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China has “enforced maritime management and exercised sovereign jurisdiction” over an uninhabited reef in the disputed South China Sea, planting the country’s flag on the tiny sand bank just kilometers from a key Philippine military outpost. Photographs released by Chinese state-run media on Saturday showed China Coast Guard officers unfurling the flag as part of an effort to effectively seize Sandy Cay reef, which Beijing calls Tiexian Jiao, earlier this month. The reef, located in the flash point Spratly Island chain, is also claimed by Taiwan, Vietnam and the Philippines. Sandy Cay also sits just over 3 kilometers from Thitu...

It’s been obvious for years that China has a Potemkin economy, kept alive by slave labor, market bubbles, and government underwriting. it can’t last forever. The latest grim forecast about the economy comes from Peter St Onge, an economist with a much deeper fund of knowledge about and understanding of the Chinese economy than I could have in a thousand lifetimes.The biggest hint that the Chinese economy was in trouble was the demise of Evergrande, a massive property developer in China. The bankruptcy was huge, with the company’s assets valued at a probably inflated $245 billion and debts of $300...

The terrifying face of an alleged Tren de Aragua gangster was revealed on Friday after he was arrested by ICE officers in Denver, Colorado - a sanctuary city. Joel Matos-Nieto, a 23-year-old illegal Venezuelan migrant with a face full of tattoos, has been accused by ICE of being a member of TdA, a gang whose members often have very specific ink. According to pictures shared by ICE's Denver Field Office, Matos-Nieto was arrested on a street in Denver and was seen handcuffed next to an agent with the DEA, which often participates in ICE raids. Since its founding in a...

Members of the violent Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua have been given the “green light” to attack and open fire on cops in Denver, a federal memo obtained by The Post reveals. The gang is already tied to hundreds of crimes, including the shootings of two NYPD cops who were trying to arrest one of its members in June. “Credible human sources from Colorado provided information on TdA [Tren de Aragua] giving a ‘green light’ to fire on or attack law enforcement,” said the memo, from the Homeland Security Investigations office in Chicago “As you may know, we have a...

On Friday, SpaceX's Crew-10 mission launched to help bring back the two astronauts stranded at the International Space Station. Astronauts Barry "Butch" Wilmore and Suni Williams were supposed to just be at the ISS for eight days, but they've been stuck there since June 2024. A SpaceX Dragon capsule, riding atop one of the company's Falcon 9 rockets, is carrying the four Crew-10 astronauts - NASA's Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers, Takuya Onishi of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Kirill Peskov - to orbit.They are going to replace SpaceX's Crew-9, NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Roscosmos cosmonaut...

I found this article about Ukraine and the EU's support. It was originally posted 7-25-24.I thought it is interesting and would share it.Why the EU Fails to Deliver on Arms Pledges to Ukraine

Bolivian President Luis Arce Catacora reviewed with his Russian colleague Vladimir Putin the joint lithium and nuclear projects with which the South American country consolidates its position from a geopolitical and strategic viewpoint given the presence of Iranian facilities and equipment. Arce told reporters in La Paz Tuesday that all these matters were discussed during his recent meeting with the Russian leader in St. Petersburg on the occasion of the International Economic Forum (SPIEF) in the former imperial capital. According to Arce, the project involving Russia's Uranium One company regarding direct lithium extraction in Bolivian salt flats “must start operating...

Bolivian forces arrested the army commander who led a coup attempt against President Luis Arce on Wednesday, shortly after rebel soldiers besieged the government headquarters for hours and tried to break down one of its doors. At the end of a frantic day, General Juan José Zúñiga was arrested outside a military barracks in La Paz and taken to a police vehicle on charges of terrorism and armed uprising, according to the prosecutor’s office. “You’re under arrest, General!” said Deputy Minister of Government (Interior) Jhonny Aguilera, according to state television footage. Surrounded by about eight armored vehicles, Zúñiga led the...

A former senior policy adviser to the Obama administration has appeared in court in Britain charged with child sex offences. Rahamim 'Rami' Shy, 46, who co-ordinated the US government's strategy to combat terrorists from Al Qaeda and the Taliban, is accused of arranging the commission of a child sex offence, court documents reveal. He is also charged with possession of two category C indecent images of children and possessing a prohibited image of a child. Shy, a US citizen, who lives in New Jersey, worked for the White House under president Barack Obama and secretary of state Hillary Clinton, was...

A far-left organization in New York City that has been at the forefront of anti-Israel protests has vowed to “shut down DC” when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrives to speak before Congress. Netanyahu will be speaking before a joint meeting of Congress on July 24. The People’s Forum wrote in a post on X on Wednesday that the group would be shutting down Washington, DC, when Netanyahu arrives and would “issue a notice of a citizen’s arrest.” “The people charge Benjamin Netanyahu with genocide,” the group wrote. “When the car criminal comes to Washington DC on July 24, we...

