Tag: Region Americas

BlackRock and JPMorgan Chase are reportedly aiding the Ukrainian government in setting up a reconstruction bank that could see rebuilding projects being heavily invested in by private entities. The Financial Times noted that it would cost Ukraine roughly $411 billion to rebuild their country amid the onslaught of attacks by Russia, but the cost is continuing to increase.

Potential investors will get an inside preview of how things will look during a London conference that is set to take place this week.

Taiwan’s defense ministry said Saturday that eight Chinese warplanes had crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait and come close to waters under Taipei’s control. Taiwan lives under constant threat of invasion by China, which views the self-ruled island as part of its territory to be seized one day. On Saturday, Taiwan’s defense ministry said 19 Chinese warplanes including J-10 and J-16 fighters were detected around the island. Eight of them crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait and approached the island’s contiguous zone, or the band of sea within 24 nautical miles (44…

The Canadian Senate passed Bill C-18 Thursday, the second part of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s three-phase censorship legislation. In the process, the Conservative Party’s chief critic of the legislation was censured on Wednesday and was unable to attack the bill from the floor of the House of Commons. C-18 will force social media companies to pay Canadian media to post news stories. In protest of the bill, Meta has already put Canada on notice that it will cease providing Canadian…

WASHINGTON — Senior U.S. officials said Wednesday that they were caught off guard when President Joe Biden described Chinese President Xi Jinping as a “dictator” — just 24 hours after Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited Beijing and appeared to reach a breakthrough in tense relations between the countries. Officials privately sought to clarify Wednesday with the Chinese that Biden’s description of Xi does not reflect a new talking point or official policy shift by the administration. Officials said they…

WASHINGTON – The Pentagon said it will be able to spend US$6 billion (S$8 billion) more than originally expected on arms for Ukraine thanks to what it called accounting errors. The Defense Department overstated the value of weapons sent from its stockpiles by US$2.6 billion in fiscal 2022 and US$3.6 billion in fiscal 2023, for a total of US$6.2 billion, deputy spokesman Sabrina Singh told reporters on Tuesday at the Pentagon.  “It’s just going to go back into the pot…

Editor’s note: This story was first published in InvestigateWest, an independent news nonprofit dedicated to investigative journalism in the Pacific Northwest. Subscribe to their newsletter. Amanda Klinksiek knows that when she breaks out in hives, she likely has another problem: mold. Hives tipped Klinksiek off to mold in a previous home. And in September, when she moved into a two-bedroom townhouse at Joint Base Lewis-McChord with her husband and two kids, the itchy red bumps appeared again. Klinksiek, 30, tried…

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. President Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden has agreed to plead guilty to two charges of willfully failing to pay income taxes. He will enter into an agreement that could enable him to avoid a conviction on a gun-related charge, according to a court filing on Tuesday. The federal charges against Hunter Biden resulted from an investigation by David Weiss, the U.S. attorney in the Democratic president’s home state of Delaware, who was appointed by Republican then-President Donald…

The Russian government says it will be forced to take retaliatory measures if Western-made F-16 fighter jets appear in the skies over Ukraine. The threat was aired by Moscow’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov during an interview with the RT television channel late last week. According to Lavrov, Russia has issued a “very serious demarche” with regard to the possibility of F-16 aircraft being transferred to Kyiv. He also claimed that the fighter jets would be used by the Ukrainian Armed…

Most of us just want to live our lives in peace without excessive governmental interference, but unfortunately the control freaks that are running things just can’t help themselves.  Ultimately, they aren’t going to be happy until they are able to watch, track, monitor and control virtually everything that we write, say and do.  This is one of the big reasons why they are gearing up to introduce “central bank digital currencies” all over the western world.  Such digital currencies will…

The State of Louisiana has experienced an extensive data breach, with six million public records being exposed. The breach was a part of a global attack on the third-party file transfer application, MOVEit. The breach is likely to raise further concerns as the state recently introduced a new law that is increasing the uptake of digital ID – a law that forces adult websites to check the age of all users, with many wanting it rolled out to all social media platforms. The personal details of every…

Earlier in the day, the Democracy Watch watchdog group said the RCMP had confirmed in a letter that it is investigating Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and some Cabinet officials over their alleged obstruction of the SNC-Lavalin probe. In 2021 and 2022, Democracy Watch said it made requests under the Access to Information Act (AITA) to access records on the proceedings regarding investigations into Trudeau’s and several ministers’ involvement in pressing then-Attorney General Jody Wilson-Raybould to stop the prosecution of SNC-Lavalin….

Emails from the Biden laptop shed light on Burisma’s opening of a Maltese bank account for Hunter Biden in the spring of 2016. This newly discovered development coincides with the allegations made by an FBI source, suggesting that Mykola Zlochevsky, the founder of Burisma Holdings, allegedly paid a $5 million bribe each to then-Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden. In 2014, Ukraine initiated criminal cases against Zlochevsky and Burisma, the company where Hunter Biden held a board…

  The U.S. government has confirmed that multiple federal agencies have fallen victim to cyberattacks exploiting a security vulnerability in a popular file transfer tool. In a statement shared with TechCrunch, CISA confirmed that “several” U.S. government agencies have experienced intrusions related to the exploitation of a vulnerability in MOVEit Transfer, an enterprise file transfer tool developed by Progress Software. The agency also attributed the attacks to the Russia-linked Clop ransomware gang, which this week started posting the names of…

Canada is freezing ties with the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, or AIIB, while it probes allegations it is dominated by the Chinese Communist Party, Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland said on Wednesday. Freeland said she did not rule out any outcome of the investigation, a clear hint that Ottawa could pull out of a bank it officially joined in March 2018. The bank’s global communications director, a Canadian, said on Wednesday he had resigned and criticized the bank as “dominated…

By Global Times Published: Jun 13, 2023 02:27 PM The Biden administration on Monday added 43 entities including 31 entities from China to an export control list that bars them from accessing US technologies and components, the latest US move to crack down on China’s efforts in developing and modernizing its technology. Washington’s irrational obsession of targeting China’s rising technology prowess in name of the so-called national security protection lays bare the US’ desperate attempt to maintain supremacy in control…