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Excerpt from www.bloomberg.com

Protest Erupts in Taiwan Over Plan to Curb Lai’s Power  Bloomberg

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Excerpt from abcnews.go.com

TAIPEI, Taiwan — China is accelerating the forced urbanization of Tibetan villagers and herders, Human Rights Watch said, in an extensive report that adds to state government and independent reports of efforts to assimilate rural Tibetans through control over their language and traditional Buddhist culture.

The international rights organization cited a trove of Chinese internal reports contradicting official pronouncements that all Tibetans who have been forced to move, with their past homes destroyed on departure, did so voluntary.

The relocations fit a pattern of often-violent demands that ethnic minorities adopt the state language of Mandarin and pledge their fealty to the ruling Communist Party in western and northern territories that include millions of people from Tibetan, Xinjiang Uyghur, Mongolian and other minority groups.

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Excerpt from www.nysun.com

As of now there are about a thousand American soldiers deployed in Niger as part of the fight against jihadist forces in the region, but by the middle of September they will likely all be gone. The ruling junta has given Washington four months to vacate everyone from Niger Air Base 201, a $100 million drone air base that is near the remote town Agadez. It is owned by Niger but financed, and was built, by America.

The announcement came on May 19 at the capital, Niamey, after  days of talks between the junta and a delegation from the Department of State. The approximately 1,000 soldiers deployed as part of the anti-jihadist fight have until September 15 at the latest to leave the base,  which is used for intelligence and anti-terrorism operations in the Sahel and the Sahara.

Since a July 2023 coup d’état against the elected president, Mohamed Bazoum, things have gone south for relations between Niger and both the former colonial power, France, and America. While the split between Niamey and Washington is on the surface amicable, there is no getting around the idea that Secretary Blinken’s team at Foggy Bottom could have done better. There are uncomfortable echoes of President Biden’s hasty withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan in August 2021 as well as of President Obama’s decision to shutter the American Embassy in Yemen in 2015.

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Excerpt from timesofindia.indiatimes.com

 

Supporters of Taiwan’s new president are protesting an attempt by the China-leaning opposition to curtail his powers.
On Tuesday, lawmakers from the Kuomintang kicked off the final steps toward passing a law that would require President Lai Ching-te to deliver an address to them every year, appear separately to answer questions and provide a range of documents when asked.
The law would also allow officials to be jailed if they are found lying to the legislature — a change that has the potential to bog Lai’s officials down in court proceedings.
The proposed legislation could be passed in the coming days and make it difficult for Lai to govern the chip hub at the epicenter of US-China tensions. The ruling Democratic Progressive Party says the bill is being rushed through the legislature without enough consultation, while the KMT insists all the proper procedures have been followed.
“It appears to be an attempt to weaken the government’s ability to govern effectively,” said Wen-ti Sung, a Taipei-based nonresident fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Global China Hub.

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Excerpt from wtvbam.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Excerpt from www.reuters.com

Chad’s PM Masra resigns after disputed election, Deby confirmed winner  Reuters

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Excerpt from www.kake.com

Dominican Republic president declares himself winner in election  KAKE

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Excerpt from uk.news.yahoo.com

President Emmanuel Macron flew to France’s Pacific territory of New Caledonia on Wednesday, where nine days of riots have killed six, injured hundreds and incinerated cars, shops and public buildings.

Macron’s plane was en route from France to the troubled islands, a holiday destination now strewn with hundreds of charred vehicles and scarred by burned-out stores, businesses and schools.

The deadliest unrest in four decades has been blamed on French plans to give voting rights to thousands of non-indigenous residents, which Indigenous Kanaks say will dilute their votes.

French authorities said the violence, which erupted May 13, had eased since 1,050 troops, tactical police and national security reinforcements from Paris were deployed, including to “highly sensitive” areas.

