US NEWS
----
World
Trump OKs sanctions against international tribunal employees
 |
US International CourtAttorney General William Barr speaks from
behind a teleprompter as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo listens, during
a joint briefing, Thursday, June 11, 2020 at the State Department in
Washington, on an executive order signed by President Donald Trump aimed
at the International Criminal Court. Trump has lobbed a broadside
attack against the International Criminal Court. He's authorizing
economic sanctions and travel restrictions against court workers
directly involved in investigating American troops and intelligence
officials for possible war crimes in Afghanistan without U.S. consent.
The executive order Trump signed on Thursday marks his administration’s
latest attack against international organizations, treaties and
agreements that do not hew to its policies. (Yuri Gripas/Pool via AP) |
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump
lobbed a broadside attack Thursday against the International Criminal
Court by authorizing economic sanctions and travel restrictions against
court workers involved in investigating American troops and intelligence
officials and those of allied nations, including Israel, for possible
war crimes in Afghanistan and elsewhere.
Trump's executive order
marked his administration’s latest attack against international
organizations, treaties and agreements that don’t hew to its policies.
It would block the financial assets of court employees and bar those
employees and their immediate relatives from entering the United States.
Secretary
of State Mike Pompeo denounced The Hague-based tribunal as a “kangaroo
court” that has been unsuccessful and inefficient in its mandate to
prosecute war crimes. He said that the U.S. would punish the ICC
employees for any investigation or prosecution of Americans in
Afghanistan and added that they could also be banned for prosecuting
Israelis for alleged abuses against Palestinians.
Pompeo's
comments were echoed by Defense Secretary Mark Esper, Attorney General
Wiliiam Barr and national security adviser Robert O'Brien, who spoke at a
State Department announcement of the new measures. Barr also announced
that the U.S. would investigate possible corruption within the ICC
hierarchy that he said raised suspicions that Russia and other
adversaries could be interfering in the investigatory process.
None of the four men took questions from reporters at the event.
The
Hague-based court was created in 2002 to prosecute war crimes and
crimes of humanity and genocide in areas where perpetrators might not
otherwise face justice. It has 123 state parties that recognize its
jurisdiction.
Human rights groups deplored the Trump administration’s move.
“The
Trump administration’s latest action paves the way for imposing
sanctions against ICC officials and demonstrates contempt for the global
rule of law,” said Andrea Prasow, the Washington director of Human
Rights Watch. “This assault on the ICC is an effort to block victims of
serious crimes whether in Afghanistan, Israel or Palestine from seeing
justice. Countries that support international justice should publicly
oppose this blatant attempt at obstruction.”
Thursday's
announcement is the latest action that puts the administration at odds
with allies in Europe and elsewhere. Since taking office, Trump has
withdrawn from the Paris climate accord, the Iran nuclear deal
and two arms control treaties with Russia. He has pulled the U.S. out
of the U.N. Human Rights Council and the U.N. Educational, Scientific
and Cultural Organization, threatened to leave the International Postal
Union and announced an end to cooperation with the World Health Organization.
Unlike
those treaties and agreements, though, the United States has never been
a member of the International Criminal Court. Administrations of both
parties have been concerned about the potential for political
prosecutions of American troops and officials for alleged war crimes and
other atrocities.
European Union foreign policy chief Josep
Borrell said Trump's order “is a matter of serious concern,” describing
the European Union nations as “steadfast supporters of the International
Criminal Court.”
“The court has been playing a key role in
providing international justice and addressing the gravest international
crimes," he said. “It is a key factor in bringing justice and peace. It
must be respected and supported by all nations.”
The executive
order authorizes the secretary of state, in consultation with the
Treasury secretary, to block financial assets within U.S. jurisdiction
of court personnel who directly engage in investigating, harassing or
detaining U.S. personnel. The order authorizes the secretary of state to
block court officials and their family members involved in the
investigations from entering the United States. The ICC-related travel
restrictions go beyond what the State Department issued last year.
White
House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said in a statement that,
despite repeated calls by the United States and its allies, the ICC has
not embraced reform. She alleged the court continues to pursue
politically motivated investigations against the U.S. and its partners,
including Israel.
