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The Chinese ambassador has warned the U.S that if the U.S keeps emboldening Taiwan to reach independence, that China will have to get involved. China claims sovereignty over Taiwan which is a self governed country. In a virtual meet the Chinese president said anyone advocating for Taiwan independence is ¨playing with fire¨.  China flew 39 fighter jets into Taipei air space to strengthen military strength and prepare for war. The U.S said they would not interfere if Taiwan declares Independence, to warn Taiwan not to declare independence because this would surly trigger Chinese attack.

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Tensions between Moscow and Kyiv are at their highest in years, with a large Russian troop buildup near the shared borders of the two former Soviet republics.

Diplomatic efforts to resolve the crisis continue, but a call between US President Joe Biden and Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky on the "risk levels" of a Russian invasion "did not go well," said a senior Ukrainian official. The White House disputes that account.

The Kremlin said Thursday that written responses from US and NATO on Russia’s security demands failed to address its concerns.

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Eliza Mackintosh, Ed Upright, Meg Wagner, Melissa Macaya, Aditi Sangal and Adrienne Vogt, CNN

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The latest on the Ukraine-Russia border crisis: Live updates

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Divisions appear between US President Joe Biden and Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky on the Russia-Ukraine crisis. Follow the latest news here.

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Qatar Air staff is suffering from poor working conditions. Some having suffered from extreme fatigue. One pilot even said he had fallen asleep while flying 400 passengers. Even withe these events, Qatar Air staff is scared to come out about it due to "not wanting to be in the spotlight", Including the pilot.

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While China is set to host the 2022 Winter Olympics, tension has only grown between the hosting country and countries in the west. Many human rights activists have been calling for athletes and sponsors to protest against the games which they have dubbed the "genocide games". People have claimed that the games will be just a move of "political legitimacy". many people are concerned of the Chinese government's strict policies on its own people and crack downs on anti government protests. some want the Olympics to have nothing to do with politics. While a complete boycott of the Olympics has failed, many activists keep on fighting to try and create change.

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Human rights activists have issued a call to action against the Beijing Olympics, imploring athletes and sponsors to speak out against what they call the "genocide games."

BEIJING -- Human rights activists issued a call to action against the Beijing Olympics on Friday, imploring athletes and sponsors to speak out against what they call the "genocide games."

Speaking at an online press conference organized by the rights group Human Rights Watch, activists representing Chinese dissidents and the minority Uyghur and Tibetan populations urged international attendants to voice their opposition to China's hosting of the Games, which begin next week.

"The 2022 Winter Olympics will be remembered as the genocide games," said Teng Biao, a former human rights activist in China who is now a visiting professor at the University of Chicago.

"The CCP's purpose is to exactly turn the sports arena into a stage for political legitimacy and a tool to whitewash all those atrocities," he added, referring to the ruling Chinese Communist Party.

China's crackdown under hardline ruler Xi Jinping has been felt across wide swaths of society. Hong Kong authorities crushed anti-government protests in the city in 2019, and the central government in Beijing passed a national security law aimed at stifling dissent, leading to the arrest of activists and disbandment of civil society groups.

Meanwhile, in the country's western region of Xinjiang, an estimated 1 million people or more - most of them Uyghurs - have been confined in reeducation camps in recent years, according to researchers.

An independent, unofficial body set up by a prominent British barrister to assess evidence on China's alleged rights abuses against the Uyghur people concluded in December that the Chinese government committed genocide. China has consistently denied any human rights abuses in the region and has said it carried out its actions to counter extremism in the region in order to ensure people's safety.

China's Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin has hit back at the rights group for its continued calls to boycott the Olympics, saying that "the so-called human rights group is biased against China and keen on making mischief. Lies and rumors it fabricated are unpopular. Its egregious acts that harm the Olympic cause will never succeed."

The Foreign Ministry has also said the Olympics should not be politicized. Yet the competition is already facing a diplomatic boycott led by the U.S., whose relationship with China has nosedived in the past few years.

Activists have failed to achieve a full boycott of the games, but have continued to speak out.

"Your silence is their strength. This is what they want more than anything: that the world will play by China's rules, that we will follow China's lead, that we will look away from these atrocities and crimes for the sake of business as usual," said Lhadon Tethong, director of the Tibet Action Institute, at the press conference Friday.