Russia's point man for relations with the United States said on Monday that all of President Vladimir Putin's conditions must be met in full before the war in Ukraine can end, suggesting Moscow is playing hardball with U.S. President Donald Trump. -snip- Moscow swiftly underscored that its maximalist demands - as set out by Putin in June last year - remained the opening bid at the outset of the negotiations. The "political solution as we envisage it cannot be achieved otherwise than through the full implementation of what was pronounced by President Putin when he spoke to the Russian Foreign...

The commandant of the U.S. Coast Guard tried Tuesday to assure skeptical and frustrated U.S. senators that she is not attempting to cover up the branch's failure to adequately handle cases of sexual assault and harassment at the service academy in Connecticut. Admiral Linda L. Fagan said she is committed to “transparency and accountability” within the Coast Guard and is trying to cooperate with congressional investigations and provide requested documents while also abiding by the constraints of an ongoing Office of Inspector General investigation and victim privacy concerns. “This is not a cover-up. I am committed to providing documents in...

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange plans to plead guilty to a conspiracy charge this week as part of a plea deal with the U.S. Justice Department that will allow him to go free after having spent five years in a British prison, according to court documents. Assange was charged by criminal information — which typically signifies a plea deal — with conspiracy to obtain and disclose national defense information, the court documents say. A letter from Justice Department official Matthew McKenzie to U.S. District Judge Ramona Manglona of the Northern Mariana Islands District said that Assange would appear in court at...

Matthew Graves, appointed by Joe Biden in 2021 to lead the most powerful U.S. Attorney's office in the nation, steps down but not before leaving behind a legacy of human wreckage. Two weeks after the U.S. Senate confirmed his nomination as U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia in November 2021, Matthew Graves indicted longtime Trump confidante Steve Bannon on contempt of Congress charges. The move represented how Graves would conduct himself in office. As the nation’s capital descended into a deadly and dangerous crime wave, Graves, also responsible for prosecuting local violent crime, devoted most of his resources to...

Cheering crowds and lavish ceremonies greeted Russian President Vladimir Putin in Pyongyang on Wednesday, where North Korean leader Kim Jong Un expressed “full support” for Russia’s war in Ukraine and pledged stronger strategic ties with Moscow.

World Man identifying himself as American Travis Timmerman found in Syria after being freed from prison By Haley Ott Updated on: December 12, 2024 / 9:31 AM EST / CBS News A man identifying himself as an American from Missouri, Travis Timmerman, was found Thursday in Syria after he said he was freed from a prison earlier in the week, when longtime dictator Bashar al-Assad was forced from power by a shock rebel offensive. Timmerman told CBS News senior foreign correspondent Elizabeth Palmer that he had been trying to make his own way out of the country after walking out...

The former FBI informant charged with lying about a $10 million-dollar bribery scheme involving President Joe Biden´s family is set to appear in a California federal court on Monday. A judge will determine whether Alexander Smirnov, 43, must remain behind bars while he awaits trial. Special counsel David Weiss' office is pressing U.S. District Judge Otis Wright II to keep Smirnov in jail, arguing the man who claims to have ties to Russian intelligence is likely to flee the country. A different judge last week released Smirnov from jail on electronic GPS monitoring, but Wright ordered the man to be...

Skyler Philippi, 24, of Columbia, Tennessee, was arrested by federal agents and charged with attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction and attempting to destroy an energy facility. “As charged, Skyler Philippi believed he was moments away from launching an attack on a Nashville energy facility to further his violent white supremacist ideology – but the FBI had already compromised his plot,” said Attorney General Merrick B. Garland. “This case serves as yet another warning to those seeking to sow violence and chaos in the name of hatred by attacking our country’s critical infrastructure: the Justice Department will find...

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday signed a treaty on the country's strategic partnership with North Korea which includes a mutual defense provision, enacting it into law. The accord, announced by Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in June after a summit in Pyongyang, calls on each side to come to the other's aid in case of an armed attack.

The Islamic Republic of Iran hacked former President Donald Trump’s campaign and turned over the stolen materials to the Biden-Harris campaign, federal officials said in a statement. Federal officials from ODNI, FBI, and CISA said in a joint statement that Iranian hackers sent the stolen materials to then-Biden-Harris campaign officials in June and July. Information that the hackers sent to the then-Biden-Harris campaign “contained an excerpt taken from stolen, non-public material from former President Trump’s campaign as text in the emails.” “This is further proof the Iranians are actively interfering in the election to help Kamala Harris and Joe Biden...