China

Weekend protests in Hong Kong turned into ugly street battles after sunset featuring exchanges of firebombs and tear gas between demonstrators and police.

As the U.S. and its allies debate how to respond to the military and economic threats posed by China, they must not ignore the Chinese Communist Party’s “shredding of human rights and religious freedom,” Russell Moore wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed Sunday.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) is surging in the polls, particularly in the Midwest. But voters continue to be skeptical of her personality, as a new focus group of female swing voters in a Wisconsin small town revealed.

Thomas Cook, the world’s oldest tour operator, collapsed in the early hours of Monday morning leaving hundreds of thousands of tourists unable to return home on their booked flights, leaving the government to repatriate travellers.

“Does anybody believe that one?” asked Trump.

Activists spanning over 150 countries participated in the global climate strike Friday, but activists in China — the world’s leading greenhouse gas emitter — were noticeably silent as protests were not authorized in the country, according to reports.

A Kashmiri and Sikh advocate group sued Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in a U.S. circuit court this week for alleged human rights violations in New Delhi-held Kashmir.

Hong Kong police on Friday rescinded their ban against a protest march scheduled for Saturday afternoon, although they added a restriction that the event — which is somewhat tangential to the main thrust of the protest movement — must conclude sooner than originally scheduled to reduce the risk of violent behavior after dark.

The donor-class Koch network headed by GOP mega-donor Charles Koch is now admitting they failed to turn the American people against President Trump’s tariffs on Chinese imports. 

The Chinese Foreign Ministry on Thursday commanded the U.S. Congress to withdraw the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act of 2019, denouncing the bill as interfering in China’s internal sovereign affairs.

White House assistant for trade and manufacturing Peter Navarro on Friday agreed with President Donald Trump that Americans are not paying for the China tariffs, saying he is “absolutely correct.” Navarro said on Fox Business Network’s “Mornings with Maria” that

Twitter has announced that it has suspended another 10,000 accounts from its platform accused of sowing political discord across the globe.

Chinese media tends to be very astute at picking up and exacerbating hot-button American political issues, doing everything it can to highlight controversies even when China’s authoritarian brutality makes the criticism absurd.

Chinese democracy activists are demanding the release of Lai Rifu, a dissident living in Guangzhou who was snatched off the street on Monday in a bizarre arrest and incarcerated for “picking quarrels and provoking trouble” by posting a video that used the unofficial anthem of the Hong Kong protest movement, “Glory to Hong Kong.”

“Before they come over and display what their current thinking is, it’s sort of hard to say,” Schwarzman said Thursday.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau responded to questions about newly uncovered images of himself in blackface by repeatedly stating he “should have known better” and admitting he has “been more enthusiastic about costumes than is sometimes appropriate.”

“The era of economic surrender is over,” Pence said. “We’re going to continue to stand strong.”

Canada’s Global News broadcaster published a video Thursday morning that alleges to show Prime Minister Justin Trudeau wearing blackface and an Afro wig and waving his hands in the air.

Vice President Mike Pence canceled plans to visit the Solomon Islands this week after the country switched its allegiance from sovereign Taiwan to China, according to a report.

China launched a workshop this week under its Belt and Road News Network (BRNN) aimed at promoting propaganda about its global infrastructure initiative among Latin American and African media personnel.

China, the world’s biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, is ready to massively boost its coal-powered energy supply with the total of future projects now standing at 226.2 gigawatts (GW). That is more than twice the amount of fresh capacity planned for India, according to data published Thursday by environmental groups.

Rep. Garret Graves chided climate change activists and Democrats at a House hearing on Wednesday for blaming the U.S. for global pollution.

China’s state-run Global Times gave a big thumbs-down on Tuesday to the September 9 Wall Street Journal editorial penned by left-wing billionaire political activist George Soros, in which Soros praised President Donald Trump for adopting the right trade strategy toward China and urged Trump to stay the course against Chinese telecom giant Huawei.

A Hong Kong courtroom on Tuesday was packed with hundreds of supporters of three young protesters accused of rioting and assaulting police officers. The crowd outside the courtroom chanted “Fight for freedom” and “Stand with Hong Kong, while many seated in the public gallery wore the type of face masks favored by protesters.

Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA), running for the 2020 Democrat presidential nomination, would secure a major legislative victory should Senate Republicans help pass a green card giveaway plan for the nation’s largest tech corporations.

The government of Hong Kong canceled a fireworks show on Wednesday to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the establishment of communist China, fearing the event would be a magnet for pro-democracy protesters who do not feel bound by Beijing.

China’s state-run Global Times on Monday took the occasion of the International Day of Democracy to scoff at the image of the United States as a “beacon of democracy” and argue the American concept of democracy is an “outdated fantasy” idolized only by misguided souls such as the “rioters” in Hong Kong.

“China thinks I’m going to win so easily and they’re concerned because I told them, if it’s after the election it’s going to be far worse than what it is right now,” Trump said. “I told them that.”

Prominent members of the Hong Kong pro-democracy movement, including Demosisto movement leader Joshua Wong and prominent music artist Denise Ho, testified before Congress Tuesday on the persecution they are facing at home for speaking up against the Chinese Communist regime.

An expert from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), which tracks military development around the world, told South Korean reporters on Monday that the communist regime in North Korea may have as many as 40 nuclear weapons by the end of the year.