🇪🇨 Video shows the moment when Ecuadorian Presidential Candidate Otto Sonnenholzner is shot at in a restaurant where he was having breakfast with his family.

— This is the 4th attack against Presidential Candidates of Ecuador

Otto Sonnenholzner, an Ecuadorian polician of Lebanese-German heritage, is well-known in Ecuador for being allied and part of the Madrid Forum, an Ibero-American Alliance of Anti-Communist & Anti-liberal parties, led by the "Far-Right" Spanish Vox Party

✝️ 🇺🇸 🏫 Armed militia members currently out in Gloucester, Virginia, in protest against the county sheriff’s department following multiple arrests made last month of individuals who had allegedly carried firearms at a local school board meeting

📎 BGOnTheScene

REMIGRATION CAMPAIGN

Due to current political developments and ongoing migration problems in the country, Geuzenbond is launching a new campaign to put remigration on the political agenda.

In the coming months, Geuzenbond activists will put out messages in the public space to make remigration a well-known topic in the public debate.

Geuzenbond.nl/en

✝️ 🇺🇸 🏫 “In recent months, they have enforced unconstitutional laws, and invented new offenses to satisfy their desire to control this country’s politics” Group leader Mike Dunn, speaking alongside armed militia members today, discusses a grievance against the Gloucester County Sheriff's Office at a gathering outside the T.C. Walker Education Center in Gloucester, Virginia.

He stated they initially planned to make the speech to law enforcement, who did not present themselves during today’s gathering

📎 BGOnTheScene

🇹🇼🇺🇸 Taiwan vice president stops over in New York on way to Paraguay

Taiwan Vice President William Lai arrived in New York at the start of a sensitive US stopover.

Lai, the front-runner to become Taiwan's president in elections in January, is officially making only transit stops in the United States on his way to and from Paraguay for the swearing in of its president next week.

Neither Taiwan nor the US have given exact details about his US schedule, which both are aiming to keep low key, according to officials briefed on the trip.

#Taiwan #USA

@asianomics

🇨🇳🇹🇼 China launches drills around Taiwan in response to VP's US trip

China's military began drills around Taiwan on Saturday, saying it was a "serious warning" to separatist forces in a widely expected response to a visit by Vice President William Lai to the United States.

The People's Liberation Army's Eastern Theatre Command, which has responsibility for the area around Taiwan, said in a brief statement it was carrying out joint naval and air combat readiness patrols around the island.

It said it was also holding joint exercises and training of naval and air forces, focusing on subjects such as ship-aircraft coordination and seizing control, to test the forces' "actual combat capabilities".

#China #Taiwan

@asianomics

🇹🇼🇨🇳 Taipei mayor to visit China

The mayor of Taipei will visit Shanghai at the end of this month for an annual city forum, his office said.

Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an, from the main opposition party the Kuomintang, which traditionally favors close relations with China, will go to Shanghai on Aug. 29-31 for the Taipei-Shanghai City Forum, which was first held in 2010.

The Kuomintang has pushed to resume contacts with China since pandemic controls were lifted, saying that dialogue was needed now more than ever given the tensions over Taiwan.

#Taiwan #China

@asianomics

🇯🇵🇺🇸🇦🇺🇵🇭 Japan, US, Australia eye ship deployment to Philippines for drill

Japan, the United States and Australia are considering sending their vessels carrying aircraft to the Philippines to conduct a trilateral naval drill next week in the South China Sea.

The Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force has decided to send its largest destroyer, the Izumo, which is set to become a de facto aircraft carrier after undergoing additional renovation slated to begin next year or 2025.

The Royal Australian Navy will deploy its amphibious assault ship Canberra, while the US Navy is expected to send its amphibious assault ship America.

The exercise comes amid tensions between China and the Philippines after a Chinese coast guard vessel fired a water cannon at a Philippine military-chartered boat.

#Japan #USA #Australia #ThePhilippines

@asianomics

🇷🇺🇧🇭🇺🇸 Russian journalists from Izvestia uncovered a prostitution ring which supplied underage Russian girls to clients in Bahrain.

The people requesting the services of the girls were mainly Arabs from Bahrain and the surrounding countries but also American officers from the US Navy's 5th Fleet which is stationed in Manama, the capital of Bahrain.

The girls, aged between 13 and 17 years old were lured to the country by a group of Russian citizens which would seize their passports and other IDs to prevent them from escaping the country and then handing them over to their Bahraini partners.

The ring is active since at least 2013 and at least one girl died due to physical trauma at the hands of one of the abusers after trying to escape the hotel where she was housed in. They were sold to clients for between 7000 to 14.000 USD.

The journalists, which worked undercover, also found out that a lot of the girls got pregnant and were forced to carry out abortion late into the pregnancy with some giving birth to dead fetuses which would end up thrown into garbage bins.

Izvestia discovered that the Russian girls were significantly more expensive than the girls brought there from Thailand, Uzbekistan or Vietnam.

🇧🇫 5 policemen, 40 militants dead in clashes in Burkina Faso

Five Burkinabe police officers have died in an attack in the center of Burkina Faso, with at least 40 of the attackers "neutralized" when the authorities launched a counter-attack, the army said Sunday.

The attack occurred on Saturday afternoon when members of a police mobile intervention force were targeted near Diougo-Yourga, in Koulpelogo province near the Togo border, the army said.

🇳🇪 - Niger's government announced that over 50,000 Nigeriens have declared their intention to join a pro-government militia.