Tennessee U.S. Congressman Mark Green (R-TN-07) re-introduced legislation in the 118th Congress on Tuesday that would work to bring U.S. companies home from China.
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The Bahamas joined Mexico Wednesday to appeal a federal judge’s November decision to dismiss a $10 billion lawsuit against U.S. gun manufacturers for deaths caused by firearms, according to EyeWitness News.
Bahamian Prime Minister Philip Davis announced the decision, saying the firearms used to commit violent acts in his country are manufactured by American firearm companies and illegally trafficked across borders, according to EyeWitness News. The appeal follows a November ruling in the US District Court for the District of Massachusetts where a federal judge dismissed Mexico’s lawsuit against gun manufacturers Smith & Wesson Brands Inc. and Sturm, Ruger & Co.
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Long before key components of the intelligence community acknowledged they believed COVID-19 came from a lab leak, Kansas Republican Sen. Roger Marshall had drawn a bull’s-eye around the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
Marshall, a doctor turned politician, argued early and often that the virus’ emergence and genetic characteristics did not seem like those of a naturally evolving animal-to-human virus. But senators like him and Kentucky Republican Rand Paul were marginalized and even demeaned early on by detractors ranging from Dr. Anthony Fauci to TV comedian Stephen Colbert.
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Vulcan Materials, a U.S.-based construction firm, says that armed Mexican forces took over its marine terminal in southeast Mexico.
Former Trump intelligence official Cliff Sims tweeted a video Saturday of the alleged illegal seizure earlier this month.
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The U.S. State Department and Texas Department of Public Safety have warned Americans not to travel to Mexico because of escalating cartel violence. While some news reports have suggested the warnings were for spring break, the warnings have been issued since at least last August and remain indefinite.
They’ve also been issued after more than 550 Americans have been reported and remain missing in Mexico.
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President Joe Biden’s 2024 budget proposal requests billions of dollars to advance his gender and sexuality agenda around the world, allocating far more taxpayer dollars to that than dozens of other spending priorities, such as stopping fentanyl from being smuggled across the southern border.
Biden’s budget request for this issue in particular has more than doubled in the last two years. In the past, that focus would have been almost entirely on women and young girls. In recent years, though, advancing women’s rights across the globe is sharing the focus, and the funds, with the president’s gender agenda.
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Mexico is running a “deception campaign” to deflect blame for America’s fentanyl epidemic as Republican lawmakers ramp up calls to target cartels, former Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) Special Operations Division chief Derek Maltz told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Top Mexican officials, including the country’s president Andres Manuel López Obrador, have in recent days attempted to shift the blame for fentanyl production in their country. U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) reported seizing 11,000 pounds of fentanyl between October 2022 and February 2023 at the southern border.
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On Thursday, more than two tons of radioactive uranium that had previously thought to have been missing was discovered in a Libyan warehouse, easing concerns about the possible nuclear threat of the missing materials.
As the New York Post reports, Khaled Mahjoub, a spokesman for the Libyan National Army (LNA), released the statement revealing that the uranium was discovered in southern Libya, contained in at least 10 barrels; video taken from the recovery shows workers counting up to 18 barrels.
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by Jason Cohen China released its main Chat GPT competitor, developed by search engine giant Baidu, Thursday in Beijing, but its debut of the bot was a failure and led to the company’s shares falling, according to CNBC. During the unveiling, the bot named Ernie “summarized a science fiction novel and analyzed a Chinese idiom,” but in the middle of the presentation that Baidu promoted as live, CEO Robin Li, revealed the company prerecorded the presentation for time management purposes, according to The New York Times. Li also made clear that Ernie bot was not flawless and will get better when users provide feedback, according to CNBC. Baidu’s shares then plummeted at least 6.4 percent and as much as 10 percent in Hong Kong, in contrast to a previous rally when the giant announced it had been developing a ChatGPT competitor since 2019, according to the NYT. Baidu said 30,000 corporate clients signed up on the waitlist to access Ernie bot in less than an hour following its announcement, but media and the public did not get access, according to CNBC. Meanwhile, OpenAI announced ChatGPT-4 this week, as the updated version of the AI behind its highly popular and disruptive ChatGPT chatbot that the public has accessed…
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As the war in Ukraine and tensions with China intensify, more Americans fear we’re on the brink of World War III, according to a new Convention of States Action poll.
