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Tag: foreign
Ukrainian foreign minister tells India not to rely on Russia
Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba has called on India to reconsider its traditionally close relationship with Russia during a visit to New Delhi.
“The co-operation between India and Russia is largely based on the Soviet legacy,” Kuleba told Britain’s Financial Times newspaper in comments from the Indian capital on Friday. “But this is not the legacy that will be kept for centuries; it is a legacy that is evaporating.”
New Delhi has taken a neutral stance on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, does not support Western sanctions against Moscow and repeatedly promotes conflict resolution through dialogue. The world’s most populous country with 1.4 billion inhabitants maintains good relations with Western nations and Russia.
Since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, India has increased its imports of cheap oil from Russia – and is one of its largest customers. The country has also been purchasing a large proportion of its military equipment from Russia for a long time. However, India is increasingly trying to reduce its dependency in this respect, importing more from other countries or producing domestically.
Kuleba also told the Financial Times that India should be concerned about the closer relations between Russia and China. India has had extremely strained relations with neighbouring China since a deadly clash on their shared and heavily militarized border in the Himalayan mountains in 2020.
Kuleba also expressed interest in more trade between Ukraine and India. His country was looking to import heavy machinery from India, for example, he said.
Russia mulls labelling queen of Soviet pop, a foreign agent
Russian prosecutors have asked the justice ministry to consider labelling Alla Pugacheva, the queen of Soviet pop music, as a “foreign agent,” a move that would officially designate Russia’s most famous star a foe of the Kremlin.
Pugacheva, known across generations for hits such as the 1982 song “Million Scarlet Roses” and the 1978 film “The Woman who Sings,” has expressed disgust with the Ukraine war.
In 2022, she said the war was killing soldiers for illusory aims, burdening ordinary people and turning Russia into a pariah. Earlier this month, the 74-year-old said that no normal person would return to Russia. She is currently abroad.
Vitaly Borodin, an activist who heads an anti-corruption group and who regularly appears on state television, submitted an official request to recognise Pugacheva as a foreign agent.
Then Borodin published a letter from the prosecutor general’s office showing that a request had been made to the justice ministry to consider that.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said he had heard no official statements about the issue. Pugacheva, thought to be in Cyprus, did not immediately comment.
Officially labelling her a “foreign agent” would underscore the rift between the Kremlin and many — but not all — of the cultural icons of Soviet and post-Soviet Russia over Ukraine.
Such a step would almost certainly need approval from the Kremlin. It has yet to opine in public on Pugacheva and could still stop the process.
The New York Times in 2000 described her as “the goddess of Russian pop, Moscow’s Tina Turner with a hint of Edith Piaf, whose songs have given voice to the yearnings of millions.”
Shot, a Russian media outlet with close ties to the security services, said an official announcement may be made on her 75th birthday on April 15.
Long list
Being labelled as a “foreign agent” is often the first sign of serious trouble from authorities in Russia. There are 787 organisations and people listed as such.
The label has negative Soviet-era connotations and its bearers have to place it prominently on all content they publish. They also face arduous financial and bureaucratic requirements.
For many opponents of President Vladimir Putin, though, the designation is considered a badge of honour — evidence they stood up to a leader they cast as a dictator and say has led Russia towards ruin.
Supporters of Putin say that the pro-Western cultural elite which grew up after the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union is being cleared out and replaced by patriotic singers, writers and artists who will ensure Russia remains sovereign.
Pugacheva came to the attention of Putin supporters for taking six days from Friday’s gun attack on Crocus City Hall to make a comment in public.
“Grief should be in your soul, not in Instagram,” she posted on Instagram on Thursday.
Pugacheva was also criticised for apologising to a Tajik singer who wept over the “public torture” of the Tajik suspects detained for the attack.
Some of the suspects were shown being interrogated beside a road. One was shown in unverified footage having part of his ear cut off and stuffed into his mouth.
Pugacheva in 2022 even asked for the state to label her a foreign agent in solidarity with her husband, TV comedian Maxim Galkin, who was put on the list that year.
Pugacheva has in the past been feted by both Putin and his predecessor Boris Yeltsin. When Mikhail Gorbachev died in 2022, she praised the last Soviet leader for allowing freedom and rejecting violence.
