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"Chinese media outlets this week shared a new geographic map from China's state-owned standard map service that shows Russian territory as part of China. "The map, which is said to have been approved by Beijing and was released by China's Ministry of Natural Resources, comes as Western observers have speculated that the relationship between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping has become strained. "Shortly before Putin launched his invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, he and Xi signed a "no limits" partnership agreement, but Chinese officials have since publicly called for a peaceful resolution to the war....

Central Asian countries are attempting to curb Russian recruiting of their citizens for its war in Ukraine, while Moscow seeks to avoid stirring public discontent with another large wave of domestic mobilization. So far this year, Kyrgyzstan has sentenced one citizen to 10 years in prison and detained another for allegedly serving as mercenaries. In Kazakhstan at the end of July, a prosecutor's office in a region bordering Russia warned citizens about the proliferation of online ads urging them to join the war, noting stiff legal penalties for doing so. This came a few months after Kazakhstan's National Security Committee...

Asserting that the country’s foreign policy should always be based on reciprocity, former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Omar Abdullah said on Monday if China does not accept “one India” policy, New Delhi should reconsider support to Beijing’s ‘One China’ policy. Asking why China should have a problem with any meeting in Jammu and Kashmir or any other part of India, the National Conference Vice President said if China continues with this stance, India should also raise questions on Tibet, Taiwan and Hong Kong. “I think it’s extremely unfortunate that the government of India keeps repeating its (adherence to )...

Chinese property developer Evergrande defaulted in 2021 and recently filed for bankruptcy protection in the United States. But it wasn’t until today that the company’s stock resumed trading after 17 months of absence from the Hong Kong stock exchange. The results were about what you’d expect.Shares of the world’s most indebted property developer plunged as much as 87% on its open on Monday, trading for the first time since March 21, 2022.Shares fell to as low as 22 Hong Kong cents on Monday, compared to its last close at 1.65 Hong Kong dollars per share on March 18, 2022.The resumption...

Highlights: French President Emmanuel Macron said on Monday that the expansion of the BRICS group signals the intention to build a new world order. . French President Emmanuel Macron said on Monday that the expansion of the BRICS group signals the intention to build a new world order.Macron said in a speech at the annual conference of ambassadors of the Republic at the Elysee Palace: "The expansion of the BRICS indicates the intention to build an alternative world order, which is seen as too Western.Macron explained that this creates the risk of "fragmentation of the world" that must be avoided,...

Are the BRICS a threat to the U.S.?The summit of the so-called BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) has closed with an invitation to join the group extended to the Emirates, Egypt, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Argentina, and Ethiopia.The summit has generated a lot of headlines about the impact of this widespread group of nations, including speculation about the end of the U.S. dollar as a global reserve currency if this group is perceived as a threat to the United States or even the International Monetary Fund.Several things need to be clarified.Many political analysts believe that China lends, invests,...

The House of Representatives on Thursday unanimously voted to condemn China’s incursion into American airspace AFTER REPUBLICANS SCRAPPED language criticizing the Biden administration’s response.

WASHINGTON — The House on Thursday unanimously passed a resolution condemning China’s use of the surveillance balloon over the United States, calling it a “brazen violation of United States sovereignty.” The resolution, which passed 419-0, also calls on the Biden administration to continue to keep Congress informed on the incident. The vote comes after the full House received a classified briefing on the balloon issue, with senators expected to receive a briefing as well. A senior State Department official said earlier Thursday that the Chinese balloon that flew above the U.S. for eight days included “multiple antennas” capable of collecting...

Hopefully, the Chinese spy balloon incident will become a turning point, a wake-up call for a divided nation.The sight of a Chinese spy balloon last week has forced many Americans to confront the security threat the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) poses to America’s homeland. Unfortunately, the CCP possesses something far scarier and deadlier than balloons: a rapidly growing stockpile of nuclear weapons. Measured by the number of nuclear warheads, China has at least 350 as of June 2022, far less than Russia’s 5,977 and the United States’ 5,428. Still, the speed at which China is building up its nuclear arsenal...

A senior State Department official with the Biden administration to CNN that the Chinese surveillance balloon, which was shot down by an F-22 Raptor on Saturday, was operating with electronic surveillance technology capable of ‘monitoring’ US communications. The balloon “was capable of conducting signals intelligence collection operations” and was part of a fleet that had flown over “more than 40 countries across five continents.”

1:27 During a portion of an interview with CBS News National Security Correspondent David Martin released on Wednesday, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin stated that in response to the Chinese spy balloon that flew over the country last week, the United States ensured that its nuclear bases “were buttoned down” and that “movement was limited and communications were limited so that we didn’t expose any capability unnecessarily.” Austin also stated that the buttoning down applied to nuclear bases all across the United States. Martin asked, “You don’t know what it was looking for, but you certainly know what you were...

