12019 / Pixabay

On Saturday, the National People’s Congress of China enacted a measure establishing a new intellectual property court in the southern island of Hainan. China has sought to strengthen Hainan’s position as a global free trade port in the South China Sea, competing with other shipping centers in the area such as Hong Kong, Singapore, and [...]

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Viasna, a non-governmental human rights center in Belarus, said that seven more people were detained in Belarus on Sunday during the traditional weekend protests against President Alexander Lukashenko, who won his sixth term in office in a disputed election. The total number of detainees is now reported to be over twenty people. According to a [...]

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Congressman Louie Gohmert and a group of Republican electors from Arizona filed a lawsuit on Sunday in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, arguing that the Electoral Count Act is unconstitutional. The complaint asserts that the Electoral Count Act’s dispute resolution provisions violate the Electors Clause and the Twelfth Amendment of the [...]

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Rights organizations decried the four year prison sentence handed down to Zhang Zhan, a citizen-journalist, by a Chinese court on Monday. She was found guilty of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble,” charges sometimes used by authorities to quell dissent. Zhang, a 37-year-old former lawyer, had reported on the COVID-19 outbreak in Wuhan beginning in February. [...]

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New York State Department of Health officials announced on Saturday that they would launch a criminal investigation into a network of health clinics. The investigation is based on speculation that the provider, ParCare Community Health Network, violated the state’s guidelines in obtaining the COVID-19 vaccine and distributing it to members of the public. According to [...]

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The Central African Republic (CAR) held presidential and legislative elections Sunday amid fears of unrest and controversy. Despite threats of violence by rebel groups, citizens turned out in significant numbers. The incumbent President Faustin-Archange Touadéra, seeking a second term, is favored to win. Touadéra has advocated demobilizing armed groups and incentivizing international investment. He has accused [...]

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The government in the Indian union territory of Jammu and Kashmir issued an order Friday extending the suspension of high-speed 4G internet services until January 8 across the union territory excluding the districts of Ganderbal and Udhampur, citing post-election unrest and border infiltration. The government said it received credible reports concerning terrorists attempting to infiltrate [...]

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Photo Credit: Stephanie Sundier

President Trump finally signed a coronavirus relief package Sunday after several days’ delay. The president signed the bill Sunday night, but issued a statement that “wasteful items need to be removed” from the bill, indicating that the White House would send a “redlined version” back to Congress “insisting that those funds be removed from the [...]

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The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) on Saturday issued notices to Google and Wikipedia for “disseminating sacrilegious content” through their platforms. According to the authority, these websites are hosting misleading content about the present khalifa (spiritual head) of Islam. The searches on these platforms show the current leader of the Ahmadiyya community as the “present khalifa [...]

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The Turkish Parliament passed a law Sunday aimed at controlling terrorism after two days of debate. Entitled the “Law on Preventing the Financing of the Spread of Weapons of Mass Destruction,” the new legislation includes controversial amendments to an existing law on aid collection. These amendments enable the government, led by President Tayyip Erdogan, to [...]

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