Category Archives: Biden administration

Gaza airdrops might not be necessary if Israel faced more pressure on aid

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Delivering by parachute is risky and inefficient – and other options could open up if the west were to expend more diplomatic capital

Half an hour before Rishi Sunak launched his assault on British extremism, the foreign secretary, David Cameron issued his own strong statement.

Cameron said the killings of more than 100 Palestinians in Gaza as crowds gathered around aid trucks on Thursday were horrific and required an investigation and accountability. He said the halving of the number of aid trucks entering Gaza in the past month was “completely unacceptable” and that Israel had an “obligation” to ensure significantly more humanitarian aid reached the territory.

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Biden urges Trump to help him pass immigration deal as both visit US border

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President implores Republicans to ‘show a little spine’ and support bipartisan border and security bill as Trump speaks at Eagle Pass

Joe Biden and his all-but certain Republican challenger, Donald Trump, made dueling visits to Texas border towns on Thursday, a rare overlap that sets the stage for an election-season clash over immigration.

In Brownsville, along the Rio Grande on the border with Mexico, Biden implored Congressional Republicans to “show a little spine” and support a bipartisan border security deal. Earlier this month Republican lawmakers blocked legislation they had previously clamored for, after Trump expressed his opposition to the measure.

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Blinken calls new Israeli settlements inconsistent with international law

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Secretary of state’s characterization of West Bank settlements signals return to longstanding US policy reversed by Trump

Israel’s expansion of settlements in the occupied West Bank was inconsistent with international law, the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, said on Friday, signaling a return to longstanding US policy on the issue, which had been reversed by the previous administration of Donald Trump.

The Trump administration in 2019 in effect backed Israel’s right to build West Bank settlements by abandoning a long-held US position that they were “inconsistent with international law”.

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Biden officials play down report of US investigation into Mexican president

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US looked into claims that Andrés Manuel López Obrador allies took money from cartels, according to a New York Times report

Officials with the justice department and the Biden administration have downplayed a report that US law enforcement spent years looking into allegations that allies of Mexico’s president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, were investigated for taking millions of dollars from drug cartels after the president took office.

López Obrador, who denied the report, also reacted to the New York Times report on Thursday by revealing the contact details of the journalist at its Mexico bureau, Natalie Kitroeff, including her telephone number – which Mexico’s freedom of information body (INAI) immediately said it would launch an investigation into.

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Biden met with Alexei Navalny’s widow Yulia Navalnaya, White House says

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US to impose over 500 new sanctions on Russia after Navalny, main opposition leader to Putin, died after being imprisoned by Kremlin

Joe Biden met with Alexei Navalny’s widow, Yulia Navalnaya, and the activist’s daughter, Dasha Navalnaya, in California on Thursday.

Navalny, the main opposition leader to the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, died in an Arctic penal colony last Friday after being imprisoned by the Kremlin.

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White House could use federal law to control US-Mexico border crossings

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Biden administration considering using immigration law used by Trump after Republicans rejected a negotiated immigration bill

The White House is considering using provisions of federal immigration law repeatedly tapped by Donald Trump to unilaterally enact a sweeping crackdown at the southern border, according to three people familiar with the deliberations.

The administration, stymied by Republican lawmakers who rejected a negotiated border bill earlier this month, has been exploring options that Joe Biden could deploy on his own without congressional approval, multiple officials and others familiar with the talks said. But the plans are nowhere near finalized and it’s unclear how the administration would draft any such executive actions in a way that would survive the inevitable legal challenges. The officials and those familiar with the talks spoke to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity to comment on private White House discussions.

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Biden ‘privately defiant’ over chaotic 2021 Afghanistan withdrawal, book says

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The Internationalists details how the president was determined to leave a country in which 2,324 US troops were killed since 2001

Joe Biden is “privately defiant” that he made the right calls on the US withdrawal from Afghanistan in summer 2021, a new book reportedly says, even as the chaos and carnage that unfolded continues to be investigated in Congress.

“No one offered to resign” over the withdrawal, writes Alexander Ward, a Politico reporter, “in large part because the president didn’t believe anyone had made a mistake. Ending the war was always going to be messy.”

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US House impeaches Biden homeland security secretary in historic vote

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Alejandro Mayorkas, rebuked by Republicans who voted against key immigration bill, first to face such punishment in over 150 years

The US House of Representatives has voted to impeach Alejandro Mayorkas, Joe Biden’s secretary of homeland security, on explicitly political charges related to conditions at the southern border as Republicans attempt to capitalize on the issue in an election year.

The evening roll call proved tight, with speaker Mike Johnson’s threadbare Republican majority and in the face of staunch Democratic opposition to impeaching Mayorkas, the first cabinet secretary facing charges in nearly 150 years.

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Lloyd Austin to resume Pentagon duties one day after admission to hospital

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US defense secretary underwent non-surgical procedures for bladder issue and ‘cancer prognosis remains excellent’

The US defense secretary, Lloyd Austin, is expected to “resume his normal duties” on Tuesday, a day after he was admitted to a hospital for what the Pentagon described as an “emergent bladder issue”.

A statement issued by the Pentagon said Austin, 70, had undergone non-surgical procedures under general anesthesia to address the bladder issue. “We anticipate a successful recovery and will closely monitor him overnight,” the statement read.

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Biden urged to include politicians in sanctions on violent Israeli settlers

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Human rights groups also want to see executive order used to stop US groups from donating millions of dollars each year to settlers

There are growing calls for Joe Biden to use his new executive order sanctioning violent Israeli settlers to also target political leaders, including government ministers, responsible for driving attacks against Palestinians.

