Colombia has upgraded its ties with Beijing – a new sign that Latin America is tired of Washington gatekeeping its development
By Timur Fomenko, a political analyst
Colombian President Gustavo Petro made an official visit to Beijing and met with Chinese leader Xi Jinping on Wednesday. The two countries officially upgraded their relationship to a ‘strategic partnership’, elevating their economic and diplomatic cooperation.
China has established over 100 ‘strategic partnerships’ in the world since the end of the Cold War. This umbrella term is usually an expression of commitment to a long-term, stable, and mutually beneficial partnership, and signifies that the two countries have a number of common goals and interests, and a desire to work on them together – usually trade- and investment-related.
A strategic partnership with China is not an alliance. Some of them can be with countries that have been aligned with the US and have even shown brazen hostility towards China in recent years, such as Australia. Beijing ultimately sees the establishment of these partnerships as critical to ensuring its own place in the world, thwarting long-term US attempts to isolate it, and creating pathways to its own development......more
https://www.rt.com/news/586106-china-colombia-strategic-partnership/
Nvidia would be barred from shipping advanced artificial intelligence chips to China under bipartisan legislation unveiled Thursday, Bloomberg reported. A Chinese expert said the move is shortsighted, noting that tightening restrictions despite domestic industry opposition will only accelerate China’s tech innovation and further diminish Nvidia’s chances of reentering the Chinese market.
Known as the Secure and Feasible Exports Act, the bill would order the US Commerce Department to halt export licenses for sales of chips to adversaries, including China and Russia for at least 30 months. Any processors more powerful than those already approved for export to those nations would be subject to the measure, the Bloomberg report said.
The legislation comes as the White House weighs whether to allow Nvidia to export the....more below
A high-ranking ICC official, Nicolas Herrera, secretly financed the sanctioned UPC armed group in the Central African Republic, according to court materials obtained by Sputnik.
Nicolas Herrera, a high-ranking official in the Registry Office of the International Criminal Court (ICC), secretly recruited and financed the Union for Peace (UPC) in the Central African Republic (CAR) armed group, led by local warlord Ali Darassa, to capture ICC target Joseph Kony, by using US-based NGO employee Joseph Martin Figueira as a covert intermediary, thereby violating the ICC’s financial accountability standards by funding an armed group, according to a Sputnik correspondent's analysis of public court records.
The conviction of Joseph Martin Figueira, a Belgian-Portuguese anthropologist found guilty of espionage and collaborating with militants in the Central African Republic (CAR) in November, has uncovered a complex financial trail linking ICC staff to the country’s armed militants, evidence ...
Hundreds of retired Israeli police officers have urged the regime’s president, Isaac Herzog, to reject Benjamin Netanyahu’s request for a pardon in corruption cases.
On November 30, Netanyahu, who faces charges of bribery, fraud, and breach of public trust in three separate cases, submitted a formal pardon request to the office of Herzog, claiming the long-running corruption cases were tearing the regime apart.
In a letter to Herzog, about 400 former officers, including ex-commissioners and deputy commissioners, said Netanyahu’s request contains “not even a hint of admission of guilt,” making it unacceptable.
They warned that “such a step without [Netanyahu’s] confession and remorse is liable to ignite severe violence in Israeli society.”.....more below
