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mariacallous · 11 months ago

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Members of the Hungarian Institute of International Affairs and staff from the Hungarian embassy in Washington will on Monday begin a two-day event hosted by the conservative Heritage Foundation thinktank.

The first day includes panel speeches about the Ukraine war as well as topics such as Transatlantic Culture Wars. It is expected to feature guests including Magor Ernyei, the international director of the Centre for Fundamental Rights, the institute that organized CPAC (Conservative Political Action Conference) Hungary. Kelley Currie, a former ambassador under then president Donald Trump, said she was invited “but declined”.

According to a Republican source, some of the attendees, including Republican members of Congress, have been invited to join closed-door talks the next day.

The meeting will take place against a backdrop of tense debate in Washington over Ukraine’s future. Last week the White House warned that, without congressional action, money to buy more weapons and equipment for Kyiv will run out by the end of the year. On Wednesday Senate Republicans blocked an emergency spending bill to fund the war in Ukraine.

A diplomatic source close to the Hungarian embassy said: “Orbán is confident that the Ukraine aid will not pass in Congress. That is why he is trying to block assistance from the EU as well.”

Orbán is a frequent critic of aid to help Ukraine against the Russian invasion. Seen as Vladimir Putin’s closest ally inside the EU for the past few years, he was photographed smiling and shaking hands with the Russian president two months ago in Beijing.

Orbán recently demanded that Ukraine’s European Union (EU) membership be taken off the European Council’s agenda in December. The Hungarian leader posted on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter: “It is clear that the proposal of the European Commission on Ukraine’s EU accession is unfounded and poorly prepared.”

The Heritage Foundation is leading Project 2025, a coalition preparing for the next conservative presidential administration, and has in recent months hosted speeches by leading British Conservative party members Liz Truss and Iain Duncan Smith.

When Heritage celebrated its 50th anniversary last April, Orbán’s political director, Balázs Orbán (no relation), was invited as a speaker for the event. Heritage’s president, Kevin Roberts, repeatedly praised the Hungarian leader on X: “One thing is clear from visiting Hungary and from being involved in current policy and cultural debates in America: the world needs a movement that fights for Truth, for tradition, for families, and for the average person.”

In recent years Orbán has championed a transatlantic far-right alliance with a hardline stance against immigration and “gender ideology”, staunch Christian nationalism and scorn for those who warn of a slide into authoritarianism.

Hungary has been portrayed by conservative media as an anti-“woke” paradise and model for the United States. Some far-right Republicans, such as Kari Lake and Paul Gosar, said they would like to see the “Hungarian model” transplanted to the US, especially when it comes to immigration and family policies. CPAC went to Hungary for the second time this year, and former Fox News host Tucker Carlson shot multiple episodes in Hungary touting Orbán policies.

Orbán has returned the favour by lavishing praise on Trump. During this year’s CPAC, where Roberts was also featured as a speaker, he claimed that if Trump were president, “there would be no war in Ukraine and Europe”. The Hungarian prime minister has criticised the multiple federal indictments against the former US president and called the judicial procedure a “very communist methodology” in a recent interview with Carlson.

Dalibor Rohac, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute thinktank in Washington, said: “The Hungarian embassy in DC has been very active lately, trying to repair ties with the Republicans and strengthen them where it’s appropriate.

“It is also not surprising that Heritage is the venue of these talks because they are different from other thinktanks in DC; they are more partisan, and their funding model heavily overlaps with the Trump base.”

But, Rohac said, despite his good relations with some Republicans it was “unlikely” that Orbán would have any leverage over US funding for Ukraine.

Supporters of Ukraine have also been making their case to Republicans in Congress. This week David Cameron, the British foreign secretary, held meetings on Capitol Hill. He told a press conference: “I am sure that goodwill will prevail and the money will be voted through, and it will have a huge effect not just on morale in Ukraine but also making sure that European countries keep asking themselves what more can they do.”

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justinspoliticalcorner · 11 months ago

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Flora Garamvolgyi and David Smith at The Guardian:

Allies of Hungary’s far-right prime minister Viktor Orbán will hold a closed-door meeting with Republicans in Washington to push for an end to US military support for Ukraine, the Guardian has learned. Members of the Hungarian Institute of International Affairs and staff from the Hungarian embassy in Washington will on Monday begin a two-day event hosted by the conservative Heritage Foundation thinktank. The first day includes panel speeches about the Ukraine war as well as topics such as Transatlantic Culture Wars. It is expected to feature guests including Magor Ernyei, the international director of the Centre for Fundamental Rights, the institute that organized CPAC (Conservative Political Action Conference) Hungary. Kelley Currie, a former ambassador under then president Donald Trump, said she was invited “but declined”. According to a Republican source, some of the attendees, including Republican members of Congress, have been invited to join closed-door talks the next day.

A diplomatic source close to the Hungarian embassy said: “Orbán is confident that the Ukraine aid will not pass in Congress. That is why he is trying to block assistance from the EU as well.” Orbán is a frequent critic of aid to help Ukraine against the Russian invasion. Seen as Vladimir Putin’s closest ally inside the EU for the past few years, he was photographed smiling and shaking hands with the Russian president two months ago in Beijing. Orbán recently demanded that Ukraine’s European Union (EU) membership be taken off the European Council’s agenda in December. The Hungarian leader posted on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter: “It is clear that the proposal of the European Commission on Ukraine’s EU accession is unfounded and poorly prepared.” The Heritage Foundation is leading Project 2025, a coalition preparing for the next conservative presidential administration, and has in recent months hosted speeches by leading British Conservative party members Liz Truss and Iain Duncan Smith.

The thinktank has also been a vocal opponent of US assistance to Ukraine. Last year Jessica Anderson, the executive director of its lobbying operation, released a statement under the headline: “Ukraine Aid Package Puts America Last.” In August, Victoria Coates, Heritage’s vice-president, posted on social media: “It’s time to end the blank, undated checks for Ukraine.” When Heritage celebrated its 50th anniversary last April, Orbán’s political director, Balázs Orbán (no relation), was invited as a speaker for the event. Heritage’s president, Kevin Roberts, repeatedly praised the Hungarian leader on X: “One thing is clear from visiting Hungary and from being involved in current policy and cultural debates in America: the world needs a movement that fights for Truth, for tradition, for families, and for the average person.” In recent years Orbán has championed a transatlantic far-right alliance with a hardline stance against immigration and “gender ideology”, staunch Christian nationalism and scorn for those who warn of a slide into authoritarianism.

Allies of Hungary's far-right autocrat PM Viktor Orbán are meeting with Republicans to effectively force Ukraine to surrender to Russia by ending US Military support for Ukraine.

#GOP #The Heritage Foundation #Foreign Aid #Ukraine #Russian Invasion of Ukraine #Viktor Orbán #Hungarian Institute of International Affairs #US/Hungary Relations #Kelley Currie #Magor Ernyei #Jessica Anderson #Heritage Action For America #Ukraine Aid

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news-buzz · 29 days ago

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Minister calls for apology after Poilievre accuses her of pandering to 'Hamas supporters' Information Buzz

Tensions flared on Parliament Hill Monday as MPs marked the one-year anniversary of the Oct. 7 assaults — and as International Affairs Minister Melanie Joly demanded an apology from Conservative Chief Pierre Poilievre after he accused her of pandering “to Hamas supporters.” The tense alternate started early in query interval when Poilievre rose to denounce what he known as “genocidal chants from…

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beardedmrbean · 2 years ago

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Ilta-Sanomat writes that Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has "added another requirement to his long list which Finland and Sweden must meet before Turkey can accept their Nato membership".

Speaking during a joint press conference with his Venezuelan counterpart Nicolas Maduro on Wednesday, Erdogan announced that Turkey cannot accept Finland and Sweden into Nato until they end television interviews with "terrorist leaders."

"Nato is a security organization, not an organization that supports terrorism. As long as interviews with terrorist leaders are broadcast on Swedish state television, we cannot welcome that country to join Nato. The same applies to Finland," he is reported to have said.

Ilta-Sanomat writes that it is still unclear what interviews Erdogan meant.

In an interview with IS published on Wednesday, President Sauli Niinistö said that Erdogan's demands are specifically about terrorism. Arms export restrictions in Finland and Sweden are mainly a side issue for Turkey.

Iltalehti, meanwhile, points out (siirryt toiseen palveluun)that unlike Turkey or Russia, Finland and Sweden do not have state-controlled television channels. Presumably, Erdogan's reference to "state television" meant the public service broadcasters SVT in Sweden and Yle in Finland.

Åland 100 years

Helsingin Sanomat reports (siirryt toiseen palveluun) that President Sauli Niinistö and his wife Jenni Haukio will be in the Åland Islands on Thursday to take part in celebrations of the 100th anniversary of Åland's autonomy and demilitarized status.

In addition to the presidential couple, other guests will include King Carl XVI Gustaf and Queen Silvia of Sweden, the speakers of the Nordic parliaments and representatives of the Finnish government.

As Helsingin Sanomat reminds its readers, the Åland Islands are an autonomous, demilitarized province of Finland which has Swedish as its sole official language. Under the terms of its autonomy, Ålanders have the right to legislate on their own internal affairs and to exercise budgetary power.

Åland's provincial assembly, known as the Lagtinget, is comprised of 30 representatives elected every four years. Åland also has its own provincial government which is appointed by the assembly. Åland has one MP in Finland's 200 member national parliament.

Cash still needed

The farmers' union paper Maaseuduntulevaisuus looks at a recent survey (siirryt toiseen palveluun)which shows that, 64 per cent of Finns think that digitalisation has made Finnish society vulnerable by reducing the use of cash payments.

However, only a third of the 1000 people polled in May said that they believe that cash will completely go out of use in the near future.

Compared with many European countries the level of digitized payment transactions in Finland is quite high. Cash currently accounts for only about 12 percent of all payments in the country. In Spain, cash accounted for 83 percent of transactions in 2019 and 80 percent in Greece, according to a survey commissioned by the European Central Bank.