“We are concerned that adversary nations are
manipulating the International Criminal Court by encouraging these
allegations against United States personnel,” McEnany said. “Further, we
have strong reason to believe there is corruption and misconduct at the
highest levels of the International Criminal Court office of the
prosecutor, calling into question the integrity of its investigation
into American service members.”
The U.S. has extracted pledges
from most of the court’s members that they will not seek such
prosecutions and risk losing U.S. military and other assistance.
However, ICC prosecutors have shown a willingness to press ahead with investigations into U.S. service members and earlier this year launched one that drew swift U.S. condemnation.
Last
year, after then-national security adviser John Bolton threatened ICC
employees with sanctions if they went forward with prosecutions of U.S.
or allied troops, including from Israel. Pompeo then revoked the visa of
the court’s chief prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda. Bensouda had asked ICC
judges to open an investigation into alleged war crimes in Afghanistan
that could have involved Americans. The judges initially rejected the
request, but the denial was overturned after Bensouda appealed the
decision and the investigation was authorized in March.
The
appellate ruling marked the first time the court’s prosecutor has been
cleared to investigate U.S. forces, and it set the global tribunal on a
collision course with the Trump administration. Bensouda pledged to
carry out an independent and impartial investigation and called for full
support and cooperation from all parties. Pompeo called the decision “a
truly breathtaking action by an unaccountable political institution
masquerading as a legal body.”
The case involves allegations of
war crimes committed by Afghan national security forces, Taliban and
Haqqani network militants, as well as U.S. forces and intelligence
officials in Afghanistan since May 2003. Bensouda say there’s
information that members of the U.S. military and intelligence agencies
“committed acts of torture, cruel treatment, outrages upon personal
dignity, rape and sexual violence.”
---
Time
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo Slams China's 'Coercive Bullying Tactics' Against the U.K.
----
World
The UK steps up its fight with China by preparing tough new laws to prevent hostile takeovers of British firms
----
World
We Cannot Forget the Massacre At Tiananmen Square—China Is Going Back Down That Path
The image from June 5, 1989, is etched in our minds.
One man.
Four tanks.
This
iconic image has become a symbol of the resilience of the Chinese
people during the Tiananmen Square massacre. Hundreds to thousands of
pro-democracy demonstrators were killed by communist troops from June 3
to June 5, 1989.
It is a visual representation of the Chinese
people’s fight for freedom, and the great lengths that the Chinese
government will go to in order to quash it.
This June 4 anniversary of the Tiananmen Square protests is especially ominous.
It comes during the growing collapse of the “one country, two systems” framework
that preserved liberty and prosperity in Hong Kong since 1997. Vigils
commemorating the events of Tiananmen Square have even been outlawed.
It’s being commemorated against the backdrop of the Chinese Communist Party’s gross mishandling of the response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
It’s happening while at least 1 million Uighurs
are languishing in political reeducation facilities in China’s Xinjiang
region. Other religious minorities face persecution as well.
The
oppression of the Chinese people is evident. Perhaps there has been no
greater threat to freedom in China since Mao than Xi Jinping.
Xi
has further tightened his grip on the levers of control. Widespread use
of surveillance tracks ordinary Chinese citizens’ every move. Tracking
is deployed for the purpose of measuring a person’s “social credit” to
determine how well their personal behavior aligns with the Chinese
Communist Party’s priorities.
The party is also undertaking
efforts to Sinicize religion, making Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, and
all other religions conform to Chinese characteristics—replacing the
sacred with the secular.
All private life is considered public,
therefore falling under the party’s control. This we know well from the
now famous whistleblower Dr. Li Wenliang.
His attempts to sound
the alarm about the novel coronavirus resulted in him being called in
for questioning by Chinese authorities, being forced to recant his
statement, and eventually, succumbing to death by the very virus he
tried to alert the public about.
It is for the Chinese people that
we commemorate the anniversary of Tiananmen Square. We mark their fight
for freedom—recognizing it as a battle that has not yet been won. We
remember their plight because it is a poignant reminder that freedom is
not free and that it is absolutely worth fighting for and defending
where possible.
