Showing posts with label Vol 6. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Vol 6. Show all posts

Saturday, May 22, 2021

White House News (白宮消息) | May 22, 2021

 2 - White House News in Chinese (weebly.com)

Some Democratic lawmakers are criticizing Israel’s actions against Hamas, while others are following President Biden in saying it has a right to defend itself.
Eight minutes with the president: Rep. Rashida Tlaib, the lone Palestinian American in Congress, gains relevance in Israel debate

May 22 - When Rep. Rashida Tlaib delivered a fiery condemnation last week on the House floor of what she called Israel’s “apartheid” and “racist” policies, she invoked arguments that have long made her a pariah among some Israel advocates, led Republicans to call her anti-Semitic and alienated some of her Democratic colleagues.

So it was a remarkable moment this week, just five days later, when the lone Palestinian American member of Congress stood face to face with the president of the United States on an airport tarmac and, for eight minutes, engaged in an animated conversation about the U.S. response to the latest outbreak of violence between Israel and Palestinians. Equally notable was the decision by President Biden later that day to praise Tlaib during an appearance in her hometown of Detroit.

“I admire your intellect, I admire your passion, and I admire your concern for so many other people,” Biden said Tuesday. “And God, thank you for being a fighter”...     more

Picture

Rashida Harbi Tlaib (/təˈliːb/;[1] born July 24, 1976) is an American politician and lawyer serving as the U.S. Representative for Michigan's 13th congressional district since 2019.[2] The district includes the western half of Detroit, along with several of its western suburbs and much of the Downriver area. A member of the Democratic Party, Tlaib represented the 6th and 12th districts of the Michigan House of Representatives before her election to Congress.[3]

In 2018, Tlaib won the Democratic nomination for the United States House of Representatives seat from Michigan's 13th congressional district. She ran unopposed in the general election and became the first woman of Palestinian descent in Congress, the first Muslim woman to serve in the Michigan legislature, and one of the first two Muslim women elected to Congress, along with Ilhan Omar (D-MN).[4][5][6] Tlaib is a member of The Squad, an informal group of six (four until the 2020 elections) U.S. Representatives on the left wing of the Democratic Party.[7]


Tlaib is a member of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA). She and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) are the first female DSA members to serve in Congress.[8][9] Tlaib has argued in favor of abolishing the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the police. She was a vocal critic of the Trump administration and advocated Trump's impeachment. On foreign affairs, she has sharply criticized the Israeli government, called for an end to U.S. aid to Israel, supports a one-state solution, and expressed support for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign.     quote from Wikipedia

Rashida Tlaib, the first Palestinian American member of Congress, has a frank discussion with Joe Biden on the Tarmac of the airport in Detroit.
Cracks open in Democratic support for Israel as old guard is challenged


The bloody bombing of Gaza has put Joe Biden at odds with progressive leaders in a generational and political divide

May 22 - With a giant Stars and Stripes and two gleaming cars at his back, Joe Biden turned to focus his remarks on one member of the audience. “From my heart, I pray that your grandmom and family are well,” he told Rashida Tlaib, the only Palestinian American in Congress. “I promise you, I’m going to do everything to see that they are, on the West Bank. You’re a fighter.”
It was a characteristic peace offering by the US president, even as protesters rallied outside the Ford plant in Dearborn, Michigan, and Tlaib herself challenged Biden over his unyielding support for Israel. But Tuesday’s gesture, and even a Middle East ceasefire declared on Thursday, may not be enough to heal a growing rift in the Democratic party...     more

Russia has tested the Peresvet secret laser weapon in Syria

May 22, MOSCOW, (BM) – Russia has tested the Perevest secret laser weapon in Syria and hundreds of other new weapons, according to an interview with Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoygu.


Minister Shoigu said that many new weapons have never seen the next stage of their development – their serial production. “Where else can you test weapons – in war. As much as we don’t want to, but state tests, military tests, army tests are, of course, good,” Shoygu said.

Minister Shoygu revealed that over the years, more than 70 specialists, engineers, and designers from Russian arms companies have been present at the Russian airbase in Syria – Khmeimim to conduct the tests and assist in the timely elimination of problems. He confirmed that a large production workshop has also been set up, which eliminates discrepancies.

“What did Syria give us? I will tell you frankly that we encountered a huge number of unpleasant surprises. Dozens of new weapons and prototypes were simply removed and stopped production,” the minister said.

