The Kremlin, Russian state media, and local officials on Friday accused Ukrainian forces of conducting a helicopter strike on a fuel depot near the southern Russian city of Belgorod. Ukrainian officials could not confirm their military was responsible for the explosion at press time.
The office of Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare stated on Friday that the archipelago’s new security treaty with China will not allow the Chinese to build a military base.
China’s state-run Global Times on Thursday triumphantly announced the deployment of intimidating robot arms to perform throat swab coronavirus tests “with reasonable sampling accuracy and efficiency.”
China Central Television (CCTV) on Wednesday night aired the first National Basketball Association (NBA) game in 17 months, seemingly concluding a blackout that began soon after Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey shared an image supportive of the Hong Kong pro-democracy movement.
Ramzan Kadyrov, eccentric dictator of the Russian puppet government in Chechnya, posted a rant on social media Wednesday in which he castigated Russian negotiators for making too many concessions to Ukraine in peace negotiations, Kadyrov vowed that his troops would fight the Ukrainians to the bitter end, whatever that might be.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov announced Thursday that Moscow has accredited its first diplomatic representative from the Taliban, even though Russia supposedly regards the regime that violently seized control of Afghanistan last summer as a terrorist organization.
China’s state-run Global Times on Wednesday uncorked a long, rambling editorial that accused “U.S. warmongers” of feasting on the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and other global conflicts, like profiteering “vampires.” The screed was accompanied by a photo of President Joe Biden, dressed like a portly iteration of Dracula, feeding a Ukrainian flag into a meat grinder to produce stacks of dollar bills in place of sausage.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov arrived in China on Wednesday for a meeting ostensibly focused on Afghanistan, but touted by Russian media as a landmark in the new axis of global power formed by the two authoritarian nations.
The European Union (EU) said on Wednesday that it plans to deliver an ultimatum to Chinese dictator Xi Jinping in a virtual summit on Friday that assisting the Russian invasion will be punished with sanctions.
U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman on Tuesday accused Russia of jeopardizing global food security by blocking grain exports from Ukraine.
After days of touting the multi-stage quarantine and testing strategy deployed in Shanghai as a pioneering experiment in soft-touch pandemic control techniques, Chinese state media abruptly reversed itself on Wednesday and hailed dictator Xi Jinping for demanding nothing less than total lockdowns in response to every outbreak of the Wuhan coronavirus.
China’s state-run Global Times on Monday stated explicitly what outside observers assume about the Shanghai lockdown: the city is undergoing a special two-phase scaled-back version of China’s “dynamic zero-Covid” lockdown policy because Shanghai is simply too large, rich, and important to shutter completely.
China’s state-run Global Times on Monday accused President Joe Biden of pushing the world closer to nuclear war by declaring Russian leader Vladimir Putin “cannot remain in power” after invading Ukraine.
Saudi Arabia raised its oil prices in markets across the world on Monday, in some cases to all-time highs, as many customers remain reluctant to buy deeply discounted oil from heavily-sanctioned Russia. The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) is due to meet on Thursday to discuss production for May, when analysts expect more price hikes could occur.
Both U.S. and Ukrainian officials on Monday denied an unsubstantiated rumor that negotiators working to end the war in Ukraine, including Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich, were poisoned this month.
Chen Ming-tong, Director-General of Taiwan’s National Security Bureau, told a session of the Taiwanese legislature on Monday that Russia’s poor performance during its invasion of Ukraine could give China second thoughts about attacking Taiwan.
A Russian dissident outlet claimed that the country’s communications regulatory agency Roskomnadzor warned other news agencies on Sunday not to carry an interview with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
The Iraqi government has completed a wall “a dozen kilometers long and 3.5 meters high” along the Syrian border in Nineveh province to keep Islamic State jihadis at bay. Iraq plans to expand the wall to cover more of its 600-kilometer border with Syria.
Shanghai launched China’s largest coronavirus lockdown in two years on Monday, putting 26 million people into quarantine in two phases projected to last five days apiece. The vital financial district of Pudong was locked down first.
China’s state-run Global Times on Friday unleashed an editorial tirade against “badfaith [sic] actors fed by antagonistic Western media,” who have been running a “malicious smear campaign against China on Russia-Ukraine issues” by fiendishly translating the hideous things Chinese nationalist blowhards are saying on social media.