There is a battle over values being waged in Asia.
One model suppresses and undermines freedom while the other seeks to
preserve and promote it. One system blurs the lines between public and
private, while the other keeps those lines distinct. One embraces
authoritarianism where the other embraces liberty.
The U.S. must
stand on the side of values. That means standing unwaveringly with the
people of China wherever freedom is under threat—whether in Hong Kong,
Taiwan, Tibet, or in the People’s Republic of China.
This article by Olivia Enos first appeared in The Daily Signal on June 3, 2020.
Image: Tank Man. Flickr/Mike Licht. Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0).
Click here to read the full original article.
----
World
UK to announce laws to prevent foreign takeovers posing national security risk - Times
----
World
Exclusive: U.S. to impose restrictions on additional Chinese media outlets - sources
By Patricia Zengerle, Matt Spetalnick, Humeyra Pamuk and David Brunnstrom
https://www.yahoo.com/news/exclusive-u-designate-additional-chinese-185154018.html
WASHINGTON
(Reuters) - The United States is expected to designate at least four
additional state-run Chinese media outlets as foreign embassies,
increasing restrictions on their operations on American soil, three
people familiar with the matter said on Wednesday.
The action by
the State Department, sure to further inflame U.S.-China tensions, could
come as soon as Thursday, the sources told Reuters. It follows
President Donald Trump's announcement on Friday of retaliatory measures
against Beijing over its tightened grip on Hong Kong.
The
designations are expected to include China Central Television (CCTV),
the top state-owned network, and China News Service, the country's
second-largest state-owned news agency, two sources said on condition of
anonymity.
They would be added to five Chinese outlets placed
under restrictions in February over U.S. allegations they were used by
China and its Communist rulers to spread propaganda.
Like the
others, they will be required to register their employees and U.S.
properties with the State Department, similar to rules covering
embassies and other diplomatic missions.
Though three sources said the announcement was on track for as early as Thursday, a fourth did not rule out a delay.
The
White House and State Department did not respond to requests for
comment. There also was no response from the Chinese embassy in
Washington.
Tensions between Washington and Beijing have spiked,
as Trump and his aides have complained about China's early handling of
the coronavirus outbreak and its treatment of Hong Kong, which has
enjoyed special U.S. treatment as a global financial center.
Chinese
state media has been reveling over chaotic race-related protests in the
United States and highlighting Trump's threat to use troops, even as
the anniversary looms of its own bloody military crackdown on
demonstrators in Tiananmen Square 31 years ago.
HONG KONG TENSIONS
Trump
on Friday ordered his administration to begin the process of
eliminating special U.S. treatment for Hong Kong on the grounds it no
longer had enough autonomy, but stopped short of calling an immediate
end to former British colony's privileges.
China's state-run Global Times newspaper called Trump's announcement "recklessly arbitrary."
The United States and China have clashed in recent months over journalists working in each other's countries.
Michael
McCaul, top Republican on the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs
Committee, said: “These are Chinese Communist Party propaganda outlets
that peddle dangerous information to grow the Party’s power -- not
report the news."
In February, the Trump administration said it
would treat five major media entities with U.S. operations the same as
embassies: Xinhua News Agency, China Global Television Network, China
Radio International, China Daily Distribution Corp. and Hai Tian
Development USA, Inc.
In March, Washington said it was slashing
the number of journalists allowed to work at U.S. offices of major
Chinese media outlets to 100 from 160 due to Beijing's "long-standing
intimidation and harassment of journalists."
In response, China
said it was revoking accreditations of American correspondents with the
New York Times, News Corp's Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post
whose credentials expire by the end of 2020.
(Reporting
by Patricia Zengerle, Humeyra Pamuk, Matt Spetalnick and David
Brunnstrom, Editing by Franklin Paul and David Gregorio)
----
Business
New U.S. restrictions on 33 Chinese firms and institutions take effect June 5
By David Shepardson and Karen Freifeld
https://www.yahoo.com/news/u-restrictions-33-chinese-firms-162134191.html
WASHINGTON/NEW
YORK (Reuters) - The U.S Commerce Department said on Wednesday that new
restrictions on 33 Chinese firms and institutions it announced last
month will take effect Friday.