After Putin ordered troops into Ukraine in 2022, Pugacheva left Russia. She has Israeli citizenship and has come back for some periods.
France asks for foreign police and military help with massive Paris Olympics security challenge
France says it has asked 46 countries if they would be willing to supply more than 2,000 police officers to help secure the Paris Olympics this summer, as organizers finalize security planning for the French capital’s first Games in a century while on heightened alert against potential attacks.
The Interior Ministry said Friday that the request for foreign security assistance was made in January, seeking nearly 2,185 reinforcements. The officers are sought to help with Games security and “the spectator experience” and to “strengthen international cooperation,” the ministry said.
“This is a classic approach of host countries for the organization of major international events,” the ministry added.
It noted that France sent 200 of its gendarmes to soccer’s World Cup in Qatar in 2022 and also welcomed 160 officers from other European security forces for the Rugby World Cup that France hosted last year.
Separately, the French Defense Ministry has also asked foreign nations for “small numbers” of military personnel who could help with “very specific” tasks at the Games, including sniffer dog teams, said Col. Pierre Gaudillière, spokesman for the army general staff.
Poland’s defense minister said his country will be sending soldiers to the Paris Games. The Polish armed forces delegation will include dog handlers and “its main goal will be to undertake activities related to the detection of explosives and counteracting terrorist phenomena.” the minister, Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz, posted on X.
Security is the biggest challenge for Paris Games organizers in a city that has been repeatedly hit by deadly attacks by Islamic extremists and which is expecting as many as 15 million visitors for the July 26-Aug. 11 Games and Paralympics that follow.
Security concerns are notably high for the opening ceremony, which will involve boats along the Seine River and huge crowds watching from the embankments.
France’s government increased its security alert posture to the highest level in the wake of the recent deadly attack at a Russian concert hall and the Islamic State’s claim of responsibility.
French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal announced the decision in a post on X, saying authorities were “taking into account the Islamic State’s claim of responsibility for the (Moscow) attack and the threats weighing on our country.″
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Associated Press writer Monika Scislowska in Warsaw contributed.
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AP Olympics coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/2024-paris-olympic-games
Haiti gang leader ‘Barbecue’ would take part in peace talks but resist foreign peacekeepers
The gang leader who has become the face of Haiti’s descent into lawlessness and violence has said he would consider calling a ceasefire only if his consortium of armed gangs was included in international talks on the country’s future.
Jimmy Chérizier, the former police officer better known via his nomme de guerre “Barbecue,” spoke to Stuart Ramsay, the chief correspondent for the U.K.’s Sky News, which like NBC News is owned by Comcast.
He warned that a foreign peacekeeping force would be treated as enemy fighters and meet armed resistance, and that a recent pause in violence was merely a technical halt.
“There is nothing calm, but when you’re fighting you have to know when to advance and when to retreat,” Chérizier said in the interview, which aired Friday.
“I think every day that passes we are coming up with a new strategy so we can advance, but there’s nothing calm. In the days that are coming things will get worse than they are now,” he said.
Chérizier leads the G9 collective of gangs but also leads Viv Ansanm, meaning “Living Together,” a revolutionary gang alliance.
As much of 80% of the capital, Port-au-Prince, is now in the control of gangs after Prime Minister Ariel Henry announced he would stand down on March 12 following months of unrest. The United Nations said an estimated 1,500 people have been killed in gang violence this year so far, and 4,500 last year, in a report released Thursday.
At least 450 U.S. nationals have been evacuated from Haiti since March 17, with efforts ongoing to airlift the remaining Americans there, the State Department said in a briefing Thursday.
The pan-Caribbean CARICOM group of nations and the United States pledged to help form a transitional government leading to a democratic nation — but for now the gangs still rule the streets.
Chérizier was dismissive of this process, but said he respected CARICOM and left open the possibility of taking part in a peace deal.
“If the international community comes with a detailed plan where we can sit together and talk, but they do not impose on us what we should decide, I think that the weapons could be lowered,” he said.
“We don’t believe in killing people and massacring people, we believe in dialogue, we have weapons in our hand and it’s with the weapons that we must liberate this country,” Chérizier added.
