Bob Corker on Trump's biggest problem: The 'castration' of Rex Tillerson - The Washingt... - 0 views
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“You cannot publicly castrate your own secretary of state without giving yourself that binary choice,” Corker told me in a phone interview Friday. “The tweets — yes, you raise tension in the region [and] it’s very irresponsible. But it’s the first part” — the “castration” of Tillerson — “that I am most exercised about.”
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as Corker sees it, Tillerson has been instrumental in opening a path away from confrontation with North Korea through quiet diplomacy with China.
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“The greatest diplomatic activities we have are with China, and the most important, and they have come a long, long way,” Corker said. “Some of the things we are talking about are phenomenal.”
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China's Anti-Corruption Org Seeks 'Hidden Tigers' | The Diplomat - 0 views
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promised that there are more high-ranking officials to be toppled.
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China’s Supreme People’s Court just publicly released its Fourth Five-Year Reform Plan. The Supreme People’s Court Monitor (and occasional Diplomat contributor) Susan Finder, has the scoop.
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“A positive role for China in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict” (by Yiyi Chen of Peking University’s Institute for Hebrew and Jewish Studies) to analyzing “China’s interests in preserving the Israeli-Palestinian impasse” (by Robert Bianchi of the University of Chicago Law School).
China's Approach to the Middle East Looks Familiar | The Diplomat - 0 views
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China had typically offered infrastructure-for-energy and other business deals.
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“There is hope in the East,” one Arab businesswoman in the United Arabian Emirates told me.
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The implications are clear: China has long represented an alternative in the global market for influence once dominated by Washington;
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US Sanctions on Iran: Good or Bad News for China? | The Diplomat - 0 views
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The sanctions list includes three separate networks linked to supporting Iran’s missile program, which the U.S. opposes.
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He told the American Israel Public Affairs Committee in March that the JCPOA was “catastrophic for America, Israel, and the whole of the Middle East.”
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China’s economic relations with Iran were largely untouched by the series of U.S. sanctions adopted by Trump’s predecessors over the past decade.
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China's 'Arab Pivot' Signals the End of Non-Intervention | The Diplomat - 0 views
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the cutting of diplomatic ties between Iran and a handful of Sunni governments.
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China’s growing international activities, specifically those attached to the Middle East are part and parcel to a new era of “internationalization” for China
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China is now part of the complex geopolitical mire of the Middle East and with its increasingly dependence on oil, disengaging from the region even willingly will be a daunting task.
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Ted Cruz: A Pressure Point for North Korea - The New York Times - 0 views
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On Oct. 31, the State Department faces a critical decision in our relations with the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
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The Iran-Russia-North Korea sanctions bill enacted in August included legislation I introduced that requires the secretary of state to decide whether to relist North Korea as a state sponsor of terrorism within 90 days.
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Look at the accusations against Pyongyang: the unspeakable treatment of Otto Warmbier; the assassination of a member of the Kim family with chemical weapons on foreign soil; collusion with Iran to develop nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles; cyberattacks on American film companies; support for Syria’s chemical weapons program; arms sales to Hezbollah and Hamas; and attempts to assassinate dissidents in exile. Given this, the decision should be easy.
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Biden Seeks Help on Border From Mexican President - The New York Times - 0 views
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Mr. López Obrador won the admiration of President Donald J. Trump for cooperating with his hard-line immigration agenda, and the Mexican president praised Mr. Trump during a call with Mr. Biden, then the president-elect, in December.
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Mr. Biden is now hoping that Mr. López Obrador will become a partner in preventing another cycle of out-of-control migration from Central America, but that he will do so without resorting to the full range of policies Mr. Trump embraced.
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Mr. López Obrador recently called for a new guest worker program for Mexicans and Central Americans in the United States, although Mr. Biden’s press secretary said on Monday the move would require legislation from Congress.
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China travel: Americans and other Westerners are increasingly scared of traveling there... - 0 views
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More than a dozen academics, NGO workers and media professionals CNN spoke to, who in pre-Covid times regularly traveled to China, said they were unwilling to do this once the pandemic restrictions lifted, over fears for their personal safety.
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As President Xi breeds a culture of nationalism and forges increasingly hostile relations with Western governments, some fear that if a diplomatic spat between their government and Beijing occurred while they were in China they could become a target.
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the detention of two Canadians in China in December 2018 as a turning point in their thinking. Michael Kovrig, an NGO worker and former diplomat, and Michael Spavor, who organized trips to North Korea, including for NBA player Dennis Rodman, were detained just after Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou was arrested in Vancouver on charges filed in the United States.
