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Late tonight Israel launching air strikes into Syria... Israel's Credit Outlook lowered from "stable" to "negative"... Finnish investigators say the anchor of a Chinese container ship became dislodged damaging a natural gas pipeline... Russian Aerospace Forces in Syria striking targets of terrorist groups in the northwestern Idlib Region... The Pentagon now says that two dozen US military personnel were hurt in drone attacks on American bases in Iraq and Syria... Today a Russian SU-27 fighter intercepted a US spy drone approaching Russia in the Black Sea... The United Auto Workers expanding their strike against automakers to include a General Motors...

After the latest round of Chinese attacks on America, Jake Sullivan, Biden’s national security adviser, met with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Malta. The two men could not be more different. Wang Yi, one of the public faces of Chinese’s hyper-aggressive style of ‘wolf warrior diplomacy’, is a 69-year-old member of China’s Communist politburo while Sullivan was a Hillary Clinton hanger-on who got lucky enough to be advising Biden on foreign policy after Hillary left. While Wang Yi made his name by aggressively barraging enemy nations, Sullivan made his through appeasement most notably on Iran. After his shameful record...

Last Monday I pointed out that China’s foreign minister Qin Gang had suddenly vanished and hadn’t been seen in three weeks. Officially, he was said to be ill but unofficially there rumors that he’d done something potentially embarrassing to the party. Today, Qin was officially removed from his post and replaced, once again suggesting that whatever led to his disappearance was seen as a career-ending mistake.Mr. Qin was abruptly removed as foreign minister on Tuesday after having disappeared from public view for 30 days. The move ended the career of a diplomat who had leaped to the top as one...

Director of the Office of the Foreign Affairs Commission of the Communist Party of China's Central Committee said China will "together with all like-minded partners further promote the development of the international order in the direction of equitable development" MOSCOW, February 21./TASS/. The People's Republic of China is ready to join forces with Russia to decisively stand up for national interests and promote mutually beneficial cooperation in all areas, Wang Yi, director of the Office of the Foreign Affairs Commission of the Communist Party of China's Central Committee, said on Tuesday as he met with Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolay...

After claiming its spy balloon was a harmless weather balloon and angrily condemning the Biden administration for shooting the balloon down (after it crossed the continental U.S.), the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is now not only demanding that the U.S. take all the blame for the incident but also that the U.S. abandon its unofficial ally Taiwan. As usual, the genocidal CCP is uninhibited by any interest in truth or justice.CCP state propaganda outlet Xinhua News published a statement from a Chinese Foreign Ministry (FM) spokesman on Feb. 19. The spokesman said that China acceded to a U.S. request and...

TOKYO -- Chinese President Xi Jinping's expected meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken next week signals his desire to stabilize relations with Washington as he faces economic headwinds at home. The planned reception, first reported by the Financial Times and confirmed by U.S. sources, will likely set the tone for China's new foreign policy team -- top diplomat Wang Yi and Foreign Minister Qin Gang -- as they put together their diplomacy playbook. "If President Xi meets Secretary Blinken, it will reinforce to the Chinese government that he is personally engaged in steering the relationship and that any...

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken probably thought that in his self-appointed role as the world’s policeman, it was his prerogative to check out what is going on among Germany, China and Russia that he wasn’t privy to. However, Blinken’s call to Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Friday (December 23) turned out to be a fiasco. Most certainly, his intention was to gather details on two high-level exchanges that Chinese President Xi Jinping had on successive days last week – with German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier and the chairman of the United Russia Party and former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev...

China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi made an unannounced surprise visit to Afghanistan Thursday, where he held talks in Kabul with Acting Deputy Prime Minister of the Afghan Interim Government Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar and Acting Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi. The visit comes seven months after the U.S. withdrew from Afghanistan, leaving behind a power vacuum that China is waiting to fill. China is especially interested in Afghanistan’s mineral wealth, which includes gold, precious stones, coal, oil and gas, lithium, copper and rare-earth minerals. China is not the only power taking advantage of the power vacuum that the U.S. withdrawal...

Just as Ethiopian government forces appear to have turned the tide in the country’s so-called civil war, the Biden administration is pushing for US citizens in Ethiopia to leave and is providing relocation assistance to those who can’t afford to buy a plane ticket. Meanwhile, China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi has visited Addis Ababa and has made it clear that China backs Ethiopia’s government fully. This, in contrast to the United States which has imposed sanctions on Ethiopia, but not on the rebellious Tigray. As Bloomberg reports: The US last month suspended duty-free access to its exports “because of gross...

A Chinese businessman on Wednesday was sentenced to two years in prison for illegally exporting marine technology with uses in anti-submarine warfare from the US for the benefit of a Chinese military university. Qin Shuren (覃樹人), who founded a company that sold oceanographic instruments, was sentenced by US District Judge Denise Casper in Boston after admitting he illegally exported devices called hydrophones that can be used to monitor sound underwater. Prosecutors had sought seven-and-a-half years in prison for Qin, who was also fined US$20,000. His guilty plea was conditional, allowing him to appeal a ruling by Casper not to suppress...