The consortium of armed gangs Chérizier leads says that Haiti has been controlled by corrupt politicians, dating back at least to the devastating earthquake in 2010 that killed about 220,000 people and left 1.5 million homeless. Many in Haiti believe that international aid money for reconstruction was mishandled.
Seen by some as a revolutionary leader, Chreizier has been accused of brutal violence for years, including the killing of at least 71 civilians and torching of some 400 homes in Port-au-Prince in 2018. That was at the time Haiti’s worst massacre in a decade and led to him being branded a human rights abuser by the U.S. Treasury.
Sky News had to travel along a deserted freeway with abandoned, burnt-out vehicles to reach the man known as Barbecue, who was surrounded by armed guards and carrying two weapons himself.
“We were told that their snipers were watching us, and to drive slowly, and follow our guide’s every move,” Ramsay wrote in his report. He described this once busy route into the capital as “a barricaded battlefield.”
The area claimed by Chérizier’s group was relatively calm and stable — food and water distribution is taking place, with orderly lines of people, he said.
But Chérizier made it clear that any foreign peacekeeping force sent in would face armed resistance.
Kenya has pledged to send 1,000 troops to coordinate a U.N.-backed alliance, but the plan is now on hold. Chérizier said the Kenyans would commit atrocities and he would not allow it.
“It’s evolving. If the Kenyan military or Kenyan police come, whatever, I will consider them as aggressors, we will consider them as invaders, and we do not have to collaborate with any invaders that have come to walk over our independence,” he said.
Chérizier predicted there would be a Haiti “where there are no kidnappings, without raping and killing people,” but this would require “corrupt politicians and the corrupt oligarchs” leaving.
Why some Haitians don’t want foreign nations intervening in their crises — and others do
Johnny Celestin generally believes that Haiti, which continues to be under heightened violence from armed groups and gangs, must re-establish order on its own.
“My heart is against foreign intervention,” said Celestin, chair of the nonprofit organization Konbit for Haiti. “I firmly believe in Haiti’s agency.”
But now, with armed militias creating an unprecedented level of instability amid a weekslong leadership void, Celestin and others say foreign intervention may be necessary.
“I guarantee you,” Celestin said, “that people who are losing their homes, losing their lives, are not in a space where they’re saying, ‘Let us die because we’re so proud. We don’t want any foreign help to help us.”
Now living in New York City, Celestin is a native of Haiti and has lived there on and off for most of his life. He returned to Port-au-Prince in 2010 and traveled extensively throughout the country for 10 years.
For generations, his beleaguered Caribbean nation has sought to achieve home-grown stability but, following the assassination of its democratically elected President Jovenel Moïse in 2021, armed groups took increasing control of the country’s capital. The violence that immediately ensued put its citizens at yet another crossroads. Some Haitians say their country will only suffer further if foreign intervention is allowed, while others say international support is necessary for Haiti to overcome its political and humanitarian crises.
Attempts have been made in the past to foster solutions at home. For example, the year Moïse was killed, a group of Haitian and non-Haitian religious leaders, women’s rights groups, lawyers, humanitarian workers and more formed the Commission to Search for a Haitian Solution to the Crisis. The commission proposed a two-year interim government with oversight committees tasked with restoring order, eradicating corruption and establishing fair elections. The group is still working to make its plan a reality.
But as violence has ratcheted up in the last several months, the United Nations’ latest plan — drafted by the United States and Ecuador — is to send Kenyan troops in to police Haiti. The plan has drawn criticism from those who say Kenyans don’t speak Kreyòl or French and there is evidence of human rights abuses in the Kenyan army. The plan is currently on hold, but it falls in line with Haiti’s history, which is riddled with intervention from other nations, especially the U.S., with little evidence that these efforts have contributed to long lasting peace and stability in the country.
Celestin, like other Haitians, said he is inherently against foreign intervention as it has existed, but understands that it may be necessary to stem the tide of violence and poverty in Haiti. However, he said, any foreign intervention should support Haitians and their efforts rather than holding complete control over the country with no input from its citizens.
“The fight that needs to take place to save Port-au-Prince and to save Haiti, has to be a fight that is led by Haitians. I believe we have that capacity, if those folks feel they have backup … Once they clear an area, there’s got to be another force that can come in and ensure that they control it. And this is what I believe the international force can do.”