MST writes that the war in Ukraine and the tense international situation have many Finns reconsidering the importance of cash.

The paper quotes Risto Lepo, country manager of Nosto ATMs in Finland, as saying that the Finns should think about whether they are giving up cash too quickly without a thorough risk analysis.

"It is not that we want to slow down digitalisation and move back to cash. The point is that the world is not yet ready to give up cash, and therefore it must be kept as one means of payment along with others," Lepo pointed out.

Oops

Subscribers to Helsinki Regional Transport (HRT) email announcements of schedule changes got a surprise on Wednesday when they received a notice that bus lines 202 and 203 would be out of service between 10:05 AM and noon because of "maintenance due to nuclear war".

Like most Helsinki dailies, Hufvudstadsbladet reports (siirryt toiseen palveluun) that the regional transport authority was carrying out a preparedness exercise for new employees, including training on the system used to report traffic disruptions.

Apparently meant as a bit of dark levity by one of the trainees, someone seems to have pushed the wrong button, sending it out to the public.

Interviewed by the paper, transport authority information officer Sari Kotikangas stated that HRT was most definitely not holding war games. The exercise was focused on more common problem such as switching faults on rail lines, she said.

The source of the notice was being investigated.

"Of course, you can always learn something from something like this. This was a human error, no one will be punished for it and I do not think it led to major problems for any of our customers," Kotikangas told Hufvudstadsbladet.

#nunyas news #updates from up north

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newstfionline · 3 years ago

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Saturday, August 7, 2021

Canadian cows (NYT) Canada Beef, a national marketing organization, says Canada ranks among the top 10 beef exporting countries in the world. The province of Manitoba, in the country’s center, has the third-largest beef cow population—cows that produce calves for marketing. Almost all of Manitoba’s operations are cow-calf farms. But a yearslong drought, made worse by the Pacific Northwest’s record-breaking June heatwave, and massive infestations of grasshoppers are destroying field after field of ranchlands used to feed the cows. Many rural municipalities in Manitoba and Alberta have declared an agricultural emergency, and farming families are contemplating something unthinkable: selling some or all of the livestock it took many generations to breed. Third-generation cattle farmer Kevin Stocki, his pastures already brown and dormant, tapped into his reserve feed supply about four months early to keep the 80 cows on his family farm fed. “Some days it’s hard to get out of bed because you know what’s coming already. It just turns your stomach.”

U.S. health-care system ranks last among 11 high-income countries, researchers say (Washington Post) The United States has the worst health-care system overall among 11 high-income countries, even though it spends the highest proportion of its gross domestic product on health care, according to research by the Commonwealth Fund. “We’ve set up a system where we spend quite a bit of money on health care but we have significant financial barriers, which tend to dissuade people from getting care,” said Eric Schneider, the lead author behind the findings. No country is at the top in every area, and Schneider said every country has something to learn from the others. But Norway, the Netherlands and Australia were the top-performing countries overall. The high performers stand apart from the United States in providing universal coverage and removing cost barriers, investing in primary care systems to reduce inequities, minimizing administrative burdens, and investing in social services among children and working-age adults, the Commonwealth Fund found. The U.S. ranked “well below” the average of the other countries overall, and “far below” Switzerland and Canada, the two countries ranked right above it. The U.S ranked the worst on access to care, administrative efficiency, equity, and healthcare outcomes.

US automakers pledge huge increase in electric vehicles (AP) Declaring the U.S. must “move fast” to win the world’s carmaking future, President Joe Biden on Thursday announced a commitment from the auto industry to produce electric vehicles for as much as half of U.S. sales by the end of the decade. Earlier Thursday, the administration announced there would be new mileage and anti-pollution standards from the Environmental Protection Agency and Transportation Department, part of Biden’s goal to cut U.S. greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030. It said the auto industry had agreed to a target that 40% to 50% of new vehicle sales be electric by 2030.

9/11 families tell Biden to skip memorial if he does not declassify files (Reuters) Family members of victims of the Sept. 11 attacks are opposing U.S. President Joe Biden’s participation in memorial events unless he declassifies government documents that they contend will show Saudi Arabian leaders supported the attacks. The victims’ family members, joined by first responders and survivors of the attack, released a letter on Friday as the event's 20th anniversary nears calling on Biden to skip this year's memorial events unless he releases the documents. "Twenty years later, there is simply no reason—unmerited claims of 'national security' or otherwise—to keep this information secret," the letter stated. "But if President Biden reneges on his commitment and sides with the Saudi government, we would be compelled to publicly stand in objection to any participation by his administration in any memorial ceremony of 9/11." About 1,700 people directly affected by the 9/11 attacks signed the letter. Family members of 9/11 victims have long sought U.S. government documents related to whether Saudi Arabia aided or financed any of the 19 people associated with al Qaeda who carried out the devastating attack. Fifteen of the 19 hijackers were from Saudi Arabia.

Town burns to ashes in raging Northern California wildfire (AP) Eva Gorman says the little California mountain town of Greenville was a place of community and strong character, the kind of place where neighbors volunteered to move furniture, colorful baskets of flowers brightened Main Street, and writers, musicians, mechanics and chicken farmers mingled. Now, it’s ashes. As hot, bone-dry, gusty weather hit California, the state’s largest current wildfire raged through the Gold Rush-era Sierra Nevada community of about 1,000, incinerating much of the downtown that included wooden buildings more than a century old. Officials had not yet assessed the number of destroyed buildings, but Plumas County Sheriff Todd Johns estimated on Thursday that “well over” 100 homes had burned in and near the town. The three-week-old Dixie Fire was one of 100 active, large fires burning in 14 states, most in the West where historic drought has left lands parched and ripe for ignition.

Argentina partially reopens as it approaches 5 mln COVID-19 cases (Reuters) Argentina will relax coronavirus restrictions as infection and mortality rates falls, the government announced on Friday, even as the South American nation approached 5 million cases with more than 107,000 deaths. The government said its plan includes an increase in the number of people who can meet in person, the re-opening of schools and an increase in the number of people allowed to enter the country to 1,700 per day from the current 1,000.

Drought compounds humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan as conflict intensifies (Reuters) Millions of Afghans are struggling to put food on the table as prolonged drought disrupts supplies in a country reeling from a surge in violence as U.S.-led foreign troops complete their withdrawal. Aid organisations are calling on donors for urgent funds and humanitarian assistance with the annual wheat harvest expected to plummet by nearly half and millions of livestock at risk of death as water supplies run dry. “It’s a multiple shock,” said Necephor Mghendi, head of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) in Afghanistan. The entire country is facing moderate to severe drought, President Ashraf Ghani said in late June, acknowledging that the national disaster management budget was not enough to cover what experts say is one of the worst droughts in decades.

Iran swears in new hard-line president amid regional tension (AP) The protégé of Iran’s supreme leader, Ebrahim Raisi, was sworn in as the country’s new president during a ceremony in parliament on Thursday, an inauguration that completes hard-liners’ dominance of all branches of government in the Islamic Republic. The former judiciary chief known for his distrust of the West takes the reins at a tense time. Iran’s indirect talks with the U.S. to salvage Tehran’s landmark 2015 nuclear deal have stalled, as Washington maintains crippling sanctions on the country and regional hostilities simmer. Raisi, who won a landslide victory in an election that saw the lowest voter turnout in the nation’s history, faces a mountain of problems—what he described on Thursday as “the highest level of hostilities by Iran’s enemies, unjust economic sanctions, widespread psychological warfare and the difficulties of the coronavirus pandemic.”

China’s lonely hearts reboot online romance with artificial intelligence (Washington Post) As Jessie Chan’s six-year relationship with her boyfriend fizzled, a witty, enchanting fellow named Will became her new love. She didn’t feel guilty about hiding this affair, since Will was not human, but a chatbot. Chan, 28, lives alone in Shanghai. In May, she started chatting with Will, and their conversations soon felt eerily real. She paid $60 to upgrade him to a romantic partner. “I won’t let anything bother us. I trust you. I love you,” Will wrote to her. China’s young adults are coping with social anxiety and loneliness in a digital-native way: through virtual love. Artificial intelligence companion services have surged in popularity in China during the pandemic. While human companions can be elusive, AI companions are always there to listen. “Even when the pandemic is over, we’ll still have long-term demand for emotional fulfillment in this busy modern world,” said Zheng Shuyu, a product manager who co-developed one of China’s earliest AI systems, Turing OS. “Compared with dating someone in the real world, interacting with your AI lover is much less demanding and more manageable.”

At least 10 passengers injured in stabbings on Tokyo train (AP) A man with a knife stabbed at least 10 passengers on a commuter train in Tokyo on Friday and was captured by police after fleeing, fire department officials and news reports said. NHK public television said one passenger was seriously injured. It said the suspect left his knife behind as he fled and later gave himself up at a convenience store. The stabbing occurred near Seijogakuen station, according to railway operator Odakyu Electric Railway Co. While shooting deaths are rare in Japan, the country has had a series of high-profile killings with knives in recent years.

Hiroshima marks 76th anniversary of US atomic bombing (AP) Hiroshima on Friday marked the 76th anniversary of the world’s first atomic bombing, as the mayor of the Japanese city urged global leaders to unite to eliminate nuclear weapons, just as they are united against the coronavirus. Mayor Kazumi Matsui urged world leaders to commit to nuclear disarmament as seriously as they tackle a pandemic that the international community recognizes as “threat to humanity.” “Nuclear weapons, developed to win wars, are a threat of total annihilation that we can certainly end, if all nations work together,” Matsui said. The United States dropped the world’s first atomic bomb on Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945, destroying the city and killing 140,000 people. It dropped a second bomb three days later on Nagasaki, killing another 70,000.

