Important Takeaways:
- For Taiwan, the cutting of an undersea communications cable, and live-fire shooting drills involving dozens of Chinese warplanes off the island’s coast this week were just the latest scary omens from Beijing.
- But Taipei’s biggest fear – a full-blown assault by its mighty neighbor – could come faster than they imagined, says a shocking new report on China’s recent diplomatic gains on the world stage.
- Researchers at Australia’s Lowy Institute have shown that the number of governments that support China’s bid to ‘reunify’ with Taiwan, including through military means, has jumped to 89 in recent months.
- That amounts to nearly half the membership of the United Nations, a testament to China’s prowess at using its Belt and Road investment scheme to enlist cheerleaders, especially among developing nations in the global south.
- The report comes amid deepening divisions between the western countries that have long advocated for Taiwan’s self-rule, as Donald Trump’s America pulls back from its European allies.
- The stakes don’t come higher: many see the South China Sea as the world’s most dangerous flashpoint, where fighting could quickly spiral into a nuclear face-off between Washington and Beijing.
- Fully 89 countries – 46 percent of UN members – give China a free hand when it comes to ‘national reunification’.
- Some 53 countries in Africa, where China directs much aid and investment, have greenlighted ‘all efforts by the Chinese government’ toward reunification – a phrase understood to include military force.
- Many Taiwanese see themselves as part of a separate democracy, although most support maintaining the status quo where Taiwan neither declares independence from China nor unites with it.
- Taiwan’s President Lai Ching-te has vowed to ‘resist annexation or encroachment’.
- ‘If Taiwan declared independence first, it will be subject to Chinese invasion. And many countries may accept it,’ Acharya told DailyMail.com.
- ‘But if China outright invaded Taiwan before it declared independence, most countries will not support China.’
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Important Takeaways:
- United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned on Wednesday that humanity had unleashed a “Pandora’s box of ills,” including “out of control technology” that risks upending “our very existence.”
- “Our actions — or inactions — have unleashed a modern-day Pandora’s box of ills,” Guterres said.
- “Four of those ills stand out because they represent, at best, threats that could disrupt every aspect of our agenda and, at worst, upend our very existence: Runaway conflicts. Rampant inequalities. The raging climate crisis. And out-of-control technology.”
- The UN chief was laying out his priorities in a speech to the General Assembly for the year ahead, at a time when the organization faces unprecedented crises and polarization.
- The organization’s top decision-making body, the Security Council, is paralyzed. The war in Gaza has seen Israel and its allies attack the UN’s neutrality, and blue helmet peacekeepers have been caught in the crossfire in Lebanon and Syria.
- The return of Donald Trump to the White House could further complicate Guterres’s agenda, experts have warned.
- “Yes, there is progress in our tumultuous world,” Guterres said, pointing to the relative success of the ceasefire in Lebanon and the pace of renewable energy development.
- “But let’s have no illusions: this is very much a world in turmoil and grave uncertainty.”
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Important Takeaways:
- United Nations investigators have accused Israel of deliberately targeting Gaza’s health facilities and killing medical personnel during its war on the besieged enclave
- A statement by ex-UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay released on Thursday in advance of a full report accused Israel of “committing war crimes and the crime against humanity of extermination with relentless and deliberate attacks on medical personnel and facilities” in its assault on Gaza
- “Children in particular have borne the brunt of these attacks, suffering both directly and indirectly from the collapse of the health system,” said Pillay, whose report will be presented to the UN General Assembly on October 30.
- The Israeli government has routinely said that its attacks on hospitals and schools in Gaza are to target members of Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups.
- Hamas has denied it uses the locations as command centers.
- The COI said the “institutional mistreatment” of Palestinians was under direct order from far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir.
- Israel did not cooperate with the inquiry after arguing it had an “anti-Israel” bias.
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Important Takeaways:
- IDF says Hamas used site to plan and carry out attacks on troops and Israel
- The United Nations on Wednesday night condemned an Israeli strike on a school in Gaza that rescuers said killed 18 people, including UN staffers, and called for the global body’s sites to be protected “by all parties.”
