Category Archives: US foreign policy

Apple shifts some iPhone 14 production from China to India

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Move taken against background of China’s Covid lockdowns and geopolitical tensions between Beijing and Washington

Apple has begun making iPhone 14s in India, as it moves some production away from China for the first time against a backdrop of Chinese Covid-19 pandemic lockdowns and geopolitical tensions between the US and the country’s communist government.

A production line in Chennai has begun operation, assembling the iPhone 14 for the domestic Indian market. The move, which marks the first time the company has assembled iPhones outside of China in the same year they were released, is part of a plan to disentangle its manufacturing operations from the Chinese state.

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EU and US consider further sanctions on Iran over protest crackdown

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Demonstrators call for greater support from west and help communicating with outside world

The EU and the US are considering further sanctions against Iran over the attempt to suppress demonstrations and strikes in universities over the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in a police detention centre.

Josep Borrell, the EU foreign policy chief, condemned Iran’s disproportionate use of force and said all options would be on the table at the next meeting of EU foreign affairs ministers. The main options are helping to prevent the internet being shut by Iran, and further economic sanctions.

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US senators refuse to let killing of Shireen Abu Akleh drop with Israel

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The state department seems keen to avoid questions about the Palestinian American journalist’s shooting by an Israeli soldier

Israel has declared the case closed. The US state department has done its best to duck difficult questions. But leading members of the US Congress are refusing to drop demands for a proper accounting of the death of the Palestinian American journalist, Shireen Abu Akleh, four months ago.

The longest-serving member of the US Senate, Patrick Leahy, recently upped the ante by warning that Israel’s failure to fully explain the Al-Jazeera reporter’s killing could jeopardize America’s huge military aid to the Jewish state under a law he sponsored 25 years ago cutting weapons supplies to countries that abuse human rights.

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Northern Ireland power sharing slips to 2023 as few relish a winter election

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Delay to protocol resolution likely to pause Stormont elections that were expected this year

The UK has given a six-month deadline for the Northern Ireland protocol row to be resolved, indicating Liz Truss is far more relaxed about the absence of a devolved government in Stormont than previously indicated.

An April 2023 date for the resolution of the Brexit row emerged after a meeting between the prime minister and the US president, Joe Biden, and would coincide with the 25th anniversary of the Belfast Good Friday agreement.

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Biden to rally world leaders against Russian attempts to annex Ukraine regions

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Antony Blinken calls referendums plan a ‘sham’ and Moscow’s possible mobilisation of extra forces ‘a sign of Russian failure’ ahead of Biden speech

Joe Biden will use his speech at the United Nations on Wednesday to rally the world to stand firm in the face of Russian plans to hold referendums in occupied parts of Ukraine and possibly introduce widespread conscription, which the US described as signs of desperation unlikely to halt Ukrainian military gains.

Biden will seek the broadest possible support for Ukrainian resistance at the UN general assembly (UNGA) by depicting it as a direct violation of the UN’s founding charter, and will make new announcements about the US funding of measures to address global food insecurity, caused in part by the Russian invasion, which has threatened developing countries with famine.

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Taliban release American engineer Mark Frerichs in prisoner swap

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Navy veteran exchanged for Bashir Noorzai, who had been held in US since 2005 on drugs charges

The Taliban have freed an American engineer in exchange for an Afghan tribal leader linked to the group whom the US had held on drugs charges since 2005.

Mark Frerichs was exchanged at Kabul airport for Bashir Noorzai, the acting Taliban foreign minister, Amir Khan Muttaqi, told a news conference in the Afghan capital.

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Joe Biden again says US forces would defend Taiwan from Chinese attack

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White House confirms US policy has not changed after president’s remarks on 60 Minutes show

Joe Biden has again said US forces would defend Taiwan in the event of a Chinese invasion, in his most explicit statement so far on the issue.

Asked in a CBS 60 Minutes interview broadcast on Sunday whether US forces would defend the self-ruled island claimed by China, he replied: “Yes, if in fact there was an unprecedented attack.”

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Iran president rules out meeting with Biden, saying it won’t be beneficial

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Ebrahim Raisi says he sees no ‘changes in reality’ from Trump administration as hopes to revive nuclear talks dampen

Iran’s president, Ebrahim Raisi, has ruled out a meeting with Joe Biden on the margins of the UN General Assembly (UNGA) this week, saying he saw no “changes in reality” from the Trump administration.

Raisi underlined the firm position of his government and dampened hopes that a week of summitry at UNGA in New York might yield any progress in negotiations to revive the 2015 nuclear deal. Washington has rejected the latest Iranian bargaining positive as “not constructive”, and most observers believe there will be no breakthroughs at least until after the US congressional elections in November.

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Trump feared assassination by Iran as revenge for Suleimani death, book says

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Revelation about former president’s concern reported in new book The Divider by Peter Baker and Susan Glasser

In December 2020, Donald Trump told friends he was afraid Iran would try to assassinate him in revenge for the death of Qassem Suleimani, an Iranian general killed in a US drone strike nearly a year before.

The startling news is reported in a new book by Peter Baker and Susan Glasser, a husband-and-wife team who write for the New York Times and the New Yorker.

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Russia has spent $300m since 2014 to influence foreign officials, US says

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State department cites intelligence assessment of covert activities in more than two dozen countries

Russia has covertly spent more than $300m since 2014 to try to influence politicians and other officials in more than two dozen countries, according to a newly declassified state department cable.