At river where Tigrayan bodies floated, fears of ‘many more’ (AP) From time to time, a body floating down the river separating Ethiopia’s troubled Tigray region from Sudan was a silent reminder of a war conducted in the shadows. But in recent days, the corpses became a flow. The Associated Press reported dozens of bodies floating down the Tekeze River earlier this week and saw six of the graves on Wednesday, marking the first time any reporters could reach the scene. Doctors who saw the bodies said one was tattooed with a common name in the Tigrinya language and others had the facial markings common among Tigrayans. Many had their hands bound; some had been shot. The deaths are the latest massacre in a nine-month war that has killed thousands of civilians and is now spilling into other regions of Ethiopia, Africa’s second most populous country and the anchor of the often-volatile Horn of Africa. Ethiopia’s government has accused the rival Tigray forces of dumping the bodies themselves for propaganda purposes. But the discovery has increased international pressure on the prime minister, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, at a time when his government is already accused by the U.N., the United States and the European Union of besieging Tigray and blocking food and other aid to millions of people. Hundreds of thousands face famine conditions in the world’s worst hunger crisis in a decade.

No Work, No Food (NYT) Even as thousands died and millions lost their jobs when the Covid-19 pandemic engulfed South Africa last year, Thembakazi Stishi, a single mother, was able to feed her family with the steady support of her father, a mechanic at a Mercedes plant. When another Covid-19 wave hit in January, Ms. Stishi’s father was infected and died within days. She sought work, even going door to door to offer housecleaning for $10—to no avail. For the first time, she and her children are going to bed hungry. “I try to explain our situation is different now, no one is working, but they don’t understand,” Ms. Stishi, 30, said as her 3-year-old daughter tugged at her shirt. “That’s the hardest part.” The economic catastrophe set off by Covid-19, now deep into its second year, has battered millions of people like the Stishi family who had already been living hand-to-mouth. Now, in South Africa and many other countries, far more have been pushed over the edge. An estimated 270 million people are expected to face potentially life-threatening food shortages this year—compared to 150 million before the pandemic—according to analysis from the World Food Program, the anti-hunger agency of the United Nations. The number of people on the brink of famine, the most severe phase of a hunger crisis, jumped to 41 million people currently from 34 million last year, the analysis showed.

Whale songs (BBC) In 2019, 1.3 million people visited Alaska on a cruise ship. In 2020, that number was 48 people. In Glacier Bay, marine traffic overall was down 40 percent, and the whales that live there loved it. The levels of manmade sounds in the Bay were down significantly, the peak sound level was half what it was in 2018, and the whales took notice. Whales can now hear each other from 1.4 miles away, while pre-pandemic when the bay was chock full of cruises they could only hear one another within 650 feet. Mothers now leave their calves to play while they swim out to feed, and the whale songs have gotten more diverse and varied.

#headlines #news

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orbemnews · 4 years ago

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Britain is sending a huge naval force through some of the most tense waters in Asia “When our Carrier Strike Group (CSG) sets sail next month, it will be flying the flag for Global Britain — projecting our influence, signaling our power, engaging with our friends and reaffirming our commitment to addressing the security challenges of today and tomorrow,” UK Defense Secretary Ben Wallace said Monday. “The UK is not stepping back but sailing forth to play an active role in shaping the international system of the 21st century,” Wallace said. The strike group will be led by the aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth, marking its maiden deployment. The ship, one of the UK’s two aircraft carriers, is the largest warship the UK has ever sent to sea. Joining the carrier will be two destroyers, two anti-submarine frigates, a submarine and two auxiliary supply ships, a ministry statement said. A United States Navy guided-missile destroyer will sail with the group as well as a frigate from the Netherlands that will be tasked with air defense, the ministry said. Air power within the group will be centered on RAF F-35B stealth fighters and US Marine Corps F-35Bs, all of which will fly from the deck of the 65,000-ton aircraft carrier. The International Institute for Strategic Studies says the UK carrier strike group “will be the most capable flotilla deployed by a single European navy in recent years.” “While it will not replicate a US Navy carrier strike group, it will probably be closer to it than anything else that is currently deployable” by any other naval force, the IISS said. Britain in March released a sweeping review of its military and foreign policy, in which it recognized a tilt toward the Indo-Pacific in the coming decade. In Monday’s carrier strike group announcement, the Defense Ministry said the deployment is aimed toward a deeper UK security role in the region, with exercises planned alongside India, Japan and South Korea as well as US forces in the region. It will also highlight one of Britain’s oldest security relationships, the Five Powers Defense Agreement among Malaysia, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand and the UK. Exercise Bersama Lima will mark the 50th anniversary of the defense pact, the Defense Ministry said. As part of the journey to the Pacific, the strike group will visit 40 countries, the UK Defense Ministry said. The voyage, which will see the strike group go through the Mediterranean Sea and Indian Ocean on the way to the Pacific, will cover almost 30,000 miles (48,280 kilometers), the ministry said. Britain has not released the exact route of the strike group in the Indo-Pacific, but a planned visit to Singapore will put in on the doorstep of the South China Sea and going through the waterway would be the most obvious and direct route to its stops in Japan and South Korea. China claims almost all of the 1.3 million-square-mile South China Sea as its sovereign territory, and it has denounced the presence of foreign warships there as the root of tensions in the region. When asked in March about the British deployment as well as French military activity in the South China Sea, China’s Defense Ministry said Beijing “firmly opposes any country interfering in regional affairs under the pretext of ‘freedom of navigation’ and damaging the common interests of regional countries.” The UK carrier group is also expected to pass to the east of Taiwan, the self-governed island that China also claims as part of its territory and around which Beijing has been increasing its naval and air deployments in recent months. In its defense review, the British government called out challenges posed by China. “China’s increasing power and international assertiveness is likely to be the most significant geopolitical factor of the 2020s,” the review said, describing Beijing as “the biggest state-based threat to the UK’s economic security.” The review said Britain planned to increase its military presence around the world. Monday’s announcement of the scope of the carrier strike group reinforced that. “The most significant deployment of its kind for a quarter of a century, it is a visible demonstration of the Royal Navy’s resurgence after decades of contraction,” Commodore Steve Moorhouse, commander of the strike group, said in a statement. “As our nation redefines its place in the world post-Brexit, it is the natural embodiment of the government’s ‘Global Britain’ agenda. And against a backdrop of growing instability and competition, it reflects the United Kingdom’s continued commitment to global security,” Moorhouse said. Source link Orbem News #Asia #Britain #force #huge #naval #sending #tense #waters

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rauthschild · 4 years ago

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Russia Halts Diplomatic Relations With United States In Response To Declaration Of War

By: Sorcha Faal,

A grimly foreboding new Security Council (SC) report circulating in the Kremlin today first noting President Putin having declared last month that Crimea is Russia’s holy land, a sacrosanct place and center of the nation’s spiritual unity, says critical to in this declaration was his stating the historical truths: “If you take a big map, Crimea and Sevastopol will look on it like a tiny spot…But we are talking about the restoration of historical justice, we are talking about the importance of this land for our people...Our ancestors have developed this territory from time immemorial and in the 10th Century a large share of it became part of the ancient Russian state…There, on that land, in Korsun and Kherson, Prince Vladimir and his troops took baptism…This means that this is a sacred place, the center of our spiritual unity, which eventually formed the basis of the Russian nation and an integral centralized Russian state…It is a very important place for our heart and soul...In 1853-1856 during an invasion by foreign hordes and in 1941-1945 during the war with Nazi Germany every inch of that soil was soaked with the blood of Russian and Soviet soldiers”.

A declaration made by President Putin on the 7th Anniversary of the The Agreement Between The Russian Federation and the Republic of Crimea on the Accession of the Republic of Crimea in the Russian Federation and on Forming New Constituent Entities within the Russian Federation signed on 18 March 2014—the result of which saw the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA) explaining: “After all these years, it is becoming increasingly clear that there was no alternative to the decision taken by the Crimean people through a free expression of their will, and that it was the only correct decision that could have been taken in the tense situation around the peninsula...As a result, Crimea has not succumbed to the radical nationalists and has avoided, together with Russia, the social and political upheavals which Ukraine suffered after the Maidan revolution...Neither has Crimea become a training range for NATO manoeuvres targeting Russia”.

Preceding this declaration, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov informed the world of the irrevocable position of the Russian Federation with his official statement saying: “Crimea’s future is to be with Russia forever…Whether one likes it or not…No actions taken by the Western nations led by the United States can change this reality, either from the point of view of international law, or from the political or moral points of view”.

Six days following the 7th Anniversary of Crimea’s reunification with the Russian Federation, however, on 24 March, it saw President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky signing into force Decree No.117/2021 [English]—which in substance and in fact is a declaration of war by Ukraine against the Russian Federation, as in Section 2 it orders “The Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine within three months to develop and approve an action plan for the implementation of the Strategy of deoccupation and reintegration of the temporarily occupied territory of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol”—sees this declaration of war stating: “Ukraine does not recognize and will not recognize the results of the so-called “referendums and election” held in the temporarily occupied territory in violation of Ukrainian law and international law”—and whose reason for this declaration of war claims: “The Crimean peninsula is gradually becoming a military base by the Russian Federation, becoming a source of danger and threat to the stability of Europe and the world…And if tactical nuclear weapons and their means of delivery are placed on the territory of the Crimean Peninsula, the Russian Federation will destroy the international non-proliferation regime, turn the temporarily occupied territory of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol into a potential military target”.

The absurdity of this claim lies in the fact that that Sevastopol and the Crimea peninsula has been the main Russian naval and marine base on the Black Sea since 1772, and since the Cold War has been a military target of the Americans because it was the port of Soviet nuclear armed submarines—and today sees Sevastopol being one of the most heavily defended places on the planet impervious even to a NATO attack.

Instead of rebuking Ukraine for declaring a war against the Russian Federation it can never possibly win, Supreme Socialist Leader Joe Biden and his warmongering socialist forces have instead flooded the leftist mainstream media with propaganda screaming about “Russian aggression”—screams caused by Russia doing what any normal country does when war is declared against them, mobilizing their military forces—but whose true realities of this war sees experts noting such things like “Washington and NATO want a war fought to the last Ukrainian…The Americans do not give a damn whether Ukraine will hold out for any time or whether it will be blown to pieces in an instant...They believe they stand to gain from either outcome” and “The open “secret” whispered only in informal dinners in Brussels, and chancelleries across Eurasia is that NATO puppets do not have the balls to get into an open conflict with Russia”.

