(April 30, 2024 / JNS) Palestinian Authority chief Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah faction has reiterated its desire to reconcile with Hamas, China’s Foreign Ministry announced on Tuesday following talks in Beijing.
Representatives of Fatah and Hamas recently held negotiations in the Chinese capital with a view to forging a Palestinian unity government.
BEIJING (AP) — China on Wednesday blasted the latest package of U.S. military assistance to Taiwan on Wednesday, saying that such funding was pushing the self-governing island republic into a “dangerous situation.”
The U.S. Senate late Tuesday passed $95 billion in war aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan after months of delays and contentious debate over how involved the United States should be in foreign wars. China claims the entire island of Taiwan as its own territory and has threatened to take it by force if necessary.
Numerous world leaders warned against an escalation of the situation in the Middle East on Friday, after Israel struck an Iranian military site in the city of Isfahan earlier in the morning.
Fears of a regional escalation caused oil prices to surge by several percent following reports of the Israeli strike, while several markets in Asia dropped, and European stock exchanges like the German DAX started trade with significant drops on Friday.
China expressed "grave concern" on Thursday at the deployment of a U.S. missile system to the edge of the South China Sea, potentially putting Chinese territory within striking range.
The U.S. Army this month hailed the "historic first" arrival of a medium or mid-range capability launcher in the northern Philippines as part of an ongoing military exercise.
JERUSALEM, ISRAEL — Prior to October 7, the future seemed so bright for Israel.
We had just signed our sixth Arab-Israeli peace and normalization agreement.
We seemed to be on track to sign a seventh agreement with Saudi Arabia.
Our economy was booming, tourism was hitting record levels, and Israel was building increasingly close and warm ties with nations and governments all over the globe.
The Palestinians’ long-dormant application for full United Nations membership will be given a fresh look on Monday.
The United Nations Security Council is set to meet, first in closed consultations, then in an open format, to consider the 2011 application—a move officially requested in a letter from Palestinian Authority Foreign Minister Riyad Mansour last Wednesday.
MOSCOW (Reuters) -Russia and NATO are now in "direct confrontation", the Kremlin said as the U.S.-led alliance marked its 75th anniversary on Thursday.
NATO's successive waves of eastern enlargement are a fixation of President Vladimir Putin, who went to war in Ukraine two years ago with the stated aim of preventing the alliance from coming closer to Russia's borders. Instead, the war has galvanised NATO, which has expanded again with the entry of Finland and Sweden.
China has deployed more than 20 fighter jets and eight warships towards Taiwan, the self-ruled island's defense ministry announced on Wednesday.
The Chinese People's Liberation Army sent 20 military aircraft and eight navy vessels around Taiwan in a 24-hour-window leading up to 6am local time Wednesday, Taiwan's Ministry of National Defense said.
The polar vortex circling the Arctic is swirling in the wrong direction after surprise warming in the upper atmosphere triggered a major reversal event earlier this month. It is one of the most extreme atmospheric U-turns seen in recent memory.
In the past, disruptions to the polar vortex — a rotating mass of cold air that circles the Arctic — have triggered extremely cold weather and storms across large parts of the U.S.
Seven Chinese naval vessels and five military aircraft were detected operating around Taiwan on Sunday, the country's Ministry of National Defence has claimed, as the threat of an invasion surges.
They described one Chinese aircraft entering Taiwan's Southwest Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) as Taipei's forces monitored its movement.
TOKYO/WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. President Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida will agree next month to tighter military cooperation, including talks on the biggest potential change to Washington's East Asia command structure in decades, two sources said.
Washington will consider appointing a four-star commander to oversee its forces in Japan as a counterpart to the head of a proposed Japanese Self Defense Forces (SDF) headquarters overseeing all of the country's military operations, said the sources, who have direct knowledge of the plan.
"We plan to create two joint armies, 14 divisions, and 16 brigades,\" Sergei Shoigu announced, outlining Russia's military expansion plans. While the generals present simply nodded, Western experts view this move as highly dangerous. Despite potential equipment shortages, Russia's indifference towards human casualties heightens concerns.
"Alarms are sounding... Vladimir Putin is boosting war economy spending, possibly aiming to confront NATO by 2026 or 2027,\" Andrzej Duda recently cautioned. Jacek Siewiera of the National Security Bureau stressed that NATO's eastern members should brace themselves within a three-year timeframe.
China's rapid military build-up is more expansive than anything seen since World War II, which means it's on track with its 2027 goal to be ready for a Taiwan invasion, said US Navy Adm. John Aquilino.
"All indications point to the PLA meeting President Xi Jinping's directive to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027," Aquilino wrote in a testimony to the US Armed Services House Committee.
Hong Kong CNN — Chinese diplomat Wang Kejian met Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Qatar, China’s Foreign Ministry said Tuesday, the first meeting between a Chinese and Hamas official publicly acknowledged by Beijing since the outbreak of the war in Gaza.
The meeting follows visits from Wang to Israel and the occupied West Bank – making him the first known envoy Beijing has sent to either location since Hamas’ deadly October 7 attacks and the ensuing Israeli bombardment of Gaza.
According to Lithuanian intelligence, Russia is gearing up for a prolonged confrontation with NATO. The Baltic Sea region is a focal point in this scenario. Since Finland's accession to NATO in 2023, Russia has been systematically bolstering its presence in the Baltic vicinity.
The most recent report from Lithuanian intelligence, released on Thursday and focusing on national security matters, indicates that the Kremlin has initiated significant reforms of its armed forces. These modifications are designed to enhance Russia's military capabilities, particularly in the Baltic Sea area.
American fifth-generation stealth fighters touched down in a new location in Southeast Asia this month, marking another milestone in the U.S.' increased defense engagement with nations along the first island chain.
A pair of F-35 Lightning II jets, assigned to Eielson Air Force Base in Alaska, operated from Brunei's Rimba air base on March 1-2 during a visit by a Pentagon official, the U.S. Embassy in Bandar Seri Begawan said this week.
More ammunition, more weapons production, more investment and coordination in defense capabilities. Europe is on the warpath. EU member states are increasing their spending in defense and the European Union — a project aimed at maintaining peace without a military component — is now metamorphosing into a model with a strong focus on defense, as it aims to protect itself from external threats in turbulent times.
HELSINKI (AP) — NATO kicked off an exercise on Monday to defend its newly expanded Nordic territory when more than 20,000 soldiers from 13 nations take part in drills lasting nearly two weeks in the northern regions of Finland, Norway and Sweden.
With over 4,000 Finnish soldiers taking part, the Norway-led Nordic Response 2024 represents the NATO newcomer's largest ever participation in a foreign exercise, according to Finland's military.
German fighter jets took off from the Latvian military base Lielvārde on 1 March to intercept Russian aircraft near Latvian territorial waters.
Source: Latvian Air Force, reported by European Pravda
Israel will provide Ukraine with an early warning system against missiles as part of an aid package for Kyiv, as it condemned aggression from Russia
Israel's ambassador to the United Nations, Gilad Erdan, told the General Assembly on Monday that his country had provided humanitarian aid to Ukraine since the start of Vladimir Putin's full-scale invasion because it was "the moral thing to do."
