Russia and China Must Counter Any US Attempt at Containment, Shoigu Says

Russian Security Council's Secretary Sergei Shoigu attends a meeting dedicated to the situation in the south of the country following an incursion of Ukrainian troops, at a residence outside Moscow, Russia August 12, 2024. (Sputnik/Gavriil Grigorov/Kremlin via Reuters)
Russian Security Council's Secretary Sergei Shoigu attends a meeting dedicated to the situation in the south of the country following an incursion of Ukrainian troops, at a residence outside Moscow, Russia August 12, 2024. (Sputnik/Gavriil Grigorov/Kremlin via Reuters)
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Russia and China Must Counter Any US Attempt at Containment, Shoigu Says

Russian Security Council's Secretary Sergei Shoigu attends a meeting dedicated to the situation in the south of the country following an incursion of Ukrainian troops, at a residence outside Moscow, Russia August 12, 2024. (Sputnik/Gavriil Grigorov/Kremlin via Reuters)
Russian Security Council's Secretary Sergei Shoigu attends a meeting dedicated to the situation in the south of the country following an incursion of Ukrainian troops, at a residence outside Moscow, Russia August 12, 2024. (Sputnik/Gavriil Grigorov/Kremlin via Reuters)

The key task for Russia and China is to counter any attempt by the United States to contain their countries, an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin told China's foreign minister on Tuesday.

US President-elect Donald Trump has threatened to impose steep tariffs on China and other countries, raising fears of a trade war and the United States casts China as its biggest competitor and Russia as its biggest nation-state threat.

China's Xi Jinping and Putin in May pledged a "new era" of partnership between the two most powerful rivals of the United States, which they cast as an aggressive Cold War hegemon sowing chaos across the world.

Russian Security Council Secretary Sergei Shoigu told Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Beijing that the strong relations between Moscow and Beijing were a stabilizing influence on the world.

"I see the most important task as countering the policy of 'dual containment' of Russia and China pursued by the United States and its satellites," Shoigu was quoted as saying by Russian state news agencies.

Xi and Putin believe the post-Cold War era of extraordinary US dominance is crumbling after the perceived humiliations of the 1991 Soviet collapse and centuries of European colonial dominance of China.



A Roadside Bomb Kills 8 Bus Passengers in Northeast Nigeria

Nigerian Police officers deploy ahead of an anti government demonstration in Lagos, on October 1, 2024. (Photo by Olympia DE MAISMONT / AFP)
Nigerian Police officers deploy ahead of an anti government demonstration in Lagos, on October 1, 2024. (Photo by Olympia DE MAISMONT / AFP)
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A Roadside Bomb Kills 8 Bus Passengers in Northeast Nigeria

Nigerian Police officers deploy ahead of an anti government demonstration in Lagos, on October 1, 2024. (Photo by Olympia DE MAISMONT / AFP)
Nigerian Police officers deploy ahead of an anti government demonstration in Lagos, on October 1, 2024. (Photo by Olympia DE MAISMONT / AFP)

A roadside bomb suspected to have been planted by extremists in northeastern Nigeria struck a passenger bus, killing eight people and wounding more than a dozen others, authorities said.

The bus was traveling along the Damboa-Maiduguri highway in the conflict-battered Borno state on Saturday when it drove over the explosive device, Borno state police spokesman Nahum Daso said in a statement, The AP news reported.

Extremists with the Boko Haram group took up arms in 2009 to fight Western education and impose their radical version of Islamic law. The conflict, Africa’s longest struggle with militancy, has spilled into Nigeria’s northern neighbors and has left some 35,000 civilians dead and more than 2 million displaced, according to the UN.

The insurgents who once controlled dozens of villages in the region have mostly been pushed to remote forests and the fringes of the Lake Chad. However, they still carry out ambushes and rampant attacks on communities where security forces are outnumbered and outgunned.

The latest attack renewed fears among residents and travelers in the state.