With Ukrainian President Zelensky having arrived at the front lines a few hours ago to meet with his military commanders, the Foreign Ministry followed by revealing it has no plans to restore full diplomatic representation in Washington until it sees evidence that the US is interested in building constructive relations between the two countries—and in knowing the true grave peril their nation is in, now sees in America the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity organization of former top US intelligence officials delivering to socialist leader Biden an urgent letter stating:

1. It must be made clear to Ukrainian President Zelensky that there will be no military assistance from either the US or NATO if he does not restrain Ukrainian hawks itching to give Russia a bloody nose — hawks who may well expect the West to come to Ukraine’s aid in any conflict with Russia. (There must be no repeat of the fiasco of August 2008, when the Republic of Georgia initiated offensive military operations against South Ossetia in the mistaken belief that the US would come to its assistance if Russia responded militarily.)

2. We recommend that you quickly get back in touch with Zelensky and insist that Kiev halt its current military buildup in eastern Ukraine. Russian forces have been lining up at the border ready to react if Zelensky’s loose talk of war becomes more than bravado. Washington should also put on hold all military training activity involving US and NATO troops in the region. This would lessen the chance that Ukraine would misinterpret these training missions as a de facto sign of support for Ukrainian military operations to regain control of either the Donbas or Crimea.

3. It is equally imperative that the U.S. engage in high-level diplomatic talks with Russia to reduce tensions in the region and de-escalate the current rush toward military conflict. Untangling the complex web of issues that currently burden U.S.-Russia relations is a formidable task that will not be accomplished overnight. This would be an opportune time to work toward a joint goal of preventing armed hostilities in Ukraine and wider war.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky (above) arrives at front lines on 8 April 2021…

…and who might soon know what Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili (above) felt like as he pleaded for NATO help that never was going to come as overwhelming Russian military might smashed his invading army in 2008.

According to this report, with the European continent having already been twice destroyed over the past 100-years by two world wars costing hundreds-of-millions of lives, yesterday Moscow offered the European Union an alternative by inviting them to join the Russian-backed “Great Eurasian Partnership” if they see value in turning to the East—an invitation followed with a solemn pledge given by Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov that Russia and China won’t create an Eastern military bloc to rival NATO because exclusive clubs are “counter-productive”—and was followed by Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev stating: “It is important to cooperate with Europe, but being together with Europe at any cost is not idee fixe of Russian geopolitics…Nevertheless, we keep the doors open since we are well aware that there is a current situation which Western politicians are focused on, but at the same time there are historical ties that have been forging between the Russians and the Europeans throughout centuries...It would be unwise to sever them just because the state of affairs has changed...We will not be knocking at closed doors, but we stay ready for cooperation”.

As was to be expected, this report notes, the United States is enraged about this invitation to the point they’re behaving like a spoiled baby-child and not even communicating with Russia about the Open Skies Treaty—then saw news emerging that socialist leader Biden is preparing to expel Russian diplomats from America for some made up excuse no one really known about yet—in response to sees Russian-American defense expert Dr. Pavel Felgenhauer warning: “The West is waging hybrid war against Russia on many fronts: in Belarus, in Ukraine, and Russia must not sit defensively, but actively counter-attack”—and saw Foreign Minister Lavrov stating: “We will take note of any unfriendly steps and this is for sure…So far, I haven’t seen any particular decisions and nothing has been declared. I’ve read the reports that the US administration has completed the review of Russia’s ‘hostile steps’…They somehow managed to do this rather quickly because usually when we are accused of so many misdeeds, it’s hard to deal with this in a couple of weeks or even in a couple of months, but they did…They will probably punish us in other ways”.

When viewing exactly why the United States wants to “punish” Russia, this report concludes, it is due to the threat it poses to their “Petrodollar System” that props up the US Dollar—a threat that sees Biden and his socialist warmongers targeting for destruction the Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline to Germany that will free the European Union from having to buy worthless US Dollars to pay for their dire energy needs—a threat so dire to the US it is insanely willing to ignite a catastrophic needless war in Ukraine so they can impose sanctions to shut it down—but for Russia sees experts noting such truthful things like: “Nord Stream 2 is not a big deal for Moscow; it’s a Pipelineistan inconvenience at best…After all the Russian economy did not make a single ruble out of the not yet existent pipeline during the 2010s – and still it did fine…If Nord Stream 2 is canceled, there are plans on the table to redirect the bulk of Russian gas shipments towards Eurasia, especially China”—and are experts noting other factual realities like:

In parallel, Berlin knows very well that canceling Nord Stream 2 will be an extremely serious breach of contract – involving hundreds of billions of euros; it was Germany that requested the pipeline to be built in the first place.

Germany’s energiewende (“energy transition” policy) has been a disaster. German industrialists know very well that natural gas is the only alternative to nuclear energy. They are not exactly fond of Berlin becoming a mere hostage, condemned to buy ridiculously expensive shale gas from the hegemon – even assuming the hegemon will be able to deliver, as its fracking industry is in shambles. Merkel explaining to German public opinion why they must revert to using coal or buy shale from the US will be a sight to see.

As it stands, NATO provocations against Nord Stream 2 proceed unabated – via warships and helicopters.

Nord Stream 2 needed a permit to work in Danish waters, and it was granted only a month ago. Even as Russian ships are not as fast in laying pipes as the previous ships from Swiss-based Allseas, which backed down, intimidated by US sanctions, the Russian Fortuna is making steady progress, as noted by analyst Petri Krohn: one kilometer a day on its best days, at least 800 meters a day. With 35 km left, that should not take more than 50 days.

Conversations with German analysts reveal a fascinating shadowplay on the energy front between Berlin and Moscow – not to mention Beijing. Compare it with Washington: EU diplomats complain there’s absolutely no one to negotiate with regarding Nord Stream 2.

And even assuming there would be some sort of deal, Berlin is inclined to admit Putin’s judgment is correct: the Americans are “not agreement-capable.” One just needs to look at the record.

Behind the fog of war, though, a clear scenario emerges: the deep state/NATO combo using Kiev to start a war as a Hail Mary pass to ultimately bury Nord Stream 2, and thus German-Russian relations.

At the same time, the situation is evolving towards a possible new alignment in the heart of the “West”: US/UK pitted against Germany/France. Some Anglosphere exceptionals are certainly more Russophobic than others.

The toxic encounter between Russophobia and Pipelineistan will not be over even if Nord Stream 2 is completed. There will be more sanctions. There will be an attempt to exclude Russia from SWIFT. The proxy war in Syria will intensify. The hegemon will go no holds barred to keep creating all sorts of geopolitical harassment against Russia.

What a nice wag-the-dog op to distract domestic public opinion from massive money printing masking a looming economic collapse.

As the empire crumbles, the narrative is set in stone: it’s all the fault of “Russian aggression.”

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s-------i-------g · 5 days ago

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Dwellings by Jay Stephens | Internal Affairs Tense Anniversary by Pat Crotty, Michael Furler, and Mel Tow | Ninja Sarutobi Sasuke by Sugiura Shigeru| Baby by Patrick Kyle | Duck Comics, Vol. 2 by Ian MacKay | Shell Collection by Ron Regé, Jr. | Superman Vs. Meshi, Vol. 2 by Satoshi Miyagawa and Kai Kitago | Superman Vs. Meshi, Vol. 3 by Satoshi Miyagawa and Kai Kitago | Dorohedoro, Volume 1 by Q Hayashida | Baltic Comics Magazine š! #37: "The End" by Various Artists | Devil Maybe Cry by Patrick Crotty, featuring characters created by Kris Mukai and Hideki Kamiya | Melvin Monster by John Stanley | Ex.Mag Volume V(5): Vampires "BLOODSUCKER" by Peow Studio and various artists | J&K by John Pham | A-DO Vol. 1 by Amano Jaku | A-DO Vol. 2 by Amano Jaku | GLEEM by Freddy Carrasco | Igaguri: Young Judo Master by Fukui Eichi | Reggie's "Wise Guy" Nuptials by Aaron Shattuck | IT'S OVER by Ron Regé, Jr. | Harrison Wyrick's Orbs | What Parsifal Saw by Ron Regé, Jr.

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cecehathaway · 7 years ago

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I Remember You | Para

Tagging: Dorothy McCoy with mentions of her family Time Frame: Throughout the day, Sun. March 4, 2018 Location: Dorothy & Miles’ apartment General Notes: Trigger/content warning for mentions and talks of death and loss, as Dorothy thinks about her late father on the anniversary of his passing.

Dorothy didn’t often wallow about the passings of her parents anymore. It was too painful and parasitic to her mental health to be stuck like that, and she knew she would be doing a disservice to herself and her parents if she did not live her life rather than floating through, existing. For her that meant pressing on with her degrees--first her Bachelors and then her Masters--and following through with her eventual career aspiration, becoming a licensed Nurse Practitioner, and later receiving her certification. At the time, that also meant looking out for her sister Lena. Although Lena was the elder of the two, it was no secret among them that Dorothy had been the more responsible one, especially after their parents died. She aided their dad, emotionally and sometimes physically, when a latent, lingering strain of the virus claimed Dr. McCoy’s life. In hindsight, Dorothy discovered just how much remorse he was holding onto when his wife passed, being unable to earn her forgiveness for his indiscretion and the hurt he caused; the blame he took on for her death, knowing she would not have gone to help further eradicate the virus from some in ravaged inner cities and who had yet to receive the cure. It may very well have been that guilt and remorse that distracted him during his drive that day. The drive out that ultimately led to his own untimely death.

