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| The "Lift Sanctions, Save Lives" network is lobbying Congress to do what it should have done years ago: assess the impact of economic sanctions now routinely applied to ally as well as adversary. Such a review is long overdue. Economic sanctions have become a new global battlefield. In July Beijing targeted several organizations and individuals, including former Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, in retaliation for earlier U.S. penalties. In January Beijing sanctioned 28 former Trump administration officials, including Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, as the Biden administration took over. In March, after the European Union penalized Beijing for suppressing political liberty in Hong Kong, the Xi regime retaliated against a number of Europeans, including members of the European Parliament. |
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| On Wednesday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the US position on Syria is to oppose the countrys reconstruction and not support any attempts at normalization with the government of Bashar al-Assad. At a joint press conference with his Israeli and UAE counterparts, Blinken said the US has not "changed our position to oppose the reconstruction of Syria until there is irreversible progress toward a political solution." More and more Arab countries are accepting that Assad isn't going anywhere and have taken steps to normalize, including Jordan, which opened its border with Syria in September. Blinken said the US does not intend to "express any support for efforts to normalize relations or rehabilitate Mr. Assad" or lift a "single sanction" unless there is regime change in Damascus. |
| The United Nations body responsible for monitoring and recording human rights abuses effectively abandoned the people of Yemen last week. In a 21-18 vote with seven abstentions, the U.N. Human Rights Council (UNHRC) refused to extend the mandate of an independent investigation into war crimes committed by all sides in Yemen. Since its establishment in 2017, the Group of Eminent Experts (GEE) had served as a limited mechanism for holding war criminals in the conflict accountable for their outrages against the civilian population. The Saudi government had fought against the establishment of an investigative group early in the war because they wanted to keep the coalition's crimes concealed from international scrutiny. Now the Saudi government has successfully lobbied enough members of the UNHRC to shut down the investigation into the crimes that they and the other belligerents have committed against the people of Yemen. The vote showed how indifferent most of the world still is to the plight of the people of Yemen after more than six years of carnage and famine. |
| | Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid on Wednesday. Ahead of the meeting, a State Department official told reporters that Blinken planned to warn Lapid against cooperation with China, as the US is increasingly unhappy over its top recipient of military aid doing business with its newly declared top adversary. "As the secretary has noted, with allies and partners worldwide, well be candid with our Israeli friends over risks to our shared national security interests that come with close cooperation with China," the official said. A State Department readout of the meeting offered little detail but did say the two diplomats discussed a number of issues, including the "People's Republic of China." |
| Battles in the US Congress that erupted again this week, holding up an extra $1bn in military funding for Israel, underscored just how divorced from reality the conversation about US financial aid to Israel has become, even among many critics. For 48 hours last month, a small group of progressive Democrats in the US House of Representatives succeeded in sabotaging a measure to pick up the bill for Israel to replenish its Iron Dome interception missiles. The Iron Dome system was developed by Israel, with generous financial backing from successive US administrations, in the wake of the 2006 war against Hezbollah in Lebanon. Today, it ostensibly serves to protect Israel from short-range, largely improvised rockets fired intermittently out of Gaza. |
| The US held its first talks with the Taliban since the end of the Afghan War, meeting in Doha to discuss several matters, including recognition of the de facto government.
The US is refusing recognition, at least for now, and the talks are said to have ended positively. The Taliban also held talks with the British in recent days, so even without recognition they are being treated like a functioning state. The US is agreeing to provide new food aid to Afghanistan through the Taliban. The US didnt want the aid and recognition to appear linked. |
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