Monique Clesca of Port-au-Prince agrees that it is important for Haitians to work with foreign actors, but it must be on their own terms.
“There is an aspect of sovereignty that’s extremely important,” said Clesca, a member of the Commission to Search for a Haitian Solution to the Crisis. “Yes, we need to work with different partners; yes, we will need help; but it is not them who will dictate what kind of help we should get and when we should get it.”
However, Haitian scholars like Jemima Pierre have condemned the foreign intervention throughout Haiti’s history. Pierre, a professor at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, said foreign intervention, including from the U.S., is partially to blame for Haiti’s turmoil.
“What intervention means for Haiti, what it has always meant, is death and destruction,” Pierre said. “What’s the definition of insanity? Doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting a different result.”
Destructive foreign intervention colors Haiti’s history as an independent nation
Haitians’ skepticism about outside interference dates back to the birth of the country.
In 1791, Haitians began a revolt against slavery. They ousted their French masters and Haiti obtained its independence in 1804. The story was one of heroism and triumph, until France issued the newly freed Black country an ultimatum: pay 131 million francs in reparations to its former masters or face consequences. The new country was forced to pay what would be at least $21 billion in today’s dollars to avoid war and further economic restraint and to maintain its independence.
The U.S., afraid the revolt would inspire its own enslaved people, did not recognize Haiti and worked to choke the country economically and diplomatically. It took the country more than 100 years to pay the debt.
President Woodrow Wilson ordered the U.S. Marines to invade Haiti after the assassination of its president in 1915, citing concern about political unrest in the region. The U.S. implemented a government that it controlled, established segregation, and killed thousands of people during the 19-year occupation, according to The New York Times. Afterward, the U.S. controlled Haiti’s public finances, using a massive amount of the country’s income to repay debts to itself and France, NPR reported.
The rise, fall and rise of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide
Haiti’s history of economic and diplomatic oppression went largely ignored by France and other powerful nations in the centuries that followed, until Jean-Bertrand Aristide rose to power. Aristide became Haiti’s first democratically elected president in 1990. When four years later he was ousted in a military coup, the U.S. sent 20,000 troops to restore order in the country. Back in power, Aristide was vocal in his demands that France right the reparation wrongs and repay the money it had taken from Haiti for centuries.
In 2004, he was overthrown again. The U.S. encouraged him to step down this time and helped him escape with troops from France, Canada and Chile. However, Haitians liked Aristide and he long remained one of the most popular political figures in the country. Many believe that the international support to remove Aristide was prompted by his demands for reparations from France.
“What’s going on in Haiti is a flare-up of a situation that’s been going on for 20 years, and that situation is a complete takeover of Haitian society and Haitian political systems by foreign powers. People think this is hyperbole, but it’s not,” Pierre said. “It’s 20 years ago that the U.S., France and Canada funded a coup d’état against Haiti’s democratically elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide.”
French and Haitian political figures have said that France, troubled by Aristide’s influence, began to work with his local opponents and the U.S. to remove him from power, The New York Times reported. France and the U.S. have denied these allegations.
Once Aristide was out, the United Nations implemented a security effort led by the Brazilian military, known as MINUSTAH, from 2004 to 2017 — and then a small operation followed that lasted until 2019. This mission has been criticized and known for allegations of murders, rape and other atrocities, according to Harvard Law School’s human rights clinic. Amid all this, Haiti endured a devastating earthquake in 2010 that killed about 220,000 people, and another deadly earthquake in 2021. A cholera outbreak that killed at least 10,000 after the 2010 earthquake was traced back to U.N. peacekeepers sent from Nepal, according to The Washington Post.
Matters only grew worse as Haiti struggled to regain its footing after the earthquakes, and as elections were repeatedly postponed following Moïse’s assassination in 2021.
The U.S. and several other nations supported Ariel Henry, who had been prime minister under Moïse, to temporarily replace Moïse as the country’s leader. The unelected prime minister is deeply unpopular in Haiti, and this only worsened as he delayed the presidential election. Armed groups, already active in Port-au-Prince, dialed up the violence in the last year.
These groups have been present in the country for decades alongside the establishment, with many politicians even using them to do their bidding, including everything from intimidating the opposition to collecting votes. As Henry continued to delay a presidential election, the rebel forces engaged in increasingly daring acts and have now taken control of at least 80% of the capital, according to a United Nations estimate.
