The United States reimposed sanctions against Iran on Monday, as presaged by President Donald Trump’s withdrawal from his predecessor Barack Obama’s nuclear deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
A Chinese government official said on Friday that the United States should not have “official contact in any form” or maintain military relations with Taiwan. This demand was issued two days after the U.S. Senate passed a bill calling for increased high-level military and civilian government contacts with Taiwan.
The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission released the results of the presidential election late on Thursday and declared incumbent interim President Emmerson Mnangagwa the winner by just enough to avoid a runoff against challenger Nelson Chamisa. Chamisa’s Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party immediately rejected the results as “fraudulent” and accused Mnangagwa of staging a “coup.”
Voice of America was in the middle of a telephone interview with dissident professor Wenguang Sun on Wednesday night when Chinese police burst into his house and dragged him away. His last words were, “I am entitled to express my opinion. This is my freedom of speech!”
South Korea’s presidential Blue House is finally responding to the petition filed in June after several hundred refugees from Yemen arrived on tiny Jeju Island. The government promised to tighten up asylum screening in response to public complaints.
North Korea’s state-run Rodong Sinmun attempted to rally citizens of the communist state for “all-out battle” against the “unprecedented natural disaster” of a heat wave threatening the nation’s crops.
The government of interim President Emmerson Mnangagwa cleared the streets of Harare with troops and police on Thursday, turning the capital city into a “ghost town,” as several foreign media outlets described it.
North Koreans are reportedly refusing to use Chinese medicine because they fear the products might be unsafe in light of a major scandal in China involving the manufacturing of faulty vaccines, a report revealed on Wednesday.
Columnist and author David P. Goldman discussed the trade war with China with SiriusXM hosts Rebecca Mansour and Joel Pollak on Tuesday’s Breitbart News Tonight. Although he is a supporter of President Donald Trump and believes China presents “the most dire problem we face in the world,” he warned the administration may be underestimating China’s economic strength.
The Iranian parliament announced on Wednesday that it wants to question President Hassan Rouhani about the shaky economy and rapidly devaluing currency. The announcement said Rouhani has been summoned to appear before a special session of parliament within a month, without setting an exact date.
The air of cautious optimism surrounding Zimbabwe’s first presidential election since the fall of dictator Robert Mugabe was shattered with violence on Wednesday as allegations of vote rigging flew, property was vandalized, riot police and military forces were deployed, and gunshots rang out in the streets of the capital.
The Taliban claimed on Wednesday to have decisively defeated the Islamic State in northwestern Afghanistan, driving over 150 ISIS militants out of Jawzjan province and into the custody of Afghan government security forces.
China’s state-run Global Times did not enjoy Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s speech to the Indo-Pacific Business Forum on Monday. A Tuesday editorial by the communist paper responded by accusing the United States of playing “power games” in the Indo-Pacific region.
U.S. Air Force Lt. Gen. VeraLinn “Dash” Jamieson, deputy chief of staff for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance for the Air Staff at the Pentagon, warned last week that China is pulling ahead of the United States in artificial intelligence research. Perhaps more ominously, she said China has more concrete plans than any other adversary for actually using A.I. to control its population, enhance its military power, and conduct espionage against other nations.
Don Luskin, chief investment officer at Trend Macrolytics LLC, joined SiriusXM host Rebecca Mansour on Monday’s Breitbart News Tonight to discuss his recent Wall Street Journal op-ed, “China Is Losing the Trade War with Trump.”
Angry parents and teachers demonstrated outside government buildings in Beijing over the past two days, lodging an unusually vigorous public complaint against the communist government for its handling of defective vaccines from one of China’s largest biotech firms.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on Tuesday dismissed U.S. President Donald Trump’s offer of an unconditional meeting. “Certainly, the decisions of the new U.S. administration are fleeting,” he sneered, implying that Trump was not serious about offering to meet with him.
China’s displeasure at the notion of U.S. Marines guarding the American diplomatic mission in Taiwan reached fever pitch on Tuesday, as China’s state-run Global Times denounced the security detail tantamount as an “invasion of the U.S. military of Chinese soil.”
A meeting in Qatar last week between a senior U.S. diplomat and representatives of the Taliban reportedly went well last week, gaining an endorsement from the unity government of Afghanistan on Sunday.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told the Indo-Pacific Business Forum on Monday that business engagement and “free and open” trade are major elements of the Trump administration’s strategic vision for the region. Although he mentioned China only in passing, Secretary Pompeo’s remarks included a clear warning to regional powers about the perils of partnering with Beijing.