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Excerpt from www.1lurer.am

A group of US congressmen from both parties appealed to the head of the Pentagon, Lloyd Austin, with a request to allow Ukrainian forces to use Western weapons for strikes on the territory of Russia. The letter was published by the Intelligence Committee of the US House of Representatives, reports UNN.

The text of the appeal says that Ukrainian soldiers cannot effectively defend themselves because of the relevant policy of the administration of US President Joe Biden, which, as they believe, needs to be changed.

“Our Ukrainian allies are asking for permission to use certain types of weapons provided by the United States to perform operations on strategic targets in Russia or on Russian-controlled territory,” it says in the letter.

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Excerpt from natlawreview.com

As announced in our last Quarterly Sanctions Update, on April 12, 2024 the Council of the European Union adopted a directive criminalizing sanctions violation at the European Union (EU) level. In this post, we provide a summary of the key provisions of this directive, to be followed by a second post focusing on its potential implementation in EU Member States.

Background

In the European Union, even though sanctions are adopted by the Council of the European Union, their enforcement remains the responsibility of each EU Member State.

In the absence of a harmonized sanctions enforcement regime, there are differences among EU Member States, with some considering violations of EU sanctions to be criminal offences and others considering violations only apt for administrative penalties.

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Excerpt from www.nytimes.com

Two years into President Biden’s term, his aides began negotiating with Saudi leaders to have the kingdom establish diplomatic relations with Israel. But when the Israel-Hamas war began last October, the talks withered.

American and Saudi officials have tried to revive prospects for a deal by demanding more from Israel — a cease-fire in Gaza and irreversible steps toward the founding of a Palestinian state. Now those officials say they are close to a final agreement on the main elements of what the Saudis want from the deal: a U.S.-Saudi mutual defense pact and cooperation on a civilian nuclear program in the kingdom.

Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken spoke with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the de facto Saudi leader, about these matters in private on his visit last month to Riyadh, according to the State Department. And Jake Sullivan, the White House national security adviser, is expected to follow up when he goes to Saudi Arabia and Israel this weekend.

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Excerpt from chinadigitaltimes.net

Last week, Chinese leader Xi Jinping hosted Russian President Vladimir Putin in Beijing, only weeks after his first trip to Europe in five years. While E.U. and French leaders pressed Xi to make greater efforts in halting Russia’s war against Ukraine, his summit with Putin suggests that Xi has no intention of casting aside his country’s close ties with Russia. This mirrors the outcome of Xi’s visit to Moscow last year. As David Pierson summarized for The New York Times, Xi and Putin have embraced in defiance of the Western-led world order:

Mr. Xi’s talks with Mr. Putin this week were a show of solidarity between two autocrats battling Western pressure. The two leaders put out a lengthy statement that denounced what they saw as American interference and bullying and laid out their alignment on China’s claim to self-ruled Taiwan and Russia’s “legitimate security interests” in Ukraine.

They pledged to expand economic and military ties, highlighted by Mr. Putin’s visit to a cutting-edge Chinese institute for defense research. Mr. Xi even initiated a cheek-to-cheek hug as he bade Mr. Putin farewell on Thursday after an evening stroll in the Chinese Communist Party leadership compound in Beijing.

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Excerpt from www.jns.org

Blinken denies Washington withheld intelligence from Israel about Hamas – JNS.org  JNS.org

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Excerpt from globalnews.ca

Canada is imposing new sanctions against Russia over Moscow’s alleged use of North Korean missiles in its ongoing invasion of Ukraine, now in its third year.

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Excerpt from www.polygraph.info

Russian President Vladimir Putin used a two-day state visit to Beijing last week to decry the United States and portray Moscow’s actions as a stabilizing force in global affairs.

Moscow and Beijing reaffirmed a “no limits friendship,” including no “’forbidden’ areas of cooperation,” which the two sides announced on February 4, 2022 — weeks before Russia’s full-fledged military invasion of Ukraine.

Despite Beijing’s diplomatic and material support for Moscow’s war, Putin claims Sino-Russian cooperation doesn’t threaten other states.