Meanwhile, Haitians like Dave Ali Fils-Aimé have committed themselves to the country’s progress by launching programs that connect with and support Haitians directly. In 2013, Fils-Aimé founded Baskètbòl pou Ankadre Lajenès (Basketball to Uplift the Youth) to engage with children through the sport and educate them. The program operates in Cité Soleil and Martissant, two Port-au-Prince neighborhoods racked with violence from armed groups, and, according to Fils-Aimé, it serves as the perfect tool for keeping children from joining the armed groups terrorizing Port-au-Prince.
In the past months, Baskètbòl pou Ankadre Lajenès has had to cut down its operations as the violent groups have closed in on their headquarters. For now, the organization is only working with children in close proximity to its headquarters. Still, Fils-Aimé says, it’s organizations like these that represent the self-determination and community that will be necessary to pull Haiti out of its persistent crises.
“The government, because of its lack of capacity and high levels of corruption, they’re not investing in the youth as they should. So it’s incumbent upon organizations like ours to provide that support,” Fils-Aimé said. “We have some youth who started with us back in 2013, 2014, who are now in their final years of university. That’s a youth whose life you’ve saved by providing them with the opportunity to be part of this organization.”
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Canada to tighten foreign investment rules in AI, space technology sectors, Bloomberg reports
March 26 (Reuters) – Canada will require foreign companies to warn the government in advance before making investments or acquisitions in artificial intelligence, quantum computing and space technology, Bloomberg News reported on Tuesday, citing an interview with Innovation Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne.
The move will aid the government in conducting a national-security review before transactions get too far advanced and would-be investors may be restricted in their access to target companies’ user data or other property while the inquiry is taking place, the report said.
The tougher rules will also apply to investments in critical minerals and potentially other sectors, Champagne said to Bloomberg.
Earlier this month, Champagne said Canada will crack down on foreign investment in the interactive digital media sector to stop state-sponsored actors from endangering national security.
Canada’s Innovation, Science and Economic Development ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
(Reporting by Utkarsh Shetti in Bengaluru)
Transcript: House Foreign Affairs Committee chairman Rep. Michael McCaul on “Face the Nation,” March 24, 2024
The following is a transcript of an interview with House Foreign Affairs Committe chairman Rep. Michael McCaul, Republican of Texas, that aired on March 24, 2024.
MARGARET BRENNAN: And we’re joined now by the Republican chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, Texas Congressman Michael McCaul. Good to have you here in person this morning.
HOUSE FOREIGN RELATIONS CHAIRMAN REP. MICHAEL MCCAUL: Thanks for having me, Margaret.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Chair McCaul, this attack in Moscow was carried out by ISIS-K, a group that typically emanates out of Afghanistan. We know the US had advanced warning from what you know, is there an ongoing threat in Eurasia and are US interests a target?
REP. MCCAUL: Yeah, I believe so. I think that the CENTCOM Commander, General Kurilla, just testified this week before Congress that within six months that ISIS-K would have the capability to operate outside of Afghanistan to do external operations. And it only took six days before they hit Moscow- or outside of Moscow. And I think Europe is of concern. And it’s sort of like we’re going back to that old playbook where history repeats itself. And that’s why the fall of Afghanistan, the way it was done, and the way we left it with no ISR capability- that intelligence surveillance reconnaissance- puts us in danger, where this is a new battleground training ground for ISIS.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, the US did, though, have some ears on this if they warned Russia, right?
REP. MCCAUL: — Correct.
MARGARET BRENNAN: — That ISIS was a threat here. You in your committee, you have been very focused on Afghanistan and you held a hearing with retired generals Mark Milley and Frank McKenzie this past week. They both said the State Department failed to adequately plan for the withdrawal from an evacuation from Afghanistan. Given the threat environment the US is facing right now on multiple continents at once, Haiti, Niger, all the Middle East, are you confident that the United States government is prepared to protect its people in all of those posts and carry out evacuations if needed?