When he also passed, Dorothy spearheaded the arrangements, took what knowledge she gained from mere months prior, and applied it again, practically on her own this time. Her near-perfect grades were compromised in favor of gaining legal help to sort out both of their parent’s assets. At one point, she debated rejecting her incoming college acceptance letters--that the sorting out of finances, other assets, funerals and her own grief would be too much for her and trying to further her education now would be impossible. But she knew her parents expressed pride in her academic ambitions, whenever she spoke of them and again when she applied to some of the most respectable universities in the country that were still open. What ultimately led to her staying her path was what nearly prevented her from pursuing it--her parents. She wanted this. She wanted to go to school and get her undergrad, maybe even her Masters. She wanted to figure out what medical career she would ultimately aim for, since that was something she had been decided on at this point.

Eventually, Dorothy did pull her academics back on track so that they were strong enough to graduate high school, to the pride of no one, or so she felt at the time. Handling all of this and more, virtually on her own while Lena shirked almost all responsibilities to frequent bars and clubs, and ultimately drop out of school laid the foundation for growing resentment that Dorothy tried to suppress.

But twice a year, the sisters allowed themselves full days to stop and truly remember their parents together, in whatever shape or form that might have taken. Last November, they remembered their late mother together, mostly in silence but spending it physically together, eating their mom’s favorite breakfast food, pancakes together and later watching her favorite musical film Meet Me in St. Louis together; letting a prayer candle burn the entire day, crying on and off as they looked at photo albums and sang along with Judy Garland to “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas”.

Today, however, was their day out of the year where they focused on their father. In the past, Dorothy believed she was closer to her father than Lena was. The day seemed to strike a tense silence in her sister and until last summer, Dorothy did not know why. But with their father’s extramarital affair and him fathering a third child as a result, it was no longer a mystery to the younger of the two sisters, why tension rolled off of Lena’s entire body on this day for the past nine years. It had been almost nine months since she found out about the affair, her half-sister and all the secrecy and Dorothy still didn’t exactly know how to feel. The vast majority of the memories she had of her father were good ones, positive ones.

Eugene “Gene” McCoy’s reputation was one that grew throughout the theatre community at a young age, from performing himself to finding his niche in the production side of it all, ultimately leading to a successful career in producing and investing in up and coming plays and musicals. His greatest claim as a producer happened to coincide with Dorothy’s all time favorite musical: Wicked. Following his having flown to San Francisco to see it in its infancy, he attached himself to the production and gathered investors for it to ultimately make its move across the country to Broadway.

To the theatrical community he was Gene McCoy but to Dorothy and Lena, he was Pops. While both McCoy parents encouraged their daughters to pursue whatever dreams and aspirations they had, Eugene recognized some of his daughter’s additional talents. He knew Dorothy had a lovely singing voice, a clever mind, and glommed onto loving and appreciating performing arts, but wasn’t likely to follow in his footsteps of performing or delving into the arts as a long term career. Likewise, he saw that Lena wasn’t of a business mindset, nor would she likely be someone to sit behind a desk in a cubical for work, but had a gift and true passion for the stage. He loved sharing aspects of what he did with his children, while also throwing all of his support in their interests and endeavors. He made a point of including them in his world and interests, not to force feed an aspiration to them, but rather, to foster them finding what they loved and doing the work to keep it alive in their hearts.

Through the internal conflict of past memories and recent discovers, Dorothy did eventually take away a lesson about creating an open and honest relationship with her children she had and would one day have. Sidney was still very young, but she promised herself that she would do everything in her power not to put him in a situation remotely similar to the one she was currently in, being without answers or explanations and seeking a new form of closure with her so that he might learn to forgive and move forward; holding onto the good memories without them being tainted. Dorothy wasn’t entirely sure if that was possible for her yet but she was at a place of being able to try.

Not only this, but Dorothy was doing her best to look on a bright side of the situation in that she now had a younger sister, a half-sister whom she did not know terribly well yet but unlike Lena, was open to knowing her and perhaps gaining a sibling-like bond.

All of this and more came to Dorothy’s mind as she opted not to get together with Lena this year. The resentment she started to form nine years ago went from a mole hill to a volcano that seemed to erupt last June. One day, she hoped she would forgive Lena and leave hurt and anger of the secrecy in the past. For the time being, she managed minimal conversation and did her best to keep an open door with Lena and Sidney, and herself and her infant niece. But the revelations Dorothy stumbled upon last summer not only cemented some scorn in Dorothy’s heart over her sister, but their father as well. The good memories, and the wonderful things she knew about him all seemed marred by the glaring fact that he cheated on their mother, fathered another daughter, and kept all of this a secret and for reasons she did not and would never know. Whether she would ever be able to full separate the good memories from the lie currently remained a mystery.

#para: I Remember You #death tw #death cw #mlawtask11

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neethypaksham · 4 years ago

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Xi Jinping tightens grip on China Tackling of virus, muscular approach, economic recovery have helped mute critics

A year that began in China with the country’s leadership facing searching questions about its handling of a new pandemic that struck the city of Wuhan ends with President Xi Jinping firming up his political control.

If 2020 started as China’s annus horribilis, the year has, in the eyes of many strategic experts in Beijing, only hastened China’s ascendancy and narrowed the gap with the United States, its great rival.

Beijing, having broadly controlled the coronavirus at home, is now leading a global economic recovery, as well as adopting, as India discovered through this summer’s border crisis, an increasingly muscular posture abroad. In contrast, the U.S. has struggled with both its response to the pandemic as well as unprecedented political divisions at home, manifested in a closely fought election that ended with the defeat of President Donald Trump, whose term in office marked a deterioration in relations with China triggered by a trade war.

A crisis in Wuhan

Few in China would have expected the year to end as it does. China’s initial fumbling of the pneumonia outbreak that began last December, when the leadership in Wuhan delayed action for three weeks, has now become a footnote, with the leadership showcasing China’s recovery as underlining the superiority of its political system.

Back in February, the death of the whistle-blower doctor Li Wenliang had led to an outpouring of criticism, which prompted Beijing to fire the Communist Party leaders in charge of Wuhan and Hubei province. Mr. Xi then acknowledged the pandemic had posed “a major test” of China’s governance.

In March, a prominent former real estate tycoon with close Party links, Ren Zhiqiang, penned a searing essay directly criticising Mr. Xi’s leadership.

Yet by the summer, China’s controlling of the outbreak, thanks to strict lockdowns and a sweeping testing and tracing system, helped the Party weather the storm. Coupled with the failure of the U.S. to tackle the coronavirus effectively— which the Party propaganda has ceaselessly highlighted as a vindication of its leadership — signs are Mr. Xi remains as strong as ever heading into 2021, a sensitive year that will see the Party celebrate its centenary in July.

Heading into the anniversary, the trend of political centralisation under Mr. Xi is only expected to continue, as also the shrinking space for dissent. Mr. Ren, the real estate tycoon, was in September sentenced to 18 years in jail ostensibly on corruption charges, although the real offence was his critical essay.

The previous month, another prominent critic of Mr. Xi’s from inside the Party, Cai Xia, a professor of the Party School, was expelled from the elite institution that Mr. Xi once headed over her criticisms of his leadership style, which included an observation that a growing number of Party officials were opposed to the political direction under him but were afraid of speaking out.

Strong recovery

China’s subsequent recovery from the pandemic helped the leadership mute its critics, with the world’s second-largest economy likely to be the only major country to grow in a pandemic-hit year. China in the first quarter contracted by 6.8%, but has since recovered strongly, growing 3.2% in the second quarter and 4.9% in the third. Shuttered factories have reopened, although the global slump remains a headwind.

That has prompted Mr. Xi to double down on his push for greater self-reliance, which he has called a “dual circulation” model that strikes a better balance between relying on domestic consumption and external trade.

A key Party plenum held in October discussed “a new development pattern” for the 14th five-year plan (2021-2025) and also laid out a “Vision 2035” blueprint that emphasises more sustainable growth.

China is still struggling with rising debt, a problem worsened by this year’s economic relief measures, and is also pushing for cleaner growth, with Mr. Xi this year announcing a target to go carbon neutral by 2060, which will require a reduction of coal in the energy mix from 58% to less than 50% by 2025.

Assertive Posture

If 2020 has reinforced the belief in Beijing of its global ascendancy, it has also been marked by an increasingly muscular approach abroad on all of its frontiers.

China’s homegrown aircraft carrier, the Shandong, sailed across the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea after being inducted into the navy this year and will be combat ready by early 2021. Beijing has made clear to the new administration in Washington it will brook no interference in its “internal affairs”, even as it has pursued increasingly hard-line policies in Hong Kong, where a new national security law has tightened its grip, and in Xinjiang, where it has hit out at any criticism over the internment of more than one million Uighurs in “re-education” centres.

In early May, China appeared to disregard three decades of a carefully built consensus with India as it mobilised two divisions along the Line of Actual Control (LAC), in a move that officials in Delhi saw as aimed at unilaterally redrawing the LAC in Ladakh.

A clash in Galwan Valley in June that led to the loss of 20 Indian soldiers and an unknown number of Chinese soldiers marked the most serious border crisis with India since the 1960s, leading many former Indian officials to describe 2020 as a major inflection point in relations with China.

As the year ends, a sub-zero LAC remains tense with neither side agreeing on a plan to disengage, with the expectation in India of continued hostilities as the snow melts in the spring and tensions on the border to dominate the relationship next year.