Representatives from the Iranian, Russian, and Turkish governments met in the Russian resort city of Sochi on Monday to discuss the future of Syria, including humanitarian concerns, de-escalation zones, and the structure of post-civil war government.
The registrar general of India announced on Monday that some four million people have been removed from citizenship rolls in the northeastern state of Assam, which borders Bangladesh.
Monday marks the first presidential election in Zimbabwe since longtime dictator Robert Mugabe was ousted in a surprisingly soft November 2017 coup. The primary challenger to incumbent interim President Emmerson Mnangagwa, Nelson Chamisa of the Movement for Democrat Change (MDC), claims his party’s voters are being suppressed and Mnangagwa can only win if the election is rigged.
South Korea lodged a formal complaint with the Chinese embassy on Friday after a Chinese military aircraft entered South Korea’s Air Defense Zone, the third such incident this year.
The administration of Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras is facing intense criticism for its response to deadly wildfires that killed 85 people at last count. The opposition accused the Tsipras government of incompetence and arrogance, while the government blamed illegal construction in the affected areas and suggested terrorists might have set the fires.
North Korea repatriated on Friday morning what appears to be 55 sets of remains from U.S. troops killed in the Korean War, prompting President Donald Trump to personally thank North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un on Twitter.
After holding out until almost literally the 11th hour, the big three U.S. airlines capitulated on Wednesday to China’s demand that they change website references to Hong Kong, Macau, and especially Taiwan to portray them as part of China. Beijing is not satisfied, however, as the Civil Aviation Administration of China deemed compliance by American, Delta, United, and smaller Hawaiian Airlines “incomplete.”
The bombshell revelation on Wednesday that the Obama administration funded an al-Qaeda group in Sudan ten years after it was designated a foreign terrorist organization merely scratched the surface of what the Islamic Relief Agency (ISRA) stands accused of.
An explosive device was detonated outside the U.S. embassy in Beijing on Thursday. The suspect arrested by Chinese police, described as a 26-year-old man from the Inner Mongolia region, was the only person injured. In a possibly related incident, a woman was taken into custody for attempting to set herself on fire near the embassy.
Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu responded swiftly on Thursday to the threat of sanctions from President Donald Trump unless pastor Andrew Brunson is released. “We will never tolerate threats from anybody,” Cavusoglu said on Twitter.
Public outrage over the distribution of substandard child vaccines in China has grown to the point where heavy-handed censorship is being mixed with the government’s appeals for calm.
Malaysian Foreign Minister Saifuddin Abdullah said on Wednesday that the incoming government of Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad intends to take a firmer stand against Chinese aggression in the South China Sea.
The all-too-familiar second act of terrorist attacks and mass shootings played out in Toronto on Tuesday, as the police revealed Greektown shooter Faisal Hussain was previously taken into custody twice and has a long history of documented mental health issues.
The three biggest U.S. airlines – American, Delta, and United – finally caved on Tuesday to China’s demands and changed their websites to no longer describe Taiwan as a country distinct from China. It might at best be seen as partial capitulation at the last possible moment, as the airlines now list Taiwan’s capital of Taipei as a city without a country instead of “Taipei, Taiwan.”
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s war on drugs had already been a source of great controversy for years when he suddenly announced a new crusade in June: a war on loitering. Those who fear authoritarian rule were dismayed to discover squads of police combing the streets of Manila each night and rounding up thousands of people who couldn’t provide a good enough explanation for why they were out after dark.
A huge scandal involving hundreds of thousands of defective vaccines given to Chinese children rocked the world of Chinese medicine in July, leading to multiple arrests. Chinese President Xi Jinping called the vaccine scandal “vile and shocking” and ordered a “thorough investigation” by both the Chinese Food and Drug Administration and anti-corruption agencies.
An analysis of market data performed by Reuters on Tuesday found the price of fuel in North Korea declining by almost 50 percent since late March, which strongly suggests that tough sanctions against North Korea’s nuclear missile program have been systematically undermined, most likely with the assistance of China.
The Russian Defense Ministry has proposed a plan for working with the United States to return Syrian refugees living in Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey, and other regions back to their homes.
The Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday that Pakistan is facing a debt crisis due to the enormous loans it has taken out for the Orange Line, an elevated railway in Lahore that is only the first installment in China’s $62 billion plan to bring its “Belt and Road” infrastructure initiative to Pakistan.
Taiwanese Foreign Minister Joseph Wu said in an interview broadcast Monday that without military support from the United States, mainland China might consider retaking the island by force.