REP. MCCAUL: I’m very concerned. I think what happened in Haiti- our embassy is under threat right now. We’re starting to evacuate them. You know what happened in Afghanistan, the generals are very clear. It wasn’t the DoD, it was a State Department that never came up with a plan of evacuation, which by law they’re required to do. And so what happens if you–
MARGARET BRENNAN: — Well, it was too late when it was put into place. There was a plan to–
REP. MCCAUL:– It was put in place, but only at the time that Kabul was falling, and the embassy was starting to be evacuated. I think what the State Department thought they could do is continue our operations in the embassy and normalize with the Taliban and stay there beyond the- the military retrograde and I think that was a serious error in judgment. Ambassador Wilson, was the major culprit behind that, including all the way up to the White House.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, the State Department has pointed out that the Trump administration that brokered the deal for withdrawal could have planned for an evacuation and did not. What do you make of that?
REP. MCCAUL: Yeah, they- they’re by law required to plan. I think DOD was starting to pick up the slack. No, we saw the threats coming in the threat vectors. The IC was telling us it was going to fall fast. The DoD knew this and the State Department seemed to have these rose colored lenses on. When you listen to the White House, you know, press comments about our it’s not gonna be like Vietnam, everything’s fine. And it wasn’t. That’s what we had the dissent cable come out from the embassy- 23 employees, a cry for help, screaming to get out of there, because they knew what was going to happen.
MARGARET BRENNAN: The government funding bill that was signed last night, 12,000 additional special visas to Afghan nationals who had worked with the US were tucked into this funding bill. What more needs to be done to help the Afghan allies who worked alongside the US?
REP. MCCAUL: Well, we promised them, we will get them out. The Afghan partners, the interpreters, we left them behind. And that’s the biggest sin of the Afghan evacuation. I think the 12,000 SIVs is a great response and a great start to that. I will commend Speaker Johnson. I worked very closely with him to make sure we had that in there because on one hand, Republicans can say oh, my gosh, we left them behind, but then we’re not gonna do anything to help them get out with visas.
MARGARET BRENNAN: So has Speaker Johnson given you any timeline for a vote on Ukraine aid given that they are running out of ammunition?
REP. MCCAUL: His commitment is to put it on the floor after Easter. And we are working on this bill.
MARGARET BRENNAN: As soon as you all come back April 9?
REP. MCCAUL: I would like to be done as soon as possible. I need the situation in Ukraine is dire. The front lines are- it’s- we can’t- if we lose in Ukraine like Afghanistan and- and lose to Putin let him,you know, take over Ukraine and Moldova, Georgia and abandon our allies like we did in Afghanistan. Does that make the United States weaker or stronger? I think weaker.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Why isn’t there that sense of urgency on the speaker’s part? I mean, respectfully, this has been stuck in the house for weeks. You have been warning about this and needs to be acted on.
REP. MCCAUL: He understands this. He is in a very difficult spot. And this motion to vacate the chair thing, I believe he’s committed because he understands national security- he leans on, you know, myself, the Chairman of Armed Services, House Intelligence for advice on this. And he knows how important this is.
MARGARET BRENNAN: So you trust that this will be voted on because as you just mentioned, that motion to vacate was just introduced by Marjorie Taylor Greene. This is an effort to oust him. She has put this in place. You’re all headed home to your districts. You are all going to be asked about this. She’s the only one so far saying she wants to oust the Speaker. Will she stay the only one?
REP. MCCAUL: You know, I think it’s indicative that even Matt Gaetz, who is the architect of ousting McCarthy, is saying this would be a huge mistake, because he could actually throw the balance of power over to Hakeem Jeffries. I think that’s one argument. The other argument is we don’t need dysfunction right now. And with the world on fire, the way it is–
MARGARET BRENNAN: — Don’t we have dysfunction right now?
REP. MCCAUL: Well, we do and with the world on fire the way it is, we need to govern. And that is not just for Republicans, but in a bipartisan way. Get things done for the country that’s in the national security interest of the United States. This is not just Ukraine, it’s Israel and Indo-Pacific as well.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Before I let you go, 11 aid organizations have issued a letter saying that Israel is standing in the way of aid deliveries in Gaza, their firsthand experience. Do you doubt their testimonies?