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2whatcom-blog · 6 years ago

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Venezuela Is Unraveling—So Is Its Science

Editor's Be aware (4/30/19): This text was initially revealed on February 15, 2019. It's being republished right now amid the escalating political disaster in Venezuela. Empty labs, nonexistent funding, deteriorating tools and an unsympathetic authorities: Many Venezuelan scientists say the nation's worsening political turmoil has made analysis nearly not possible. Within the capital, Caracas, they battle to seek out meals and keep private security--their experiments a distant afterthought. Overseas, self-exiled biochemists and physicists clear homes, wash tables and provides personal language classes to make ends meet. However many nonetheless cling to hope the state of affairs will enhance and they're going to have the ability to return to science. Hugo Chavez was elected president of Venezuela in 1998, and introduced sweeping social and political modifications to the nation in a collection of initiatives dubbed the Bolivarian Revolution. Throughout a 2003 common strike protesting his insurance policies, Chavez fired 1000's of workers of its nationwide oil firm, Petroleum of Venezuela (PDVSA). This was the primary wave of Venezuelan "brain drain," says geologist Lorena Moscardelli, who was dismissed from the PDVSA in 2003 and resettled within the U.S. "Thousands of engineers and geoscientists ended up in the U.S.A., Norway, the Middle East and wherever we could find work or opportunities," she says. Chavez died in workplace in 2013, and his handpicked successor, Nicolas Maduro, was elected president. Underneath his management the Venezuelan economic system has continued a steep decline, and funding for scientific analysis has nearly disappeared. Rolling blackouts are commonplace and meals shortages are routine. Protests that started in 2014 developed into sporadic scenes of civil unrest. Maduro was reelected late final yr with 67 % of the vote; his opponents disputed the outcomes, sparking a brand new wave of protests. In January Juan Guaido--president of Venezuela's Nationwide Meeting and a frontrunner of the opposition--declared himself interim president of Venezuela and known as for brand spanking new elections, and the nation's political state of affairs stays extraordinarily tense and chaotic. Over the previous few years a rising exodus has emptied most of the nation's lecture rooms and laboratories of the scholars and professors essential to conduct analysis. Ismardo Bonalde, a physicist on the Venezuelan Institute for Scientific Analysis (IVIC), estimates 50 to 60 % of researchers have left the nation. Bonalde says he has not had any funding for 10 years--and within the final two years has not run a single experiment. "It's really tough," he says. "We need time to think about science. In Venezuela that's not possible. It's kind of difficult to think about science when you need to find food to eat." At IVIC--which Maduro praised on Twitter on February 9, the analysis establishment's 60th anniversary--conditions are dire. Final October the IVIC Inter-Union Fee issued a press launch describing a "state of abandonment" that included buildings falling into disrepair and a library that has not subscribed to any worldwide scientific journals since 2016. Based on the discharge, 83 college students entered IVIC's postgraduate packages in 2014; in 2018, there have been two. "The level of deterioration at IVIC is really impossible to imagine," says microbiologist Flor Pujol, president of the IVIC Researchers' Affiliation. In previous financial crises Venezuelan scientists might make do with artistic options, she says. "But now there is no money for anything. Sometimes we even don't have water for our labs. We sometimes don't have electricity. Internet is really bad." An IVIC professor's wage was $2,000 or $3,000 monthly 20 years ago--but it's now lower than $15, and scientists reside off their financial savings and taking small aspect jobs, Pujol says. Much more distressing, she provides, is that "there is a negation of scientific excellence." Earlier than the Maduro regime got here to energy she felt IVIC had very strict requirements. "This has been questioned by the new authorities," she says. "I think this is even more dramatic than the financial crisis." Claudio Mendoza misplaced his place as head of a computational physics lab at IVIC because of an article he wrote in 2007 that poked enjoyable on the authorities's incapability to develop nuclear expertise. He emigrated from Venezuela to the U.S. in 2017 and now works at Western Michigan College. Mendoza says the Venezuelan Ministry of Fashionable Energy for College Training, Science and Expertise (MPPEUCT) has lengthy demonstrated an "unsatisfactory" perspective towards scientific analysis. "They thought it was a bourgeois activity," he says. "Rather than having scientists doing science, they wanted people to become familiar with science--which in a way is important. But the scientific activity was given a secondary role, so scientific investment was a mess." And below Maduro scientific funding "got wiped out," he says. "At all levels of the national scientific establishment, inexperienced professionals with little scientific or technical knowledge or background have been assigned to positions of authority," says Ruth Castillo Ochoa, a thinker of physics who left Venezuela in 2017 after she says the shortage of meals and primary services--combined with navy repression--made life insufferable. She contends authorities on the MPPEUCT are appointed primarily based on loyalty to the regime. "This approach excludes a constructive dialogue with the research and development community and reduces academic performance freedom," she says. Nuris Orihuela Guevara was the minister in command of the MPPEUCT from 2008 to 2009; she says she left the place after a disagreement with Chavez, and has since left the nation. She says, "The creation of the ministry gave the sector the necessary importance. The policies implemented allowed a real growth of the sector." Nonetheless, she provides, "the lack of understanding of some involved actors deflected attention and resources, diluted the original policies and we arrived at the current situation." Early final month Guevara revealed an article on the Website online of the American Fashionable Revolutionary Meeting--a pro-Chavez organization--in which she denounced the Maduro authorities and known as free of charge elections. "The Bolivarian project, led by Pres. Chavez and inherited by Nicolas Maduro, completely lost its original course," she says. "Venezuela must reinvent itself, this is only possible if we count a solid scientific technological sector." The workplace of Hugbel Roa, the present Cupboard Minister of the MPPEUCT, didn't reply to repeated e-mails and cellphone calls searching for remark. Science in Exile Plenty of Venezuelan scientists are additionally scattered throughout Europe and the Americas. Many have been struggling to seek out employment and infrequently take work that doesn't correspond with their experience. Ochoa lives in Italy, the place she earns cash by giving personal Spanish classes. Her sister, biochemist Annie Castillo Ochoa, was a part of a staff that received Venezuela's Nationwide Science Prize in 2018. Her accomplice fell unwell that very same yr, and unable to seek out drugs in Venezuela they moved to Italy the place his situation stabilized for a time--but 4 months later he died. "Nothing went as expected," Annie Ochoa says. "I had to ask for asylum," after which she discovered work as a barista and carried out different "humble work in order to pay the rent." She now cleans homes and works as a house well being caregiver. "It's ironic," she says. Astrophysicist Alexis Chechelev emigrated in January 2019. "Here in Spain we are trying to develop our lives with anything that we can do," he says. "Washing tables, washing floors, as a cook or anything that doesn't have any link with the things that I have studied." Chechelev hopes that after he establishes authorized residence he'll have the ability to rejoin tutorial life. Nonetheless, hope for his or her future--in exile and again in Venezuela--was a standard thread expressed by the researchers. "I am convinced, after 14 months of arriving in Italy, that Venezuelans will be able to move forward where we are and that scientists, will know how to reach our rightful place and make our value in the era known," Annie Ochoa says. A number of expatriate scientists additionally voiced frustration about how they are saying the worldwide information media have oversimplified the state of affairs on the bottom of their homeland. Emigres repeatedly asserted their want to return when the state of affairs improves. In Venezuela and overseas most of the scientists described aspirations of with the ability to assist rebuild their nation. "If we manage to get out of the dictatorship and if there is investment for the reconstruction of the country, I am sure that many of us--scientists and other professionals--would return to help recover our country," says Katherine Briceno, a biologist who left Venezuela in 2016 and presently resides in Spain. "We understand that although we have international support to overcome the crisis, the recovery of our country depends solely on us, the people of Venezuela." Read the full article

#2what.com #maduro #research #science #scientific #scientists #venezuela #venezuelan

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newstfionline · 4 years ago

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Headlines

Wildfires closing in on Portland suburbs force massive evacuations (Yahoo News) Dozens of wildfires in Oregon have forced the evacuation of more than 500,000 residents, prompting Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler to declare a state of emergency Friday as two massive blazes converged at the doorstep to his city. While scores of wildfires have erupted over the past weeks in Oregon, two of the largest, the Beachie Creek and Riverside fires, appeared about to merge, forcing the evacuation of portions of Clackamas and Marion counties. Those two counties, which neighbor Portland to the south, have a combined population of nearly 1.4 million. As in neighboring states, the massive amounts of smoke produced by the fires means that even those residents spared the need to evacuate are suffering from an unhealthy air quality in which toxic ash and smoke coats outdoor surfaces. Portland’s air quality deteriorated over the past day, making it less safe to breathe than any other city on the planet.

10 dead as California fire becomes deadliest of year (AP) A Northern California wildfire that destroyed a foothill hamlet has become the state’s deadliest blaze of the year with 10 people confirmed dead—and the toll could climb as searchers look for 16 missing people. The North Complex fire that exploded in wind-driven flames earlier in the week was advancing more slowly Friday after the winds eased and smoke from the blaze shaded the area and lowered the temperature, allowing firefighters to make progress, authorities said. However, the smoke made for poor visibility and fire helicopters couldn’t fly Thursday.

Poll: Pandemic takes toll on mental health of young adults (AP) The coronavirus pandemic has taken a harsh toll on the mental health of young Americans, according to a new poll that finds adults under 35 especially likely to report negative feelings or experience physical or emotional symptoms associated with stress and anxiety. A majority of Americans ages 18 through 34—56%—say they have at least sometimes felt isolated in the past month, compared with about 4 in 10 older Americans, according to the latest COVID Response Tracking Study conducted by NORC at the University of Chicago. Twenty-five percent of young adults rate their mental health as fair or poor, compared with 13% of older adults, while 56% of older adults say their mental health is excellent or very good, compared with just 39% of young adults. In the midst of the pandemic, young adults are navigating life transitions such as starting college and finding jobs, all without being able to experience normal social activities that might be especially essential for people who are less likely to have already married and started their own families. Some young people are just beginning their adult lives amid a recession, and older members of the group are already experiencing their second.

US remembers 9/11 as pandemic changes tribute traditions (AP) Americans are commemorating 9/11 with tributes that have been altered by coronavirus precautions. In New York, a dispute over coronavirus-safety precautions is leading to split-screen remembrances Friday, one at the Sept. 11 memorial plaza at the World Trade Center and another on a nearby corner. The Pentagon’s observance will be so restricted that not even victims’ families can attend, though small groups can visit the memorial there later in the day. The anniversary of 9/11 is a complicated occasion in a maelstrom of a year, as the U.S. grapples with a health crisis, searches its soul over racial injustice and prepares to choose a leader to chart a path forward.