The agency has added the companies
and institutions to an economic blacklist, accusing them of helping
China spy on its minority Muslim Uighur population in Xinjiang or
because of alleged ties to weapons of mass destruction and China's
military.
China's foreign ministry said last month it deplored and
firmly opposed U.S. sanctions over Xinjiang, calling it a purely
internal affair for China.
The move will restrict the sales of
U.S. goods to the companies and institutions on the list, as well as
certain items made abroad with U.S. content or technology. Companies can
apply for licenses to make the sales, but they must overcome a
presumption of denial.
Seven companies and two institutions were
listed for being "complicit in human rights violations and abuses
committed in China's campaign of repression, mass arbitrary detention,
forced labor and high-technology surveillance against Uighurs" and
others, the Commerce Department said.
Two dozen other companies,
government institutions and commercial organizations were added over
Washington allegations that they supported procurement of items for use
by the Chinese military.
The blacklisted companies focus on
artificial intelligence and facial recognition, markets in which U.S.
chip companies such as Nvidia Corp <NVDA.O> and Intel Corp
<INTC.O> have been heavily investing.
The new listings
follow a similar October 2019 action, when the Department of Commerce
added 28 Chinese public security bureaus and companies - including some
of China's top artificial intelligence startups and video surveillance
company Hikvision <002415.SZ> - to a U.S. trade blacklist.
The
actions follow the same blueprint used by Washington in its attempt to
limit the influence of Huawei Technologies Co Ltd [HWT.UL] for what it
says are national security reasons. Last month, the Department of
Commerce took action to try to further cut off Huawei's access to U.S.
chipmakers.
(Reporting by David Shepardson and Karen Freifeld; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Rosalba O'Brien)
----
World
New U.S. ban on Chinese airlines hurts Chinese students who were already struggling to get home
https://www.yahoo.com/news/department-transportation-ban-leaves-fate-191228204.html
A new Department of Transportation order
banning Chinese airlines from flying to and from the U.S. is an added
hardship for thousands of Chinese students in the U.S. who were already
struggling to get back home due to their own government’s cap on
international flights.
The U.S. DOT order, posted Wednesday on a
federal website, is scheduled to take effect on June 16. Several Chinese
students in New York tell NBC News that previous Chinese regulations
limiting the number of flights into China because of the coronavirus
pandemic have already had them scrambling for weeks to find flights home
with little success. There are more than 400,000 Chinese students at
U.S. universities.
“I know the relationships between the two
countries are kind of frayed on multiple fronts, but you know, it’s your
students, you’ve got to take care of us,” said Jiang Li, a former New
York University student who has been trying to book a flight back to
China since April.
Li, 30, said he was initially angry when he
first heard of the decision Wednesday morning, but is hopeful that an
agreement will be reached to resume flights later this month.
Li
had hoped that the summer after his graduation would be the “perfect
opportunity” to spend time with his family. “I have not spent more than
two weeks with my family at a time,” said Li.
In March, the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC)
drastically reduced the number of international flights through its
so-called “Five One”
policy. Under the policy, foreign airlines can only fly one route into
China and Chinese domestic airlines only one route out to any country --
both with no more than one weekly flight. The aviation authority also
limited the number of passengers on each plane to no more than 75
percent capacity.
The policy created a dilemma for Chinese
students: finish the semester here in the U.S. and risk being stranded
or immediately buy a ticket home.
“I was pretty stressed,
especially when they first announced the limited flights,” said Owen,
28, who was finishing his master of business administration at NYU. “I
was debating whether I should just leave the country ASAP.”
Owen,
who didn’t want his last name used, chose to stay in the U.S. to finish
his degree. But the decision came at a price, as tickets back to China
have become increasingly hard to obtain.
According to aviation analytics firm OAG, the number of flights into China dropped
from 1,340 in January to 69 in April. Before Wednesday’s announcement,
the number of scheduled flights from the U.S. to China for June 2020 was
about 79 flights, compared to 1,524 for June 2019.
