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..US Navy having problems...lack of dry dock space...repair...USS Boxer... University of Southern California cancelling outside speakers and honorees at its main graduation... A Ukrainian drone attack killing two... In the Solomon Islands in the South Pacific the vote count... North Korea claiming new weapons tests... Tonight an Israeli air strike on an Iraqi base... trial involving President Donald Trump four alternate jurors are now selected...outside the court a man set himself on fire... US is withdrawing troops in the African nation of Niger.. commander of the air force in the African nation of Chad demanding the shutdown of a US...

An ultra-rare gigantic rat so big that it puts New York City's subway-dwelling rodents to shame has been caught on camera for the first time. Uromys vika, a giant rat known for being "one of the world's rarest rodents" according to the University of Melbourne, is found in just one isolated spot throughout the world – the island of Vangunu in the Solomon Islands. The species was only first identified by a single animal discovered in 2017, but recently, university researchers said that after placing out glass oil lamps filled with sesame oil, they captured 95 images of four different...

BEIJING, July 10 (Reuters) - China and the Solomon Islands on Monday signed a deal on police cooperation as part of an upgrade of their relations to a "comprehensive strategic partnership", four years after the Pacific nation switched ties from Taiwan to China. The police cooperation pact was among nine deals signed after Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare met with Chinese Premier Li Qiang in Beijing, underlining his nation's foreign policy shift. Sogavare arrived in China on Sunday for his first visit since the two countries struck a security pact last year, to the alarm of the United States...

Battle of the Coral Sea, (May 4–8, 1942) World War II naval and air engagement in which a U.S. fleet turned back a Japanese invasion force that had been heading for strategic Port Moresby in New Guinea. By the end of April 1942 the Japanese were ready to seize control of the Coral Sea (between Australia and New Caledonia) by establishing air bases at Port Moresby in southeastern New Guinea and at Tulagi in the southern Solomons. But Allied intelligence learned of the Japanese plan to seize Port Moresby and alerted all available sea and air power. When the Japanese...

The Pentagon is saying there is a second Chinese spy balloon this one is over Latin America... 13 people have died as wildfires rage in south-central Chile... The Brazilian navy scuttling a decommissioned aircraft carrier in the Atlantic Ocean despite concerns over environmental damage... Elon Musk cleared in a civil trial... An American killed in the battle for the city of Bakhmut (Artyomovsk)... In Lethbridge, Alberta Canada the second day of the trial of Pastor Artur Pawlowski... Also in Canada some adjustments to a proposed gun control law... With the annual inflation rate measured by consumer prices at 95 percent...

The United States and the Philippines have agreed to restart joint patrols in the South China Sea as the longtime allies seek to counter China's military rise, a US Defense Department statement said. The two countries had suspended maritime patrols in the hotly contested area under the rule of former president Rodrigo Duterte. During a visit to Manila by US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, he and Philippine counterpart Carlito Galvez "agreed to restart joint maritime patrols in the South China Sea to help address (security) challenges", the statement said on Thursday (Feb 2).

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...

China sent 39 aircraft and three warships on military drills toward Taiwan on Thursday in a show of force against the self-governing democratic island nation. Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense said officials detected the aircraft and vessels around 6 a.m. and were closely monitoring the military drills. Thirty of the Chinese aircraft crossed over the median line of the Taiwan Strait, the ministry added in a Twitter post. The People’s Liberation Army (PLA), the name for China’s forces, sent various warplanes in a southwest direction toward the southeastern region of the island before doubling back. The PLA has recently conducted...

Chinese police kicked and beat a BBC journalist while detaining him for covering the biggest uprising there since the Tiananmen Square protests more than three decades ago. The British national broadcaster said it was “extremely concerned about the treatment” of Ed Lawrence, whose violent arrest in Shanghai was captured in disturbing videos shared online. “During his arrest, he was beaten and kicked by the police,” the BBC said of Lawrence, adding he was then “held for several hours before being released.” Lawrence himself noted a Swiss journalist was briefly detained and “at least one local national was arrested after trying...

NEW YORK – What if they had a tech war and nobody came? This updated version of a meme from the 1960s Vietnam War protests may well apply to America’s most drastic trade restrictions against a rival since the Cold War. The world’s top player in semiconductor technology, Holland’s ASML, has opposed high-profile US demands to stop selling its machines to China, and there’s no indication the Dutch government is ready to yield to Washington. Indeed some media reports have interpreted a statement by the Dutch trade minister as a rejection. ASML makes the world’s best lithography machines, and has...

