Globalsecurity.org

A Defense Department official today stressed to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that China remains the pacing challenge for the U.S. government.

Beijing has blasted US President Joe Biden for his "extremely irresponsible" comments about Chinese President Xi Jinping that he is struggling with "enormous problems" back home.

China's government has "penetrated" the United Nations, undercutting its oversight functions by stacking bodies like the U.N. Human Rights Council with its own people, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman told a Senate hearing on Thursday.

Hong Kong Justice Secretary Paul Lam condemned "violence and intimidation" targeting the judiciary after a projectile broke a court window during the prominent subversion trial of 47 opposition activists on Wednesday, prompting police to search the area with metal detectors.

US President Joe Biden says Washington is not looking for a conflict with China, shortly after warning Beijing against what he called threats to American sovereignty.

China has declined the US proposal for a telephone conversation between the defense chiefs of China and the US, said Senior Colonel Tan Kefei, spokesperson for China's Ministry of National Defense, in a statement on Thursday.

Anger and disgust over China's decision to violate the sovereign airspace of dozens of countries and scour the globe with a fleet of surveillance balloons is giving way in Washington to larger concerns about Beijing's behavior — behavior that could bode ill for future incidents.

Tunisia has said that it aims to resume diplomatic ties with Syria after a ten-year interval.

President Bashar al-Assad has expressed his appreciation of help from world countries to the Syrian nation and government in the recent devastating earthquake, stressing, however, that many countries are "under pressure from the United States" not to help the Arab country.

Epidemiologists and researchers briefing the UN General Assembly in the first of its kind science session earlier this week, called for pathogen surveillance and an open-source global early warning system that would include data from a wide range of sources and streams.

Despite leadership losses and diminished cash reserves, the extremist group ISIL, or Da'esh, continues to pose a threat to international peace and security, the UN counter-terrorism chief warned on Thursday in New York.

Britain and the United States have announced sanctions against seven Russians accused of running a notorious hacking gang that launched ransomware attacks against businesses, schools, and hospitals in both countries and elsewhere in the world.

The possibility of a big wave of COVID-19 infections in China in the future is slim, experts said on Thursday, adding that no new variants with significantly strong transmissibility or virulence have been detected.

There is only a "trifling possibility" that a new wave of COVID-19 epidemic infections will emerge in the coming months in China, as the population's immune protection remains at a high level, Wu Zunyou, chief epidemiologist with the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (China CDC), said at Thursday's press briefing.

A significant milestone has been reached in the build programme for the Dreadnought ballistic missile submarine programme.

Work has begun on building the United Kingdom's third Dreadnought class ballistic missile submarine Warspite in the north of England, BAE Systems announced in a press release on Thursday.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has told EU leaders that a free Europe is not possible without a free Ukraine, as he pressed for more weapons to aid Kyiv's defense against invading Russian forces.

European Union leaders welcomed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy with a standing ovation Thursday as he pleaded for fighter jets to fend off Russia's nearly year-long invasion and pushed for European Union membership for his war-torn country.

The UK government commits to play a key role in promoting stability and prosperity in the Arctic.

Today, the United States, in coordination with the United Kingdom, is designating seven individuals who are part of the Russia-based cybercrime gang Trickbot. This action represents the very first sanctions of their kind for the U.K., and result from a collaborative partnership between the U.S. Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control and the U.K.'s Foreign, Commonwealth, and Development Office; National Crime