On July 14, Chinese and Russian naval forces launched a joint exercise at a military port in southern China, according to the Chinese official news agency Xinhua. This development followed shortly after NATO allies characterized Beijing as a “decisive enabler” of the conflict in Ukraine.
Russian authorities said Saturday that an oil depot caught fire in Russia’s southwest in Ukraine’s drone attack that came hours after Russian forces reportedly hit two Ukrainian territories, killing some seven people and injuring nearly 30 others. The attacks raised fears that the war in Ukraine was further escalating.
Amid Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine, Poland’s military Chief of Staff General Wieslaw Kukula has warned that his country must prepare its army for a “full-scale” conflict, Reuters reports.
Taiwan said Thursday that China sent a record number of warplanes across a U.S.-drawn boundary in the Taiwan Strait as military tensions mount in the strategic region.
U.S. President Joe Biden, physically and politically frail, has presided over what his supporters fear could be his final NATO Summit at a moment when diplomats say the military alliance needs to remain strong to tackle the war in Ukraine and other challenges. Delegates used the summit to celebrate the alliance’s 75th anniversary, announce more aid for Ukraine, and commit to the most significant overhaul in defense measures since what was believed to be the end of the Cold War.
China and Belarus continued joint military exercises Thursday near the border of Poland, a member of NATO, while the military alliance gathered for its 75th anniversary summit.
The United States Director of National Intelligence has warned that Iran’s Islamic regime has been encouraging and funding anti-Israel, pro-Hamas protests in the US in an effort to divide America and stoke hatred against Israel, Ynet News reports. Vehemently anti-semitic, the Iranian regime has publicly declared its desire for the Jewish state to be annihilated.
Despite concerns about a subsequent direct confrontation with Russia, member states are expected to declare that Ukraine has an “irreversible” path to joining the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), a military alliance that obligates members to protect each other from any threat, Politico reports.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has urged the United States and its allies to take decisive action against Russia as his nation plunged into mourning following a suspected Russian strike at Ukraine’s largest children’s hospital in Kyiv and other sites that authorities said killed at least 42 people and injured more than 100 others. Zelenskyy’s appeal came at the start of a NATO military alliance summit in Washington, although Moscow denied responsibility for the deaths.
Recent satellite images show that major expansions are underway at two key missile facilities in Iran, suggesting Tehran is working to boost its conventional ballistic missile production, Reuters and Algemeiner report.
A Christian government minister in Malaysia is suing a top police official who accused her of evangelizing Malay Muslims in order to turn the country into a Christian nation, International Christian Concern (ICC) reports.
Hungary’s prime minister defended his controversial trip to communist-run China to talk about peace in Ukraine, where officials said scores of people were killed and injured Monday in Russian attacks on a children’s hospital and other sites.
U.S.-based Boeing, one of the world’s largest aerospace manufacturers, agreed late Sunday to plead guilty to conspiring to defraud the government in a case linked to crashes of its 737 Max jets in Indonesia and Ethiopia that killed 346 people.
Ukrainian officials say Russia launched dozens of missiles at cities across Ukraine on Monday in an attack that killed at least 29 people and smashed into a children’s hospital in Kyiv. The rare daytime Russian barrage came as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was due in Warsaw before he flew to the NATO military alliance summit in Washington.
India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi will meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin during a two-day state visit to Russia starting on Monday (July 8), Reuters reports.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán arrived in Beijing on Monday as part of unprecedented efforts to reach peace in Ukraine despite anger from some European Union leaders. He came to meet China’s President Xi Jinping after talks with Russia’s leader Vladimir Putin and earlier Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Tensions remained high in the streets of Kenya’s capital Monday after dozens of activists said they were snatched from their homes or off the streets by hooded, armed men.
In an unexpected, stunning outcome, the French left managed to beat a surging far right in the second and final round of legislative elections, winning the most parliamentary seats but not a majority, polling projections showed early Monday.
Diplomatic tensions are rising between Germany and Hungary after Budapest canceled a meeting between Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó and his German counterpart, Annalena Baerbock, planned for Monday in the Hungarian capital. The unusual last-minute cancellation of the German minister’s visit to Budapest comes after Germany’s Chancellor Olaf Scholz and other European Union leaders condemned Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s visit to Moscow, where he met with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday as part of a self-declared peace mission for the war in Ukraine.
Reformist Masoud Pezeshkian has been elected as Iran’s new president, beating his hardline conservative rival Saeed Jalili, but it was unclear whether hardline policies toward minority Christians would change.