She appealed directly to athletes from the U.S., UK, France and others to speak.

"I personally believe that you should use your platform and your privilege and this historic opportunity. You have to speak out against the wave of genocide," she said.

--

Associated Press video journalist Sam McNeil contributed to this report from Beijing.

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Activists urge athletes to speak out at Beijing Olympics

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Human rights activists have issued a call to action against the Beijing Olympics, imploring athletes and sponsors to speak out against what they call the "genocide games." BEIJING -- Human rights activists issued a call to action against the Beijing Olympics on Friday, imploring athletes and sponsors to speak out against what they call the "genocide games."

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The armies report states that it believed the 27 Syrians to be drug smugglers. Earlier in January a Jordanian Army officer was killed in a shootout with drug smugglers. Because of this they are striking back against the smuggling operations. Due to the civil war that has gone on in Syria the past 10 years the illegal drug industry has flourished. The most popularly trafficked drug in the middle east is captagon which is an illegal amphetamine. Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Syria account for more than 55% of amphetamines seized worldwide.

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The Jordanian military says its troops have killed 27 suspected smugglers attempting to enter the country from neighboring Syria

AMMAN, Jordan -- The Jordanian military said Thursday that troops have killed 27 suspected smugglers attempting to enter the country from neighboring Syria.

The report on the army's website said that it had thwarted several suspected attempts to smuggle drugs into Jordan from Syria, and that large quantities of narcotics were seized in separate interventions that also left several people wounded.

The military said that it was "continuing to apply the newly established rules of engagement and will strike with an iron fist and deal with force and firmness with any infiltration or smuggling attempts to protect the borders."

Earlier this month the military said an army officer was killed in a shootout with smugglers along the long porous border it shares with Syria.

Jordan is home to more than 650,000 Syrian refugees who fled the civil war that has raged there for more than a decade.

In September, Syrian and Jordanian officials discussed border security after Syrian government forces captured rebel-held areas along the Jordanian frontier. A month later, Jordan's King Abdullah II spoke with Syrian President Bashar Assad for the first time in a decade after the two countries reopened a key border crossing.

An illegal drug industry has flourished in Syria after 10 years of civil war. In recent years, the Arab Mediterranean country has emerged as a hot spot for making and selling captagon, an illegal amphetamine. Both Syria and neighboring Lebanon have become gateways for the drug to the Middle East, and particularly the Gulf.

The U.N. Office of Drugs and Crime said in a 2014 report that the amphetamine market is on the rise in the Middle East, with busts mostly in Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Syria accounting for more than 55 percent of amphetamines seized worldwide.

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Jordanian military kills 27 in shootout with Syria smugglers

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The Jordanian military says its troops have killed 27 suspected smugglers attempting to enter the country from neighboring Syria AMMAN, Jordan -- The Jordanian military said Thursday that troops have killed 27 suspected smugglers attempting to enter the country from neighboring Syria.

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Somalia continues having internal severe political issues causing Somalians to doubt the integrity of their security institutions that are supposed to keep them safe and also reduce their confidence in their government. If this power struggle does not end there is little chance that conditions will improve for Somalia's citizens. This also makes it very difficult to improve international policy relations.

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As the foreign policy community continues to reflect on United States' withdrawal from Afghanistan and grapple with the failure of decades-long efforts to support political stability in the country, broad areas of consensus have emerged from the diversity of perspectives on what went wrong. Nearly universally, policymakers and analysts agree that part of the problem was the delusion that the deeply corrupt government in Kabul was a viable authority or an attractive alternative to the Taliban.

In Somalia, where another internationally backed nation-building exercise has been underway for many years, recent developments have increased the urgency of questions about the nature of the federal government that is supposed to represent an accountable, legitimate alternative to al-Shabab. The term of the current President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed, known as Farmaajo, expired in February, but his machinations to stay in office have delayed the electoral process and nearly led to a total breakdown of order in Mogadishu this past spring. The tenuous situation was temporarily salvaged when Farmaajo, under domestic and international pressure, ceded control of the electoral process and associated security arrangements to Prime Minister Mohamed Hussein Roble.

