Following Hurricane Milton’s catastrophic landfall, Governor Ron DeSantis has requested an Expedited Major Disaster Declaration to support Florida's response and recovery efforts. U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL), U.S. Representative Vern Buchanan (R-FL), and members...
Following Hurricane Milton’s catastrophic landfall in Florida, U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) joined the U.S. Coast Guard to survey impacted areas across the State. Photos are courtesy of Senator Rubio’s office. Senator Rubio joins the U.S. Coast Guard for a flyover...
U.S. Senator Marco Rubio’s (R-FL) office will host in-person Mobile Office Hours next week to assist constituents with federal casework issues in their respective local communities. These office hours offer constituents who do not live close to one of Senator Rubio’s...
Major Hurricane Milton is expected to make landfall in Florida, bringing with it devastating storm surge, winds, and inland flooding. The Seminole Tribe of Florida should have access to the federal resources required for emergency response and recovery preparations on...
Major Hurricane Milton is forecasted to potentially hinder or obstruct the Port of Tampa Bay, which receives more than 40 percent of Florida’s petroleum products. It’s crucial for the federal government to expedite all requested measures to protect Florida’s economy...
Major Hurricane Milton is forecasted to impact Florida with devastating storm surge, winds, and inland flooding. After just being hit by Hurricane Helene, it’s crucial for the State of Florida to have the support of the federal government. U.S. Senators Marco Rubio...
Events in China have garnered significant media attention in recent months. From wildly fluctuating markets, which have directly affected American businesses and families, to unprecedented cyberattacks on government networks, which compromised the personal data of millions of Americans — China is in the news.
These issues, along with China’s continued aggression in the South China Sea, will most assuredly be on the agenda during the State Visit of Chinese President and Communist Party General Secretary Xi Jinping this week. Whether the Obama administration will be able to secure meaningful progress on any of these fronts remains to be seen, although if previous rounds of cordial dialogue are any indication, the prospects are bleak.
In addition to these myriad issues is China’s grave and deteriorating human rights landscape — a particularly intractable area in our bilateral relations, and one which has worsened significantly on this administration’s watch.
The past year alone has been marked by further erosion of rule of law, tightening restrictions on civil society and outright attacks on human rights defenders and political dissidents. In its forthcoming annual report the Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC), which I co-chair with Congressman Chris Smith, R-NJ, will document efforts to muzzle dissent and suppress human rights advocacy that are broader in scope than any other period since the Commission started issuing Annual Reports in 2002. We’ve seen human rights lawyers disappeared, churches demolished and crosses torn down and Tibetan Buddhist monks setting themselves aflame in desperation at the oppression experienced by their people. These are realities in Xi Jinping’s China.
While President Xi is greeted with a 21-gun salute, a prominent human rights lawyer is unaccounted for, his whereabouts unknown after being taken into custody by the Public Security Bureau. While President Xi is wined and dined in the White House, a Nobel Peace Prize Laureate languishes in prison.
We are featuring stories like these, and many others, through the “Free China’s Heroes” initiative in the days leading up to Xi’s visit. We are profiling the cases of individual prisoners of conscience in an effort to put a human face on the suffering that has accompanied Xi Jinping’s ascent to power.
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Keep reading here.