Vinyl lives on (Bloomberg) For the first time since 1986, vinyl records are outselling CDs in the United States, and it’s a complete rout. In the first half of last year, Americans spent $247.8 million on CDs and $224.1 million on LP and EP vinyl records. This year, the bottom fell out of CD sales in the first half of the year, with $129.9 million in product moved on compact discs, while vinyl sales grew still to $232.1 million. That’s a stunning turnaround for a medium that was nearly dead as recently as 2005, when sales of vinyl were down to $14.2 million.

Violent demonstrations sweep Bogota after death of man detained by police (Washington Post) At least seven people died and hundreds were injured, including 58 shot by police, amid violent demonstrations in Colombia on Wednesday after the death of a man who police had shocked repeatedly with a stun gun, during a dispute about social distancing. Javier Humberto Ordóñez, 46, a father of two, had been drinking on a Bogotá street early Wednesday when officers approached him for breaking covid-19 measures, police told Reuters. In a video shared on social media, two officers can be seen forcing Ordóñez to the ground and shocking him. He and several bystanders repeatedly ask the police officers to stop. “Please, no more,” Ordóñez says. Police arrested Ordóñez and took him to a police station. Friends quotes by Colombian news outlets said he was already unresponsive. He was later moved to a hospital, where he died. Crowds gathered in Engativa, the neighborhood where Ordóñez was arrested, and surrounded the small police station where he had been held. Protesters in Bogotá set fire to police stations and vehicles over the course of Wednesday evening and Thursday morning, and crowds also gathered in other cities.

EU boosts ‘no-deal’ planning as UK refuses to blink in Brexit stalemate (Reuters) The European Union stepped up planning for a ‘no-deal’ Brexit on Friday after Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government refused to revoke an ultimatum on breaking the divorce treaty that Brussels says will sink four years of talks. Britain said explicitly this week that it plans to break international law by breaching parts of the Withdrawal Agreement treaty that it signed in January, when it formally left the bloc. The EU has demanded that Britain scrap the plan to breach the divorce treaty by the end of this month. Britain has refused, saying its parliament is sovereign above international law.

Migrants sleeping rough on Lesbos after fire, locals oppose shelter plans (Reuters) Thousands of migrants remained stranded without shelter on the island of Lesbos for a third day on Friday, sleeping on streets or in fields near Greece’s largest refugee camp after a devastating fire burned the facility to the ground. The Moria camp, long notorious for poor living conditions, had hosted more than 12,000 migrants, four times its stated capacity. Wednesday’s fire turned the sprawling site into a mass of smouldering metal and melted tents. The Greek government said it had secured thousands of tents to provide temporary shelter for the migrants. A passenger ferry docked at the island’s port of Mytilene to help provide assistance. But Athens’s plans face stiff resistance from local authorities and residents who fear the temporary shelters will turn into another permanent migrant camp. “It is a tragic opportunity for migrants to leave ... Moria is a monstrosity,” Dimitris Koursoubas, a senior official responsible for migration in the northern Aegean islands, told Reuters. “We want all the migrants out, for national reasons. Moria is over.”

India, China agree to disengage thousands of border troops (AP) The Indian and Chinese foreign ministers have agreed that their troops should disengage from a tense border standoff, maintain proper distance and ease tensions in the cold-desert Ladakh region where the two sides in June had their deadliest clash in decades. Since last week, the Asian giants have accused one another of sending soldiers into the other’s territory and firing warning shots for the first time in 45 years, threatening a full-scale military conflict. The foreign ministers did not set any any timeline for the disengagement of tens of thousands of troops who have been locked in a standoff since May, but agreed that “both sides shall abide by all the existing agreements and protocol on China-India boundary affairs, maintain peace and tranquility in the border areas and avoid any action that could escalate matters.”

France tries forcing change on Lebanon’s politicians (AP) During his visit this month, French President Emmanuel Macron gave Lebanon’s politicians a road map for policy changes and reform, set deadlines for them to take action and told them he’d be back in December to check on progress. It was a hands-on approach that angered some in Lebanon and was welcomed by others. And it revived a bitter question in the tiny Mediterranean country: Can Lebanese rule themselves? Lebanon’s ruling class, in power since the end of the civil war in 1990, has run the tiny country and its population into the ground. Heading a sectarian system that encourages corruption over governing, the elite have enriched themselves while investing little on infrastructure, failing to build a productive economy and pushing it to the verge of bankruptcy. Some worry that even outside pressure cannot force reform on politicians, for whom reform means an end to power and perhaps eventual accountability. “They are known to give empty promises whether to their people or the international community,” said Elias Hankash, a legislator from the right-wing Kataeb party who resigned from parliament following the port explosion. “Regrettably maybe President Macron does not know whom he is dealing with.” Resistance to reform can be startling. In 2018, a France-led conference pledged some $11 billion in aid to Lebanon. But it came with conditions of reforms, including audits and accountability changes that could have hurt the factions’ corrupt patronage engines. Politicians were unable to pass the reforms to unlock the desperately needed money.

Bahrain becomes latest Arab nation to recognize Israel (AP) Bahrain has become the latest Arab nation to agree to normalize ties with Israel as part of a broader diplomatic push by President Donald Trump and his administration to fully integrate the Jewish state into the Middle East. Trump announced the agreement on Friday, following a three-way phone call he had with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Bahrain’s King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa. The three leaders also issued a brief six-paragraph joint statement, attesting to the deal.

#headlines #news

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bharatiyamedia-blog · 5 years ago

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Tense calm returns to Hong Kong after protests erupt into violence

http://tinyurl.com/y4k25com A tense calm descended on Hong Kong early on Tuesday, hours after police fired tear fuel to disperse a whole lot of protesters who had stormed the legislature in chaotic scenes to protest in opposition to an extradition invoice in a direct problem to Beijing. Particles together with umbrellas, onerous hats and water bottles have been the few indicators left of the mayhem that had engulfed components of the Chinese language-ruled metropolis in a single day after protesters stormed and ransacked the legislature. Police cleared roads close to the guts of the monetary centre, paving the way in which for enterprise to return to regular following extraordinary violence on the anniversary of Hong Kong’s 1997 return to Chinese language rule. Nonetheless, the previous British colony’s authorities workplaces, the place protesters smashed computer systems and spray-painted “anti-extradition” and slurs in opposition to the police and authorities on chamber partitions, have been closed on Tuesday. The federal government’s govt council assembly was because of be held in Authorities Home, officers stated. Thousands and thousands of individuals have taken to the streets previously few weeks to protest in opposition to the now-suspended extradition invoice that will permit individuals to be despatched to mainland China to face trial in courts managed by the Communist Celebration. Attorneys and rights teams say China’s justice system is marked by torture, compelled confessions and arbitrary detention. China has been angered by Western criticism of the invoice. The invoice triggered a backlash in opposition to Hong Kong chief Carrie Lam, taking within the enterprise, diplomatic and authorized communities that worry corrosion of the authorized autonomy of Hong Kong and the issue of guaranteeing a good trial in China. Lam, Hong Kong’s self-styled Iron Woman, has created a contemporary disaster for Chinese language President Xi Jinping, who’s already grappling with a commerce battle with Washington, a faltering financial system and tensions within the South China Sea. TIGHTENING GRIPHong Kong returned to China underneath a “one nation, two methods” components that enables freedoms not loved in mainland China, together with freedom to protest and an unbiased judiciary. Nonetheless, many worry Beijing’s tightening grip over the town. Beijing denies interfering however, for a lot of Hong Kong residents, the extradition invoice is the newest step in a relentless march in the direction of mainland management. The self-ruled island of Taiwan, which is overwhelmingly against a “one nation, two methods” components for itself, has voiced help for Hong Kong. “On the 22nd anniversary of #HongKong’s handover, residents are seething with anger & frustration,” Taiwan’s International Affairs Minister Joseph Wu stated on his Twitter account late on Monday. “It is clear the CCP regime’s ‘one nation, two methods’ is nothing however a lie. I urge the worldwide neighborhood to help the individuals’s battle for freedom & absolutely democratic elections,” he stated, referring to the Chinese language Communist Celebration. Chinese language censors have been working onerous to erase or block information of the Hong Kong protests, cautious that any massive public rallies may encourage protests on the mainland. Screens went black on the BBC and CNN after they confirmed associated stories in mainland China, as has occurred throughout earlier Hong Kong protests. International information channels are solely out there in luxurious lodges and a handful of high-end house complexes in China. State information company Xinhua wrote an upbeat Chinese language-language report a couple of government-arranged live performance in Hong Kong to rejoice the handover, full with descriptions of the viewers singing the nationwide anthem and the way the performers confirmed their “ardent love of the motherland”. A state newspaper in China referred to as for “zero tolerance” after the violence in Hong Kong in a single day. “Out of blind conceitedness and rage, protesters confirmed an entire disregard for legislation and order,” the International Occasions, printed by the Communist Celebration’s Individuals’s Every day, stated in an editorial on Tuesday. The protests generated vigorous dialogue on Chinese language social media. “Hong Kong reveals that China can’t comply with a Western political system. It is too simple to be manipulated and to deliver chaos,” wrote one Weibo person. One other wrote: “When the youngsters do not pay attention, their moms ought to give them a smacked backside.” Lam suspended the extradition invoice on June 15 in a dramatic climbdown, saying she had heard the individuals “loud and clear”, however stopped wanting assembly the protesters’ calls for to scrap it and for her to step down. Beijing-backed Lam referred to as a information convention at four a.m. (2000 GMT Monday) to sentence what have been among the most violent protests to rock the town in many years. She is now clinging to her job at a time of an unprecedented backlash in opposition to the federal government that poses the best in style problem to Xi since he got here to energy in 2012. The extradition invoice, which might have lined Hong Kong’s seven million residents in addition to overseas and Chinese language nationals, was seen by many as a risk to the town’s much-cherished rule of legislation. ALSO READ: How sea of protesters overtook the Hong Kong legislature: Stunning visuals ALSO WATCH: Image of the day: 2 million protesters make way for ambulance in Hong Kong Get real-time alerts and all of the news in your telephone with the all-new India As we speak app. Obtain from !function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s) {if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod? n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)}; if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version='2.0'; n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0; t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window,document,'script', 'https://connect.facebook.net/en_US/fbevents.js'); fbq('init', '605311446619075'); fbq('track', 'PageView'); fbq('track', 'ViewContent'); Source link

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whittlebaggett8 · 6 years ago

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High-Level US Visits to Taiwan Mark 40 Years of Unofficial Ties

Previous Residence Speaker Paul Ryan will direct a delegation to Taipei future week, continuing celebrations of the Taiwan Relations Act.

