The U.S. on Friday announced a $400 million security aid package for Ukraine, providing more ammunition, equipment and munitions for Kyiv in its fight against Russia. The State Department said the latest package includes munitions for the High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) and howitzer artillery guns, as well as ammunition for the Bradley Infantry […]
Tag: usa
US bans TikTok on federal devices, China reacts
China has accused the US of overreacting after federal employees were ordered to remove the video app TikTok from government-issued phones. On Monday, the White House gave government agencies 30 days to ensure that employees did not have the Chinese-owned app on federal devices. The order follows similar moves by the EU and Canada in […]
China has some doubt on ability to invade Taiwan
U.S. intelligence shows that China’s President Xi Jinping has instructed his country’s military to “be ready by 2027” to invade Taiwan though he may be currently harboring doubts about his ability to do so given Russia’s experience in its war with Ukraine, CIA Director William Burns said. Burns, in a television interview that aired Sunday, […]
Biden slaps new economic sanctions on Russia
On the one-year anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the United States is hammering Russia with a new round of economic sanctions designed to undermine the country’s ability to continue to wage war. The U.S. Treasury Department on Friday announced deep-cutting new sanctions targeting the metals and mining sector of Russia’s economy. In coordination with […]
Putin ups nuclear ante; cancels START Treaty
Russian President Vladimir Putin declared Tuesday that Moscow was suspending its participation in the New START treaty — the last remaining nuclear arms control pact with the United States — sharply upping the ante amid tensions with Washington over the fighting in Ukraine. Speaking in his state-of-the-nation address, Putin also said that Russia should stand […]
China doubles down on Blinken in balloon row
As the rift between the US and China over the balloon saga widens, so has the divide within the global community scrutinising their high-stakes dispute. The latest testy exchange took place on Saturday, when US Secretary of State Antony Blinken met China’s foreign affairs minister Wang Yi on the sidelines of a security conference in […]
China threatens U.S. over downing of balloon
China said Wednesday it will take measures against U.S. entities related to the downing of a suspected Chinese spy balloon off the American East Coast. At a daily briefing, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin gave no details and did not identify the targets of the measures. China says the balloon was a unmanned weather airship […]
Biden spends 7.5B on US charging station access
The Biden administration unveiled a new set of measures Wednesday designed to tackle a persistent problem with driving long distances in an electric vehicle (EV): finding a charging station that works for your car’s model. The plan announced Wednesday, officials hope, will gradually do away with the issue by building out a network of both […]
What we know so far about Chinese spy balloon
As U.S. Navy crews continue to fish parts of the alleged Chinese spy balloon out of the Atlantic, a senior State Department official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, gave reporters an update on Thursday on some of what has been learned so far. High-resolution imagery from U-2 flybys showed that the balloon was “capable […]
Beijing threatens retaliation over balloon pop
Beijing’s abrupt shift from expressing regret to threatening retaliation over the US’s spy-balloon claims reflects the domestic imperative for Xi Jinping to show he’s standing up for China against external pressure, further narrowing the window to reset ties before the US election season gets into full swing. This weekend was supposed to be a step […]
N. Korea says US drills are turning region into a ‘War Zone’
North Korea said on Thursday that drills by the United States and its allies have reached an “extreme red-line” and threaten to turn the peninsula into a “huge war arsenal and a more critical war zone.” The Foreign Ministry statement, carried by state news agency KCNA, said Pyongyang was not interested in dialogue as long […]
Russian official warns West of global destruction
The speaker of Russia’s parliament warned Sunday that countries supplying Ukraine with more powerful weapons risked their own destruction, a message that followed new pledges of armored vehicles, air defense systems and other equipment but not the battle tanks Kyiv requested. “Supplies of offensive weapons to the Kyiv regime would lead to a global catastrophe,” […]