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Nikki Haley calls for Beijing Olympics boycott, urges Biden diplomats to create COVID p... - 0 views
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Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley on Tuesday called on the United States to boycott the 2022 Winter Olympics set to take place next February in Beijing.
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"[The U.S. should] go to Japan, go to India and all these other allies and say look, until we have a full investigation of that lab, until we know what is in it, what precautions are being done to make sure nothing comes back out of that lab and until we know what China knew, when they knew it and what they did about it, we're not going to support the Olympics."
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"I think what is really important is Congress needs to go through and find out exactly what the National Institute of Health knew about the Wuhan lab, what they knew about any of thinks viruses that existed, if they funded anything and what they did about it," Haley told Fox News on Tuesday.
White House Says It Is Open To Diplomacy With North Korea : NPR - 0 views
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The White House has completed a review of its policy on North Korea, press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters Friday, saying that while the aim of the U.S. remains denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, the Biden administration is open to diplomatic talks to boost security for the region.
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"Our policy calls for a calibrated practical approach that is open to and will explore diplomacy with the DPRK and to make practical progress that increases the security of the United States, our allies, and deployed forces."
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The U.S. relationship with North Korea, while deeply strained, expanded under former President Donald Trump.
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Yemen: Saudi Arabia Proposes A Peace Deal, But Houthis Say It's Not Enough : NPR - 0 views
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Saudi Arabia has proposed a peace deal to end the nearly six-year war in Yemen, if the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels agree.The Saudi proposal calls for a nationwide ceasefire and reopening the airport in the Yemeni capital, Sanaa.
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"The initiative aims to end the human suffering of the brotherly Yemeni people, and affirms the Kingdom's support for efforts to reach a comprehensive political resolution," the Saudi Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
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The war has been a quagmire for the Saudis and they are apparently looking for a way out.
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Trump and the Failure of the Expert Class - WSJ - 0 views
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For conservatives, the case was exactly reversed: They had some major policy wins, but at the cost of frequent embarrassment and dismay at the president’s offensive behavior and self-defeating logorrhea.
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The worst of his conduct took place after the 2020 election and seemed to fulfill progressive commentators’ allegation that Donald Trump was carrying out an “assault on democracy.” Mr. Trump’s refusal to accept defeat, culminating in demands that Vice President Mike Pence overturn a lawful election on no legal authority, occasioned a debacle that may haunt the Republican Party, and the country, for years.
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lso during the 2016 campaign, an assemblage of top-tier academics, intellectuals and journalists warned that Mr. Trump’s candidacy signified a fascist threat. Timothy Snyder, a historian of Nazism at Yale, was among the most strident of these prophets. “Be calm when the unthinkable arrives,” he warned in a Facebook post shortly after the election. “When the terrorist attack comes, remember that all authorities at all times either await or plan such events in order to consolidate power. Think of the Reichstag fire.” Many experts stuck with the fascism theme after Mr. Trump’s election and throughout his presidency
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In Stinging Rebuke, China Tells U.S. Diplomat That Its Rise Can't Be Stopped - The New ... - 0 views
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A senior Chinese diplomat on Monday bluntly warned the visiting American deputy secretary of state, Wendy R. Sherman, that the Biden administration’s strategy of pursuing both confrontation and cooperation with Beijing was sure to fail.
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China’s vice foreign minister, Xie Feng, told Ms. Sherman that the United States’ “competitive, collaborative and adversarial rhetoric” was a “thinly veiled attempt to contain and suppress China,” according to a summary of Mr. Xie’s comments that the Chinese foreign ministry sent to reporters.
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Mr. Xie’s remarks underscored the anger that has been building in China toward the United States, undermining the chances that the approach will work.
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The White House's impregnable stone wall is starting to crumble (opinion) - CNN - 0 views
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When the House of Representatives launched its impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump over the Ukraine scandal, the White House decried it as "invalid" and "baseless," and ordered some subpoenaed officials not to testify to Congress. This obstructionist strategy worked once before, as the White House effectively stonewalled the House Judiciary Committee's investigation of Robert Mueller's findings on Russian election interference by instructing executive branch employees not to comply with subpoenas.
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Former Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch defied the White House's instruction to remain silent and instead testified to the House about the efforts of Trump's counsel, Rudy Giuliani, to have her removed from her post; one House member said she gave a "gripping and emotional account of presidential abuse of power."
