“One unexpected result from last week’s China-U.S. summit was that Chinese leader Xi Jinping told President Donald Trump that he ‘would consider’ releasing the country’s most prominent Christian pastor, Ezra Jin Mingri, from detention. Whether the release happens or not, the mere fact that Mr. Xi had to respond favorably to the U.S. leader’s request confirmed an obvious point to the country’s religious faithful: The Chinese Communist Party does not control the narrative of what their persecution means. God does. Last October, when police rounded up Mr. Jin and more than 20 other pastors in a major crackdown, his Beijing Zion Church issued this statement: ‘The Church belongs to God, not to any political power’. Such conviction might help explain why, by some estimates, the number of Christians in China remains close to the party’s total membership despite decades of repression, frequently raising curiosity among many Chinese about Christianity.” (05/19/26)
“The U.K. government has delayed some new sanctions on Russian oil in an effort to shelter Britons from the cost-of-living squeeze triggered by the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz in the Iran war. A trade license that came into effect Wednesday permits the import of Russian oil that has been refined into jet fuel and diesel in third countries such as India and Turkey. The U.K. announced in October that it would ban imports of those products. The U.S.-Israeli war on Iran and Iran’s retaliatory grip on the strait, through which about a fifth of the world’s oil usually passes, has sent fuel prices soaring around the world and sparked concerns about a shortage of jet fuel. Opposition Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch accused the British government of ‘choosing to buy dirty Russian oil.'” (05/20/26)
“Eight days into the new year, in the stifling aftermath of a state-sanctioned attack on the Philippine village of Abra de Ilog, the country’s armed forces shared a video of Filipina American Chantal Anicoche to its Facebook page. Filmed by the military’s 203rd Infantry Brigade in the province of Mindoro Occidental, the video shows Anicoche clambering out of a vine-covered pit, barefoot, sallow and drawn. Cowering, Anicoche is led to a clearing. She sits on the ground as a soldier asks, ‘Why are you here?’ A passionate activist from Maryland, 24-year-old Anicoche had moved to Abra de Ilog the month prior to learn from the Indigenous Mangyan-Iraya and peasant communities that are resisting extractive industries, militarization and state violence.” (05/19/26)
“Russian President Vladimir Putin arrived Tuesday night in China for meetings with Chinese leader Xi Jinping less than a week after U.S. President Donald Trump wrapped up his own trip to Beijing. Putin’s plane landed in Beijing, where it was greeted by an honor guard and youths in light blue shirts. Putin’s two-day visit is likely to be closely watched as Beijing seeks to maintain stable relations with the United States while also preserving strong ties with Russia. The Kremlin has said Putin and Xi plan to discuss economic cooperation between the two countries, but also ‘key international and regional issues’. The visit coincides with the 25th anniversary of the Sino-Russian Treaty of Friendship signed in 2001. China is a key trading partner for Russia, especially after Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Beijing has said it is neutral in the conflict while maintaining trade ties with the Kremlin despite economic and financial sanctions by the U.S. and Europe.” (05/19/26)
“The nuclear power industry is currently promoting designs for small modular reactors, or SMRs, that will supposedly be cheaper, safer, and faster to build than older nuclear power plants. Bill Gates and Amazon are investing in the technology. Moreover, some environmentalists, including Mark Lynas and Bill McKibben, support SMRs in the hope that they can lower carbon emissions. And, according to polls, far more Americans now approve of the development of nuclear energy than was the case just a decade or two ago.” (05/19/26)
“Cory Booker, Senator from New Jersey and child of two wealthy executives at IBM, knows struggle – he’s seen every episode of ‘Dear White People.’ The struggle is real … especially in the first two seasons. Or so it has been explained to him, as he’s led a charmed life, which would be impossible if the United States of America were half the racist hell hole he pretends it is to advance his political career. It amuses me to no end when white liberals act like they are the saviors of black people, and it’s even more amusing when black politicians who grew up just as much, if not more, ‘privileged’ than the white people they whine about don the racial hero cape. Cory Booker has wanted for nothing, except maybe hair and a non-grating personality, but he knows ‘struggle’ because, well, his skin color.” (05/19/26)
“Ever since North Korea suffered through the death of its first leader in 1994, a loss magnified by an economic collapse and a devastating famine, outside observers have likened the country to an airplane experiencing a serious malfunction. The major question they posed: in the end, would North Korea experience a soft landing or a catastrophic crash? Perhaps a reformer would come along — say, a North Korean version of Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev — who could right the airship of state and guide it toward the runway of reunification with South Korea. More direly, the North Korean regime could collapse all of a sudden, like the Communist governments in Eastern Europe in 1989. Those were relatively peaceful affairs, but North Korea’s worst-case scenarios might involve violent power struggles, the return of famine, and a free-for-all scramble for the country’s loose nukes.” (05/19/26)
“One American view of China — now increasingly popular on the Left and the Right alike, especially among the hate-Trump crowd — is that the communist colossus will be forever ascendant, with continued astonishing levels of food production, ship construction, and industrial output. In this pessimistic view, China will soon replace America as the world’s predominant power. We are, supposedly, like an exhausted British Empire circa 1945, and China is the new version of the postwar American powerhouse. Yet even Beijing’s miraculous 30-year leap out of poverty into first-world affluence and Westernized power is hardly the same as parity with the US. In truth, Trump held almost all the cards at the current summit and will do so again when Xi Jinping visits the US this autumn.” (05/19/26)
“After a resounding loss Monday in his $150 billion lawsuit against OpenAI and its CEO, Sam Altman, Elon Musk took to his own social media network, X, to air out his grievances with the judge presiding over the case. On Monday, a jury unanimously ruled that Musk had missed his chance to sue, deciding that the statute of limitations had passed by the time the world’s richest man accused OpenAI executives of illegally turning the nonprofit into a for-profit company. … ‘This illustrates why the ruling by the terrible activist Oakland judge, who simply used the jury as a fig leaf, creates such a terrible precedent,’ Musk wrote. ‘She just handed out a free license to loot charities if you can keep the looting quiet for a few years!’ Musk vowed to appeal the ruling in a separate post that remains on the social media network.” (05/18/26)
“Like many new technologies that hold both promise and risk, artificial intelligence might be reaching a global inflection point. Last week, for example, China and the United States agreed at a summit to start talks on defining possible guardrails for AI. Meanwhile, a global watchdog, the Financial Stability Board, has invited Anthropic to provide a briefing on how the AI firm’s latest model, Mythos, might pinpoint vulnerabilities in world financial systems. Since 2023, annual AI Safety Summits have been hosted in Asia and Europe. Even beyond such cooperation between governments, religious thinkers are stepping up to offer advice.” (05/18/26)
