Headlines

 Washington DC, Feb.12.– Former President Donald Trump's lawyers in his unprecedented second impeachment trial closed their defence presentation arguing that the charge brought by the Democratic-controlled House is an attempt to stifle speech and has no constitutional basis.

"Let's be clear, this trial is about far more than President Trump. It is about silencing and banning speech the majority does not agree with," attorney Bruce Castor said, echoing the "cancel culture" theme often voiced by Trump and his supporters.

• China’s top diplomat Yang Jiechi warned the Biden administration not to cross Beijing’s “red line” in a half-hour speech on the evening of Feb. 1. 
• Jiechi instructed United States that it should “strictly abide by the One China principle” with regards to Taiwan, at a dinner hosted by the U.S.-China Business Council and the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations in Washington.

Washington DC, Feb.4.– Xi Jinping's most senior diplomat issued a pointed warning to President Joe Biden about China's "red lines" on Tuesday when he addressed business leaders and experts at a U.S.-China advisory body.

The remarks made by high-ranking Politburo member Yang Jiechi—a past Chinese ambassador to Washington—were "full of Communist Party jargon," a former Pentagon official told Newsweek. Other observers have concluded Yang was very much playing to a domestic audience.

Jan.22.– President Donald Trump didn’t campaign in 2016 on a promise to confront the global spread of communism, but his efforts over the past four years against the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), its proxies, and other elements of the communist specter have become the centerpiece of his legacy.

Viewed through this lens, the “America First” slogan was a fitting one for a campaign against a communist adversary and a medley of the causes it has co-opted in a decades-long campaign to supplant the United States as the most powerful nation in the world.

Navalny was detained following almost five months in Germany.

Moscow, Jan. 17.– Russian opposition figure Alexey Navalny has been detained by police at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport after returning from Germany, where he had been recovering following an alleged poisoning attempt last summer.

Navalny and his wife Yulia left the plane together on Sunday evening with the rest of the passengers and drove to the terminal in a bus. The activist was arrested at the immigration desk.