Sanctions - Page 20

Venezuela’s socialist ambassador to Russia told the nation’s TASS news outlet on Thursday that dictator Nicolás Maduro wants to launch an international legal challenge against American sanctions on the country’s oil industry.

Russia strongly denounced U.S. sanctions against Venezuela’s national oil company PDVSA on Tuesday, slamming the sanctions as an illegal attempt to overthrow what Moscow views as the legitimate government.

Deposed Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro condemned the United States Monday night for imposing a new round of sanctions on Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA), the state oil company, a move intended to get Maduro to move out of the presidential palace and allow constitutional interim president Juan Guaidó to take charge.

The sanctions block purchases of Venezuelan oil by United States companies and freeze the assets of the state-owned company in the United States.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) appointed Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) to the House Foreign Relations Committee, and the radical “Justice Democrat” is already drawing mockery for her position on Venezuela.

China is taking advantage of waivers from Iran sanctions granted by the United States to pitch a $3 billion oil field development to Iran, even as European nations are halting their purchases of Iranian crude.

Analysts at 38 North on Wednesday reviewed evidence of extensive construction at the Wonsan-Kalma resort, possibly indicating North Korea expects sanctions to end, engagement with the outside world to increase, and tourism to boom.

Reuters reported Wednesday on extensive documentation linking front companies in Iran and Syria with Chinese telecom giant Huawei, whose chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou is currently in Canadian custody and may face extradition to the United States.

North Korea reportedly executed an artillery commander in public in an airfield this week on charges of “insubordination” and “immorality.”

Economic data released by Iran this week indicated oil exports are sharply down and the export of products other than oil has been cut in half by U.S. sanctions.

North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un delivered his much-anticipated New Year’s address in the early hours of Tuesday morning Eastern time. As expected, the speech was largely focused on North Korea’s economy but included some mixed messages about denuclearization.

Russian President Vladimir Putin held his 14th annual year-ending press conference on Thursday. These events find Putin talking for hours on end as he takes questions from hundreds of journalists – in this case over 1,700 of them from both Russian and foreign media organizations, according to the Kremlin.

North Korea declared on Monday it will not agree to any denuclearization agreement with the United States if Washington continues to pursue “vicious [and] hostile actions” against Kim Jong-un’s communist regime. 

The Chinese government has said little about its reasons for arresting Canadians Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor this week, but on Thursday, the state-run Global Times published an editorial explicitly framing the arrests as revenge for Canada’s arrest of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou.

The Associated Press on Thursday reported a group of hackers linked to Iran attacked U.S. officials over the past month in an apparent effort to retaliate for sanctions imposed on Iran by the United States.

Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping held an audience with North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho in Beijing on Friday to discuss how China could most easily facilitate friendly relations between the two nations, and help North Korea elevate its status internationally.

North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong-ho arrived in Beijing on Thursday on a three-day trip to secure China’s support for the removal of economic sanctions on the regime amid a lack of progress with denuclearisation talks with the United States.

The naval conflict this weekend between Russia and Ukraine was not a sudden development. Pressure has been building between the two nations for a long time, arguably even before Ukraine broke away from the disintegrating Soviet Union in 1991.

France has impose sanctions against 18 Saudi citizens over the brutal murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul last month.

President Donald Trump released a statement on Tuesday afternoon denouncing the murder of Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul as a “terrible” crime and an action the United States “does not condone,” but he also indicated he would take no further action against the Saudi government.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani gave a nationally televised speech on Monday in which he vowed to continue oil exports in defiance of U.S. sanctions and condemned America’s “psychological war” against his regime.

TEHRAN — Iraq’s President Barham Salih began a visit to Iran on Saturday, where he pledged to improve relations less than two weeks after the United States restored oil sanctions that had been lifted under the 2015 nuclear deal.

The State Department announced Wednesday that it would add another 26 entities, including 16 hotels, to its “Cuba Restricted List,” generally barring Americans from doing business with those entities. The hotels and other businesses in question are those known to be owned by the Cuban military, which directly engages in human rights abuses throughout the Western Hemisphere.

North Korean state media declared on Friday that its economy is “miraculously” overcoming international sanctions, claiming that the world “marvels” now “at [its] unlimited national power and development potential.”

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters Wednesday that U.S. sanctions against Russia for using chemical weapons in an effort to assassinate former spy Sergei Skripal would be “illegal.”

Iran held its annual “Death to America” rally on Sunday to commemorate the seizure of the U.S. Embassy in 1979, leading to a 444-day hostage crisis in which the Iranian regime held 52 Americans prisoner.

TEL AVIV – Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan on a visit to Tehran described President Donald Trump as a lying Satan and urged Iranians to resist American “plots” against Iran and other Muslim countries, according to a report by the state-affiliated Islamic Republic News Agency.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani was defiant and belligerent in the face of new U.S. sanctions in remarks aired by Iranian state television on Monday.

WASHINGTON — US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo defended the Trump administration’s reimposition of sanctions against Iran from conservative critics who argue more should be done to isolate the country.

European leaders critical of Donald Trump’s decision to reimpose sanctions on Iran are now considering their own, after an alleged assassination plot in Denmark.

JERUSALEM – Israeli Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman welcomed US sanctions that took effect Monday targeting Iran’s oil and financial sectors, calling it a “critical” blow to Tehran’s actions in the region.

Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan led a chant of “Death to America!” on a solidarity visit to Iran this weekend, according to Iranian news sources. He also led a chant of “Death to Israel!”

TEL AVIV – The United Arab Emirates’ Foreign Minister Anwar Gargash on Saturday said that Iran’s “aggressive policies” were “largely responsible” for the US decision to reenact sanctions against Tehran, Reuters reported. 

Iran’s top leader said on Saturday that US President Donald Trump’s policies face opposition across the world as Washington prepared to reimpose sanctions on Iran’s vital oil-exporting and financial sectors, state television reported.

Iran has designated November 4 a “day of fight” against the “U.S.-Israeli-Saudi triangle of terrorism.” The date is significant for two reasons: it is the anniversary of Iran’s monstrous takeover of the U.S. embassy in Tehran in 1979 and, not coincidentally, it was chosen by the United States as the day renewed sanctions against Iran will take effect.

HBO issued a statement accusing Trump of misappropriating its trademark after he tweeted a Game of Thrones-related meme about imposing sanctions on Iran.