Efforts to establish special envoy to probe China s genocide of Uyghurs gain steam washingtontimes.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from washingtontimes.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Tigray forces seize regional capital, say Ethiopian-led troops are on the run
By Giulia Paravicini and Maggie Fick
Reuters
GONDAR, Ethiopia (Reuters) -Tigrayan forces said they had Ethiopian government troops on the run around the regional capital Mekelle on Tuesday after taking full control of the city in a sharp reversal of eight months of conflict.
People in Mekelle, where communications were cut on Monday, said the incoming Tigrayan fighters were greeted with cheers. There were similar scenes on video footage from the northern town of Shire, where residents said government-allied Eritrean forces had pulled out and Tigrayan forces had entered.
Trevor Reed, who was detained in 2019 and accused of assaulting police officers, at a court hearing in Moscow. Credit: REUTERS/Tatyana Makeyeva
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WASHINGTON - The U.S. House overwhelmingly passed a resolution on Tuesday calling for the release of a Texan who’s been imprisoned in Russia for nearly two years.
The resolution, spearheaded by freshman U.S. Rep. August Pfluger, called on Russia to release Trevor Reed, a 29-year-old resident of Granbury. Reed was arrested in August 2019 on specious grounds, according to news reports and American diplomats, and his supporters say he’s being held on trumped-up charges because he’s a former Marine.
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The Republican head of the House’s China Task Force revealed new testimony that the Chinese military may have taken over the Wuhan Institute of Virology earlier than previously reported, which he said added evidence indicating COVID-19 originated in the lab.
Rep. Michael McCaul, ranking GOP member on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, made the revelation during a Tuesday panel presentation organized by House Republicans on the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis.
“New testimony now received by my committee reveals the Chinese military potentially took over this lab, not in January 2020 as was reported, but earlier in 2019,” McCaul said. “The Chinese military were actually in the facility at the time of 2017. That signals the CCP was worried about something at the lab before the world even knew what COVID-19 was. Why else would they put the Chinese military in charge?”
HOUSE PANEL RELEASES $706B PENTAGON SPENDING BILL
“Democrats have landed on a responsible funding level for the Department of Defense that maintains a strong national security posture today, while making important investments in modernization that will make us even stronger in the years to come,” House Appropriations Defense Subcommittee Chair Betty McCollum
How it compares: Last month, the Biden administration requested a total of $753 billion for defense programs for fiscal 2022, including $715 billion for the Pentagon.
The number was panned by Republicans, who argued it is too small to meet challenges posed by China, as well as by progressive Democrats who argued it is too large in the face of pressing domestic needs and nonmilitary threats such as pandemics.