Laser weapon Peresvet
Russia’s Peresvet laser complex has successfully passed all state and combat tests in Syria, Shoygu said. The minister stressed that Peresvet is already in service with the Russian army and continues developing and renewing, as Moscow continues to use it in Syria...     more

美“秘密军队”被曝光 美对俄酝酿新战术?20210521 |《今日关注》CCTV中文国际
May 22, 2021

Monday, April 19, 2021

White House News (白宮消息) | Apr. 19 , 2021

 2 - White House News in Chinese (weebly.com)

Picture

The Foreign and Expatriates Ministry has condemned the US decision to dispatch more military forces towards Russian borders, according to SANA. 
Syria Condemns Washington and NATO Dispatching Troops Towards Russian Border

Apr. 19 - Syria condemned the US and NATO step of dispatching more military forces towards Russian borders posing a threat to international peace and security.
An official source at the Foreign and Expatriates Ministry told SANA on Sunday that the US step of escalation comes as a reflection of the US’s blatant intervention in the affairs of other countries, in addition to imposing coercive measures on them in an attempt to subjugate these countries to US policies and continue its hegemony on the world.

The source added that the Syrian Arab Republic rejects the US’s international relations methods, and expresses its full solidarity with friendly Russia and all measures taken to preserve its national security and protect peace and stability in the world in light of the threats that surround it as a result of the US reckless policies.   
  source from

Moscow sees U.S. influence behind Czech expulsion of Russian diplomats

April 19 - Russia says U.S. influence is evident in the Czech Republic's decision to expel 18 Russian diplomats from Prague.
Czech authorities took the step to please the United States following recent American sanctions on Russia, the Russian Foreign Ministry said Sunday in a statement.

Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis said Saturday that the country was expelling 18 staffers from the Russian embassy in Prague for the alleged involvement of the Russian special services in two ammunition depot explosions in 2014.

The Russian Foreign Ministry criticized Prague for using "unfounded and far-fetched pretexts" in order to continue its anti-
Russian tirade in recent years.

"We express our strong protest to the Czech authorities. We will take retaliatory measures that will make the masterminds of this provocation realize their full responsibility for destroying the foundations of normal development of bilateral relations," the statement read.

The United States on Thursday imposed sanctions against Russia and expelled 10 diplomats citing Moscow's alleged election interference and cyber activities.


The Russian Foreign Ministry on Friday announced a series of retaliatory measures, including entry bans and the expulsion of diplomats, in response to recent "hostile actions" by the United States.
Russia will ask 10 U.S. diplomats to leave the country, the ministry said.     source from

Picture

Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny at a court hearing in Moscow.
US warns of 'consequences' if Putin critic Navalny dies as doctors raise health concerns


US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan warned Sunday that Russia will face "consequences" if hunger-striking Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny dies.

Apr. 19 - US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan warned Sunday that Russia will face "consequences" if hunger-striking Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny dies.

Jailed opposition leader Navalny
, President Vladimir Putin's most prominent opponent, was arrested in January upon returning to Russia after recovering from a near-fatal poisoning attack he says was orchestrated by Moscow.

"In terms of the specific measures we would undertake, we are looking at a variety of different costs that we would impose, and I'm not going to telegraph that publicly at this point," Sullivan told CNN.

"But we have communicated that there will be consequences if Mr. Navalny dies." The 44-year-old Russian began a hunger strike on March 31 to demand proper medical treatment for back pain and numbness in his legs and hands.

On Saturday, Navalny's doctors said his health had rapidly deteriorated and demanded prison officials grant them immediate access.

"Our patient can die any minute," cardiologist Yaroslav Ashikhmin said, pointing to Navalny's high potassium levels and saying he should be moved to intensive care.

Both France and Germany on Sunday joined a growing international chorus of protest at Navalny's treatment.
Sullivan said the White House had told the Kremlin that Moscow would be "held accountable by the international community" for what happens to Navalny while in Russian custody.

US President Joe Biden said Saturday that Navalny's situation was "totally unfair," but he is facing criticism for not bringing up the dissident's treatment in a phone call to Putin last week or being more forthright in his public comments.

Sullivan said the White House had already made its position clear to Russia directly and that "the best way to deal with this issue is privately, and through diplomatic channels direct to the uppermost levels of the Russian government."     source from

美加大对俄制裁驱逐外交官 俄称坚决回击“侵略”行为! 20210416 |《今日关注》CCTV中文国际
Apr 17, 2021
Symbolic Retaliation: Why the US Likely Would Attack a Kremlin Client State in Response to a Russian-Ukrainian War

Apr. 19 - Growing tensions between Russia and Ukraine are producing an surge of bluster from the Biden administration, as well as from the hawkish denizens of Washington’s think tanks. The administration keeps assuring Ukraine’s government that the United States and NATO have Kiev’s back in its confrontation with Russian-supported separatists in the eastern Donbas region as well as with Russia itself. An April 2 White House press release confirmed that in a telephone call to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Biden "affirmed the United States’ unwavering support for Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity in the face of Russia’s ongoing aggression in the Donbas and Crimea." Other high-level administration officials, including Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and Secretary of State Antony Blinken have done the same...

