The News Roundup — International (The 1A) 2020-02-21

The COVID-19, or coronavirus, outbreak spread across Asia this week. On Thursday, the number of confirmed cases in South Korea doubled in 24 hours alone, and Japan reported two deaths from the Diamond Princess cruise liner. The New York Times described the Chinese economy as “nearly at a standstill.”

The Trump administration moved $3.8 billion dollars from the Pentagon’s budget to fund the construction of the border wall. And a new report revealed that U.S. forces failed to properly track or store over $710 million in weapons and equipment sent to U.S. allies fighting ISIS in Syria.

And last week, the American government announced a “reduction in violence” deal with the Taliban.

The deal has two steps, and The Washington Post’s Monkey Cage blog broke it down:

In the first step, the United States and the Afghan Taliban will substantially “reduce violence” against each other across Afghanistan for seven days. If satisfied with the reduction, the two sides will sign a broader agreement on withdrawing U.S. troops from Afghanistan; measures for verifying that Afghan territory isn’t being used for international terrorism; and starting intra-Afghan talks for political power-sharing between the Kabul government and the Taliban.

Plus, we bring you what we know regarding a mass shooting by a “far-right extremist” in Germany, as we review all the global news that made headlines this week.
Interview:
https://the1a.org/segments/the-news-roundup-international-2020-21-2/