Category Archives: US foreign policy

Vladimir Putin better informed now about Ukraine war, says US

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Russian president not as insulated from bad news as earlier in campaign, claims intelligence chief

The head of US intelligence has said Vladimir Putin has “become better informed” about the difficulties facing his invading forces in Ukraine, as the Kremlin suggested the Russian president could visit the occupied Donbas region at a future unspecified date.

Speaking at a defence forum late on Saturday, Avril Haines, the US director of national intelligence, indicated Putin was no longer as insulated from bad news about the conditions facing his invasion of Ukraine as he was earlier in the campaign.

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Iran locked into ‘vicious cycle’ over protests and arming Russia, says US

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Washington focusing on protests and Tehran’s support of Russia in Ukraine rather than nuclear talks, envoy says

Iran’s leadership has locked itself into a “vicious cycle” that has cut it off from its own people and the international community, the US special envoy has said, adding that Washington was more focused on Tehran’s decision to arm Russia in Ukraine and the repression of its internal protests than on talks to revive the nuclear deal.

“The more Iran represses, the more there will be sanctions; the more there are sanctions, the more Iran feels isolated,” Rob Malley, the US special envoy on Iran, told a conference in Rome.

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Shireen Abu Akleh documentary to raise pressure on Biden over inquiry

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Film offers most detailed account yet of journalist’s killing by Israeli army, including video of moments surrounding shooting

A new documentary about the Israeli army’s killing of the Palestinian American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh is likely to increase pressure on the Biden administration to ensure that the FBI is permitted to fully investigate her death after Israel said it would not cooperate.

The documentary, Faultlines, by Abu Akleh’s employer, Al Jazeera, is the most detailed account yet of events during an Israeli raid on the West Bank city of Jenin in May.

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Newt Gingrich warns Republicans that Joe Biden is winning the fight

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Former speaker who led charge against Bill Clinton raises eyebrows with column heralding Democrat’s first-term success

Republicans must “quit underestimating” Joe Biden, the former US House speaker Newt Gingrich said, because the president is winning the fight.

Writing on his own website, Gingrich said: “Conservatives’ hostility to the Biden administration on our terms tends to blind us to just how effective Biden has been on his terms.

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Biden ‘working with Macron’ to hold Russia accountable for ‘brutal’ Ukraine war – as it happened

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We’re still waiting for Joe Biden and Emmanuel Macron to appear for their press conference at the White House.

Elsewhere in Washington, the Florida Republican congressman Matt Gaetz might be a little uneasy today, as a former tax collector whose arrest led to a wide-ranging sex-trafficking investigation faces sentencing.

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Nato concerned by China’s ‘rapid and opaque’ military buildup, says Blinken

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US secretary of state says Beijing’s ties with Moscow also discussed at alliance meeting after the two countries sent bombers into South Korean airspace

Nato allies are concerned about China’s rapid and opaque military buildup and its cooperation with Russia, and discussed concrete ways to address the challenges posed by Beijing, US secretary of state Antony Blinken has said.

“The members of our alliance remain concerned by the PRC’s [People’s Republic of China] coercive policies, by its use of disinformation, by its rapid, opaque military buildup, including its cooperation with Russia,” Blinken told a news conference on Wednesday after a two-day meeting of foreign ministers from the defence alliance.

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Covid restrictions lifted in Guangzhou and Chongqing after China protests

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Announcements ordered the removal of ‘control orders’ and to designate areas as low risk

Authorities have abruptly lifted Covid restrictions in the Chinese cities of Guangzhou and Chongqing, where protesters scuffled with police on Tuesday night, as police searched for demonstrators in other cities and the country’s top security body called for a crackdown on “hostile forces”.

After days of extraordinary protests in the country that also prompted international demonstrations in solidarity, the US and Canada urged China not to harm or intimidate protesters opposing Covid-19 lockdowns.

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US awaits ‘serious response’ from Russia over Brittney Griner release proposal

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Diplomat in Moscow says US has ‘put a significant proposal on the table’ in effort to free basketball star jailed on drugs conviction

The US is waiting for a “serious response” from Russia to a series of proposals regarding the release of the basketball star Brittney Griner, a senior US diplomat said.

Elizabeth Rood, the US chargée d’affaires in Moscow, told Russia’s state-owned RIA news agency that talks about freeing Griner – who was sentenced to nine years in a penal colony on charges of possessing and smuggling drugs – were ongoing. But Rood said Russia was yet to seriously engage.

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Biden upgrades US-Palestinian relations by naming special representative

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Hady Amr, held in high regard by Israeli and Palestinian diplomats, appointed to Washington-based role

Joe Biden has appointed a new special representative for Palestinian affairs, a significant upgrade in relations with Ramallah despite the fact the American diplomatic mission in Jerusalem, closed by Donald Trump in 2019, is yet to reopen.

The White House informed Congress on Tuesday that it had promoted Hady Amr, previously the deputy assistant secretary of state for Israeli-Palestinian affairs, to the newly created, Washington-based role, Axios and the Times of Israel reported.

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Biden administration ‘dragged feet’ on Mohammed bin Salman immunity ruling

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Legal experts raise questions about run-up to granting immunity in civil case involving murder of journalist

When the Biden administration filed a legal brief last week calling for the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, to be granted sovereign immunity in a civil case involving the murder of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi, it said it was strictly a legal determination that did not reflect its views on the “heinous” killing.