The survey of more than 1,000 U.S. voters, conducted Feb. 22-26 by The Trafalgar Group, finds more than 43 percent of respondents worry that Russia’s continued war and threats against other European nations, as well as China’s aggressive actions, have put the world on the precipice of another global conflict.
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U.S. Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) said this week that recent revelations about Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman make clear that leftists in the media and the political class should have originally scrutinized him as carefully as she did.
Blackburn was among Vindman’s most outspoken critics after he testified in Congress’s first impeachment hearings concerning then-President Donald Trump in 2019. The Ukrainian-born retired U.S. Army officer was then serving as director for European Affairs at the United States National Security Council (NSC). Trump transferred him out of that position back to an Army command post the following winter.
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U.S. Rep. Zach Nunn (R-IA-03) served three tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, amassing some 1,000-combat flight hours. The freshman congressman said Wednesday’s House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing on the debacle that was the Biden administration-led U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan was long overdue.
“It’s unfortunate it’s taken us almost two years to get to this point,” Nunn told The Iowa Star Wednesday morning on NewsTalk 1040 WHO.
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Global carbon dioxide emissions hit a record high of more than 36 billion tons in 2022, although emissions grew more slowly than anticipated, the International Energy Agency (IEA) reported Thursday.
Emissions from coal surged by 1.6%, to a record breaking 15.5 billion tons, as Europe turned to coal after Russia slashed exports of natural gas following its invasion of Ukraine, the IEA reported. Growth in renewable energy sources mitigated more than half a billion tons of carbon dioxide emissions, helping keep emissions growth below expectations, and accounted for roughly 90% of all new power generation.
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The Tennessee Department of Military announced that the state’s Army and Air National Guard will be conducting an international joint readiness exercise, named Thracian Sentry 2023, throughout the nation of Bulgaria in June.
From June 12th-30th, “more than 170 military personnel from the Bulgarian Armed Forces, the Hellenic Air Force in Greece, and the Tennessee Army and Air National Guard will focus on developing and improving skills which include combat medical care, aircraft fire rescue, joint operations, logistics and sustainment, aeromedical evacuation, and weapons training,” the Tennessee Department of Military said in a Thursday statement.
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Companies with ties to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) are purchasing private schools with junior ROTC [Reserve Officers’ Training Corps] programs and military academies in the United States, warns Representative Mike Waltz (R-FL).
“It’s incredibly concerning that there are American private schools owned by companies with strong ties to the Chinese Communist Party,” said Waltz in a press statement. “From Florida to New York, there is clear evidence that the ownership of these schools are linked to our greatest adversary and it’s ridiculous that we are developing potential future military leaders through JROTC programs where the CCP could be shaping school curriculum and activities.”
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A fearless defender of the Catholic faith, Australian Cardinal George Pell is being mourned as a victim of “anti-Catholicism” that drove him to be convicted of sexual abuse in 2018 and sentenced to solitary confinement, until finally he was acquitted by the full bench of the Australian High Court in 2020.
Pell, who died Tuesday at the age of 81, had recently undergone successful hip surgery, but then suffered cardiac arrest.
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Representative Chris Smith (R-NJ) said Thursday that Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI was “an extraordinary religious leader” who “led us to be more faithful followers of Jesus Christ and His Church on earth.”
Smith, who co-chairs the House’s Pro-Life Caucus, and serves as the ranking member of both the House Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights & International Organizations, and the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, said Benedict was “a powerful defender of the weakest and most vulnerable, including unborn children and their mothers, and ever faithful in both living and promoting the good news of the Gospel.”
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American Catholic leaders are acclaiming the life and work of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, whose scholarly writings emphasized the unity of faith and reason and, most fundamentally, the primary truth of the Catholic faith, which teaches God is Love.
Benedict, who was born Joseph Ratzinger, died Saturday at the age of 95. He became pope in April 2005, following the death of Pope John Paul II, and served until his resignation in February 2013.
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The Buckleys family band from Australia is a distinctive, original trio whose music brings hope back to the currently stale popular music scene with their newest EP, ‘Take It As It Comes.’
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Friday morning on The Tennessee Star Report, host Leahy welcomed United Kingdom native and Davidson County Republican Party Vice Chair Bart Smith to the newsmaker line to discuss the death of Queen Elizabeth II and the new king, Charles III.
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World-renowned physician and public health expert Dr. Peter McCullough said during an interview Monday the World Health Organization (WHO) “has clearly jumped the gun” in declaring the monkeypox outbreak, found primarily among men having sex with men, a worldwide health emergency.
“There are more than 15,000 monkeypox cases in the entire world, only five deaths – all of them were in Africa,” Newsmax host Rob Schmitt said as he began his interview with McCullough, co-author with John Leake of The Courage to Face COVID-19: Preventing Hospitalization and Death While Battling the Bio-Pharmaceutical Complex.
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The World Health Organization (WHO) has updated its 2011 manual titled Gender Mainstreaming for Health Managers: A Practical Approach, to include new guidance that now claims “sex is not limited to male or female.”
In a press release two weeks ago, the global health agency of the United Nations (UN) said it would now be recognizing “that gender inequality is a cross-cutting determinant of health that operates in conjunction with other forms of discrimination based on factors such as age, socioeconomic status, ethnicity or place of origin and sexual orientation.”
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A study has found that natural immunity following COVID infection provides protection against severe illness that is superior to that imparted by the COVID vaccines.
In a preprint article published at MedRxiv, Qatar researchers revealed they found people who survived COVID-19 infection, and were not vaccinated, had outstanding protection against severe COVID disease or death from COVID.
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Neil W. McCabe, the national political editor of The Star News Network, interviewed former World Health Organization researcher and Wuhan virus whistleblower Dr. Li-Meng Yan, who told him about the actions of President Donald J. Trump saved American lives.
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Neil W. McCabe, the national political director of The Star News Network, spoke to former World Health Organization immunologist and Wuhan virus whistleblower about what she said was the first attempt by Chinese President Jin-Ping Xi and the Chinese Communist Party to release the COVID-19 virus at the October 2019 World Military Games held in Wuhan.
The researcher, who was tasked with figuring out the origins of COVID-19 while working at the WHO facilities in Hong Kong, said the Chinese attempted to launch COVID-19 as a bioweapon at the seventh running of the military games, which are staged as an Olympic-like event.
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McCabe: Investigative journalist Peter Schweizer in his new book Red Handed documents the financial ties between the Chinese communist party and President Joe Biden. He told The Star News Network that Biden and his family have blended public service and private gain.
Schweizer: The Biden family has collected some $31 million dollars from deals in China. You’ve got intelligence officials involved or at least indirectly involved which raises I think very troubling questions about whether the Biden family is compromised.
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ORLANDO, Florida –The father of Brexit and the U.K. Independence Party told The Star News Network in an exclusive interview he believes his friend President Donald J. Trump is ready to make another run for the White House and that Florida Republican Governor Ronald D. DeSantis does not connect with regular voters. “I think he wants to go again. I genuinely do. And that’ll, of course, depend on the party, but I think if Trump wants the nomination, it’s his,” said Nigel P. Farage, who is now a top-rated talk show host on the United Kingdom-based GBN. Farage said the one complication is Trump’s relationship with DeSantis and whether the Florida governor runs against Trump in the 2024 primaries. “I do think that it’s important for the Republican party, that the relationship between him and DeSantis is a good, strong, healthy relationship,” said the Dulwich College. “If this finishes that up in a terrible rivalry between the two, it won’t hurt the cause,” he said. “Although, I could say this, couldn’t I? At least there were two outstanding people in the Republican party. How many do the Democrats have?” The talk show host said he is sure Trump and DeSantis…
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Nikole Hannah-Jones, the primary author of the widely-discredited “1619 Project,” drew more criticism and ridicule from fellow Twitter users over the weekend when she declared Europe is “not a continent by definition,” and referred to the alarm over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and its people, who “appear white,” as a racial “dog whistle.”
“What if I told you Europe is not a continent by definition, but a geopolitical fiction to separate it from Asia and so the alarm about a European, or civilized, or First World nation being invaded is a dog whistle to tell us we should care because they are like us,” Hannah-Jones tweeted, as Fox News noted.
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Thursday morning on War Room Pandemic, host Bannon welcomed The Michigan Star Report Pete D’Abrasco discuss his recent article which addresses how the Canadian freedom convoy of truckers has spread to Windsor creating standstill traffic on heavily traveled Ambassador Bridge dispelling falsehoods by left-wing media outlets.
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The former Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) personal security detail for Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is now head of Freedom Convoy security for the truckers whose anti-mandate protest is growing beyond Ottawa, into more Canadian cities, and across the globe as well.
Corporal Daniel Bulford, who was resigned from the force after refusing to take a mandatory COVID vaccine, said during a press conference Saturday some in the media and on social media platforms have been attempting to smear the truckers, associating them with “agitators” who have been arrested for property damage and an assault.
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President Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s administration opened up a significant chunk of a new Air Force tanker contract to the Leiden, Netherlands, based Airbus less than a year after the company paid a nearly $4 billion fine for corruption and despite its history of technology transfers to China.
“Airbus engaged in a multi-year and massive scheme to corruptly enhance its business interests by paying bribes in China and other countries and concealing those bribes,” said Assistant Attorney General Brian A. Benczkowski of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division in a statement released at the end of January.
“This coordinated resolution was possible thanks to the dedicated efforts of our foreign partners at the Serious Fraud Office in the United Kingdom and the PNF in France,” Benczkowski said.
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Less than a year after the death of George Floyd in police custody, a jury found former Minneapolis Police officer Derek Chauvin guilty on charges of second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder, and second-degree manslaughter.
Anger from the tragic death in police custody on May 25, 2020, was fueled by a bystander filming part of the arrest, showing Floyd pinned under Chauvin’s knee for 9 minutes and 45 seconds, while he pleaded “I can’t breathe.” Floyd was declared dead later that day.
The video caused protests worldwide and pushed discussion of police accountability and proper levels of force for minor crimes, as Floyd was arrested for allegedly attempting to spend a fake $20 bill.
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Major League Baseball on Friday announced that it would be pulling its 2021 All-Star game out of Georgia due to concerns over the state’s new voting law passed and signed last month.
“Major League Baseball fundamentally supports voting rights for all Americans and opposes restrictions to the ballot box,” Commissioner Robert Manfred said in a statement on Friday. “Fair access to voting continues to have our game’s unwavering support.”
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A strong earthquake struck Friday in the Aegean Sea between the Turkish coast and the Greek island of Samos, killing at least 14 people and injuring hundreds amid collapsed buildings and flooding, officials said.
A small tsunami struck the Seferihisar district south of Izmir, the city in western Turkey that was the worst affected, said Haluk Ozener, director of the Istanbul-based Kandilli Observatory and Earthquake Research Institute.
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At least 51 civilians have been killed in Nigeria’s unrest following days of peaceful protests over police abuses, the president said Friday, blaming “hooliganism” for the violence while asserting that security forces have used “extreme restraint.”
President Muhammadu Buhari’s comments are expected to further inflame tensions in Africa’s most populous country after Amnesty International reported that soldiers shot and killed at least 12 demonstrators Tuesday night as a large crowd sang the national anthem. The deaths sparked international condemnation.
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The European Union and Britain said Friday that wide gaps remained in their fraught talks on a rudimentary trade agreement following the Brexit divorce and called for intensified negotiations before a deadline in a couple of weeks.
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When President George W. Bush launched the “War on Terror” in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, few could have predicted the campaign would entail US involvement in combat in 24 countries over the next two decades. But it did, and the resulting conflicts have come at enormous costs we are only now beginning to fully realize.
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Sweden’s positive coronavirus cases dropped after the country carried out a record number of COVID-19 tests recently, Reuters reported Tuesday, citing Swedish health officials.
The country saw only 1,300 positive cases out of 120,000 tests last week, representing a 1.2% positive rate, Sweden’s health agency said Tuesday, according to the Reuters report. The low number of cases is the lowest Sweden has seen since the pandemic, which originated in China, first emerged in Europe, the report noted.
Polish President Andrzej Duda declared victory Monday in a runoff election in which he narrowly won a second five-year term, acknowledging the campaign he ran was often too harsh as he appealed for unity and forgiveness.
The close race followed a bitter campaign between Duda and Warsaw Mayor Rafal Trzaskowski that was dominated by cultural issues. The government, state media and the influential Roman Catholic Church all mobilized in support of Duda and sought to stoke anti-Semitism, homophobia and xenophobia in order to shore up conservative support.
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The U.K. government is backing down from a controversial plan to aim for “herd immunity” in response to the coronavirus outbreak.
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The Mexican government recently claimed that some funding for the “illicit support of migrant caravans” came from individuals within the United States. In a June 6 press release, Mexico’s Finance and Tax Secretariat announced that it has “blocked the bank accounts of various individuals and corporations that allegedly participated in the trafficking of migrants and the illegal organization of migrant caravans.” As Breitbart first reported, the Mexican government identified 26 individuals who made “several questionable financial transactions from the cities of Chiapas and Queretaro during the times that the migrant caravans were moving through those places.” The press release states that “illegal payment for migrant smuggling” came from individuals in El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, Cameroon, the United States, and England. Mexico’s Financial Intelligence Unit froze the accounts of 26 unnamed people for their “probable link with migrant smuggling and illicit support of migrant caravans.” The press release states that complaints have been presented to Mexico’s Attorney General’s Office for prosecution. Breitbart points out that the action came at “a time when Mexican officials are meeting with their U.S. counterparts in an attempt to keep the Trump administration from levying tariffs on international commerce as a punitive measure over the…
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Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is facing calls to resign after ex-attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould testified that she was pressured to obstruct a criminal prosecution into one of Trudeau’s favored companies. In a hearing Wednesday before the House of Commons Justice and Human Rights Committee, Wilson-Raybould said she faced “a consistent and sustained effort” by many people in Trudeau’s administration, including the prime minister himself, to help construction firm SNC-Lavalin evade corruption charges. “Within these conversations, there were express statements regarding the necessity for interference in the SNC-Lavalin matter, the potential for consequences, and veiled threats if a DPA [Deferred Prosecution Agreement] was not made available to SNC,” she told the committee, noting that the agreement would’ve helped SNC-Lavalin officials avoid jail time in exchange for a hefty fine. “The Prime Minister asks me to help out—to find a solution here for SNC—citing that if there was no DPA there would be many jobs lost and that SNC will move from Montreal,” Wilson-Raybould said of a meeting she had with Trudeau. She said things went on like this for a period of four months between September and December of 2018 before she was ultimately forced out of her role. “In…
