The Biden administration has now had more official contacts with Palestinian officials in its first two weeks than the Trump administration did in its final three years.
Why it matters: The State Department's deputy assistant secretary for Israel-Palestine, Hady Amr, spoke by phone with multiple Palestinian officials on Monday. Those were the first publicly announced interactions between the sides as the Biden administration moves to renew ties that had been effectively severed since Donald Trump announced in December 2017 that he was moving the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken says the weekend protests and arrests in Russia are about "the frustration that the Russian people have with corruption, with autocracy," in an interview that aired Monday on NBC.
What he's saying: “We are deeply disturbed by this violent crackdown against people exercising their rights to protest peacefully against their government, rights that are guaranteed to them in the Russian constitution."
The Biden administration plansto review the phase one U.S.-China trade deal, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said on Friday. Based on publicly available data, it's hard to imagine they'll find anything other than a debacle.
Driving the news: China isn't even close to fulfilling its end of the deal — having come up 42% short of its commitment, Chad Bown, a fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, reported late last week.
Myanmar's military TV station announced Monday the army has declared a one-year state of emergency after taking power and detaining Aung San Suu Kyi and other top ruling party leaders.
Why it matters: The coup comes after escalating tensions between the civilian government and the military following last November's elections, which Nobel laureate Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) party won by a landslide.
Over 5,000 demonstrators were detained in major Russian cities Sunday, as authorities cracked down on people who defied orders and protested against the detention of opposition leader Alexey Navalny, monitoring groups said.
Why it matters: Navalny's detention has united Russians from a variety of backgrounds, including those who are against his politics, to protest the authoritarian leadership of President Vladimir Putin, per the New York Times.
Russian prosecutors have demanded that social media platforms censor calls to join protests, AP notes.
KYIV — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky tells "Axios on HBO" that he was "shocked" by the pro-Trump mob storming the U.S. Capitol, saying he never imagined this could happen in America and that it harms U.S. efforts to promote democracy abroad.
Why it matters: Zelensky's comments show how the Jan. 6 riots have echoed beyond America's borders, unsettling allies and emerging democracies that look to the U.S. for security and inspiration.
KYIV — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told "Axios on HBO" that he doesn't consider China to be a major geopolitical threat — a stance that may cause him friction with the Biden administration and Congress — even as he vowed to limit Chinese control of critical technology sectors.
Why it matters: Zelensky's comments represent a break with U.S. national security leaders from both major political parties who are trying to rally allies to confront the threat of the Chinese Communist Party.
Some of the richest countries in the world — the ones that had been considered the best prepared to handle a pandemic — turned out to be the ones that suffered the highest death rates.
Why it matters: The SARS-CoV-2 virus has proven that preparedness needs to be global, and coordinated.
About 7,000 Hong Kongers have fled to the U.K. since China imposed a national security law on Hong Kong and the British government expects more than 300,000 to obtain extended residency rights over the next five years, per AP.
Why it matters: The announcement comes as the U.K. opened the new visa scheme Sunday — a day after China said it would no longer recognize Hong Kongers' British National Overseas (BNO) passports as valid travel documents or proof of identity.