- Under international law, protected civilian infrastructure loses that status if used for military activities.
- The IDF said it carried out “many steps” to mitigate harm to civilians in the strike, including using precision munitions, aerial surveillance, and other intelligence.
- The military said Thursday that “upon receiving the allegation that local Palestinian workers of the UNRWA agency were killed in the strike, the IDF contacted the agency yesterday for details and names in order to examine the allegation in-depth and as of this writing it has not yet been answered despite repeated requests.”
- “It is unconscionable that the UN continues to condemn Israel in its just war against terrorists, while Hamas continues to use women and children as human shields,” Danny Danon wrote on social media.
- “The solution,” he added, “is not a ceasefire, but the release of all hostages still held in Gaza and the elimination of Hamas.”
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Important Takeaways:
- The United Nations, the player with the widest reach delivering aid within Gaza, has paused its work with the pier after a June 8 operation by Israeli security forces that rescued four Israeli hostages
- Rushing out a mortally wounded Israeli commando after the raid, Israeli rescuers opted against returning the way they came, across a land border. Instead, they sped toward the beach and the site of the U.S. aid hub on Gaza’s coast.
- An Israeli helicopter touched down near the U.S.-built pier and helped whisk away hostages and the commando, according to the U.S. and Israeli militaries.
- For the U.N. and independent humanitarian groups, the event made real one of their main doubts about the U.S. sea route: Whether aid workers could cooperate with the U.S. military-backed, Israeli military-secured project without violating core humanitarian principles of neutrality and independence and without risking aid workers becoming seen as U.S. and Israeli allies — and in turn, targets in their own right.
- Israel and the U.S. deny that any aspect of the month-old U.S. pier was used in the Israeli raid. They say an area near it was used to fly home the hostages after.
- The U.N. World Food Program, which works with the U.S. to transfer aid from the $230 million pier to warehouses and local aid teams for distribution within Gaza, suspended cooperation as it conducts a security review. Aid has been piling up on the beach since.
- For aid workers who generally work without weapons or armed guards, and for those they serve, “the best guarantee of our security is the acceptance of communities” that aid workers are neutral, said Paul, the Oxfam official.
- “So you know, perception matters a lot,” he said. “And for the people who are literally putting their lives on the line to get humanitarian aid moving around a war zone, perception gets you in danger.”
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Important Takeaways:
- Judges at the top United Nations court ordered Israel to halt its offensive in the southern Gaza city of Rafah and withdraw from the enclave, in a case brought by South Africa accusing Israel of genocide, citing “immense risk” to the Palestinian population.
- While orders are legally binding, the court has no police to enforce them.
- South Africa’s lawyers had asked the ICJ in The Hague last week to impose emergency measures, saying Israel’s attacks on Rafah must be stopped to ensure the survival of the Palestinian people.
- The ICJ has also ordered Israel to report back to the court within one month over its progress in applying measures ordered by the institution.
- Israel’s finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich said “Those who demand that the State of Israel stop the war, demand that it decree itself to cease to exist. We will not agree to that,”
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Important Takeaways:
- UN Report: Global hunger numbers rose to as many as 828 million in 2021
- According to a United Nations report that provides fresh evidence that the world is moving further away from its goal of ending hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition in all its forms by 2030.
- The numbers paint a grim picture:
- As many as 828 million people were affected by hunger in 2021 – 46 million people more from a year earlier and 150 million more from 2019.
- Around 2.3 billion people in the world (29.3%) were moderately or severely food insecure in 2021 – 350 million more compared to before the outbreak of the COVID 19 pandemic. Nearly 924 million people (11.7% of the global population) faced food insecurity at severe levels, an increase of 207 million in two years.
- Looking forward, projections are that nearly 670 million people (8% of the world population) will still be facing hunger in 2030 – even if a global economic recovery is taken into consideration
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Important Takeaways:
- The United Nations hosted a panel discussion on Tuesday in which panelists accused the state of Israel of genocide – and implicated America for its support of the country – in its ongoing war against the jihadist terrorist organization Hamas.