Pro-Israel groups and others in the US say the order is potentially a severe blow to the settlement movement in the West Bank, in part because financial sanctions could block even Israeli banks from doing business in parts of the occupied territories.

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‘Gratuitous, inaccurate’: White House disputes special counsel report on Biden

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Democrats launch aggressive push back and defend president against Robert Hur’s description in report

Democrats and the White House on Friday launched an aggressive push back against a special counsel report that pushed Joe Biden’s age and memory to the front and center of the presidential election campaign and spurred a series of Republican attacks on the US president.

The special counsel Robert Hur’s report on Biden’s handling of confidential documents on Thursday said the US president would not face criminal charges in the case but in a series of remarks characterized Biden as elderly and with a failing memory – triggering a political bombshell on an issue seen as a core weakness of Biden’s re-election campaign.

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Gaza: Israel moves closer to Rafah offensive despite ‘bloodbath’ warning

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Biden and UN say assault on city where 1.3m civilians are sheltering would be disastrous

Israel has moved closer to a full-scale ground offensive against the southern Gaza city of Rafah, as Benjamin Netayahu ordered military leaders to present a plan to evacuate civilians from the area.

Despite warnings from a senior aid official that an assault on Rafah – where about 1.3 million displaced Palestinians are sheltering – would lead to a “bloodbath”, and the UN urging against forced mass displacement, Israel appeared determined to push ahead.

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US funding failure will have serious battlefield consequences, says Ukraine

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Zelenskiy aide says ‘foreign policy has become a hostage of internal politics’ after Republicans torpedo aid bill

The repeated failure of the Biden administration to get a funding package for Ukraine approved by the Senate will have real consequences in terms of lives on the battlefield and Kyiv’s ability to hold off Russian forces on the frontline, say Ukrainian officials.

The latest move by Senate Republicans to torpedo a bipartisan bill that would have combined $60bn (£48bn) in aid for Ukraine with aid to Israel and increased border security measures is a bitter blow for Kyiv. It could signal a very grim year ahead as the US political agenda settles into an election year with Donald Trump all but certain to be the Republican candidate.

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US announces new restrictions to curb global spyware industry

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State department policy will allow US to impose visa restrictions on individuals involved in misuse of spyware

The US said it will impose global visa restrictions on individuals who have been involved in the misuse of commercial spyware, in a move that could affect major US allies including Israel, India, Jordan and Hungary.

The new policy, unveiled on Monday, underscores how the Biden administration continues to see the proliferation of weapons-grade commercial spyware – which has been used by governments around the world against hundreds of political dissidents, human rights advocates, journalists and lawyers – as a major threat to US national security and counterintelligence capabilities.

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New federal US rules to curb use of prior approval by private health insurances

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Providers working in federal programs will be required to expedite patients’ prior authorizations for medications and/or surgery

A new set of rules from the Biden administration seeks to rein in private health insurance companies’ use of prior authorization – a byzantine practice that requires people to seek insurance company permission before obtaining medication or having a procedure.

The cost-containment strategy often delays care and forces patients, or their doctors, to navigate opaque and labyrinthine appeals.

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Joe Biden issues executive order against Israeli settlers in West Bank

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Financial sanctions and visa bans imposed on four individuals as US frustration with Israel grows

Joe Biden has issued an executive order targeting Israeli settlers in the West Bank who have been attacking Palestinians, amid fast-growing frustration in Washington at Israel’s trajectory in the midst of its war in Gaza.

The order initially imposes financial sanctions and visa bans against four individuals, and US officials said they were evaluating whether to punish others involved in attacks that have intensified during the Israel-Hamas war.

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John Podesta to succeed John Kerry as Biden’s top climate adviser

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Senior adviser will take over responsibilities, but not title, of John Kerry, who stepped down to work on Biden’s re-election campaign

The White House senior adviser John Podesta will add international climate policy to his job responsibilities, replacing the special climate envoy, John Kerry, as the top US official on international climate issues, the White House said on Wednesday.

Kerry announced in mid-January that he would step down from the climate job to work on Joe Biden’s re-election campaign. Podesta will take over Kerry’s responsibilities, though not his title, when he departs, probably this spring, the White House said.

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Biden in South Carolina for one of his first presidential election campaign appearances of 2024

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In the state that is now first on the Democratic primaries calendar, the president offers fresh assurances he would be willing to close down the US-Mexico border

Four years ago, Democrats in South Carolina – and Black Democrats in particular – effectively cleared the field for President Joe Biden’s nomination, ending what might have otherwise been a rowdy primary campaign for the right to face Donald Trump.

At a Democratic Party dinner Saturday in Columbia, SC, celebrating South Carolina’s new status as the first Democratic primary state, Biden returned to thank them for it, one week before voters head to the polls.

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US approves $23bn sale of F-16 war planes to Turkey

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The sale follows Turkey’s decision to ratify Sweden’s NATO membership

The Biden administration has announced its approved a $US23 billion deal to sell F-16 warplanes to Turkey, after Ankara ratified Sweden’s Nato membership, the state department said.

The state department will now notify Congress of the agreement, as well as of a separate $8.6bn sale of 40 F-35s to Greece.

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Biden’s delay of ‘carbon bomb’ projects could be a big deal – but will it last?

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Climate activists cheer decision to pause all pending liquified natural gas export licenses, but is it just a delay till after November elections?

Joe Biden has, at least for a while, defused a ticking carbon bomb. Climate activists and the fossil fuel industry are now left wondering how long it will last.

The decision on Friday by the Biden administration to pause all pending export licenses for liquified national gas (LNG) to consider the climate impact of the projects has been hailed as a momentous shift in the status quo by those concerned by the unfolding climate crisis.

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