China Turns Its Fighters Into UAVs; Could Swarm Taiwan From Five ‘Hardened’ Forward Airfields – Reports EXPERT REVIEWS By Parth Satam November 22, 2022 A report by the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies (MIAS) identifies five forward airfields China could use to launch Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicle (UCAV) swarms against Taiwan. Legacy aircraft converted into drones (J-6, J-7, J-8) have been concluded to be pressed in as a part of the initial wave of attacks to soften Taiwanese air defenses. These highly developed and defended airfields with hardened airfields can then be taken over by People’s Liberation Army Air Force...

Vice President Kamala Harris said during her first official visit to the Philippines on Monday the United States will honor a 1951 bilateral defense treaty and defend Filipino ships against Chinese aggression in the South China Sea. The issue is pertinent because the Philippines on Monday accused China of using force to retrieve debris from a rocket near the contested Spratly Islands.

THE Philippines has rejected outright the recommendation of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) to legalize same-sex marriage, as well as to allow abortion and divorce. Justice Secretary Jesus Crispin Remulla said such recommendations of other UN member-states during last week's Universal Periodic Review (UPR) in Geneva are "not acceptable." "It's a matter of policy whether we accept it or not and I think we know as a country, we are not ready for that," Remulla said in a press briefing on Monday. poster "Culturally, our values may conflict with many of the values that they (Western countries) want...

President Joe Biden just gave his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, a propaganda victory. The two met Monday on the sidelines of the Group of 20 summit in Bali, Indonesia, their first in-person meeting of Biden’s presidency. While it’s positive that the two leaders are communicating, the optics of the meeting might have done more harm than good. If Biden wants to set the U.S.-China relationship on a more favorable track, he must engage Beijing from a position of strength. That’s not what happened Monday. The timing of the summit couldn’t have been worse. Xi arrived in Bali fresh from the...

This year marks the 50th anniversary of president Richard Nixon’s historic trip to China. This trip is widely recognized as the moment China entered the world stage. There is a common belief among global affairs savants that Nixon made a grave mistake. In reality, however, his logic was sound, and his international policies should still serve as a guiding light. It is undeniable that China is participating in genocide and atrocities on a scale not seen in decades. China is systematically removing and erasing its Uighur population, killing dissidents, and pushing for a monolithic nation that includes Taiwan. Blaming this...

President Biden said Monday that ​he does not foresee an “imminent attempt” by China to invade Taiwan after he met for roughly three hours with Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Indonesia. ​ Speaking to reporters after his first face-to-face meeting with Xi since becoming president, Biden shrugged off a question about whether Beijing and Washington were engaged in a new Cold War and said he made it clear in the discussion between the two leaders about where the US stands on self-governing Taiwan. ​”I do not think there’s any imminent attempt on the...

President Joe Biden tried to downplay any new tensions with China on Monday, after meeting with Chinese dictator Xi Jinping. “I absolutely believe there need not be a new Cold War,” he told reporters during a press conference after the three-and-a-half-hour meeting in Bali, Indonesia. Biden repeated that the United States policy in Taiwan had not changed at all, despite recent comments indicating otherwise. But he also downplayed any fears that China would move to take over the island.

The slow creep of China's reach into Western society is creepier than most Americans can even imagine. The comforting belief that democratic freedoms have history on their side and will eventually prevail everywhere has always been tinged with wishful thinking. World events of the past two or three decades have shown that we can no longer take these things for granted. Universal human rights, democratic practice and the rule of law have powerful enemies, and China under the Chinese Communist Party is arguably the most formidable.It is with these words — direct, forceful, and ominous — that Clive Hamilton and...

Leftist American President Joe Biden struck a conciliatory tone in his public remarks alongside genocidal communist dictator Xi Jinping of China on Monday, suggesting China and America should work together on “climate changes” and “food insecurity” but not addressing human rights. Talks between the two leaders are currently underway in Bali, Indonesia, where this year’s G20 summit is expected to begin on Tuesday. The governments involved have not released any specific agenda for their conversation and Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post reported that the White House had denied that Xi and Biden would release a joint statement after their...

President Joe Biden met Chinese dictator Xi Jinping on Monday in Bali, Indonesia, for their first in-person meeting in five years. Biden noted at the beginning of the meeting he spent a long time with Xi when they were vice presidents but had not seen him in person in a while. “I believe there’s little substitute, though, for to face-to-face discussions,” Biden said, recalling their “candid” relationship with each other.