
The Way Forward in Curtailing North Korean Nuclear Ambitions
North Korea’s rogue regime recently conducted its fourth and most powerful underground nuclear test, with independent sensors detecting a 5.1 magnitude seismic event.

North Korea’s rogue regime recently conducted its fourth and most powerful underground nuclear test, with independent sensors detecting a 5.1 magnitude seismic event.

Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, who is being supported by Russia and Iran, is reportedly starving the residents of a besieged mountain town located northwest of Syria’s capital, Damascus, as the freezing and hungry townspeople prepare to endure a cold winter.

Vietnam is preparing to deploy the first of six Kilo-class submarines purchased from Russia in the South China Sea, as a deterrent to China’s seemingly endless expansionism in the region.

The governments of Vietnam, the Philippines, and Japan have all condemned China for landing a plane on an artificial island in the South China Sea, constructed in what is widely regarded as sovereign Vietnamese territory. China rejects international claims in the sea and has begun constructing military facilities in the Spratly Islands.

An updated assessment of Russian national security, signed by President Vladimir Putin on New Year’s Eve, names the United States as a threat, along with NATO. The report does not, however, list Syria as a threat, even though Russia is currently bombing rebel forces in that country.

On the day after Christmas, three Chinese boats, one modified to carry four cannons, entered Japan’s territorial waters surrounding the Senkaku Islands in the southern portion of the East China Sea. The move, a dangerous escalation, is the first time the People’s Republic of China sent an armed vessel into an area that Tokyo claims as its own.

Chinese state media are promoting a more prominent role for the communist country in resolving the civil war in Syria, with a column in the People’s Daily suggesting China could “build on the basic consensus reached by the international community that the Syrian crisis should be solved politically.”

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi demanded Secretary of State John Kerry “respect China’s core interests” in the South China Sea following the presence of a B-52 bomber within 12 nautical miles of the Spratly Islands, a passage the Pentagon has branded unintentional.

The Chinese state-run Global Times newspaper has issued a threat to the Australian government to stay out of the international waters of the South China Sea or face the possibility of having its jets shot down by the Chinese government.

The Ayatollah’s regime in Tehran has released a decree banning over two hundred American products from reaching shelves in Iran.

The Cuban government has re-arrested almost all of the 53 political prisoners released in January as part of its “normalization” with President Obama, according to Senator Marco Rubio. The news comes as Cuban police assault and detain dozens of dissidents in anticipation of International Human Rights Day, December 10.

The Chinese government is paying “close attention” to the new deployment of an American spy plane off the island of Singapore

Satellite images of construction in the South China Sea indicate the Chinese government has begun construction on three new airstrikes near the Spratly and Paracel Islands, quadrupling its presence in the highly-contested maritime territory.

In a meeting between U.S. and Cuban diplomats, the Cuban government urged American officials to change the legal status of Cuban refugees to make it more difficult for those fleeing communism to find asylum, and easier for the communist regime of Raúl Castro to restrict its citizens’ mobility.

TOKYO — A U.S. independent policy research institute has issued a provocative report calling for deployment of an additional aircraft carrier in Japan.

The Iranian leadership’s anti-U.S./anti-Israel sentiment was put on full display during this weekend’s regime-led prayers in Tehran. Friday Prayers leader Hojjatoleslam Kazzem Seddiqi called on the Iranian people and their government to be wary of “plots hatched by the U.S.

After announcing that the U.S. presence in the South China Sea would become “routine” as a challenge to Chinese territorial claims this month, the Pentagon announced Thursday it had flown two strategic bombers in the region, which were contacted by Chinese authorities but flew through without incident.

Indonesia’s defense chief told reporters Wednesday that it, too, may take China to court over its outrageous territorial claims in the South China Sea, following the Philippines’ request for the Permanent Court of Arbitration in the Hague to address the matter. The Hague has accepted the petition.

Although the timing on delivery remains unclear, Russia has vowed to fulfill its contract for advanced surface-to-air missiles with Iran, despite protests from the United States and other Western nations.

The European Union made its strongest call yet for China and other Asian nations to resolve their dispute over the South China Sea, a position Brussels insists is neutral but that the United States is likely to welcome after pressing the bloc to speak up.

Russia and Egypt are disputing suggestions from American and British intelligence that a bomb, planted by ISIS or an affiliated group, brought down a Russian jetliner over the Sinai Peninsula.

As the United States takes the lead in challenging China’s territorial claims in the South China Sea, the Chinese government has begun to warn off Japan from assuming a role in the matter. While Japan has no territorial interests in the South China Sea, it continues to disregard China’s claim to the entirety of the East China Sea, much of which Japan claims as its own.

The Obama administration authorized the U.S. Navy to conduct “freedom of navigation” operations in the South China Sea.

China and North Korea were judged weak on defense against hacker attacks in a recent Australian assessment of Asian-Pacific electronic security.

The heads of the Chinese and American navies discussed the United States’ passing of a missile destroyer through international waters in the South China Sea on Thursday, according to American officials.