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Fallout from Hong Kong’s unrest is galvanizing resistance against China on another front: Taiwan. Protests in Hong Kong against Beijing’s encroachment have inspired widespread sympathy across the self-ruling island of Taiwan, a longstanding subject of tension in the region that is both claimed by Beijing and supported by the U.S. with arms sales and unofficial political ties. Sympathies in Taiwan for Hong Kong have transformed the political fortunes of the island’s leader, President Tsai Ing-wen, whose ruling party advocates a Taiwanese identity separate from China and is seen as traditionally pro-independence. She has vocally supported the Hong Kong protesters in...

Kim Jong-un speaks saying "the world will witness a new strategic weapon' from North Korea 'in the near future' more later on.... Part of the alert brigade of the 82nd Airborne Division deploying to Kuwait tonight, some 750 US soldiers. More to follow in the coming days..... This after thousands of protesters in Iraq attacking and some entering the US Embassy grounds in Baghdad forcing US forces to disperse them with tear gas today. The protesters angered by the US air strikes in Iraq and Syria Sunday against an Iranian backed militia group.... Chelsea Manning, who gave Wikileaks documents on...

If these predictions come to pass, their fulfillment will have lasting effects upon America in the 2020s and beyond. In 2008, as the Obama administration prepared to take control in Washington, retired Army Gen. Barry McCaffrey offered a list of bold predictions for the coming five years. Some of them bore out: The economy performed well globally despite the Great Recession, relations with Russia became more hostile without devolving into outright dysfunction, and the United States withdrew from Iraq right at the 36-month mark, which McCaffrey specified. Other predictions, such as a North Korean collapse, improved prospects for success in...

Pro-Hong Kong and democratic activists are being persecuted in Saipan, USA! The judicial corruption in Saipan is atrocious because of the deep infiltration of the Chinese Communist Party! Democratic activists were put into jail unfairly, facing life-threatening, dangerous extradition! During our peaceful protest on Dec. 22, 2019, we were railed against and provoked by multiple young Chinese people. They were trying to snatch the phone a young girl was using to video record the protest. When we passed the “I Love Saipan” store and moved forward, a Chinese man rushed out from Dongfang Seafood Restaurant and scolded and provoked us...

Frontpage Person of the Year: The Hong Kong Protestor Fighting for our freedom against a new global Communism. Fri Dec 27, 2019 Daniel Greenfield 35 Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is an investigative journalist and writer focusing on the radical Left and Islamic terrorism. On Christmas Eve, democracy protesters in Hong Kong ignored police warnings and began the countdown to midnight. The courageous young men wearing antlers wished the uniformed Communist regime thugs, "Merry Christmas", and continued the fight. While Time’s Person of the Year, Greta Thunberg, was yachting and traveling first class on trains,...

2019's fierce protests against national governments begs comparison to 2011's year of Arab Spring and 1989's Eastern Europeans' rebellion against Russian-backed communist tyrannies. Yet 2019's assorted civil ructions are demonstrably more global and more transcultural than 2011's and 1989's largely regional uprisings. One common grievance unites every single case of 2019 civil ruction and unrest: deep disgust with government and political-elite corruption. Of course, local gripes with deep roots (some traceable to the 19th century) stirred 2019's turbulence. In some instances, challenged governments negotiated with dissenters and proposed reforms. In others, marches continue amid political gridlock. In the worst cases,...

Left-wing comedian Samantha Bee traveled to Hong Kong to meet with pro-democracy protesters committed to holding “China accountable for their actions,” airing her interviews on Wednesday’s edition of Full Frontal. It came as quite a shock to the vehemently anti-Trump Bee that the protesters actually liked the President and Republican Senator Marco Rubio. A bewildered Bee confronted one of the protesters: “This is a photograph of you with Marco Rubio and you look happy. Please explain.” The protester explained that the Florida Senator introduced the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act and invited him to join a congressional hearing...

Over the weekend more evidence of a manipulation in reporting by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons following an alleged chemical weapons attack in Douma, Syria in April 2018..... More protests in Beirut Sunday mostly peaceful during the day with thousands around the country's parliament. But later on security forces using tear gas, water cannon and rubber bullets..... Protests in Hong Kong Sunday ahead of the Monday meeting between the territory's leader Carrie Lam and officials in Beijing..... Two suspected Chinese spies were expelled from the United States after they drove onto a military base in Virginia three...

So mainland commentator Ren Yi – otherwise known as Chairman Rabbit – hath spoken. The people of Hong Kong were wrong to vote overwhelmingly in favour of pro-democracy candidates in the district council election last weekend. They should have voted in favour of the pro-government candidates of course – can’t they see that this is the only way they will get the civil and political rights, the democracy and the high degree of autonomy they were promised under the Basic Law? The message here seems to be that only if you vote the way you are expected to will you...

US legislation that paves the way for diplomatic action and sanctions against Hong Kong could potentially threaten the city’s exchange rate peg and long-term status as a financial centre, analysts said. The Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act, which was signed into law last month by US President Donald Trump, increases scrutiny of Hong Kong’s economic and political systems, and its passage comes during a time of unprecedented unrest in the city. Among other mandates, it allows the US State Department to suspend Hong Kong’s special trading status based on whether the city retains a sufficient level of autonomy...

