The House on Wednesday joined the Senate in approving a bill to rebuke China over its crackdown in Hong Kong by imposing sanctions on groups that undermine the city’s autonomy or restrict freedoms promised to its residents.
The Trump administration said it was now blocking transfers of sensitive U.S. technology to Hong Kong after China on Tuesday formally put in place a harsh new national security law on the former British territory.
Poland’s right-wing president, Andrzej Duda, was seeking a second five-year term in an election amid controversy. Sunday’s poll was seen as a test whether voters share his plans of implementing a conservative agenda. His policies include judicial reforms that the European Union claims undermine democracy.
Israel and the United Arab Emirates are set to join forces in fighting the COVID-19 pandemic, the Jerusalem Post reports. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced the partnership in a statement on Thursday, saying the decision to cooperate had come after months of intense negotiation.
According to a new study, many African nations struggling with the COVID-19 pandemic may find themselves defaulting on debt repayments, DW reports. Weak currencies, higher interest rates, and reduced oil prices could result in African governments losing an estimated US$45 billion in revenue this year alone, the study found.
Belgium’s Chamber of Representatives will vote today on whether to recognize a Palestinian state and on whether Israel should be threatened with economic sanctions if it unilaterally annexes parts of the West Bank, the Jerusalem Post reports.
The US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) heard last week that President Donald Trump’s partial withdrawal of American troops from northeast Syria in 2019 created a vacuum in which Turkey and Turkish-backed militia have been able to threaten local vulnerable civilian populations including Christians and Yazidis. Condemning Turkey’s latest airstrikes and ground operations in the region, the USCIRF called for the US government to “utilize all diplomatic and economic leverage to protect vulnerable religious minorities in northern Iraq — as well as neighboring northeastern Syria — from Turkey’s indiscriminate military operations,” the Christian Post reported.
The United Nations, European Union countries, and the Arab League joined Wednesday in calling for Israel to abandon its plans to annex parts of the West Bank, as the Jewish state’s envoy to the international body insisted the step would not stand in the way of peace with the Palestinians.
The cabinet and the Knesset voted on Wednesday to advance legislation that would enable the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) to use its digital tools to track coronavirus patients. The bill passed a preliminary reading in the Knesset plenum by a vote of 44 to 33, but still must pass additional readings in a Knesset committee and the plenum next week in order to become law.
The former head of the IDF’s Military Intelligence Directorate Maj. Gen. (res.) Amos Yadlin warned on Wednesday that Iran could respond to overnight airstrikes in Syria that the Syrian regime has attributed to Israel.
An Iranian Christian rights activist who was jailed for protesting against Iran’s Islamic government says more than a dozen Christians remain behind bars in the country’s overcrowded prisons.
The United States and Russia have restarted negotiations about their nuclear arsenals following a break of more than a year amid the worst military tensions between the two atomic superpowers since the Cold War. But the talks in Vienna, Austria, began Monday amid uncertainty over whether U.S. President Donald Trump wants to secure a nuclear arms control treaty in the last four months before presidential elections.
Three people enjoying a summer evening in a British park were stabbed to death in “an act of terrorism,” police confirmed Sunday.
Religious freedom group Open Doors USA has been told that Christians in Iran are risking their lives to help fellow citizens with food and hygiene parcels during the coronavirus outbreak, Fox News reported Thursday. Known internationally for its radical Islamic terrorism, Iran is the epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic in the Middle East.
A day after destroying an inter-Korean liaison office, North Korea continued to increase tensions with South Korea Wednesday, when Pyongyang announced it was sending troops to the Kaesong Industrial Zone and to Mt. Kumgang, both areas that had once been the sites of joint economic ventures between the two countries, UPI reported. The move follows two weeks of Pyongyang making angry threats against Seoul because Northern defectors have been sending balloons with information leaflets over the border.
The United States has condemned Russia for sentencing an ex-marine to 16 years in a high-security prison for spying, charges he vehemently denies.
The United Nations says it has determined that Iran was the source for several items in two arms shipments seized by the United States and for debris left by attacks on Saudi Arabia’s oil installations and an international airport, according to a new report.
North Korea has fired diplomatic warning shots at the United States saying their relationship “shifted into despair” and suggesting it may launch nuclear-capable missiles.
Israeli foreign minister Gabi Ashkenazi said Wednesday that Israel will act “responsibly” in pursuing plans for annexing parts of the West Bank, Israel Hayom reported. Responding to German and EU concerns that unilateral annexation would jeopardize a two-state solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, Ashkenazi said annexation plans would be carried out “in dialogue with our neighbors.” The statements were made at a press conference in Jerusalem with German foreign minister Heiko Maas.
Israel’s government must stop using its domestic security agency to tackle the novel coronavirus by tracking mobile phone data, the head of a parliamentary committee said Wednesday.