John Hayward

Saudi Arabian state media reported on Thursday that the Saudi government will provide 1.65 million barrels of crude oil to the government in Damascus to assist with the postwar reconstruction of Syria.

China’s state-run Global Times on Thursday tried to score a few political points from the assassination of Charlie Kirk, quoting “Chinese analysts” who said the killing proved “solutions to gun violence still remain out of reach.”

International conservative leaders and writers condemned the murder of Charlie Kirk on Wednesday and praised his transformative work.

The Chinese Communist government announced on Wednesday that it will create a “national nature reserve” in the disputed Scarborough Shoal, using Filipino land the Chinese have occupied by force. The announcement was clearly an effort to consolidate Beijing’s grip on the shoal despite international tribunal rulings against China’s expansive territorial claims.

Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich traveled to New Delhi on Monday to sign a bilateral investment agreement (BIA) with Indian Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman.

Taiwan’s proposed budget includes a $32.8 million spending increase for the Department of Latin American and Caribbean Affairs.

The Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) of Japan is preparing for a special election in October to replace outgoing Prime Minister Ishiba Shigeru, who announced his resignation after less than a year in office on Sunday.

Internet monitors said over the weekend that widespread service disruptions in Asia and the Middle East appear to have been caused by damage to undersea cables in the Red Sea, off the coast of Saudi Arabia. It was not immediately clear if the cable damage was caused by deliberate sabotage.

The World Health Organization is pleading with the Taliban to accept female aid workers for victims of the September 1 earthquake.

A group of as-yet unidentified gunmen ambushed a convoy in Nigeria’s southern state of Edo on Friday, killing eight security officers and kidnapping five Chinese nationals who worked for a local cement company. Meanwhile, the notorious Islamist terrorist gang called Boko Haram went on a rampage in northeastern Nigeria, slaughtering dozens of civilians in a methodical door-to-door village massacre.

Police reportedly opened fire on demonstrators in Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal, after protests against a government ban on most social media platforms swelled to enormous size on Monday. The official casualty count included 19 dead and 150 injured as of Monday afternoon.

The FBI and Capitol Police are reportedly investigating a string of fake emails sent to House staffers by Chinese hackers masquerading as Rep. John Moolenaar (R-MI), chairman of the House Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party.

The U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) on Friday published a report accusing all parties to the messy civil war in the Congo of “violations of international humanitarian law that may amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity.”

Somalia’s Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs on Thursday officially reinstated the public holiday of Mawlid al-Nabi, which celebrates the birthday of Islam’s Prophet Muhammad. The holiday was effectively driven underground by Islamist militants decades ago, because followers of certain Muslim traditions consider the observance to be distasteful or heretical.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Friday that any foreign troops deployed to Ukraine would be considered “legitimate targets for destruction,” unless Russia first agrees to a cease-fire and peace deal. Ukraine’s Western allies are reportedly considering a plan under which the United States would supervise a postwar “buffer zone,” but all boots on the ground would be supplied by non-NATO countries.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday he was still interested in peace negotiations with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, and invited to hold such a meeting in Moscow. Zelensky is unlikely to accept the invitation, both out of concern for his own safety, and anger at Putin’s steadily escalating attacks on Ukrainian cities.

The foreign ministry of the Iran-backed Houthi insurgency said on Wednesday that it has no intention of releasing at least 19 United Nations staffers who were detained in raids on Sunday. The Houthis claimed the U.N. personnel were spying for hostile powers, including the United States and Israel.

Chinese fast-fashion company Shein said on Thursday it will investigate an advertisement posted on its website that used a model, real or AI-generated, who looked a great deal like accused murderer Luigi Mangione.

Cryptocurrency experts are warning that the industry is now under constant attack by North Korean hackers running elaborate recruiting scams.

While strolling down the red carpet at China’s massive World War 2 victory parade on Wednesday, Chinese dictator Xi Jinping and Russian warlord Vladimir Putin were caught on a hot microphone discussing the use of organ transplants to dramatically extend their lifespans.

A suicide bomber attacked outside a stadium in Quetta, the capital of Pakistan’s province of Balochistan, on Tuesday night. The nearby stadium had been rented out by a nationalist group called the Balochistan National Party-Mengal (BNP-M) to hold a memorial rally for its founder, who was killed in 2021.

On Friday night in the Chinese city of Chongqing, an activist named Qi Hong staged a remarkable protest by projecting anti-Communist slogans on the side of a tall building.

The headlines have lately been filled with stories of rising tension between the U.S. and India, sparked by President Donald Trump’s tariffs and his insistence on India cutting back its purchases of Russian oil, but Indian Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal was upbeat on Tuesday about the prospects of signing a trade deal by November.

Communist China staged an expensive demonstration of its military power at a parade on Wednesday to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the end of World War 2. Beijing also used the event to push its false version of WW2 history and showcase its tyrant allies, prominently including Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un.

A South African environmental services company called Drizit, hired to help clean up the spill of toxic waste from a Chinese copper mine in Zambia in February, issued a statement on Friday that claimed the mine owners are concealing the full extent of the massive ecological damage from the incident.

The parliament of Burkina Faso passed a law on Monday that criminalizes “homosexual practices,” with prison sentences of two to five years plus hefty fines. Burkina Faso is the 33rd out of 54 African states to ban homosexuality.

Student groups in Indonesia complained of a “brutal attack” by police against two universities in Bandung on Monday, where students were demonstrating against government corruption as part of a growing nationwide movement.

Days of heavy rainfall produced a devastating landslide in the Central Darfur region of Sudan on Sunday, wiping out a village called Tarasin and killing over a thousand people.

The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry on Tuesday criticized the China-hosted Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit for failing to criticize the Russian invasion. Russian President Vladimir Putin was an honored guest at the event.

Russian President Vladimir Putin met with Chinese dictator Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit in Tianjin, China on Monday. Xi and Putin used the event to tout their vision of a new post-American, post-European world order, and seemed intent on fitting India into that vision.

Iran-backed Houthi insurgents in Yemen raided U.N. offices on Sunday, taking at least 11 U.N. employees prisoner, then launched a missile at an Israeli-owned oil tanker in the Red Sea on Monday. Israel Defense Forces (IDF) had killed much of the Houthis’ senior leadership, including their “prime minister” Ahmed al-Rahawi, in an airstrike on Thursday.

One of the worst earthquakes in Afghanistan’s history struck the border region with Pakistan on Sunday, killing over 800 people and injuring at least 2,800 more.

South Korea’s central bank, the Bank of Korea (BOK), estimated on Friday that North Korea’s economy grew by 3.7 percent in 2024, its fastest rate of growth in eight years.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry on Friday condemned France, Germany, and the United Kingdom for invoking the “snapback” provision of the Iran nuclear deal, beginning a 30-day countdown for United Nations sanctions to resume against Iran.

Economic analysts predicted this week that the money India saved by importing huge amounts of discounted Russian oil will be more than wiped out by President Donald Trump’s punitive tariff increase, which took effect on Wednesday.