Chinese state-run Global Times media outlet published an op-ed from its editorial board on Wednesday vowing that China’s military will soon confront the U.S. in a hostile exchange. “The US will definitely see the PLA show up at its doorstep in the not-too-distant future,” the op-ed said. “The two sides’ warships and aircraft on the seas will carry huge mutual strategic hostility, and the two countries will not yield to each other.” “Once the situation gets out of control and triggers military clash between China and the US, we must give full play to our home field advantage. China will...

The Chinese regime’s recent show of military strength in Tibet was an attempt to intimidate neighboring India amid heightened tensions, according to two former high-ranking military officers. But New Delhi remains confident it is a formidable opponent to Beijing, they said.At the end of August, large-scale joint exercises were conducted by the People Liberation Army’s (PLA) Tibet Military Command (TMC). At least 10 brigades and regiments affiliated with the PLA took part in the exercises near India’s northeastern border. The exercises were akin to last month’s naval and air force assault drills carried out by the PLA near Taiwan’s southern...

Twelve years ago in autumn, the Year of the Ox according to the traditional Chinese horoscope and a year after the massive 2008 financial crisis, then-US president Barack Obama went to Beijing to propose a megadeal to China. It was a pact about the environment that could include technology transfer from the US to China. The pact didn’t gain traction in China and was finally scuttled at the climate conference in Copenhagen that December. Last week, again in the Year of the Ox, US Special Envoy for Climate John Kerry went to Tianjin to broach the environmental issue with the...

China's foreign minister Wang Yi said the United States and its allies have more of a duty to supply economic and humanitarian aid to Afghanistan than any other country, according to a statement from the foreign ministry on Wednesday. They should help Afghanistan's positive development while respecting its sovereignty and independence, he said. Wang said China would provide 200 million yuan ($31 million) worth of grain, winter supplies, vaccines and medicine to Afghanistan, adding that it had already decided to donate an initial batch of 3 million COVID-19 vaccine doses to the Afghan people.

We now know the name of the Chinese defector who has been working with the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) for a few months and what his position within the Chinese military and government was, among other details.Matthew Brazil and Jeff Stein at Spy Talk reported on the “rumor,” and gave the name and background of the rumored defector:Chinese-language anti-communist media and Twitter are abuzz this week with rumors that a vice minister of State Security, Dong Jingwei (董经纬) defected in mid-February, flying from Hong Kong to the United States with his daughter, Dong Yang.Dong is, or was, a longtime official...

The withdrawals are part of an attempt by the administration to further reduce the US's presence in the Middle East, according to the report. The US has removed at least three Patriot antimissile batteries from the Gulf region, despite recent waves of Houthi drone and missile strikes against targets in Saudi Arabia, as part of a move to shift military capabilities from the Middle East, The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday. "I am -- am not going to get into specific capabilities that are in specific places, and for how long they will be. I -- I think I...

Persian-language thriller running on Iran’s state television accused of blurring lines between fiction, realityA popular television series, purportedly based on real-life stories, has stirred controversy in Iran after the country’s top diplomat slammed it as a “complete lie.” The rebuke came after an episode aired last week was reportedly censored following the intervention of a senior government official, according to local media reports. Gando, named after a rare species of crocodiles found in the country’s southeast, features Iranian intelligence sleuths and foreign spies as main protagonists in different episodes – stories that the makers claim are based on true incidents....

Considering the list of human rights atrocities China has committed, namely the current genocide against the Muslim Uyghurs minorities, it was maddening to hear that they dared to lecture the United States in our handling of race and human rights in what was just a preview to the main event between Chinese and United States top officials. Remarks included: On human rights, we hope that the United States will do better on human rights. China has made steady progress in human rights, and the fact is that there are many problems within the United States regarding human rights, which is...

966 deaths are reported in the United States following COVID-19 vaccination... Mask burning protests across Idaho this weekend... Some 15-thousand demonstrators on the streets of Vienna, Austria Saturday to protest coronavirus controls... The President of the South American nation of Paraguay asking for resignations from all his cabinet... A strict lockdown ordered in the French South Pacific territory of New Caledonia... From Canada the story of coronavirus hotels places where travelers are forced to stay... An official fron the poltical party of the former democratic leader in Myanmar, Aung San Suu Kyi, is dead after being arrested by law enforcement......

There were no champagne corks popping, no crystal balls dropping in Wang Yi's new year. The pastor of Early Rain Covenant Church was in prison, spending his second January 1st in a dark cell, charged with a crime Americans commit every day: worshipping Jesus. The actual allegations were much more subtle -- things like "illegal business activities" or "inciting subversion of state power." But in China, government officials need no excuse. Christians, like Uyghurs, Falun Gong, and any other men and women of faith, are fair game. "Where are you taking my husband?" a woman pleads on a cell phone...