CNN — With a grandiose diplomatic flourish China brokered a rapprochement between Saudi Arabia and Iran, in the process upending US calculus in the Gulf and beyond. While the United States has angered its Gulf allies by apparently dithering over morality, curbing arms supplies and chilling relations, Saudi Arabia’s King-in-waiting Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, […]
Canberra, Australia CNN — More than a year after the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia dropped the tightly held news they were combining submarine forces, the trio released more details Monday of their ambitious plan to counter China’s rapid military expansion. Under the multi-decade AUKUS deal, the partners will build a combined fleet […]
San Diego CNN — President Joe Biden will be flanked on Monday by a 377-foot submarine – the USS Missouri – as he announces an accelerated timeline for Australia to receive its own nuclear-powered submarines early next decade. But looming much larger will be the increasingly tense US relationship with China, which has emerged as […]
CNN — China’s leader Xi Jinping on Monday vowed to bolster national security and build the military into a “great wall of steel,” in the first speech of his precedent-breaking third term as president. Speaking at the closing of the annual meeting of China’s rubber-stamp parliament, Xi underscored the need to comprehensively modernize national defense […]
CNN — The US transferred an alleged al Qaeda bomb maker from Guantanamo Bay to Saudi Arabia, the Defense Department announced Wednesday, part of the Biden administration’s ongoing efforts to close the prison facility. Ghassan Al Sharbi, a 48-year-old Saudi native who has been held in detention at Guantanamo Bay for 20 years, was sent […]
Washington CNN — The Biden administration took action Wednesday against several Iranian officials and entities for committing human rights abuses against women and girls in the latest round of sanctions against Tehran over its crackdown on unrest in the country. As the world marked International Women’s Day, Wednesday’s actions include sanctions against two senior officials […]
Hong Kong CNN — Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Belarusian counterpart Alexander Lukashenko – a close ally of Vladimir Putin – vowed to deepen defense and security ties and expressed shared views on the war in Ukraine during a Wednesday meeting in Beijing, as geopolitical tensions around Russia’s war continue to rise. Lukashenko endorsed China’s […]
CNN — Between North and South Korea lies the demilitarized zone (DMZ), one of the world’s most heavily armed borders. The 160-mile stretch is barred with fences and landmines and is largely empty of human activity. But that isolation has inadvertently turned the area into a haven for wildlife. Google released street view images of […]
Seoul/Tokyo CNN — North Korea launched two ballistic missiles into waters off the east coast of the Korean Peninsula early Monday, and leader Kim Jong Un’s sister warned of more to come unless the United States halts military drills with South Korea. Kim Yo Jong, one of the country’s top officials, said “the frequency of […]
Washington CNN — Secretary of State Antony Blinken has made clear that the US has no doubt China was seeking to surveil the US via the balloon that was ultimately shot down off the coast of South Carolina earlier this month. “I can’t say dispositively what the original intent was, but that doesn’t matter because […]
