Category Archives: US foreign policy

Iran accused of making ‘maximalist demands’ in nuclear deal talks

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Talks to save 2015 agreement on brink of collapse as Tehran is also accused of testing missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons

Iran has been accused of making “maximalist demands” in the latest unsuccessful round of talks on reviving the nuclear non-proliferation deal at a grave session of the UN security council in which it was widely acknowledged that the talks – and the whole 2015 deal – were on the brink of collapse.

Iranian and US officials, with the EU acting as mediators, held two days of talks in Doha in a bid to break a months-long impasse, but no progress was made on Iran’s central demand that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps be removed from US sanctions and its list of foreign terrorist organisations.

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Israel delays travel restrictions on West Bank in apparent gesture to Joe Biden

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New rules limiting ability of foreigners to enter occupied territory are postponed before US president’s Middle East visit

Israel has delayed the implementation of strict rules limiting the ability of foreigners to enter and stay in the occupied West Bank, in what is believed to be a gesture to Joe Biden before the US president’s visit to the Middle East next month.

A statement from the high court on Wednesday said the new rules would be shelved until early September, as a decision had not yet been made regarding objections to the proposed policy.

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Israel and Saudi Arabia ‘in talks over joint defence against Iran’

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US-brokered summit discusses shared threat of Tehran’s growing missile and drone capabilities

Top military officials from Israel and Saudi Arabia have met in secret US-brokered talks to discuss defence coordination against Iran, according to a report.

Delegations from Riyadh, as well as Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Jordan and Egypt, met the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) chief of staff in the Egyptian town of Sharm el-Sheikh in March, the Wall Street Journal revealed on Sunday, citing US and regional officials.

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Brexit: unilateral action on NI protocol ‘not conducive’ to trade deal, warns US

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Exclusive: officials’ comments put paid to idea displeasure with UK is limited to Irish caucus on Capitol Hill

The US government has warned that Boris Johnson’s move to unilaterally axe some of the Northern Ireland Brexit arrangements protocol was a matter of continuing concern and “not conducive” to a trade deal.

Senior officials have hit back at suggestions that the lack of public commentary by the Biden administration meant it was not troubled by the move to bring in new laws to ditch part of the Brexit deal signed in 2020.

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Ex-Trump adviser Peter Navarro pleads not guilty to contempt charges in January 6 case – as it happened

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President Joe Biden has cheered the Food and Drug Administration’s decision today to authorize Covid-19 vaccines for children younger than five years old, the last group of Americans that didn’t have access to the jabs.

“Today is a day of huge relief for parents and families across America. Following a rigorous scientific review, the Food and Drug Administration has authorized the first COVID-19 vaccines for kids under the age of five. As early as next week, pending recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), parents will finally be able to get their youngest kids the protection of a safe and effective COVID-19 vaccine,” Biden said in a statement released by the White House.

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Putin calls Ukraine war sanctions ‘insane’ in combative speech

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President claims Russia can ‘cope with any challenge’ in address delayed by cyber-attack, but largely avoids discussing Ukraine

Vladimir Putin has delivered a combative speech repeating his critique of the west and saying the sanctions “blitzkrieg” against Moscow never had any chance of succeeding.

“If they are exceptional, then that means that everyone else is second class,” the Russian president said of the US. “They live in the past on their own under their own delusions.”

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‘Frankly quite stupid’: rights groups condemn Biden’s Saudi Arabia visit

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Critics question value of US president’s visit, raising fears it will endanger dissidents and legitimise regime’s human rights stance

Rights advocates fear Joe Biden’s decision to visit Saudi Arabia will endanger dissidents abroad and be seen by the authorities there as giving the green light to restrict civil liberties domestically.

Abdullah Alaoudh, of the thinktank Democracy for the Arab World Now and son of jailed cleric Salman al-Odah, said: “Right before inauguration, he [Biden] said he will be sure to protect Saudi dissidents – those were his words. We’re not protected by someone shaking hands with the same person who is threatening us every day and taking our families hostage due to our activism here in the US.”

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China launches third aircraft carrier in military advance

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Fujian unveiled amid heightened tensions with US over self-ruled Taiwan

China has launched its third aircraft carrier, the first designed and built entirely in the country, marking a significant military advance for the Asian superpower.

The announcement comes as tensions between China and the US have ramped up in recent weeks over Beijing’s sabre-rattling towards self-ruled Taiwan, which it views as a breakaway province to be seized by force if necessary.

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US says China’s support for Russia over Ukraine puts it on ‘wrong side of history’

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‘China claims to be neutral, but its behavior makes clear that it is still investing in close ties to Russia,’ state department says

Xi Jinping has assured Vladimir Putin of China’s support on Russian “sovereignty and security” prompting Washington to warn Beijing it risked ending up “on the wrong side of history”.

China has refused to condemn Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine and has been accused of providing diplomatic cover for Russia by blasting western sanctions and arms sales to Kyiv.

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US has not fully investigated own role in Yemen human rights abuses, watchdog finds

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Government Accountability Office also criticizes Biden’s move to classify Saudi weapons as ‘offensive’ or ‘defensive’ as meaningless

The US government has not fully investigated its own role in perpetuating human rights abuses in Yemen, according to a congressional watchdog report that offered a damning assessment of both the Trump and Biden administrations’ commitment to tracking violations of humanitarian law.

A report by the Government Accountability Office, which examined US weapons sales to the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen, also raised serious doubts about one of Joe Biden’s first foreign policy as president, when he announced that his administration was ending US support for Saudi offensive operations in Yemen.