ROME – As protests continue in Hong Kong, throwing the city’s future as an autonomous democracy within China into question, Catholics appear split about what exactly their role is in the situation, and just how political they ought to be. Protests in Hong Kong erupted in June when Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor, former Chief Executive of the city, issued a bill granting mainland China extradition rights over any Hong Kong resident, including tourists and foreign nationals. Facing fierce backlash over the move, Lam – a practicing Catholic – suspended the bill, but she did not immediately meet protesters’ demands to...

The Chinese communist regime is heading towards disintegration and the West needs to be prepared to manage the fallout, according to a leading China scholar. Arthur Waldron, China historian and Lauder Professor of International Relations in the Department of History at the University of Pennsylvania, made the remarks in a recent interview on The Epoch TimesÂ’ American Thought Leaders. He shared his views on the Chinese Communist PartyÂ’s (CCP) imminent collapse, U.S. foreign policy on China, and the relentless Hong Kong protests that have posed a major challenge to BeijingÂ’s rule. CCPÂ’s Disintegration The CCP has started on a path...

Since Hong Kong’s anti-government demonstrations began in June, the pro-democracy movement has been pleading for international support. And the recent confirmation of China’s systematic internment of Muslim Uighurs in the country’s western Xinjiang province has strengthened international calls for action against China’s human rights abuses. Now, human rights advocates and some German politicians are calling for German Chancellor Angela Merkel to take a stronger stance on human rights issues in China. […] However, during six months of unrest in Hong Kong, and the ongoing reports of minority oppression in Xinjiang, Chancellor Merkel has been careful not to explicitly support the...

China is making swift progress on its 200 billion yuan (US$29.08 billion) fund aimed at investing in home-grown semiconductor development, as the world’s second-largest economy looks to reduce dependence on foreign chips amid a tech war with the US. New investment is likely to lean towards applications in the downstream supply chain, such as chip design, advanced materials and equipment areas, according to the report. The fundraising progress comes amid an escalating tech war with the US, which has seen China tone down statements on its wider “Made in China 2025” policy ambitions, after President Xi Jinping first called for...

On November 22, in a long interview with Fox News, President Donald Trump claimed credit for keeping Chinese forces at bay in Hong Kong. He said that he warned President Xi Jinping that if there was a violent crackdown against the pro-democracy demonstrators, it would have a negative impact on trade talks. China is losing the "trade war" with the U.S. It is vulnerable because it needs exports to keep its factories open and imports of technology, food and capital to expand its capabilities. Critics derided Trump's claim, but the logic is unimpeachable. There is nothing in Xi's background...

Fully supported by President Donald Trump and Republicans and Democrats, the United States has finally condemned the treatment of the Uyghurs as leaked documents some time back gave a glimpse into the horrors taking place against them. What kind of monsters engage in organ harvesting upon sedated victims on an industrial scale? If some were terrorists you don't defeat evil by becoming evil. And it appears this may be more about confiscation of land and ultimately doing the same to dissidents in Hong Kong and Christians.

... According to an account of the Banqiao Dam by a Chinese journalist writing under the pseudonym Yi Si, on Aug. 8, as workers stared curiously at the retreating water level of the reservoir, a voice in the dark called out: “The River Dragon has come!” And suddenly the dam ruptured, unleashing 600 billion liters of water and destroying an entire village. By Aug. 17, reports Si, 1.1 million people remained trapped by flooding with 50 to 60 percent of food air-dropped into the area floating in the murky waters. It would take weeks for the waters to drain, revealing...

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said on Wednesday that Turkey had dropped its block on a plan to bolster the defences of Baltic states and Poland against Russia. He told a news conference after an alliance summit outside London that NATO leaders did not discuss the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia, which Turkey views as a terrorist organisation. Ahead of the summit, Ankara had refused to back the NATO defence plan for the Baltics and Poland until it received more support for its battle with the YPG, including other alliance members recognising it as a terrorist group. In a final press conference...

Three years ago, Donald Trump began a rhetorical offensive targeting the governments of NATO nations that chronically failed to meet their allied defense financial commitments. With bombastic huff, Trump intimated that allies pay their share or America might walk. It's 2019. Few NATO members currently meet the 2% GDP defense commitment. However, several once-laggard NATO nations have increased military spending, and the alliance is stronger for it. The era of blithe freeloading has ended. Cheapskates like Germany pay a price in lost prestige. America not only hasn't walked; it is modernizing its forces. Earlier this year, President Trump began grousing...

President Trump’s comment that he had no deadline on a China deal has predictably thrown markets into a tizzy, as the self-imposed deadline of Dec. 15 for additional tariffs is now less than two weeks away. The market is now grappling with the likelihood of no trade deal, but the critical issue is tariffs. I asked UBS Art Cashin if traders would be satisfied with 1) no new tariffs on Dec. 15, 2) keeping additional tariffs, and 3) no deal going into the new year. (Please see link for full article)