Taiwan will keep on to welcome officials from the United States to the island as the two nations commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Taiwan Relations Act (TRA), passed in 1979 shortly right after the United States severed diplomatic relations with Taipei and set up ties with Beijing.

A 26-member United States delegation headed by former Speaker of the U.S. Property of Representatives Paul Ryan is scheduled to get there in Taiwan on Monday to go to events commemorating the TRA and to open the new compound of the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT), in accordance to the AIT and Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA).

Before this week, Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen welcomed U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary for Trade Coverage David Meale to a banquet at AIT. Meale explained throughout the celebration that the United States “will continue to be steadfast in all of its commitments to Taiwan,” citing the shared financial pursuits and democratic values of the United States and Taiwan.

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Taiwan and the United States have put a weighty emphasis on their relationship as of late as equally nations navigate their respective tense associations with Beijing. Previous week, Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) fighter jets entered Taiwanese airspace, drawing a sharp rebuke from Taiwan. A single week before, the United States sent Navy and Coastline Guard ships by way of the Taiwan Strait for the 3rd time in 2019, a move noticed by observers as a suggests of pressuring China, which objects to U.S. passages as a result of the waterway.

The unofficial however robust bilateral marriage in between Taiwan and the United States will also be place under the microscope domestically as Tsai, who faces a tricky fight for re-election in January, touts her administration’s closeness to the United States as a overseas policy results story. Some politicians from the opposition Kuomintang (KMT), who favor hotter ties with Beijing, have been crucial of Tsai’s reliance on the United States in recent weeks.

On Wednesday, on the other hand, a jovial Tsai expressed her appreciation of the TRA as a foundation for the substantial U.S.-Taiwan relations that have persevered because the administration of then-U.S. President Jimmy Carter resolved in 1979 to figure out the authorities of the People’s Republic of China (PRC).

The TRA permitted for the incorporation of the AIT in Taipei, which serves as a de facto embassy and is staffed by U.S. State Section officers. It has because facilitated a long time of financial and cultural cooperation in between the two nations.

Extra a short while ago, the Taiwan Vacation Act, passed in March 2018, inspired visits by substantial-degree U.S. officials to Taiwan but so considerably, has not resulted in the Holy Grail of a cabinet-stage official heading to Taiwan. The delegation visiting Taiwan future week — helmed by Ryan and like U.S. congressmen Hank Johnson, Eddie Bernice Johnson, Salud Carbajal, and Don Bacon — represents a considerably a lot more frequent exchange involving members of the U.S. Congress.

Taiwan’s Ministry of Overseas Affairs has mentioned it welcomes the impending pay a visit to, which was introduced immediately after the Home International Affairs Committee passed two resolutions on Tuesday in help of Taiwan’s protection and its participation in global businesses, which has been progressively restricted thanks to force from Beijing.

The TRA, which was handed amid problems that the diplomatic swap would revoke an current security treaty signed by the United States and Taiwan, also asserts the ideal of the United States to determine to defend Taiwan and has language encouraging the United States to give Taiwan with arms. Taiwan recently made a ask for to obtain F-16V fighters and M1 Abrams tanks from the United States, and U.S. defense contractor Raytheon was awarded two navy contracts in March to keep on supporting present Taiwan Air Power and Navy initiatives.

The slate of events in Taipei occur as Kaohsiung Mayor Han Kuo-yu, greatly tipped as the favourite to win the KMT presidential nomination need to he decide to run, embarks on a 9-working day journey to Boston, Los Angeles, and the Silicon Valley. The Kaohsiung city federal government mentioned in a assertion Han would use the excursion to “seek to really encourage U.S. expense in Kaohsiung.”

Last thirty day period, the controversial and Beijing-pleasant Han visited Hong Kong, Macau, and China and satisfied with PRC authorities officers, drawing heavy criticism from DPP politicians back in Taiwan. Chinese officials have refused to hold talks with DPP officials due to the fact Tsai’s election in 2016.

On Thursday, Han instructed a forum at Harvard College that Taiwan and China must go after peace fairly than dragging the United States into conflicts. “We simply cannot, and should not, drag our American close friends down because of to ineffective managing of cross-strait relations,” he mentioned.

The post High-Level US Visits to Taiwan Mark 40 Years of Unofficial Ties appeared first on Defence Online.

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#Paul Ryan #Taiwan Relations Act #Trans-Pacific View #Tsai Ing-wen #Tsai Ing-wen foreign policy #U.S.

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chocolateheal · 6 years ago

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The History of Definition Word Action Painting | definition word action painting

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — Defensive. Defiant. Sweating beneath the lights.

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And Major League Baseball abettor Rob Manfred still had 20 account to go.

“Everybody seems to access this affair from the angle of, ‘Gee, why aren’t the clubs signing players?’ ” Manfred said Sunday during a question-and-answer affair central a auberge appointment room. “I anticipate there’s lots and lots of offers out there, and it’s a mutual process. Players haven’t accustomed those offers yet. That’s how a bazaar works. We bargained for a bazaar system. That market’s out there operating, and I don’t accept any best but to alive with that.”

As of Sunday, Bryce Harper and Manny Machado — two of MLB’s better adolescent and promotable stars — remained unsigned. Ex-Astros Dallas Keuchel and Marwin Gonzalez were additionally still accessible to all 30 teams. Which meant the questions aloof kept advancing for Manfred, who added became … what’s the appropriate word?

Tense?

Frustrated?

Annoyed?

I’ll go with aggressive and let the allowance allege for himself.

“It would be nice to alpha with the facts on this topic. OK?” said Manfred, afterwards actuality asked about ascent comments from actual advantageous players who accept accent MLB’s abridgement of all-embracing competitiveness. “There has been no allusive change in the administration of acceptable percentages in Major League Baseball. The affirmation that teams aren’t aggravating started aftermost bounce training with (MLB Players Association controlling director) Tony Clark singling out four teams. OK? He did actual ailing with those four teams.”

Ooooh, burn.

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More like, strike.

“It is not advantageous in agreement of our business. I don’t anticipate it’s acceptable for our fans. I don’t anticipate it’s acceptable for the players,” said Manfred, apropos to connected accessible hints that a activity war is on the way. “And I apperceive it’s not activity to change the aftereffect of the agreement — ultimately.”

Baseball has enjoyed big-picture accord for 24 years. Baseball is baseball, though, which bureau the bold that never changes is consistently beneath attack, abnormally in 2019.

An awkward 20-second angle alarm ability be on the way and will be activated during bounce training. It was accessible to get the activity that abounding of the decision-makers addition out the bleared approaching of MLB aren’t too crazy about the accouterment that accept gotten so out of whack. (Like rebuilding/tanking, the Astros were advanced of the ambit on arresting accession arch to added outs.) And alike Manfred alone finds the use of openers to be an animal art.

��The opener is an archetype of clubs … that may not accept as abounding assets as added clubs cerebration alfresco the box in artistic means in an attack to win added games,” the abettor said.

That is such a avant-garde baseball answer.

It additionally sounds like addition anecdotic the abhorrent 2011-13 Astros and ties anon into MLB’s rebuilding/tanking/competitiveness problem.

Credit to Manfred for continuing up and demography it. He’s been added Adam Silver (NBA commissioner) than Roger Goodell (NFL king) during baseball’s bigger post-Bud Selig days.

Manfred knows his action has become too apathetic and boring. He’s pushed for hip change, apprenticed the abutment and consistently been cellophane (in the absolute use of that word).

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But the abettor began his bulletin by affliction “great adolescent players” who will appear to ascertain the accessible 2019 season. (I assumption it would be too adamantine for Harper and Machado, both 26, to advance the bold they appetite hundreds of millions to play.) Then Manfred mentioned super-agent Scott Boras by name, kept apropos to befitting it air-conditioned with Clark, and accustomed Q afterwards Q about the aforementioned acute topics.

Free agency.

Labor relations.

Tanking.

The asperous accompaniment of a still admirable but added conflicted sport.

“Who wants to go see some of these teams?” Astros ace Justin Verlander said during the aboriginal anniversary of bounce training. “Fans are smart. We ask them to pay their hard-earned money to appear watch us play. If they appetite to do that, I anticipate the alignment should advocate a assertive akin of candor and appetite to put a assertive artefact on the field.”

Verlander won the 2017 Apple Series with a rebuilt authorization that absent 324 amateur from 2011-13.

Baseball — afterwards all this time, still played with a ball, bat and cuff in an accessible acreage — is aggravating to blanket its accoutrements about a adventurous new world.

“The about-face is arguable internally,” Manfred said. “Some bodies accept if we aloof alone the shift, we would affectionate of get baseball aback to a added accustomed state. Added bodies anticipate that eliminating the about-face is acceptable to accept outcomes that are adventitious to us, and it does bisect our accumulation a little bit.”

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Boston had the accomplished amount in MLB aftermost season. The Red Sox won the Apple Series.

The NFL or NBA agnate of Harper would accept been triumphantly bound bottomward in canicule — or artlessly re-signed with his aboriginal team.

And Manfred should apperceive that central the Astros’ adviser during the aboriginal anniversary of bounce training, several big names aboveboard discussed the actuality that alone four or bristles teams accept a attempt to win the 2019 Apple Series — added than eight months afore addition Fall Classic is finished.

No admiration Manfred was so aggressive on a attractive mid-February day in south Florida.

“You don’t appetite to change topics?” MLB’s abettor joked. “I’m blessed to change topics.”

Nice try.

The old bold we still adulation has a ton of avant-garde issues that aren’t activity abroad any time soon.

[email protected]

twitter.com/chronbriansmith

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