Ben Whedon

Pakistan has played a critical role over many years in helping China suppress the Uyghur expat community within its borders as Beijing orchestrates the ethnic group’s genocide in its northwestern Xinjiang province, according to an August report from the Uyghur Human Rights Project (UHRP) and the Oxus Society for Central Asian Affairs.

Former Afghan President Hamid Karzai is reportedly cooperating with the Taliban in building a new government and securing the peaceful transition of power.

The Taliban, now in near-total control of the country, are going door to door in newly conquered Kabul searching for journalists and political opponents, according to multiple outlets on the ground.

Taliban officials declared victory and the restoration of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan after occupying the presidential palace in Kabul on Sunday.

Chinese state media signaled Beijing could play a major role in talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban on Wednesday as the latter rapidly accumulated territorial gains this week.

China and Russia began joint military drills in the former’s northwestern region on Monday amid the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan and renewed efforts by both to become more relevant players there.

Conditions in the Chinese coronavirus origin city of Wuhan have so deteriorated that state propaganda outlet the Global Times could not mask on Wednesday the “bombshell” damage of the current outbreak, reporting empty streets, residents hoarding food, and citywide lockdown measures.

The Taliban terror group has launched 22,000 attacks on the Afghan military in the past four months and retaken much of the country’s territory as part of a nationwide offensive following U.S. President Joe Biden’s announced delay of the American military withdrawal.

As the Olympic Games take place in Tokyo, the Russian military is staging drills in the Kuril Islands, a contested archipelago north of the Japanese island of Hokkaido, which Moscow formally administers, but to which Japan stills lays claim.

The Russian Prosecutor General’s Office lodged ten complaints against Ukraine on Thursday in the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), laying blame on Kyiv for, among other things, the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, which Russian backed separatists in Ukraine shot down in 2014.

The mothers of protesters missing since anti-communist marches erupted nationwide in Cuba on July 11 are planning to take the streets of the island on Wednesday demanding to know what the regime did to their children.

FoodForward SA (FFSA), a food supply organization that works to end hunger in South Africa, announced on Thursday it would shut down its operations in five major cities after looters cleaned out their warehouse in Durban.

The U.S. Department of the Treasury on Monday lifted sanctions on the export of gas to socialist Venezuela, a boon the dictatorship in Caracas and its patron government in communist Cuba, which struggles to suppress mounting opposition and calls for the regime’s total abolition.

Cuban authorities have cracked down on the international free press amid mass demonstrations against the communist regime, with police assaulting reporters and photojournalists in the crowds.

Ukrainian First Deputy Foreign Minister Emine Dzhaparova on Wednesday claimed the Russian military is deploying nuclear weapons and their related infrastructure to the occupied Crimean Peninsula.

Japanese Deputy Prime Minister Aso Taro suggested on Monday that his country’s defense forces might assist the United States in defending Taiwan in the event of a Chinese incursion.

In anticipation of the 20th anniversary of the deadly September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the United States and Russia will reportedly coordinate on a joint memorial for the dead, Vladimir Voronkov, Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations Office of Counter-Terrorism, announced in a Wednesday press conference.

A Confederate general who later became an American war hero may see his statue removed from Congress following a push from mostly Democrats to remove monuments to Confederate leaders from the Capitol grounds.

The Chinese Communist Party debuted a museum dedicated to reinterpreting Christianity as a communist doctrine in honor of the Party’s 100th birthday, human rights group Bitter Winter reported on Tuesday.

Supreme Leader of Iran Ayatollah Ali Khamenei will receive an Iranian-developed Chinese coronavirus vaccine in the coming days, Head of Iran’s Academy of Medical Science Dr. Alireza Marandi asserted Wednesday.

The Supreme Court on Wednesday struck down a California regulation forcing agricultural owners to allow union organizers to operate on private land, holding the regulation is an unconstitutional right to “physically invade” private property without compensation.

Billionaire Warren Buffett announced Wednesday that he would donate $4.1 billion in Berkshire Hathaway shares to five left-wing foundations.

Russian health volunteers are mulling legal action after they received Russia’s second, less effective vaccine against the Chinese coronavirus instead of the Sputnik V shot for which they had opted, independent Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta reported.

Japan announced on Thursday that it would implement a vaccine passport program to help its citizens visit other countries as the world reopens for international travel following a protracted shutdown due to the Chinese coronavirus pandemic.

Central China Normal University in Wuhan, the origin location of the Chinese coronavirus pandemic, held a mass graduation event for over 11,000 students on Sunday without requiring masks or social distancing, video footage from Agence France-Presse (AFP) revealed.

A dissident on trial in Belarus for his involvement in protests against the regime stabbed himself in the throat while in court, saying he feared retribution against his friends and family unless he pleaded guilty, Belarusian outlet Narodnya Naviny Vitsebska reported.

A senior member of the Iran-backed militia coalition Iraq integrated into its armed forces claimed the group can attack U.S. combat troops and military installations with Iran-made drones, Kurdish news outlet Rudaw reported on Monday.

Iraqi security forces on Wednesday arrested Qassem Mahmoud Karim Musleh, a prominent leader of the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), in connection to the deaths of multiple activists, Kurdish news outlet Rudaw reported.

Belarusian blogger and opposition leader Roman Protasevich appeared in a video on Monday in which he disclosed that he was in Belarusian government custody and confessed to “having organized mass unrest in the city of Minsk,” according to a translation from Agence France-Presse.

In a Thursday press conference with Danish Foreign Minister Jeppe Kofod and Greenland’s premier, Mute Egede, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken confirmed to reporters that the United States is not interested in purchasing Greenland, Reuters reported.

It’s somewhat rare that an anime film gains traction at the U.S. box office or even gets a theatrical release. Growing up, the only ones I remember are Yu-Gi-Oh! The Movie: The Pyramid of Light, Naruto: Ninja Clash in the Land of Snow, and of course, Spirited Away… and Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba the Movie: Mugen Train is blowing them all out of the water.

Lebanese interim Foreign Minister Charbel Wehbe on Wednesday tendered his resignation after making remarks blaming Gulf states, Lebanon’s traditional allies, for facilitating the rise of the Islamic State (ISIS), the government announced.

Anti-semitic messages and graffiti threatening Jews with death have appeared across Argentina this week, apparently prompted by a growing conflict between Israel and the Islamic terrorist organization Hamas which occupies the Gaza Strip.

North Korean construction workers, forced to labor on a massive government housing project in Pyongynag, have resorted to robbery to secure enough money to buy food, Radio Free Asia reported Wednesday, citing anonymous local sources.

Chinese state-run propaganda outlet the Global Times gloated on Tuesday over Taiwan not receiving an invitation to this year’s World Health Assembly (W.H.A.), asserting that Beijing had the “final say” in the matter and annexation by communist China is the only way forward for the island.

Officials in Canada announced on Wednesday they had approved the Chinese coronavirus vaccine developed by Pfizer for use on children at least 12 years old, making it the first nation to do so, the Canadian Press reported.