Now the fragile government is on the brink again, consumed by the president and prime minister's tussle for control of the National Intelligence and Security Agency (NISA)-a power struggle sharpened by the murder of Ikran Tahlil. Tahlil, who worked for NISA, disappeared this summer. While Farmaajo's camp claimed she was killed by al-Shabab, al-Shabab itself denies involvement, which is uncharacteristic for an organization eager to emphasize its ability to strike government targets at will. Rumors abound that Tahlil was killed by her superiors, and Roble is insisting on a full accounting for her death and new leadership at NISA; Farmaajo is attempting to shield NISA's former leadership, keep the organization involved in any investigation of Tahlil's death, and retain control of the organization.

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Imagining what all this looks like from a Somali perspective is a depressing exercise. Somalia remains desperately poor, and its overwhelmingly young population has tremendous difficulty accessing education, employment, and health care. Insecurity is pervasive. The political spectacle in Mogadishu does not hold much promise for improving these conditions. Clearly, Somalis have good reasons to doubt the integrity of security institutions that are supposed to keep them safe, and the lack of clarity about where authority resides only further erodes confidence in government. All of these developments cast a pall over an electoral process which should, in theory, bind Somalia's leadership to the desires of its citizens.

Afghanistan and Somalia are, of course, countries with distinct and complex social structures, different histories, and complicated relationships with their neighbors and foreign powers. But in both cases, the United States has been clear about the forces it opposes while remaining ambivalent about those it ostensibly supports. American leaders have lashed policy goals to governments that engender neither loyalty nor optimism for the future and that concern themselves more with maintaining power and access to spoils than with improving the lives of their citizens. Many capable Somalis work hard every day to improve the situation of the country, and the demands for truth and justice in the case of Ikran Tahlil-which have come not just from the prime minister's camp but from ordinary citizens-signal a real desire for accountability. Outside actors need to grapple with the reality that these people of goodwill have yet to be presented with worthy political leadership around which to coalesce.
This publication is part of the Diamonstein-Spielvogel Project on the Future of Democracy.

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Somalia's Ongoing Political Crisis Exposes Fundamental Problem for U.S. Policy

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The fragile Somali government is on the brink again, consumed by President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed (also known as Farmaajo) and Prime Minister Mohamed Hussein Roble's tussle for control of the National Intelligence and Security Agency (NISA)-a power struggle sharpened by the murder of Ikran Tahlil. Tahlil, who worked for NISA, disappeared this summer.

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People deal with the aftermath of the storm/flooding at Thabwa village in Chikwawa, Malawi

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Tropical Storm Ana was on a rampage and has killed 41 people in Madagascar, 19 in Malawai, and more than a dozen deaths in Mozambique. We also still don't know the exact number of deaths in total but about around 20,000 people have been affected by the flooding. Prime Minister Carlos Agostinho do Rosário is calling for international aid and the United Nations is sending aid to help people in need. There are reports of another storm coming in the Indian Ocean so hopefully, the people of Southern Africa and regions nearby will be safe!

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In the Mekong area in Asia, which covers Thailand, Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam, 224 new species were discovered. Among them were the Popa Langur, a new cavefish, and a new iridescent snake. The Popa Langur is a monkey with long arms and  tail, named after a nearby extinct volcano. The cavefish has such a distinct pale-yellow color that scientists have created a new genus for that type of fish. Lastly, the iridescent snake has scales that shift between greens and blues in the light.

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Humanitarian agencies sent out an emergency response across South Africa as Storm Ana reaches 70. As of now, 41 people have been killed in Madagascar, 18 in Mozambique, and 11 in Malawi. A total of at least 350,000 people have been affected in Madagascar, Mozambique and Malawi. About 80,000 have been displaced from their homes. There has been a lot of flooding; roads are cut off and there are damaged power and water supplies. Now there are plenty of aid agencies that have set up temporary sites to help those that are homeless.

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Humanitarian agencies have mounted an emergency response across southern Africa this week as the death toll from tropical Storm Ana reached 70.

Officials reported that at least 41 people had been killed in Madagascar, 18 in Mozambique and 11 in Malawi. The EU's aid agency Echo said on Thursday that at least 350,000 people have been affected across the three countries, including more than 80,000 displaced from their homes. Flooding has cut off roads and damaged power and water supplies.