The truth about the recent Armenian/Azerbaijani war. Raymond Ibrahim is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center Although the recent conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan has been presented as a “territorial dispute,” something else—namely religious animosity, or that old Islamic hate for infidels—has permeated it. For example, several reports and testimonials, including by an independent French journalist, confirmed that Turkey was funneling jihadi/terrorist groups that had been operating in Syria and Libya—including the pro-Muslim Brotherhood Hamza Division, which kept naked, sex slave women in prison—to terrorize the Armenians. Similarly, Armenian churches that have come under Azerbaijani control have...

The new Czech head of state, who is due to take office on March 9, has clearly indicated that the era of outgoing President Miloš Zeman’s pro-Chinese policy is well and truly over. Just hours after winning the presidential elections, he was on the phone to President Zelensky to assure him about continued Czech support in the war against Russia and on Monday he raised the ire of China by holding a telephone conversation with the president of Taiwan, despite the fact that the China-claimed island has no formal relations with Prague. “Today, I spoke with the president of Taiwan...

The Russian navy is set to participate alongside the Chinese and South African navies in exercises set for February off South Africa, Russia’s state TASS has announced. Importantly, the Russian frigate named ‘Admiral of the Fleet of the Soviet Union Gorshkov’ is armed with hypersonic cruise missiles, after it entered deployment in the Atlantic Ocean three weeks ago. The frigate Admiral of the Fleet of the Soviet Union Gorshkov, via TASS. The Zircon hyperonics it is carrying are believed to be able to fly at nine times the speed of sound, with a range of over 620 miles. The ship...

The last time China is believed to have recorded a population decline was during the Great Leap Forward at the end of the 1950s, Mao Zedong’s disastrous drive for collective farming and industrialization that produced a massive famine killing tens of millions of people. Also Tuesday, the bureau released data showing China’s economic growth fell to its second-lowest level in at least four decades last year under pressure from anti-virus controls and a real estate slump. The world’s No. 2 economy grew by 3% in 2022, less than half of the previous year’s 8.1%, the data showed.

Jan. 16 (UPI) -- China's population has declined for the first time in six decades, as the world's second-largest economy announced Tuesday that more people died last year than were born. China reported a record low rate of 9.56 million births in 2022, which was a decrease of 850,000, or 10%, from 2021, according to the National Bureau of Statistics. There were 10.41 million deaths last year, marking the first time China's population has declined since 1961 after a three-year famine killed tens of millions of people. Tuesday's numbers were part of Chinese President Xi Jinping's economic report for 2022....

"Israel should stop all incitement and provocation and avoid any unilateral actions that might lead to aggravation of the situation," the Chinese diplomat said at a joint press briefing on Sunday with Egyptian counterpart Sameh Shoukry. Qin also called for "maintaining the status quo" at Jerusalem's most important holy site - after an ultranationalist Israeli cabinet minister visited the site known to Jews as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary - or the Al-Aqsa Mosque - Islam's third holiest shrine. The visit by Itamir Ben-Gvir, Israel's national security minister, was seen by Palestinians as a provocation...

While turning a blind eye to the starving Afghan population, on Jan. 4, a Taliban senior leader professed the group has an "obligation" to protect Chinese nationals looking to invest in the country’s mineral and oil wealth. The comment comes on the heels of a December attack that targeted Chinese investors who frequent Kabul’s Longan Hotel. The Islamic State – Khorasan Province, ISIS-K, claimed responsibility for the assault. On Jan. 5, the Taliban announced it had killed eight ISIS-K members, including those responsible for the hotel attack. The following day, China’s Xinjiang Central Asia Petroleum and Gas signed a significant...

Things may be heating up in Taiwan as the Ministry of Defense is expressing concerns about over a dozen Chinese military aircraft and naval vessels that approached near Taiwan early on Saturday morning, according to a report from Fox News.That prompted the island defense to put fighter jets in the air and activate its missile defense system.“11 PLA aircraft and 3 PLAN vessels around Taiwan were detected by 6 a.m. today,” its government said, prompting officials to send naval vessels of their own and ready land-based missile systems “to respond to these activities.”The PLA also had forces near Taiwan on...

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko on Friday gave a stern message to other former Soviet Union nations keeping their distance from Russia following its invasion of Ukraine. "The countries of the post-Soviet space should be sincerely interested in rapprochement with the union state, if, of course, they want to preserve their sovereignty and independence," Lukashenko said, according to an English translation of a report from the Belarusian state-run BelTA news agency. "We are convinced that only together can we resist global challenges." Lukashenko was meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday in Grodno, Belarus, as part of the ninth Forum...