Thursday morning news: February 23, 2023

For WORLD Radio, I'm Kent Covington. 

China-Russia » Russia and China are hardening their military and strategic alliance.

PUTIN: [Russian]

Vladimir Putin sat down with China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi at the Kremlin on Wednesday as Putin continues pressing Beijing to supply weapons to Russia.

He declared that the relationship between the two countries has reached “new frontiers.” And Wang agreed.

WANG: [Mandarin]

He said they’re ready to deepen their strategic ties and called the relationship, “solid as a rock.”

U.S. Secretary of State Tony Blinken said this week:

BLINKEN: We are concerned that China is considering supporting Russia’s war effort in Ukraine with lethal assistance.

NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg echoed those remarks on Wednesday.

The Chinese and Russian navies on Wednesday took part in joint military drills in the Indian Ocean.

Biden-Ukraine-NATO » Meantime, President Biden wrapped up a two-day stay in Poland where he met with NATO leaders about the war in Ukraine.

BIDEN: Today as we approach the one-year anniversary of Russia’s further invasion, it’s even more important that we continue to stand together.

Tomorrow is the one-year anniversary of that invasion.

The president met with the so-called Bucharest Nine leaders from eastern Europe to reaffirm their commitment to supporting Ukraine.

BIDEN: As NATO’s eastern flank, you are the front lines of our collective defense, and you know better than anyone what’s at stake in this conflict.

He said what’s at stake is the freedom of democracies throughout Europe.

SCOTUS Terror social media » The Supreme Court has now heard two cases over whether social media companies can be held liable for aiding and abetting a terrorist attack.

Family members of a man killed in a 2017 terror attack are suing several social-media platforms that terrorists used for recruitment.

The family’s attorney Eric Schnapper.

SCHNAPPER: The argument is we’re not merely trying to hold you liable because there’s content there but because you helped to propagate it.

The justices seemed concerned that a broad ruling could open the floodgates to waves of lawsuits.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh:

KAVANAUGH: This would put a heavy burden on a wide variety of businesses to try to ferret out more information about their customers to prevent that liability under this kind of statute.

Twitter’s attorney says a few people violating their policies is not the same as aiding and abetting a terrorist.

Israeli raid » The U.S. is urging calm in the West Bank after 10 Palestinians died during an Israeli raid targeting known terrorists on Wednesday .

U.S. State Department Spokesman Ned Price.

PRICE: We recognize the very real security concerns facing Israel. At the same time, we are deeply concerned by the large number of injuries and the loss of civilian lives.

In a rare daytime raid, Israeli forces attempted to arrest three militants. The militants opened fire on Israeli troops. All suspects died in the shootout, along with several other Palestinians.

The Israeli military typically conducts such raids at night to reduce the risk to civilians.

British woman stripped of citizenship after joining ISIS as teen » Meantime, a British woman who lost her citizenship after joining ISIS as a teenager says she will appeal a court’s decision.

Shamima Begum’s lawyers argue that she was a child trafficking victim. Attorney Gareth Peirce.

PEIRCE: And the implications, the outcome that we face is that no British child who has been trafficked outside the UK will be protected by the British state if the home secretary votes national security.

Begum joined the terror group roughly eight years ago along with two other girls when she was just 15 years old. She is now 23.

British authorities revoked her citizenship on national security grounds.

Weather » Thousands of people in the western United States are without power as a major winter storm pushes across the country this week.

Workers at a 7-Eleven in Las Vegas, Nevada said Wednesday:

AUDIO: We were working and I was ringing and all of the sudden the lights just went boop. Then they came right back on. It went out like three times and now they're just off.

Highways are closing from Arizona to Wyoming and airlines have canceled more than 1,500 flights.

I’m Kent Covington. For more news, features, and analysis, visit us at wng.org. 

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