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Japan has updated its list of national security threats and puts China ahead of North Korea.

The Japanese government has warned of China's growing military power and says the Asian giant has become a greater threat to national security than North Korea.

Japan has raised its military spending by 10% over the past seven years to counter the military advances of Beijing and Pyongyang. The budget was used to develop and deploy defenses against North Korean missiles, which can carry nuclear warheads, according to the tabloid Express.

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Speaking at a press conference at the United Nations headquarters in New York on Tuesday, Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan spoke in grave terms about the situation in Kashmir and warned of the chances for a new war with India, Pakistan's longtime regional rival.

"I came out to New York only because I felt that unless we highlight what is going on in Kashmir, the world is not going to know," the PM said, adding that the dispute over the region creates "a potential that two nuclear-armed countries could come face-to-face."

"This is the time for the world to act, before this goes too far, because this is the first time after the Cuban [missile] crisis that two nuclear-armed countries" would square off on the world stage, he said.

India and Pakistan have fought two wars over Kashmir, one in 1947 soon after the partition of India, and another in 1965. Pakistan currently controls a strip of the territory on its western extremity.

In August, the Indian government moved to revoke Kashmir's special autonomous status, dispatching thousands of soldiers to the region in preparation for unrest which was expected following the decision. While many observers have sounded the alarm over potential abuses of Kashmir's Muslim majority, New Delhi argues the move was necessary in order to fully integrate the region into India and to bring about economic development.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi celebrated the decision as "historic," arguing it would cut down on local corruption and "nepotism," and allow Kashmiris to "elect [their] representatives in a transparent way.

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According to the Times, the officer, who has since returned to work at the CIA, appears to be an "analyst by training" and "steeped in details" of U.S. foreign policy regarding Europe. Further, he is believed to possess a "sophisticated understanding" of the politics in Ukraine.

The Department of Justice on Wednesday confirmed the Office of Intelligence Community Inspector General found that the so-called "whistleblower" not only had second-hand information regarding the call, but also possessed a "political bias" in favor of a "political rival" of President Trump.

"The complaint raises the prospect that the whistle-blower was not detailed to the White House either during the events in question or when he learned about them," notes the newspaper.

In a statement to the Times, the officer's legal team confirmed his previous work at the CIA, but warned the newspaper against revealing their client's identity, claiming that doing so could potentially place him in danger.

"Any decision to report any perceived identifying information of the whistle-blower is deeply concerning and reckless, as it can place the individual in harm's way," said lawyer Andrew Bakaj. "The whistle-blower has a right to anonymity."

In the media's efforts to tie President Donald Trump with its latest conspiracy theory, CNN skipped an entire section of the released and unredacted transcript of a phone call to charge Trump with requesting a favor he never asked for.

Below is text from the transcript of the July phone call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the center of the latest media outrage cycle.

I would like you to do us a favor, though, because our country has been through a lot and Ukraine knows a lot about it. I would like you to find out what happened with this whole situation with Ukraine, they say Crowdstrike... I guess you have one of your wealthy people... the server, they say Ukraine has it. There are a lot of things that went on the whole situation. I think you're surrounding yourself with some of the same people. I would like to have the Attorney General call you and your people and I would like you to get to the bottom of it. As you said yesterday, that whole nonsense ended with a very poor performance by a man named Robert Mueller, an incompetent performance, but they say a lot of it started with Ukraine. Whatever you can do, it's very important that you do it if that's possible.

The transcript that CNN read on air, however, connects the word "favor" in this section with Trump 540 words later asking the Ukrainian leader to look into former vice president Joe Biden and his son Hunter's questionable business dealings with a Ukrainian energy company. Hunter sat on the board of the company for $50,000 a month while, as Joe Biden bragged in 2018 on camera, his dad put pressure on the Ukrainian government to end a corruption probe into the company.

Here's the transcript has reported by CNN: "I would like you to do us a favor... There's a lot of talk about Biden's son, that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that so whatever you can do with the Attorney General would be great. Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution so if you can look into it... It sounds horrible to me."

MSNBC's Katy Tur made the same omission.

National Public Radio (NPR) also skipped over more than 500 words of the transcript to tie "favor" to the later part of the conversation mentioning Biden, all to suggest Trump demanded foreign meddling in the U.S. election.

The stunning omissions come as Democrats are jumping on an uncorroborated complaint from an anonymous "whistleblower" alleging Trump urged the Ukrainian president to investigate American political opponents. The White House released the fully unredacted version of the July phone call in question today. It contradicted the complaint, revealing no quid pro quo with the Ukrainian government as the hearsay accusations claimed.

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