News of the World

[kyonides]

China Sends Premier to Germany, Seeking Tighter Stranglehold on Europe’s Economy

Chinese Premier Li Qiang began a five-day trip to Germany and France on Sunday, arriving in Berlin just as U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was visiting Beijing.

The optics of Li working to peel away vital U.S. allies as American influence fades under the Biden administration were unmistakable.
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"They noted that Li’s visit will bring more certainty for the China-Europe cooperation and will benefit the global economic recovery when the world is still in turbulence caused by the Ukraine crisis and when the US unilateralism and hegemony threaten the trend of multipolarization."

The Global Times hammered the notion of European powers looking for an off-ramp from American foreign policy so they can sign up for China’s model of amoral authoritarian hegemony.
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"China also needs to make sure the EU keeps neutral on the issues that are China’s core interests, and to seek more cooperation with European countries, especially in the fields such as science and technologies, as well as economy and trade, to balance the pressure from the US", analysts noted.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry explicitly told the Germans to feel honored by Li’s presence during his first overseas trip as premier, because it “fully shows the importance China attaches to its relations with Germany,” and demonstrates Beijing’s eagerness to build a “super engine of cooperation between the two countries.”

Powerless U.N. Complains Russia Ignores Its Requests to Aid Dam Victims

The U.N. humanitarian coordinator for Ukraine, Denise Brown, said in a statement the organization has sought to engage Moscow and Kyiv, each of which occupies parts of the southern Kherson region where the dam and reservoir are located, to address the “devastating destruction” caused by the breach.

The Russian government “has so far declined our request to access the areas under its temporary military control,” Brown lamented, UPI reports.
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The accusation comes after the U.N. on Friday said hundreds of thousands of people in Ukraine have been affected by water shortages due to the dam breach.

Saviano Abreu, head of communications for U.N. aid coordination Office, said they calculate that 200,000 people in the Dnipro region alone have been cut off from water from their houses.

Official Says Biden’s CBP One Program Benefits Drug Cartels

In May 2023, CBP announced the agency would increase the daily number of appointments for migrants ... In the announcement, the DHS officials said the latter change would “Cut out smugglers who are preying on noncitizens by prioritizing appointments for those who have been waiting the longest. A percentage of daily available appointments will be allocated to the earliest registered CBP One™ profiles, so noncitizens who have been trying to obtain appointments for the longest time will be prioritized.”

...the source, who is not authorized to speak to the media, says the impacts are to the contrary. “Any way you look at it, the border is a dangerous place,” the source stated. “The cartels don’t just profit off of the migrants, they survive and thrive by smuggling narcotics.”

“One worry is by redirecting personnel from inspections to asylum processing we are missing the deadliest drug we have seen in modern times, fentanyl,” the source told Breitbart Texas.
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At the smaller ports of entry, fewer migrants are allowed appointments. However, due to reduced staffing, the effects on the inspection process just as significant. Several times per day, groups of migrants appear for processing in Eagle Pass, Texas, and are released into the United States. Less than one hundred are processed at this port of entry daily. That port of entry may be forced to receive additional migrants due to a recent cancellation of the program in Laredo, Texas. The pause in the processing of CBP One appointments in Laredo is due to reports of migrants being extorted by authorities in Mexico.
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Recent fentanyl seizures made by authorities at the border crossing points and in communities farther away from the border highlight the volume of fentanyl that Mexican cartels move every day.
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Border Patrol agents seized more than 190 pounds of fentanyl discovered meticulously concealed in a passenger vehicle. That seizure, according to the Border Patrol, contained enough lethal doses of the drug to kill 40 million people and had a street value estimated at over $2 million.

Biden’s Deputies Hide Mass Fraud in H-1B Middle-Class Outsourcing Visa

Indian-born CEOs are closing their firms and fleeing back to India to escape charges of fraud in the annual lotteries for visas to import H-1B foreign contract workers, says a lawyer for many Indian-owned subcontractors and visa workers.
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[Rahul Reddy, an immigration lawyer] made his comments during an online question-and-answer session with Indian graduates who are worried about the federal investigations into the H-1B fraud in the annual lottery for 85,000 new H-1B work permits. The work permits are used to import lower-wage migrants to take the jobs needed by U.S. college graduates.

Many Indian graduates in India cooperate with the fraud because the H-1B visas put them on a long, indentured-service path to U.S. jobs, green cards, and citizenship.

But many other Indian graduates from U.S. colleges oppose the lottery fraud because it hinders their three legal chances to convert their “Optional Practical Training” (OPT) work permits into an H-1B visa with its valuable path to U.S. citizenship.
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Yes, there are a lot of companies that are under criminal investigation right now. We get a lot of contact from people who are getting criminally investigated, and employers getting investigated. Some of the employers are running away to India. Some of the employers are just closing the entire business. Some of the employers are not filing their H-1B’s even though got them in the lottery. So all different things are going on.

Taliban Central Bank Governor Talks Business with Chinese Ambassador

Badri became the finance minister of Afghanistan after the fall of Kabul in August 2021, but he switched jobs and became governor of DA Afghanistan Bank (DAB) in March 2023 for unclear reasons. One theory held that he was forced out of the finance ministry in a squabble over money appropriated by senior Taliban leaders.
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According to the Chinese Foreign Ministry, Wang met with Badri and the ministers of other “relevant departments” to discuss “strengthening China-Afghanistan cooperation in areas such as the economy and trade.”

The Chinese Foreign Ministry complained that international sanctions against the brutal Taliban regime are hindering Afghanistan’s development.
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Afghanistan’s independent Tolo News said Afghan traders are eager to sell in China, including key exports such as pine nuts, but they need easier access to visas in order to travel across the Chinese border. Afghan firms are eagerly courting Chinese investment because few other countries are willing to do business with the Taliban.
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Those Chinese investments in Afghanistan include an oil extraction deal, and possibly soon a lithium mining agreement, which would tighten Beijing’s grip on the worldwide electric vehicle industry.

Colombia’s Socialist President Considers Paying Communist ELN to Not Commit Terrorism

According to the sources, the proposal involves the creation of a fund so that several countries can make “financial contributions” to Colombia, which would then be disbursed to the ELN terrorist group. The purpose of the fund, the source told Caracol, would be to entice ELN terrorists to cease actions against civilians such as kidnapping and extortion. The source cited did not specify the names of countries Petro sought to engage in the proposal, nor the amounts the fund would be expected to handle.

Similarly, a “high-ranking member” of Petro’s government accompanying Petro on an official visit to Germany last week explained to Colombia’s RCN Radio on Friday that Petro sought aid from European Union nations to fund the project, also acting as guarantors of the peace process between Colombia and another Marxist narco-terrorist group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).

Colombia’s Interior Minister Luis Fernando Velasco claimed to RCN Radio that there are “some countries” interested in the proposal — but that it was up to Petro to explain the proposal’s details.

Petro, a former member of the Marxist M19 guerilla, took office in August, becoming the first leftist president in Colombian history.