“In every case, we simply follow the law. And that’s what we did,” Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, later said.

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Poland missile ‘unlikely’ to have been fired from Russia, Biden says

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US president says trajectory of missile suggests it was not launched by Russian forces waging war in Ukraine but will await results of investigation

Joe Biden has said the missile that landed in Poland, killing two people, was unlikely to have been fired from Russia due to its trajectory.

The US president was speaking at the G20 meeting in Bali, Indonesia, after convening an emergency meeting of western leaders to discuss the explosion on Nato territory that has the potential to take the war in Ukraine into a new even more dangerous dimension.

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CIA director meets Russian counterpart as US denies secret peace talks

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Bill Burns says US is not ‘discussing settlement of war’ in Ukraine as Zelenskiy visits Kherson

The CIA director, Bill Burns, met his Russian counterpart in Ankara on Monday in a rare high-level meeting, but the US insists it is not engaged in secret peace talks with Moscow without Ukrainian officials being present.

The meeting in the Turkish capital with the head of Russia’s SVR foreign intelligence service, Sergei Naryshkin, followed speculation that some senior US figures would like Ukraine to enter negotiations with the Kremlin to end the war.

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World leaders at Cop27 urged to press Egypt over prisoner Alaa Abd el-Fattah

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Global spotlight on host country has heightened scrutiny of human rights record, with Biden due to meet Sisi

As Egyptian officials strive to control the narrative and isolate the case of the detained British Egyptian activist Alaa Abd el-Fattah, pressure is mounting on world leaders at Cop27 to acknowledge Egypt’s poor human rights record and raise his case.

The Egyptian authorities have engaged in a sweeping public relations campaign to try to discredit Abd el-Fattah, including a digital campaign depicting him as a threat to national security.

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Biden to meet Xi Jinping at G20 in first face-to-face talks as president

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Taiwan, human rights, and North Korea expected to be discussed as Biden seeks to ‘build a floor’ for US-China relationship

Joe Biden will meet his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, on the sidelines of the G20 summit, the White House has said, in their first face-to-face talks since the US leader became president.

Biden hopes the meeting on Monday will allow him to build a “floor” for relations between the two countries, but he will be honest about US concerns, including on Taiwan and human rights, a senior administration official said on Thursday.

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Fresh effort to ban the bomb as new generation bids for nuclear-free world

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Today’s disarmament activists are applying a new set of tactics to respond to threats including those from Putin in Ukraine

As nuclear dangers gather momentum three decades after the cold war, a disarmament movement is rising to meet them, with a new generation of activists.

In the late 50s and early 60s, and then again in the early 80s, when the US and the Soviet Union were pointing their missiles at each other in Europe, there were mass street protests against governments making plans for global annihilation.

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Biden says Elon Musk’s connections to other countries ‘worthy of being looked at’

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President had been asked if he thought the new Twitter boss was a threat to US national security

Joe Biden thinks Twitter boss Elon Musk’s relationships with other countries is “worthy of being looked at”.

Biden was asked at a news conference on Wednesday whether he thought Musk was a threat to national security and if his acquisition of Twitter with help from a Saudi Arabian conglomerate should be investigated by the US government.

Reuters contributed to this report

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Nuclear attack on US or allies would end Kim regime, says defense secretary

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Lloyd Austin makes remark while Kim Jong-un’s government in Pyongyang has in recent days mounted a number of missile tests

The US defense secretary, Lloyd Austin, said on Thursday any nuclear attack on the US or its allies by North Korea would “result in the end of the Kim regime”.

Kim Jong-un’s government in Pyongyang has in recent days mounted a number of missile tests. The South Korean military said a test of an intercontinental ballistic missile on Thursday may have ended in failure. Japan called the launch “outrageous and absolutely intolerable”.

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US deployment of nuclear-capable B-52 bombers to Australia’s north likely to fuel China tensions

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US-funded upgrade of Tindal airbase in Northern Territory will allow it to house up to six B-52s, as minister says Australia must remain ‘vigilant’

An expanded Royal Australian Air Force base in the Northern Territory will have space for up to six American nuclear-capable B-52 aircraft as part of a US-funded project that is likely to fuel tensions with China.

Officials in Canberra confirmed that the US-funded aircraft parking apron at RAAF Base Tindal, 320km south-east of Darwin, would be capable of accommodating up to six B-52 aircraft, but said it could also house other aircraft types.

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Haitian ambassador warns criminal gangs may overrun country

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Armed gangs have shut off access to Haiti’s main fuel terminal, decimating basic services amid a cholera and hunger crisis

The Haitian ambassador to Washington has appealed to the international community to accelerate talks on deploying an armed intervention, warning that criminal gangs were in danger of taking over the country.

Bocchit Edmond made his appeal as efforts to agree to a UN resolution backing such a force appear to have stalled, and as the US and Canada have been holding urgent talks looking for ways to break the impasse.

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Biden and Sunak vow to support Ukraine and counter China in first call

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US president and new British PM reaffirm ‘special relationship’ after Sunak becomes Britain’s third leader in 2022

The US president, Joe Biden, and Britain’s new prime minister, Rishi Sunak, agreed during talks on Tuesday to work together to support Ukraine and stand up to China, the White House said.

They spoke for the first time a few hours after Sunak became Britain’s third prime minister this year, inheriting an economic crisis after the resignation of Liz Truss whose tenure lasted 49 days.

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