Author: Press Room

TAIPEI, Taiwan — Taiwan celebrated its National Day holiday Thursday against the background of threats from China, which claims the self-governing island republic as its own territory.The celebration marks the establishment of the Republic of China, which overthrew the Qing Dynasty in 1911 and fled to Taiwan as Mao Zedong’s Communists swept to power on the mainland during a civil war in 1949. Taiwan was run under martial law until transitioning to full democracy in the 1980s and 1990s but maintains the original constitution brought from China and the ROC flag.President Lai Ching-te took office in May, continuing the eight-year…

Rep. Clay Higgins (R-La.) infuriated many of his House colleagues with his since-deleted racist X post about Haitian migrants, prompting a top Black Democrat to introduce a measure to formally reprimand him that will likely see a floor vote. Congressional Black Caucus Chair Rep. Steven Horsford (D-Nev.) is expected to force action on the censure resolution when the House returns after the November election. Disciplinary measures like censure can be “privileged,” meaning they can bypass committee on a fast track to the House floor. Horsford sought privilege on the measure Wednesday, which can kick-start the two-legislative day clock to force…

The pairing once would have been unthinkable. In Ripon, Wisconsin, the sentimental birthplace of the GOP, Kamala Harris hit the campaign trail with Liz Cheney on Thursday in what marked the vice president’s highest-profile attempt yet to woo non-MAGA Republicans. The California liberal and Wyoming conservative agree on little besides their view that former President Donald Trump is a threat to democracy who shouldn’t return to the White House after the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol. At Ripon College, in a small city where a group of Whigs, Free Soilers and Democrats met in 1854 to form a new…

President Joe Biden hadn’t been briefed about a back-and-forth between Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Vice President Kamala Harris over hurricane recovery before he praised him as “gracious” in a news conference Wednesday, a source familiar with the situation said.NBC News first reported Monday that DeSantis refused to take Harris’ call when she reached out about Hurricane Helene’s impact on Florida. DeSantis charged that Harris was trying to “politicize the storm.” Harris called him “utterly irresponsible” and “selfish.” The spat grabbed headlines for several days.On Wednesday, Biden delivered a widely televised address warning the public about the potentially catastrophic impact…

SCRANTON, Pennsylvania — Former President Donald Trump ventured Wednesday into President Joe Biden’s home turf, aiming to run up the score with the working-class voters he will need to recapture the White House.With Biden gone from the Democratic ticket, Trump is betting he can win more votes in the reddening region of Northeast Pennsylvania where the president was raised.In a cavernous sports complex not far from the President Biden Expressway, Trump delivered the economic message his campaign — and local Republican activists — believe holds sway in a region that has suffered from industrial decline. His pledges to halve energy…

A Kiev court ordered the confiscation of assets belonging to Alisher Usmanov’s USM holding  Russian investment group USM, majority-owned by billionaire businessman Alisher Usmanov, will take legal action after a Ukrainian court ordered its assets in the country to be seized, RBK reported on Friday, citing the company’s press office.Earlier this week, Ukrainian Deputy Justice Minister Inna Bogatykh said in a Facebook post that the High Anti-Corruption Court of Ukraine had ordered the confiscation of 165,000 tons of iron ore worth over $48 million currently in Ukrainian ports, and 100% of Peter-Service Ukraine, an IT company belonging to USM“We will…

Jens Stoltenberg was recently succeeded as head of the US-led military bloc by former Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte Former NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg will become chair of the Munich International Security Conference (MSC) next year, the Western-dominated organization has announced.The Norwegian politician will take over from German diplomat Christoph Heusgen after the conference’s 61st gathering in February 2025, the MSC said in a press release published on Tuesday.Stoltenberg was replaced as head of NATO last week by former Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, after a decade at the helm. During that time, he oversaw a steady increase in defense spending, and the…

Despite the threat of CPI hovering over the vol markets…Source: Bloomberg…and notably hawkish minutes from The Fed (more divided over the scale of cuts than previously thought), which dragged rate-cut expectations lower still…Source: BloombergThe Dow outperformed but the Nasdaq and S&P were solid performers as Small Caps gave back early gains…S&P 500 hit another all-time intraday record high today and is now experiencing the strongest YTD performance of the 21st century…The US ain’t cheap!!Source: BloombergStill not cheap…Source: BloombergBut across the Pacific, Beijing was battered again…Source: BloombergGoldman Sachs trading desk notes that “We saw record single-day selling in Chinese equities on…

Journalist Mark Halperin said yesterday that he has seen ‘private polling’ most likely meaning internal campaign polling, and that Kamala Harris is ‘in trouble’ in most of the swing states. According to Halperin, Harris is in danger of losing six out of seven swing states, including Pennsylvania, Georgia, North Carolina, Arizona, Michigan, and Wisconsin. He thinks she might have a shot of winning Nevada. Take all of this with a grain of salt but remember that Mark Halperin was one of the very first journalists to claim with some certainty that Joe Biden was going to drop out of the…

Disproving skeptics, Irfan Razack’s Prestige Estates Projects, has gained a foothold in hyper-competitive Mumbai and is now expanding to other cities. By Anuradha Raghunathan, Forbes Contributor Five years ago, Bangalore-based property magnate Irfan Razack, who gained prominence by riding the boom in India’s tech capital, decided to venture into Mumbai’s highly competitive property market. It seemed a long shot. Would his Prestige Estates Projects be able to replicate its south India success in the country’s financial hub against entrenched big names—all billionaire-owned—such as Lodha’s Macrotech Developers, Godrej Properties and Oberoi Realty? Defying skeptics, Prestige has since then made notable inroads…