National Security

The government of Panama on Monday took administrative and operative control of two key Panama Canal ports following the Panamanian’s Supreme Court ruling that annulled the contracts signed with a China-linked organization.

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) held military drills on Tuesday, reportedly including tests for new weapons, even as top military official Ali Larijani was preparing to deliver Iran’s latest response in negotiations with the United States, and President Donald Trump was preparing to deliver his State of the Union (SOTU) address.

U.S. representatives told the U.N.’s Conference on Disarmament that China has conducted secret nuclear weapons tests.

The wave of intense violence unleashed by Cartel Jalisco New Generation (CJNG) following their death of its leader, Nemesio “El Mencho” Oseguera Cervantes, left over a thousand tourists stranded at the Guadalajara City Zoo in the state of Jalisco this weekend, local outlets reported.

The Reuters news agency reported this weekend, citing 11 different anonymous sources, that the Cuban Communist Party has begun withdrawing its agents in the country, including both “security advisers” and slave doctors from Venezuela.

The House Appropriations committee holds an oversight hearing to review the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) on Tuesday, February 24.

Brazil and India finalized a deal on critical minerals and rare earths on Saturday, followed by an agreement between Brazil and South Korea on Monday to increase their cooperation on minerals, technology, cultural exchange, and trade.

As President Donald Trump considers whether and how to conduct military strikes against Iran ahead of another round of talks in Geneva, Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Dan Caine has advised the president and senior officials that such action could carry significant risks, including the possibility of a prolonged conflict, according to Axios.

Catholic priests in Jalisco, Mexico, took to the rooftops on Sunday to display the Blessed Sacrament and pray for peace in their country as a terror campaign in response to the elimination of a top cartel boss plunged much of the country into chaos.

Far-left President of Colombia Gustavo Petro on Sunday acknowledged that the Ocean Mariner, an oil tanker intercepted by the U.S. Coast Guard near Cuban waters this month, had loaded fuel in Colombia.

A senior Iranian official said concessions on uranium enrichment could be offered, but only if the U.S. meets Iran’s demands on sanctions.

Sandro Castro, grandson of late Cuban communist dictator Fidel Castro, published an obscene video on Sunday critical of the piling-up garbage and fuel shortages in Cuba.

Nuyorican music icon, activist, and retired law enforcement officer Willie Colón passed away in his native New York on Saturday at the age of 75, leaving an unfillable and quintessentially American void in Spanish-language music.

President Donald Trump said he is sending “a great hospital boat” to “take care of the many people who are sick, and not being taken care of” in Greenland, as the U.S. continues negotiations for mineral rights in the world’s largest island.

Officials with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) are suspending two travel programs beginning Sunday amid a partial government shutdown that is being blamed on Democrats.

Ex-Biden officials Jason Houser (former ICE Chief of Staff) and Troy Miller (former acting CBP Commissioner) are part of a group tasked with suggesting enhancements to the Trump administration’s National Targeting Center (NTC) at CBP. A high-level source inside the agency is mystified by how overseers of Biden-era policies that led to record-breaking border failures are now working with the current CBP Commissioner on this key national security effort.

Russia attacked Ukraine with a barrage of missiles and drones, killing one person in the Kyiv region, Ukraine’s Emergency Service said on Sunday.

A federal grand jury has indicted a U.S. Air Force pharmacist and his spouse of allegedly stealing $3 million from the Department of War to fund a luxurious lifestyle.

Ukrainian drones struck an industrial site deep inside Russia on Saturday, which a Russian news channel said was a key state-owned missile factory.

A report issued by Kenyan intelligence on Wednesday found that over a thousand Kenyans were recruited with false promises of good jobs in Russia, but then sent to fight on the bloody battlefields of Ukraine.

A hunger-motivated prison riot at the Canaleta maximum security prison in Ciego de Ávila, Cuba, left at least seven inmates dead and several injured, the human rights organization Prisoners Defenders denounced on Thursday.

A court in Peru summoned Marxist interim President José María Balcázar Thursday for an upcoming trial on embezzlement charges.

India on Friday joined the Pax Silica framework, a U.S.-led effort to create a secure supply chain for critical technologies that would be immune to meddling from China. India’s membership had been in doubt due to trade tensions with the United States under President Donald Trump.

“Acting president” of Venezuela Delcy Rodríguez on Thursday evening signed an “amnesty law” criticized by local human rights organizations over its limited reach for all of the socialist regime’s remaining political prisoners.

U.S. Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV) has seen the future, and it is not good if Democrats do not reverse their destructive policy of wide open borders.

Japanese Prime Minister Takaichi Sanae on Friday delivered her first speech to parliament since her party’s landslide victory in snap elections. She promised to stand firm against growing Chinese “coercion” and craft a new national defense strategy to address the “most severe and complex security environment since World War 2.”

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet said on Thursday that Thai forces are holding disputed territory by force, and even occupying Cambodian land beyond the disputed area, putting intense strain on the ceasefire agreement brokered by President Donald Trump.

Conservative President of Paraguay Santiago Peña on Thursday confirmed his participation at President Donald Trump’s upcoming “Shield of the Americas” Summit.

Iranian and Russian naval forces held joint exercises in the Gulf of Oman and Indian Ocean as U.S. forces mass for possible action.

The Central African nation of Gabon on Wednesday announced it was suspending some social media platforms for spreading “inappropriate, defamatory, hateful, and abusive” content that was allegedly threatening “social cohesion, the stability of the republic’s institutions, and national security.”

Taliban “supreme leader” Hibatullah Akhundzada recently approved a novel criminal code, multiple outlets reported this week, that dramatically expands the legal ability for men to physically abuse women and children and provides for the creation of a formal “slave” class in the country.

Prosecutors in Brazil shelved an investigation on Thursday into conservative former President Jair Bolsonaro on charges of “genocide” for his handling of the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic.