“A neutral organization — either the UN or the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe — would send in observers to monitor and enforce the cease-fire and pullback,” the former U.S. officials wrote. “Assuming a cease-fire holds, peace talks should follow.”
Cleared by Congress, legislation later signed by US President Joe Biden in March ordered the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) to declassify information regarding the potential origins of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. The measure forced the DNI to declassify its report within 90 days.
Hu and two of his WIV colleagues were thrown into the furious COVID-19 origin debate on 13 June when an online newsletter called Public said the three scientists developed COVID-19 in November 2019. That was prior to the outbreak becoming public when a cluster of cases at the end of December 2019 surfaced in people linked to a Wuhan marketplace. Public’s report was quickly embraced by a camp that argues COVID-19 came from a virus stored, and possibly manipulated, at WIV, rather than from infected animal hosts, perhaps being sold at the Wuhan market. A Wall Street Journal (WSJ) article on 20 June that said it had “confirmed” the allegations against the three, without referring to any public evidence or named sources with direct knowledge, fueled the flames even more. Social media and other publications spread the charges—and the scientists’ names.
“I can tell you based on the information that we have, that that is not accurate, that we are not aware of China and Cuba developing a new type of spy station,” said Pentagon spokesperson Brigadier General Patrick Ryder.
The U.S. has intervened before to stop foreign powers from extending their influence in the Western Hemisphere, most notably during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. The U.S. and the Soviet Union came to the brink of nuclear war after the Soviets deployed nuclear-capable missiles to Cuba, prompting a U.S. Navy quarantine of the island.
The Soviets backed down and removed the missiles. A few months later, the U.S. quietly removed intermediate-range ballistic missiles from Turkey that the Soviets had complained about.
US troops have illegally occupied Syria’s oil-rich territory for years, but a top United Nations official, Farhan Haq, falsely claimed “there’s no US armed forces inside of Syria”. Chinese reporter Edward Xu called out the UN’s hypocrisy on Ukraine.
Though blunting China’s influence in the Middle East and other parts of the world remains a priority for the Biden administration, it is of “two minds” about the latest agreement, said Jon Alterman, a Middle East scholar at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
“It wants the Saudis to take increasing responsibility for their own security,” he said, “but it does not want Saudi Arabia freelancing and undermining U.S. security strategies.”
“Explosive night in Iran,” Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Ukraine’s president, wrote on Twitter in response to the blast in Iran. “[Ukraine] did warn you.”
“Not a good week for the apartheid regime either at home or abroad. However, even though Netanyahu and his western backed terrorist allies in northern Iraq have failed, there will be consequences. They both need to learn that punishment comes with failure too,” Marandi wrote.
The Pentagon is preparing to resume full ground operations alongside Kurdish partners in northern Syria, officials said Tuesday, a move that risks further inflaming relations with NATO ally Turkey, which blames the Kurds for a deadly bombing in Istanbul last month and has threatened a ground assault in retaliation.
The Syrian Democratic Forces is an armed militia of the rebels in North and East Syria (AANES). An alliance of forces formed during the Syrian civil war composed primarily of Kurdish, Arab, and Assyrian/Syriac, as well as some smaller Armenian, Turkmen and Chechen forces. It is militarily led by the People’s Protection Units (YPG), a Kurdish militia recognized as a terrorist group by Turkey, and also includes several ethnic militias, as well as elements of the Syrian opposition’s Free Syrian Army. Founded in October 2015, the SDF states its mission as fighting to create a secular, democratic and federalised Syria. According to Turkey, the Syrian Democratic Forces has direct links to the PKK.
The situation in Solomon Islands represents another indictment of US and Australian imperialism. Talk of respecting the national sovereignty of small nations and of upholding basic precepts of international law is quickly abandoned when geo-strategic interests are at stake. Preparations to destabilise and potentially overthrow the Sogavare government threaten an enormous crisis in the impoverished Pacific country.
Ms. Cat’s Chronicles 
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