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Fiona Hill, Trump's former top Russia adviser, testified White House officials were alarmed by Trump's potentially illegal conduct toward Ukraine even before the July 25 call with President Volodymyr Zelensky. And Ambassador Gordon Sondland testified Trump ordered diplomatic professionals to deal with Ukraine through Giuliani, which left Sondland "disappointed" -- particularly when he discovered (later, he claimed) that Giuliani's agenda included prompting Ukraine to investigate Trump's political rivals.
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The Cost of Trump's Aid Freeze in the Trenches of Ukraine's War - The New York Times - 0 views
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Lt. Ivan Molchanets peeked over a parapet of sand bags at the front line of the war in Ukraine. Next to him was an empty helmet propped up to trick snipers, already perforated with multiple holes.In other spots, his soldiers stuff straw into empty uniforms to make dummies, and put logs on their shoulders to make it look like they are carrying American antitank missiles — as a scare tactic.“This is just the situation here,” he said, shrugging as he held the government’s position. “The enemy is very close.”
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the war in Ukraine has killed 13,000 people, put a large part of the country under Russia’s control and dragged on for five years almost forgotten by the outside world — until it became a backdrop to the impeachment inquiry of President Trump now unfolding in Washington.
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Ukraine, politically disorganized and militarily weak, has relied heavily on the United States in its struggle with Russian-backed separatists. But the White House abruptly suspended nearly $400 million in military aid to Ukraine in July and only restored it last month after a bipartisan uproar in Congress.
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US diplomat Bill Taylor directly ties Trump to Ukraine quid pro quo - CNNPolitics - 0 views
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The top US diplomat in Ukraine, Bill Taylor, testified Tuesday that he had been told President Donald Trump would withhold military aid to the country until it publicly declared investigations would be launched that could help his reelection chances — including into former Vice President Joe Biden, according to a copy of Taylor's opening statement obtained by CNN.
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Taylor's explosive testimony is likely to add fuel to Democrats' impeachment inquiry into Trump and Ukraine, with Democratic lawmakers leaving the closed door session before three House committees declaring Taylor's testimony was damning for the President. The testimony also undercuts White House assertions that there was no "quid pro quo" tying security assistance with the opening of an investigation, as Taylor says he was told repeatedly that the two were linked.
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Taylor testified that US Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland told him he'd made a mistake by telling the Ukrainian officials that a White House meeting with Zelensky "was dependent on a public announcement of the investigations."
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Ex-White House chief Kelly claims he warned Trump about impeachment | US news | The Gua... - 1 views
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ohn Kelly, the former White House chief of staff, said he “felt bad” for having left Trump’s side, because his advice was not followed and the president therefore faced impeachment.
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Kelly said that on leaving, he “said, ‘Whatever you do, don’t hire a ‘yes man’, someone who won’t tell you the truth’”. “Don’t do that,” the retired marine general said he told Trump. “Because if you do, I believe you will be impeached.”
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Trump denies having done so but the House foreign affairs, intelligence and oversight committees have heard extensive testimony to the contrary.
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Francis Rooney is the rare Republican open to impeaching Trump - CNNPolitics - 0 views
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Rooney, a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee at the center of the inquiry, said Friday that he had not yet come to a conclusion on whether the President committed a crime that compels his removal from office, a striking view among House Republicans defensive of Trump.
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Rooney is not a typical rank-and-file House Republican. Before winning his first election in 2016, the 65-year-old wealthy businessman's company oversaw construction projects including not only the presidential libraries for both George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush, and the stadiums for the Texas Rangers, Dallas Cowboys and Houston Texans, but the Capitol Visitor's Center, where the witnesses of the investigation dash to enter a secure facility and give their testimonies. He is on now at least his third career, after serving as the US ambassador to the Holy See under the last GOP president.
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Rooney did acknowledge that some Republicans might be afraid of being rebuked by the party if they expressed skepticism about the President, saying "it might be the end of things for me...depending on how things go."
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6 highlights from Ukraine envoy Bill Taylor's 'explosive' testimony - 0 views
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President Donald Trump has insisted there was no "quid pro quo" in his dealings with the Ukrainian government, and "no pressure" on Ukraine's president to open an investigation into former Vice President Joe Biden and his son.But in his remarkable 15-page statement delivered to Congress on Tuesday, Trump's top diplomat to Ukraine painted a picture of both.
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"I found a confusing and unusual arrangement for making U.S. policy towards Ukraine. There appeared to be two channels of U.S. policy-making and implementation, one regular and one highly irregular."
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The "irregular, informal channel" included then-Special Envoy Kurt Volker, European Union Ambassador Gordon Sondland, Energy Secretary Rick Perry and Trump's personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani.
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