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President Donald Trump announced on Friday that he would be canceling Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s scheduled trip to North Korea due to the rogue regime’s slow progress in denuclearizing. Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un met earlier in the summer in one of the nation’s most historic summits, agreeing that denuclearization was necessary, but disagreeing on what exactly that would look like. According to CNBC, the White House likely expected the full relinquishment of all nuclear weapons, though Pyongyang would likely only agree to do so if the U.S. canceled its military presence in South Korea. On Friday, Trump announced in a series of tweets that he was asking Secretary Pompeo to stay home because of the slow progress North Korea has made since the historic summit. “I have asked Secretary of State Mike Pompeo not to go to North Korea, at this time, because I feel we are not making sufficient progress with respect to the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula,” Trump tweeted. White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee-Sanders later told reporters that Pompeo was in the room when the announcement was made. Trump also pointed fingers at China for the cancellation, saying the country is…
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by Hanna Bogorowski The world celebrated Tuesday as the last players of a youth soccer team and their coach were rescued from the depths of a flooded cave in Thailand after more than two weeks, but fears for their future health now surround the survivors. In addition to treating the boys for dehydration, malnutrition, oxygen deprivation and other conditions, doctors at the hospital in Chiang Rai are monitoring for symptoms of diseases caused by animals and fungi in the cave. Three boys who were rescued on Tuesday were brought to the nearby hospital to join the eight others already there in isolation wards. The last boy and his coach were treated on site at a medical center, CNN reports. [ RELATED: REPORT: All Boys And Coach Freed From Thai Cave ] The families of the boys have been allowed to see their sons through a glass window in the isolation units and were allowed to talk on the phone, Jedsada Chokedamrongsook, the Thai Health Ministry secretary said. “The reason they’re in isolation is, when your body is without natural light for that long – since you’re literally living in a cave – your body starts to change. Certain things get ramped up. Certain things…
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U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo urged North Korea on Sunday to replicate Vietnam in forging a new relationship with the United States, much like Hanoi has done five decades after the Vietnam War against the U.S. ended. The top U.S. diplomat, visiting the Vietnamese capital after two days of talks in Pyongyang aimed at dismantling North Korea’s nuclear weapons program, said 23 years of normalized U.S. relations with Vietnam should be proof to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un that the U.S. can create new ties with former foes. “We know it is a real possibility because we see how Vietnam has traveled this remarkable path,” Pompeo said. Pompeo downplayed North Korea’s accusation that the U.S. had made “gangster-like” demands that it abandon its nuclear program and that their talks were “regrettable.” “If those requests were gangster-like, the world is a gangster,” Pompeo said, as he noted that the U.N. Security Council has demanded numerous times that the North dispose of its nuclear weapons and end its ballistic missile program. He said the fact that the U.S. is “cooperating— and not fighting” with Vietnam “is proof that when a country decides to create a brighter future for itself alongside…
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Kremlin officials say there is an agreement for Russian President Vladimir Putin and President Donald Trump to hold a summit in a third country. The announcement came Wednesday as U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton was in Moscow for talks with Putin and other senior Russian officials. Kremlin foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov said details about the venue for a Trump-Putin summit would be announced Thursday. The meeting is expected to take place after Trump attends the NATO summit July 11 and 12 and visits Britain on July 13. Vienna and Helsinki are among the venues being considered. Earlier, Putin told Bolton that his visit to Moscow increased the chances of a restoration of Russian-U.S. relations. Putin said relations between the two countries were “not in the best shape.” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters “the sad state” of bilateral relations between the two countries would be discussed, as well as a range of international issues. Bolton had said he hoped his one-day visit would lay the groundwork for what would be the first summit between Putin and Trump. Trump and Putin have met twice on the sidelines of international summits and have spoken several times by telephone. Washington-Moscow relations…
