandal-plagued Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in the upcoming national election.
Indonesia’s presidential election on Wednesday – the largest single-day election in history, with almost 193 million eligible voters casting ballots for 245,000 candidates spread across 17,000 islands – appears to have returned incumbent President Joko Widodo to office. The race was strongly influenced by Indonesia’s slide into hardline Islamism.
The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) released a report on Tuesday that said satellite photos have uncovered possible uranium reprocessing at North Korea’s Yongbyon reactor. If such activity is indeed underway, it would suggest North Korea is preparing to create more nuclear warheads.
Facebook-owned social media platform Instagram announced on Tuesday it blocked the accounts of numerous Iranian officials, including commanders in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in compliance with U.S. sanctions.
A coalition of Taiwanese student groups announced the creation of the “Youth Front for Boycotting Fake News” over the weekend. The organization intends to challenge Chinese efforts to influence Taiwanese culture and politics with propaganda.
The Philippine government announced on Monday that it will take legal action against China for harvesting giant clams at the disputed Scarborough Shoal in the South China Sea.
Libyan Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj, head of the U.N.-backed Government of National Accord (GNA), warned on Tuesday that 800,000 more migrants could be driven into Europe unless the assault on Tripoli by warlord Khalifa Haftar ends soon.
A nonprofit organization called FBI National Academy Associates (FBINAA) confirmed on Sunday that hackers breached its servers and stole several databases containing personal information, including names and email addresses, for 23,000 people.
China lashed out angrily on Monday at U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo for criticizing Chinese policy in South America. The Chinese Foreign Ministry said Pompeo’s remarks were “lies” and accused him of using “wantonly slanderous, deliberately instigating, irresponsible, and unreasonable” rhetoric.
U.S. envoy Brent Christensen, the de facto American ambassador to Taiwan, on Monday pledged continuing U.S. support for Taiwan to join international organizations like Interpol and the World Health Organization (WHO) despite China’s campaign to isolate the island nation.
Sudanese protesters held a sit-in outside military headquarters in Khartoum over the weekend, demanding the “full dissolution of the deep state” and the prosecution of former regime officials following the ouster of 30-year ruler Omar al-Bashir. Army troops reportedly attempted to disperse the demonstration but backed down when protesters joined hands, chanted “Freedom!” and “Revolution,” and pleaded with troops to protect them.
It was not exactly a surprise to see Kim Jong-un “re-elected” as chairman of the North Korean State Affairs Commission – i.e. absolute dictator – on Friday, but quite a few other government posts were shaken up, suggesting Kim is determined to tighten his grip on power.
Taiwan on Friday expelled visiting mainland academic Li Yi of China’s Renmin University on the grounds that he planned to deliver a speech promoting the “one country, two systems” model of unification between Taiwan and China. Taiwanese authorities judged the speech would be a violation of his terms of entry and could “endanger national security and cause public unrest.”
Russia on Friday awarded Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi the Order of St. Andrew, the highest civilian award the Russian Federation offers. Modi received the award for “exceptional services in promoting a special and privileged strategic partnership between Russia and India.”
Reuters reported on Wednesday that Egypt is withdrawing from the Middle East Strategic Alliance (MESA), a nascent organization proposed by the United States as an alliance against Iranian, Chinese, and Russian influence.
Amnesty International (AI) on Wednesday published the 2018 edition of its annual report on the death penalty. The report found a 31 percent decrease in executions compared to 2017, “the lowest number of executions that Amnesty International has recorded in the past decade.”
A user group of Chinese nationalists invaded the Facebook page of the World Uighur Congress (WUC) on Wednesday, blanketing it with nationalist messages, pledges of loyalty to the Chinese Communist Party, and justifications for the mass detention of Muslims in the re-education camps of Xinjiang province.
Canada’s SNC-Lavalin scandal appears to have seriously damaged Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who has avoided resignation at the cost of his “golden boy” image and watched his poll numbers plummet with only six months to go before the next election.
After months of increasingly large protests demanding an end to his three bloody decades of rule, the miitary deposed Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir on Thursday and placed under arrest. Revelers filled the streets in response to the news, but demonstrators said they will not relax until a civilian government takes over.
The Election Commission of India issued a ruling on Wednesday banning a biography film about incumbent Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the duration of the election, which begins on Thursday and will last through May 19. A complaint was filed alleging the film was intended to “manipulate, influence, and impress viewers and voters.”
Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen held a teleconference on Tuesday evening with several American think tanks at which she questioned the post-Cold War belief that the world is moving inexorably toward limited representative government.
Fighting continued around Tripoli on Wednesday as forces loyal to warlord Khalifa Haftar and his Libyan National Army (LNA) consolidated their hold on the suburbs while the U.N.-sponsored Government of National Accord (GNA) dug in with barricades and machine-gun platforms.
The Chinese government took its latest swing at justifying re-education camps for Muslims, and aggressive efforts to subdue all religious faith, in a letter to the Wall Street Journal published Tuesday.
According to an Egyptian media report, Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir is considering his resignation as protesters emboldened by the ouster of the Algerian president grow more confident and the military begins intervening to protect demonstrators from Bashir’s security forces.
China opened a bridge to North Korea on Monday, sending four buses from the North Korean city of Manpo across the Yalu River to the Chinese city of Jian. The bus rides inaugurated a span built three years ago but never crossed until now.
The Burger King restaurant chain on Monday apologized and withdrew an advertising video that humorously depicted diners attempting to eat its new “Vietnamese Sweet Chili Tendercrisp Burger’ with chopsticks. Asian social media users slammed the ad as “racist.”
Chinese government censors have shut down dozens of major social media accounts for publishing “politically harmful information,” the South China Morning Post reported on Tuesday. Some of these accounts had millions of followers.
Rwanda began a week-long commemoration on Sunday of the 25th anniversary of the 1994 genocide in which some 800,000 members of the minority Tutsi tribe, and those who sought to protect them, were murdered in a three-month rampage by members of the majority Hutu tribe.
The Jakarta Post on Monday reported on a rash of desecrations directed at Christian graves in the city of Yogyakarta, a spree some local residents believe was a targeted act of intolerance rather than random vandalism. A rising tide of hardline Islamism has become a major factor in the impending Indonesian presidential election.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan visited Moscow on Monday to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin and discuss the increasingly close economic and strategic partnership between their countries.
Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke on Monday at the annual Russian Internet Governance Forum, portraying himself as a champion of Internet freedom and called on the world to unite in a crackdown on “cybercrime” and “illegal content.”
United States prosecutors said on Thursday that classified information gathered under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) will be introduced in the federal trial of Chinese telecom company Huawei, which has been charged with committing money laundering, bank fraud, and wire fraud in the course of violating U.S. sanctions against Iran.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres flew from Tripoli to Benghazi on Friday to meet with warlord Khalifa Haftar, whose forces are converging on Tripoli in a push to dislodge the U.N.-sanctioned but distressingly ineffectual Government of National Accord (GNA).
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte escalated his unusually confrontational rhetoric with China over the fate of a disputed South China Sea island on Thursday, warning Beijing that Philippine troops are prepared to conduct “suicide missions” if China does not back down.
Australia’s parliament on Wednesday passed a strict new social media law that could fine tech companies, or even jail their executives, if they allow violent material to be posted on their sites or fail to remove it quickly enough after complaints are filed. An op-ed at Sky News on Thursday conceded that China might have had the right idea all along about censoring and controlling the Internet.