The storm passed over Zimbabwe, but no deaths have been reported.

Aid agencies have set up dozens of temporary sites to house those made homeless. Unicef said it is deploying staff to set up temporary learning centres as well as distribute food, medicine and water purification tablets in Mozambique.

The agency said 12 health facilities and 137 schools had been damaged by the storm in Mozambique, forcing more than 27,000 children out of school. It estimated $3.5m (£2.6m) was needed to respond to the storm.

A spokesperson for the World Food Programme said the agency had been preparing for this year's cyclone season when the storm hit the region on Monday.

"Storm Ana has brought heavy rains and flooding in Madagascar, Mozambique and Malawi. Agricultural land, key infrastructure and houses have been damaged, and lives and livelihoods lost," said the spokesperson.

"Southern African countries have been repeatedly struck by severe storms and cyclones in recent years that have impacted food security, destroyed livelihoods and displaced large numbers of people."

In 2019, Cyclone Idai caused devastation across Mozambique, Malawi and Zimbabwe, affecting millions of people.

The Madagascar Red Cross Society said flooding, which was worse in slum areas and for more fragile homes made with earth walls and thatched roofs, had destroyed many people's food stocks.

Cristina Uamusse, secretary general of the Mozambican Red Cross Society, said early action taken to pre-empt the storms had helped limit the damage.

"We have been working with communities for many years and have seen what a significant difference pre-positioned stock movement from provinces to districts make on our response time to community needs," she said.

WaterAid said it is concerned about the spread of disease if water sources have been contaminated by flooding.

Malawi's government has declared a state of natural disaster after electricity cuts caused by flooding at power stations.

"Our priority now is restoring power to health establishments, water treatment distribution systems, and schools," the national power utility said in a statement.

Maria Luisa Fornara, the Unicef representative in Mozambique, said: "This latest storm to hit Mozambique is a blunt reminder that the climate crisis is very much a reality and children are most impacted by climate-related severe weather events."

Unicef said Mozambique has faced eight tropical storms since 2016.

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Aid agencies scale up Storm Ana response amid floods and rising death toll

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Humanitarian agencies have mounted an emergency response across southern Africa this week as the death toll from tropical Storm Ana reached 70. Officials reported that at least 41 people had been killed in Madagascar, 18 in Mozambique and 11 in Malawi.

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Kurdish forces backed by the US were able to recapture a prison taken by ISIS. ISIS captured the Prison last week. The siege ended after a week of hard fighting, which included US airstrikes. This was the biggest coordinated attack by ISIS since the collapse of their caliphate. ISIS thought the attack would give them enough momentum too take back the land they lost in Syria, and Iraq. They were instead defeated in less than a week. The Kurd's believed the attack had been planned 6 months prior. It was led by 100 ISIS fighters who charged in after detonating three car bombs. They attempted to break out comrades who had been captured in 2019. Eventually after a week of fighting, the ISIS forces surrendered.

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Over 6.7 million people have been displaced in Syria, while about 6.8 million are seeking refuge in neighbor countries. With temperatures dropping to around -14 degrees Celsius (6.8 Fahrenheit), people living in tents, without proper clothing, fear they will freeze to death. Not only temperatures, but also snowstorms and even flash floods put people at risk. One child died from a tent's collapse after snow accumulated on the roof, and two more after a heater in their tent started a fire.

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winter storms in middle east: three children killed

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with hundreds of thousands at risk as temperatures plummet in syria

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Three children killed as temperatures plummet in Syria, Lebanon and Jordan

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Three Syrian children have died, with hundreds of thousands of people "at great risk" following heavy winter storms in Syria and neighboring countries, according to humanitarian organization CARE.

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there is a picture, its just not showing up.

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In Ukraine, Kyiv is facing the increasing tensions with Russia. Things have been tense between the two countries for awhile now, with Russia making minor invasions on the borders and annexing areas. However, Russia is now expanding its military and posing a threat to Kyiv, with the imminent danger of a full scale attack. Ukraine is attempting to scale up its own military, but still falls short in comparison to Russia's extensive forces. Tensions between Russia and Ukraine have affected not just the East but the entire globe, with even the US getting involved in favor of Ukraine.