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US announces plan to build silos on Ukraine border to export grain

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Joe Biden working with European governments to avert global crisis and help lower food prices

Temporary silos will be built along the Ukraine border, including in Poland, in an attempt to help export more grain from the country and avert a global food crisis, Joe Biden has announced.

The US president told a Philadelphia union convention on Tuesday that he was working with European governments on the plan “to help bring down food prices”.

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Tensions heighten in Taiwan Strait as China acts to extend military operations

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Xi Jinping signs trial order allowing ‘military operations other than war’ beyond China’s borders

China’s president, Xi Jinping, has signed legal orders allowing a trial of military operations beyond China’s borders amid heightened tensions over claims by China’s foreign ministry that the Taiwan Strait is Chinese territorial water.

Official state media reports published this week were light on detail but said Xi had signed orders announcing trial outlines on “military operations other than war”. It said the trials would begin on Wednesday.

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‘Betrayal’: critics condemn Biden’s plan to visit Saudi Arabia

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Trip comes after Biden labeled the kingdom a ‘pariah’, as questions also emerge over president’s trip to Israel

Joe Biden will visit Israel, the occupied West Bank and Saudi Arabia next month, the White House said on Tuesday. The announcement immediately put the administration on the defensive, given the president’s previous stance that the Saudi regime was a “pariah” because of the murder of Jamal Khashoggi and other human rights abuses.

One Saudi human rights campaigner called Biden’s decision to meet the crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, a “betrayal”.

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Stars align for Cuban migrants as record numbers seek better life in US

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The journey to America, often via Nicaragua, has become more viable – and many are taking their chances at the border

One morning last spring, 22-year-old Ernesto Hernández set out from the outskirts of Havana on a rickety boat hoping to cross the Florida Straits. The plan was to leave behind a dilapidating communist-ruled island in which he saw no future, and sail into an American dream.

Nobody has heard from him, or the other six people onboard, since.

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‘China’s Taiwan’: Beijing’s defence minister rails against ‘smearing and interfering’ US

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Wei Fenghe says ties are at critical juncture and puts onus on United States to improve bilateral relationship

China will “fight to the very end” to stop Taiwan from declaring independence, the country’s defence minister has vowed in a speech amid his counterparts from other countries including the United States.

“We will fight at all cost and we will fight to the very end. This is the only choice for China,” Wei Fenghe told the Shangri-La Dialogue security summit in Singapore, where he called Taiwan “first and foremost China’s Taiwan”.

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US warns of ‘stark’ stakes in Taiwan Strait if status quo unilaterally altered

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Defence secretary says US does not support Taiwan independence, which China says would prompt it to take island back

The US has warned of “especially stark” stakes in the Taiwan Strait if the status quo is unilaterally altered, as China reiterated its resolve to take the island back if it declares independence.

Speaking at the annual Shangri-La Dialogue security summit in Singapore on Saturday, US defence secretary Lloyd Austin said Washington does not support Taiwanese independence, and the Joe Biden administration “categorically” opposes any change of the status quo.

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US Palestinian mission renamed and now reports directly to Washington

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Move comes after former president Donald Trump outraged Palestinians by closing consulate in 2018

The US diplomatic mission to the Palestinians in Jerusalem has been redesignated and will report directly to Washington “on substantive matters”, indicating an upgrade in ties before a planned visit by the US president, Joe Biden.

What had been called the Palestinian Affairs Unit (PAU) was renamed the US Office of Palestinian Affairs (OPA) under the move. Before becoming the PAU, it had been the US consulate in Jerusalem and a focus of Palestinian statehood goals in the city.

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Cambodia and China deny naval base scheme as Australian PM voices concern

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Cambodia says facilities at Ream naval base will not be for exclusive use of Chinese military, while Beijing denounces ‘malicious conjecture’

Chinese and Cambodian officials attended a ceremony for a controversial naval port expansion on Wednesday, dismissing reports that the base will provide a crucial strategic foothold for Beijing.

Officials broke ground at the Ream naval base, turning over shovels of dirt as work commenced on a China-funded renovation of Ream, Cambodia’s biggest naval base.

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Biden’s pledge to send rocket systems to Ukraine is no silver bullet

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Analysis: the long-delayed US deal offers just four systems that will take weeks to become operational, suggesting concerns about imposing a heavy defeat on Putin

The US decision to supply Ukraine with high-precision multiple launch rocket systems was marked with some fanfare in Washington including a rare newspaper commentary by Joe Biden himself.

The Himars (High mobility artillery rocket system) and the ammunition that Washington is sending with them, will allow Ukrainian forces to hit targets nearly 80km away with high accuracy. That’s twice the range of the US howitzers they have now, and about the same as the most powerful Russian rocket systems. US officials suggested they would help turn the withering artillery duel underway in the Donbas into a fairer fight.

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Russia-Ukraine war: Moscow warns US over rocket shipments to Kyiv; Ukraine losing up to 100 soldiers a day – live

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US president claims supply of rockets move will enable Ukraine ‘to more precisely strike key targets’; Ukraine’s president says 500 wounded each day

Away from the war in their homeland, Ukraine’s men’s football team are competing for a place in this year’s Fifa World Cup in Qatar. Nick Ames writes for us:

When Ukraine face Scotland at Hampden Park tonight it will be less a rebirth than a reminder that, much as Russia might wish to erase the country’s cultural identity, its football heritage remains truly alive. The act of playing for a World Cup place on Wednesday night, and over the next five days if all goes well, is both one of defiance and of expectation that, despite everything, good things can lie ahead.

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