REP. MCCAUL: I think we were having difficulties. I talked to, you know, Cindy McCain yesterday, World Food Programme. David Beasley, her predecessor. Look, logistics and security are the issue. Israel knows it’s important to get that humanitarian assistance in, because for a lot of reasons. We have to stabilize southern Gaza but they also need to go into Rafah and take out Yahya Sinwar, the head of Hamas, so that’s a competing interest here. Unfortunately, ceasefire talks, I think Hamas is playing us, playing Director Burns. Talk to, you know, the Israelis, they agreed to the ratio. I don’t think Hamas will. They’re not playing fair.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Chair McCaul, thank you for your time today.
REP. MCCAUL: Margaret. Thanks for having me.
UK sanctions target foreign suppliers to Russian military
LONDON (Reuters) -Britain on Tuesday sanctioned an Iranian drone maker and a range of other foreign businesses, accusing them of supplying Russian forces with weapons and components for use against Ukraine.
Britain, the U.S. and the European Union have imposed a range of sanctions since last February to punish Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, which Moscow calls a “special military operation.”
The British government set out 25 new sanctions on individuals and businesses in Iran, Turkey, Belarus, Slovakia, Switzerland, the UAE as well as Russia.
“Today’s landmark sanctions will further diminish Russia’s arsenal and close the net on supply chains propping up (President) Putin’s now struggling defence industry,” British foreign minister James Cleverly said.
Iranian drone maker Paravar Pars and seven of its executives, already subject to U.S. sanctions announced in February, and two Turkey-based exporters of microelectronics were among those targeted by Britain.
The sanctions prohibit UK entities from providing trust services – the creation of a trust or similar arrangement – to those sanctioned and also impose asset freezes, which block their assets held in the UK.
The British government, which has sanctioned over 1,600 individuals and entities since the start of the Ukraine conflict, said the latest round of sanctions marked its biggest ever action on military suppliers in third countries.
(Reporting by Sachin Ravikumar, writing by Muvija M; editing by William James)
Mali’s troops, foreign partners target women to ‘spread terror’
By Michelle Nichols
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – Mali’s troops and its foreign security partners, believed to be Russia’s Wagner mercenaries, are using violence against women and other “grave human rights abuses” to spread terror, U.N. sanctions monitors said in a report seen by Reuters on Monday.
The monitors also warned in their report to the U.N Security Council that the sexual violence by Mali’s troops and their foreign security partners is “systematic.” They said the foreign partners were “presumed to be elements of the Wagner Group.”
Mali has long been battling an Islamist insurgency and the West African country’s junta, which seized power in coups in 2020 and 2021, teamed up with Russia’s Wagner mercenary group in 2021. There are about 1,000 Wagner fighters in Mali.
Western countries have long raised concerns over Wagner’s activities in Mali. The United States has imposed sanctions on Wagner and Malian officials and repeatedly warned of what it says are Wagner’s destabilizing activities.
“The Panel believes that violence against women, and other forms of grave abuses of human rights and international humanitarian law are being used, specifically by the foreign security partners, to spread terror among populations,” wrote the U.N. sanctions monitors, known as a panel of experts.
“These practices potentially create a fear of reprisals, which acts as a deterrent for communities and armed groups who would otherwise seek to threaten the foreign security partners or harm them,” they said.
‘THE WHITES’
The Wagner group could not immediately be reached for comment. Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin led a short mutiny against the Russian defence establishment in late June.
The U.N. Human Rights Office in May accused Malian troops and “armed white men” of likely executing at least 500 people, and sexually assaulting or torturing dozens of others during a five-day operation in central Mali last year. Russia said the operation “contributed to peace and tranquility”.
“Elements of the foreign security partners are usually referred to in interviews with survivors of their operations as ‘The Whites/Les Blancs’,” the sanctions monitors wrote in their annual report, which covered the period from Aug. 3, 2022 to June 23 this year.
The monitors visited Moscow in March and wrote that Russian officials confirmed the presence of the Wagner group in Mali as private contractors and the presence of Russian military instructors, based at the airport in the capital Bamako, “who do not participate in operations.”
They said Mali’s authorities have not allowed them to visit the country but that they have “maintained the highest achievable standard of proof.”
The U.N. Security Council unanimously voted on June 30 to end a decade-long peacekeeping mission in Mali after the junta abruptly asked the 13,000-strong force to leave – a move the United States said was engineered by the Wagner Group.
(Reporting by Michelle Nichols; Editing by Michael Perry)