- Panelists claimed that Israel’s military operation in Gaza, the Hamas stronghold, to ensure that the terrorist group ceases to pose a threat to civilians after the killing of 1,200 people and abduction of about 250 others on October 7 constituted genocide on the grounds that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have targeted seemingly civilian structures such as hospitals and schools. One panelist accused the United States of being complicit in genocide due to weapons sales to Israel.
- Katherine Gallagher – a senior staff attorney for the Centre for Constitutional Rights…
- “I would argue the United States has crossed the line into complicity,”
- “The United States is the largest provider of military, economic, and political assistance and – I would argue – political cover that has the ability to use its considerable influence and unique position to take all measures to stop Israel’s unfolding genocide,” she told the panel. “Of course, the United States is not the only country that has such influence and such ability. Instead, though, the United States at every opportunity has done the opposite.”
- Gallagher also suggested pressuring the International Criminal Court (ICC) to issue “arrest warrants for those who are committing and those who are aiding and abetting the crimes of genocide,” presumably including American political leadership up to American President Joe Biden.
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Important Takeaways:
- As Part Of The Upcoming Middle East Peace Covenant, Will The U.S. Formally Recognize Palestinian Statehood At The United Nations?
- For months, Israel and Saudi Arabia have been quietly negotiating a deal that would normalize relations between the two nations. But they aren’t the only parties involved. Israel and Saudi Arabia both want formal security agreements with the United States as part of any agreement.
- In other words, if either of those two nations get attacked, the U.S. military would be required to intervene.
- The Saudis also want to develop a nuclear power program, and they want U.S. assistance with that.
- But the biggest barrier to a deal was always going to be the Palestinians.
- The Saudis are insisting that any agreement must include major concessions from both the U.S. and the Israelis. And the Palestinians are publicly making it known that they will not accept any outcome that does not involve formal U.S. recognition of Palestinian statehood at the United Nations.
- At one time, such a demand would have killed negotiations, but apparently the Biden administration is very open to making such a move.
- In fact, on Friday National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told the press that “a basic framework” for an agreement has been “hammered out”…
- It is being reported that the Palestinians are demanding the transfer of territory in the West Bank from Israel and “recognition of Palestinian statehood at the United Nations” from the United States…
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Daniel 7:23 “Thus he said: ‘As for the fourth beast, there shall be a fourth kingdom on earth, which shall be different from all the kingdoms, and it shall devour the whole earth, and trample it down, and break it to pieces.
Important Takeaways:
- Exposed: UN Set to Launch ‘Global Shocks’ Plan Just Prior to US Presidential Election
- The powerful United Nations is now seeking to increase its influence worldwide by seizing global “emergency” powers, and President Joe Biden supports their proposal.
- Interestingly, the U.N. proposal would begin September 2024, a mere two months before a highly anticipated general election in the U.S.
- The global organization will host a “Summit of the Future” where associated nations will adopt a so-called “Pact for the Future.”
- The “pact,” or agreement, would set in place multiple policy reforms offered by the U.N. in past years as part of its “Our Common Agenda” platform.
- The U.N.’s secretary-general, António Guterres, outlined the emergency platform proposal: “I propose that the General Assembly provide the Secretary-General and the United Nations system with a standing authority to convene and operationalize automatically an Emergency Platform in the event of a future complex global shock of sufficient scale, severity and reach.”
- The challenges we face can only be addressed through stronger international cooperation,” Guterres declared.
- The emergency platform would provide the international body with power over all nations in times of distress.
- Such power, according to the U.N., is needed to “[e]nsure that all participating actors make commitments that can contribute meaningfully to the response and that they are held to account for delivery on those commitments.”
- According to the U.N.’s policy proposal, the secretary-general could extend the emergency platform, if need be, despite its duration being set for a “finite period.” Such a decision would be made without the consent of any member nations.
- So, precisely what type of “global shock” would trigger an emergency platform?
- According to the U.N., a “large-scale event,” “future pandemics,” a “disruptions to global digital connectivity,” a “major event in outer space,” and other “unforeseen risks” are all causes of an emergency platform.
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