Given the estimated 410,000 Chinese students in the U.S., according to April figures
from China’s Ministry of Education, the lack of commercial airline
tickets has created a market that cannot keep up with consumer demand.
In Owen’s case, he purchased multiple tickets back to China in hopes that one of the flights would not get cancelled.
“I
have to admit that it was a very draining process to have to constantly
checking on the available tickets,” Owen, who showed NBC News the more
than $20,000 worth of transactions he made to purchase plane tickets.
“You have to bet on multiple tickets to be able to go back to China.”
None of those tickets worked, but he was able to return to China through a last-minute flight on Monday.
Others have not yet been as lucky.
Jenny Zhuang, a rising senior from NYU, says she tried to get back to
China by buying tickets from a friend. Those tickets didn’t pan out,
but by Tuesday night, she was already packing for a flight she was
hoping to obtain through a ticket transfer.
“There's an uncertainty in it, but I still have to prepare for that,” the 21-year-old said.
CAAC has defended its policy to restrict flights as an effort to contain the risk of importing coronavirus infections.
Zhao
Lijian, a spokesperson for China’s Foreign Ministry, addressed
questions about CAAC’s policy and its impact on students abroad in a May 27
press conference. He noted that the Chinese government had chartered
planes to bring its citizens home and had pledged “to protect and assist
Chinese nationals wherever they are.”
But China’s Foreign
Ministry has also used its platform to address reports of growing
tension between Chinese and U.S. transportation authorities -- a reality
that led to Wednesday’s U.S. ban on Chinese airlines.
“China opposes any possible U.S. disruption of or restriction on Chinese airlines' normal passenger flight operations,” Lijian said
in response to a May 22 U.S. DOT order for certain Chinese airlines to
file schedules and flight details with the U.S. government.
According
to the DOT, this earlier order was issued because of “the failure of
the Government of the People’s Republic of China to permit U.S. carriers
to exercise the full extent of their bilateral right to conduct
scheduled passenger air services to China.”
At the time, the DOT
had said that Delta and United Airlines had submitted applications to
the Civil Aviation Authority of China (CAAC) to resume flights in June.
Delta told NBC News that its applications to CAAC have not been approved.
“We
support and appreciate the U.S. government’s actions to enforce our
rights and ensure fairness,” Delta said in a statement about Wednesday’s
DOT order.
When asked about their CAAC applications to resume
flights, United Airlines told NBC News that it is “not currently
operating passenger flights between the U.S. and China.”
On
Wednesday, in announcing its new restrictions on Chinese airlines, the
U.S. DOT said, “[W]e continue to find that the Government of China has,
over the objections of the U.S. Government, impaired the operating
rights of U.S. carriers and denied U.S. air carriers the fair and equal
opportunity to exercise their operating rights under the agreement.”
The
department said the Chinese airline suspension is intended to “restore a
competitive balance and fair and equal opportunity among U.S. and
Chinese air carriers.”
CAAC and the Chinese Embassy in Washington,
D.C., also did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the
Department of Transportation’s decision
Though
China has continued to schedule chartered flights home for its
citizens, Zhuang and Li say competition for these flights had already
been fierce and does not make up for the shortage of commercial flight
options.
“The government is sending way fewer flights than we
actually need to get our students back,” Zhuang, who signed up for a
charter flight, said.
Zhuang says she understands the reasoning
behind the CAAC policy, but that for her family in Shenzhen, China, the
waiting has been difficult.
“My father has experienced a mental
breakdown or something,” Zhuang said. “He almost cried because he said
he wants me to go back but why couldn't I? And I had to just tell him,
‘I'm okay. I'm safe here.’”
Similarly, Li, who says he wants to be
reunited with his family in Hunan Province, stood outside the Chinese
Consulate in New York with a sign that read, “My mom is waiting for me
for dinner at home.” Li says he is frustrated with the current situation
because his citizenship alone should enable him to return.
“I love my country,” he said. “And that's why I didn't choose to stay here.”
----
World
Russia not welcome at G7, Canada's Trudeau says