The cable, signed by the secretary of state, Antony Blinken, and released on Tuesday, cites a new intelligence assessment of Russia’s global covert efforts to support policies and parties sympathetic to Moscow. The cable does not name specific Russian targets but says the US is providing classified information to select individual countries.

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About 100 troops killed in clashes between Armenia and Azerbaijan

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Escalation of hostilities between south Caucasus countries prompts Russia and US to call for restraint

Fighting on the border between Armenia and Azerbaijan has killed about 100 troops as attacks on both sides fed fears of broader hostilities breaking out between the longtime adversaries.

Armenia said at least 49 of its soldiers were killed; Azerbaijan said it lost 50.

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White House warns Truss over efforts to ‘undo’ Northern Ireland protocol

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Biden administration says undoing the protocol would not be ‘conducive’ to a trade deal between the UK and US

The Biden administration has sent Liz Truss a message on her second day in office warning against “efforts to undo the Northern Ireland protocol”.

The warning came from the lectern in the White House briefing room, where spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre was asked about new British prime minister Truss’s first phone call with Joe Biden and whether a US-UK trade deal was discussed.

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Iran nuclear deal: US dismisses latest move from Tehran as ‘not constructive’

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US state department rejects what Iran characterised as a bid to ‘finalise the negotiations’ in latest efforts to agree a deal

Hopes of a rapid conclusion to negotiations on a revived nuclear deal with Iran have receded after the US quickly rejected the latest Iranian proposal as “not constructive”.

Washington’s rapid reaction to the Iranian text, which had been delivered shortly before 3am on Friday Tehran time, directly contradicted Tehran’s claims that its proposals presented “a constructive approach” aimed at “finalising the negotiations”.

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US blocks sales of some AI chips to China as tech crackdown intensifies

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Ban on Nvidia and AMD sales marks a major escalation of US efforts to restrict China’s military technology capabilities as tensions bubble over Taiwan

Chip designer Nvidia said that US officials told it to stop exporting two top computing chips for artificial intelligence work to China, a move that could cripple Chinese firms’ ability to carry out advanced work like image recognition.

The company on Wednesday said the ban, which affects its A100 and H100 chips designed to speed up machine learning tasks, could interfere with completion of developing the H100, the flagship chip Nvidia announced this year.

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US to name Arctic ambassador as thawing pole heats superpower rivalry

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US says ambassador-at-large will engage with other Arctic nations, Indigenous groups and other stakeholders

The US has said it will create a position of Arctic ambassador to step up diplomacy as Russia and China increase their presence in waters opened up by climate breakdown.

The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, will soon name an ambassador-at-large who will engage with other Arctic nations, Indigenous groups and other stakeholders, state department spokesperson Vedant Patel said.

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US says clashes with Iran-backed militias won’t affect Tehran nuclear talks

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Nuclear negotiations under way, as US-led mission against the Islamic State exchanges fire with armed groups in Syria and Iraq

US-led forces and Iran-backed militias exchanged fire for the second day in a row, but the Biden administration said the fighting would not affect nuclear negotiations with Tehran.

US Central Command said the two bases, Conoco and Green Village, used for the US-led mission against the Islamic State (IS) had come under rocket attack on Wednesday evening, but there were no serious injuries. The US struck back with attack helicopters, killing “two or three suspected Iran-backed militants conducting one of the attacks” and destroying vehicles.

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Joe Biden announces $3bn in fresh Ukraine military aid

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US to send anti-aircraft missiles, artillery, counter-drone defences and radar equipment as Zelenskiy praises ‘unwavering support’

Joe Biden has announced nearly $3bn in new military assistance to Ukraine, including anti-aircraft missiles, artillery, counter-drone defences and radar equipment.

It is the biggest tranche of US military aid to date, bringing to over $13bn the total the US has supplied or pledged to Kyiv under the Biden administration. The new equipment, however, will have to be ordered by defence manufacturers and will not be delivered for months or years. US officials said it represented a longer-term investment in Ukrainian security.

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US carries out Syria airstrikes in reprisal attack on Iran-backed militia

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US military says strikes on Deir Ez-Zor were needed to ‘protect and defend US personnel’ after drone attacks on its forces

The US military has said it has carried out airstrikes in areas of eastern Syria used by Iran-backed militias.

The US military’s Central Command spokesperson, Colonel Joe Buccino, said in a statement on Wednesday: “Today’s strikes were necessary to protect and defend US personnel”, and were in response to an attack on 15 August targeting US forces.

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Russia to step up strikes on civilians, US says, as Ukraine independence day nears

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Alert from US embassy comes a day before Ukraine is set to mark 31 years since it became an independent state

The US state department has issued a security alert warning that Russia is “stepping up” efforts to launch strikes against Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure and government facilities in the coming days.

The warning, issued on Tuesday, is the first specific security alert issued by the US embassy in Kyiv in recent months. It does not say what places it believes Russia plans to target, but advised US citizens to leave Ukraine if safe to do so.

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CIA unable to corroborate Israel’s ‘terror’ label for Palestinian rights groups

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Exclusive: sources say report shows CIA unable to find evidence to support Israeli claim, but finding does not prompt US rebuttal

A classified CIA report shows the agency was unable to find any evidence to support Israel’s decision to label six prominent Palestinian NGOs as “terrorist organizations”.

In October, Israel labeled as terror groups Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association, Al-Haq, the Bisan Center for Research and Development, Defense for Children International–Palestine, the Union of Agricultural Work Committees, and the Union of Palestinian Women Committees.

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