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by Rev. Ben Johnson Two paths confront someone faced with an unwanted reality: reform or denial. With a report set to expose persistently high levels of corruption among its member states, the EU chose the latter option, its critics say. EU member states, programs, practices, institutions, and leaders stand accused of everything from bribery to larceny, from rigging the bidding process to influence peddling. Years ago, the EU committed to report on, and reform, such practices. Instead, the EU chose to scupper the report. “In 2014 the European Commission committed itself to take action against corruption by publishing the first EU Anti-Corruption report. However, only two years later the Commission scrapped the report,” the anti-corruption NGO Transparency International has noted. The Commission began issuing its own recommendations member states; however, Transparency International warns their focus is “narrow” and their reforms “do not show any additional ambition on anti-corruption.” “As the current draft recommendations for 2018 show, the European Commission has again not live up to its promises on making anti-corruption a high priority issue,” the group stated. The hypocrisy was not lost on some within the supranational structure itself. “The fact that the Commission discontinued its own anti-corruption report on itself shows how seriously they take…
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U.S. President Donald Trump says oil prices are too high and blames the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries. The 14 oil-producing nations in OPEC — Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait and Venezuela among them — produce about 40 percent of the world’s oil, but about 60 percent of the oil traded on international markets. OPEC’s actions, whether to cut or increase production, often heavily influence the price of oil, and by extension the prices consumers and businesses pay for fuel. OPEC’s oil chiefs struck a deal in 2016 to cut production by 1.8 million barrels a day to reduce the global glut of oil and shore up prices. Since then, oil prices have risen from below $30 a barrel to more than $70. But that rollback in production is set to expire at the end of the year. OPEC has yet to set new production levels beyond that, but the cartel’s oil ministers are meeting again next week in Vienna. Saudi Energy Minister Khaled al-Faleh said in April that the global market can absorb higher oil prices, a remark that drew a swift rebuke from Trump. “With record amounts of oil all over the place, including the fully loaded…
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by Gabrielle Okun Italy’s new interior minister demanded that a rescue boat carrying migrants from Libya turn around, according to the BBC Sunday. Matteo Salvini, the new Italian interior minister from the “Lega Nord” party, said a boat carrying migrants in the Mediterranean Saturday should instead go to Malta, BBC reported. The boat called the Aquarius was carrying 639 migrants, including 123 minors, as well as seven women who were pregnant, the Daily Mail added. “Malta takes in nobody,” Salvini said. He argued that Malta is instead closer to Libya, so the boat should instead go there. “Saving lives at sea is a duty, but transforming Italy into an enormous refugee camp is not,” Salvini added on Facebook Monday. “Italy is done bowing its head and obeying. This time there’s someone saying no.” “Enough,” he added. Salvini previously told migrants to “pack their bags” because the good times are over during a rally in Northern Italy. Malta refused to take the migrants, arguing they have no legally obliged since the ship was already headed to a rescue center in Rome. UPDATE: Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said Spain will accept the Aquarius. The ship will dock in Valencia, Spain, according to the BBC Monday. – – – Gabrielle Okun is a…
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China may not be participating directly in the summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, but in some ways Beijing will be the invisible third party in the room. Like many countries in the region, China will be watching the Trump-Kim summit closely for signs of the possible impact the meeting could have on its interests. During the roller coaster run-up to the sit down, China has played a significant role. Analysts note Beijing’s participation in expansive international sanctions was a key factor in getting Kim to the negotiating table. Even though, Beijing has tapered off its enforcement in recent months. “China was participating in an unprecedented sanctions regime, very close to embargo, without Chinese participation it would be much less likely that North Korea’s government would’ve agreed to talk,” said Andrei Lankov, director of the Korea Risk Group, a provider of risk analysis, news and information on North Korea. Before Tuesday’s meeting, Xi Jinping met twice with Kim Jong Un. On Monday, China’s Foreign Ministry confirmed that Kim flew to Singapore on an Air China passenger jet. It did not clarify whether Beijing footed the bill, but that it provided the plane at…
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