...A regime-change war against Venezuela is precisely the kind of tit-for-tat response chastened, but still angry and aggressive, US foreign policy mandarins might choose to salvage some prestige if Russia calls Washington’s bluff about defending Ukraine. There is, of course, a much easier way for America’s armchair hawks and laptop bombardiers to avoid the danger of such humiliation. But that approach would require them to end their posturing and saber-rattling toward Moscow, and they don’t seem inclined to embrace such basic prudence.    quoted from

Friday, March 26, 2021

White House News (白宮消息) | Mar. 26, 2021

https://smashwords2.weebly.com/2.html

MPs including Iain Duncan Smith sanctioned as China hits back at UK

Mar. 26 - China has hit British institutions and MPs including former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith with sanctions in response to similar moves by the UK over the treatment of people in Xinjiang.

Britain, the US, Canada and the European Union on Monday slapped sanctions on Chinese officials deemed responsible for human rights abuses in the country’s autonomous north-west territory.

Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab announced a package of travel bans and asset freezes against four senior officials and the state-run Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps Public Security Bureau (XPCC PSB).

The Foreign Secretary said the abuse of the Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang was “one of the worst human rights crises of our time” and the international community “cannot simply look the other way”.

But China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement early on Friday that the move by Mr Raab was “based on nothing but lies and disinformation, flagrantly breaches international law and basic norms governing international relations, grossly interferes in China’s internal affairs, and severely undermines China-UK relations”.     more details


Sir George Iain Duncan Smith (born George Ian Duncan Smith; 9 April 1954), often referred to by his initials IDS, is a British politician who served as Secretary of State for Work and Pensions from 2010 to 2016. He was previously Leader of the Conservative Party and Leader of the Opposition from 2001 to 2003. He has been Member of Parliament (MP) for Chingford and Woodford Green, formerly Chingford, since 1992.
The son of a Royal Air Force flying ace, Duncan Smith was born in Edinburgh and raised in Solihull. After education at the training school HMS Conway and Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, he served in the Scots Guards from 1975 to 1981, seeing tours in Northern Ireland and Rhodesia. He joined the Conservative Party in 1981. After unsuccessfully contesting Bradford West in 1987, he was elected to Parliament at the 1992 general election.


After the resignation of William Hague, Duncan Smith won the 2001 Conservative Party leadership election, partly owing to the support of Margaret Thatcher for his Eurosceptic beliefs. However, many Conservative MPs came to consider him incapable of winning the next general election and, in 2003, passed a vote of no confidence in his leadership; he immediately resigned and was succeeded by Michael Howard.

Returning to the backbenches, Duncan Smith became a published novelist. He then founded the Centre for Social Justice, a centre-right think tank independent of the Conservative Party, and became chair of its Social Justice Policy Group. In May 2010, new Prime Minister David Cameron appointed him to serve in the Cabinet as Secretary of State for Work and Pensions. He resigned from the Cabinet in March 2016, in opposition to Chancellor George Osborne's proposed cuts to disability benefits.     from Wikipedia

China sanctions: Iain Duncan Smith describes Beijing censure over human right criticism as ‘badge of honour’

Mar. 26 - Senior MPs today vowed they would not be silenced from exposing China’s human rights abuses after Beijing imposed sanctions on them.


Former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith tweeted that it was the “duty” of MPs to “call out the Chinese Govt’s human rights abuse in #HongKong & the genocide of the #Uyghurs.”

He added that if that led to a response from the Beijing he would “wear that badge of honour”.
Tom Tugendhat, Conservative chairman of the Commons foreign affairs committee, emphasised that China was imposing sanctions on “individuals who defend the human rights of Chinese citizens”.

China hit British institutions and MPs with sanctions in a tit-for-tat response to similar moves by the UK over the treatment of people in Xinjiang.

Britain, the US, Canada and the European Union on Monday slapped sanctions on Chinese officials deemed responsible for human rights abuses in the country’s autonomous north-west territory.


Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab announced a package of travel bans and asset freezes against four senior officials and the state-run Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps Public Security Bureau (XPCC PSB).
The Foreign Secretary said the abuse of the Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang was “one of the worst human rights crises of our time” and the international community “cannot simply look the other way”.

But China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs alleged in a statement early on Friday that the move by Mr Raab was “based on nothing but lies and disinformation, flagrantly breaches international law and basic norms governing international relations, grossly interferes in China’s internal affairs, and severely undermines China-UK relations”.     more details

Picture

Antony Blinken, left, and Jake Sullivan address the media following the closed-door morning talks in Anchorage, Alaska, on March 19.
U.S., China End Contentious Alaska Meeting With Little to Show

Date Published on March. 20, 2021
Top U.S. and Chinese officials ended their first face-to-face talks of the Biden administration, saying they voiced their disagreements candidly over hours of conversations in an Alaska hotel and signaling their failure to reach any agreement about the path ahead.

“We wanted to share with them the significant concerns we have about a number of actions China has taken,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said after the talks in Anchorage, Alaska, ended on Friday, citing China’s crackdowns in Xinjiang, Taiwan and Hong Kong, as well as its cyber-attacks. “And we did that.”     more to read

Xinjiang: China's Muslim Borderland (Studies of Central Asia and the Caucasus)

Eastern Turkestan, now known as Xinjiang or the New Territory, makes up a sixth of China's land mass. Absorbed by the Qing in the 1880s and reconquered by Mao in 1949, this Turkic-Muslim region of China's remote northwest borders on formerly Soviet Central Asia, Afghanistan, Kashmir, Mongolia, and Tibet, Will Xinjiang participate in twenty-first century ascendancy, or will nascent Islamic radicalism in Xinjiang expand the orbit of instability in a dangerous part of the world? This comprehensive survey of contemporary Xinjiang is the result of a major collaborative research project begun in 1998. The authors have combined their fieldwork experience, linguistic skills, and disciplinary expertise to assemble the first multifaceted introduction to Xinjiang. The volume surveys the region's geography; its history of military and political subjugation to China; economic, social, and commercial conditions; demography, public health, and ecology; and patterns of adaption, resistance, opposition, and evolving identities.     source from
MARCH 25, 2021
Secretary Blinken and Belgian Foreign Minister Hold News Conference
Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Belgian Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Sophie Wilmes speak with reporters following a meeting in Brussels.


Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin pose for a family photo at the 11th BRICS leaders summit in Brasilia, Brazil, in 2019. The two countries both reject America's claimed right to set the rules for the 'world order.'
Russia and China tell Biden: The old days are over

In separate incidents, Moscow and Beijing sent a strong message that they will not tolerate being told what to do or how to behave

Mar. 26 - The past week has marked a watershed moment in Russia’s relations with the West – and the US in particular. In two dramatic, televised moments, US President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin changed the dynamics between their countries, perhaps irrevocably.


Most commentators in the West have focused on Putin’s “trolling” of Biden by dryly – though, according to Putin, unironically – wishing his American counterpart “good health.” This, of course, came after Biden called Putin a “killer.”

But a more careful and complete reading of Putin’s message to the US is necessary to understand how a Russian leader is, finally, ready to tell the US: Do not judge us by your claimed standards, and do not try to tell us what to do.

Putin has never asserted these propositions so bluntly. And it matters when he does.     continue to read
Xinjiang: China's Muslim Borderland (Studies of Central Asia and the Caucasus)

Eastern Turkestan, now known as Xinjiang or the New Territory, makes up a sixth of China's land mass. Absorbed by the Qing in the 1880s and reconquered by Mao in 1949, this Turkic-Muslim region of China's remote northwest borders on formerly Soviet Central Asia, Afghanistan, Kashmir, Mongolia, and Tibet, Will Xinjiang participate in twenty-first century ascendancy, or will nascent Islamic radicalism in Xinjiang expand the orbit of instability in a dangerous part of the world? This comprehensive survey of contemporary Xinjiang is the result of a major collaborative research project begun in 1998. The authors have combined their fieldwork experience, linguistic skills, and disciplinary expertise to assemble the first multifaceted introduction to Xinjiang. The volume surveys the region's geography; its history of military and political subjugation to China; economic, social, and commercial conditions; demography, public health, and ecology; and patterns of adaption, resistance, opposition, and evolving identities.     source from

Featured Post

Mischief Reef |Mar. 25

  WH keeping public in dark on what Biden demanded of China’s Xi over arming Putin​ Mar. 18 - The White House was tight-lipped Friday about ...