China’s state-run Global Times on Friday slammed NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg for criticizing China’s support for the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Chinese streaming services banned movies and videos featuring actor Keanu Reeves after he appeared in a virtual event hosted by Tibet House U.S., a nonprofit organization funded by the leader of Tibetan Buddhism, the Dalai Lama. Reeves’ name has also been censored from Chinese social media platforms.
A fiery explosion lit up the skyline over the Saudi Arabian city of Jeddah on Friday morning, clearly visible from the F1 racing track where the Saudi Arabia Grand Prix began on Sunday.
Australian mining company Arafura Resources said on Wednesday that an enormous deposit of rare earth minerals discovered in central Australia, developed with the aid of a $30 million grant from the federal government, could help to significantly weaken Communist China’s stranglehold on the rare-earths supply – a class of minerals vitally important to “green energy” projects around the world.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) that China supports “Islamic countries using Islamic wisdom to solve contemporary hotspot issues” during a meeting in Pakistan’s capital of Islamabad on Thursday.
The Saudi-led coalition of Gulf Arab states fighting the Houthi insurgency in Yemen on Wednesday accused the Houthis of targeting oil tankers with explosive-laden boats in an effort to make the worldwide fuel crisis even worse.
China’s state-run Global Times on Wednesday celebrated the end of Chinese telecom giant ZTE’s probation in the United States as an “inspiring” victory for Chinese Communism against the American legal system, and urged more Chinese companies to take advantage of those mercurial U.S. courts to wage lawfare against American trade policy.
Twenty North Korean women working for a clothing company in Shanghai vanished from their dormitory along with their manager in February, a potentially awkward case kept very quiet by both Chinese and North Korean officials until Radio Free Asia (RFA) reported it on Wednesday.
Dmitry Medvedev, deputy chief of the Russian Security Council, took an apparent satirical shot at U.S. President Joe Biden on Wednesday by saying the United States should become a “responsible superpower,” not a “refuge for the senile.”
Chinese crash site investigators said on Wednesday that one of the “black box” flight recorders from China Eastern Flight MU5735 has been found, and is “relatively intact.” The search for a second black box continues, hampered by heavy rain in the area. Chinese state media continues to provide few serious details about the crash, beyond confirming on Tuesday that none of the 132 passengers or crew survived it.
China’s ZTE telecom corporation announced on Wednesday that its five-year probation from a 2017 plea deal for illegally shipping American technology to Iran has ended.
Amin Nasser, CEO of Saudi Arabia’s national oil company Aramco, said on Monday that the world had better begin paying close attention to the relentless terrorist attacks on Saudi oil facilities launched by the Iran-backed Houthi insurgents of Yemen, because Houthi mischief could make it difficult for the Saudis to increase oil shipments in response to global demand.
A Russian newspaper called Komsomolskaya Pravda, previously noted for its staunch loyalty to the Kremlin, published an article that quickly disappeared from the site on Sunday claiming 9,861 Russian troops have been killed during the invasion of Ukraine.
Chinese state media on Tuesday declared victory over the coronavirus outbreak in Shenzhen, the tech hub known as “China’s Silicon Valley.” The city was subjected to severe lockdown measures over the past week, including an order that forced employees to live in their factories so the production lines could keep running.
The terrible plane crash in China’s southern Guangxi region continued as a headline news item in Chinese state media on Tuesday – but after 24 hours, no significant details about the incident have been revealed to the public. China’s aviation regulator cautioned the public that it might take years for the investigation to be completed, and little news should be expected until then.
Chinese state media on Monday insisted China’s coronavirus control measures are highly “effective” even as record numbers of infections were reported in cities like Shanghai, which shut down its Disney resort until further notice.
According to a report published by the Green Finance and Development Center at Fudan University in Shanghai this weekend, the world’s poorest nations will pay China almost $14 billion in 2022 to service their debts.
Daniel Bekele, chief of the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission, said on Friday that a string of highly unusual and little-discussed police raids this month took at least eight Ethiopian government officials into custody, implicity for human rights violations.
The Iran-backed Houthi insurgents of Yemen, delisted as terrorists by President Joe Biden as one of his first acts in office, launched a massive terrorist strike on Saudi oil facilities and water desalination plants on Sunday.
The U.N. Security Council (UNSC) voted on Thursday to establish a formal presence in Afghanistan to perform “crucial” humanitarian work, effectively establishing a working relationship with the barbaric Taliban regime, although the resolution was careful not to name the Taliban or expressly recognize it as the legitimate ruling power of Afghanistan.
