Tag Archives: United States

Iran nuclear talks resume with Tehran focused on sanctions relief

By Francois Murphy

VIENNA (Reuters) -Indirect talks between Iran and the United States on salvaging the 2015 Iran nuclear deal resumed on Monday with Tehran focused on one side of the original bargain, lifting sanctions against it, despite scant progress on reining in its atomic activities.

The seventh round of talks, the first under Iran’s new hardline President Ebrahim Raisi, ended 10 days ago after adding some new Iranian demands to a working text. Western powers said progress was too slow and negotiators had “weeks not months” left before the 2015 deal becomes meaningless.

Little remains of that deal, which lifted sanctions against Tehran in exchange for restrictions on its atomic activities. Then-President Donald Trump pulled Washington out of it in 2018, re-imposing U.S. sanctions, and Iran later breached many of the deal’s nuclear restrictions and kept pushing well beyond them.

“If we work hard in the days and weeks ahead we should have a positive result…. It’s going to be very difficult, it’s going to be very hard. Difficult political decisions have to be taken both in Tehran and in Washington,” the talks’ coordinator, European Union envoy Enrique Mora, told a news conference.

He was speaking shortly after a meeting of the remaining parties to the deal – Iran, Russia, China, France, Britain, Germany and the European Union – formally kicked off the round on Monday evening.

“There is a sense of urgency in all delegations that this negotiation has to be finished in a relatively reasonable period of time. Again, I wouldn’t put limits but we are talking about weeks, not about months,” Mora said.

Iran refuses to meet directly with U.S. officials, meaning that other parties must shuttle between the two sides. The United States has repeatedly expressed frustration at this format, saying it slows down the process, and Western officials still suspect Iran is simply playing for time.

The 2015 deal extended the time Iran would need to obtain enough fissile material for a nuclear bomb, if it chose to, to at least a year from around two to three months. Most experts say that time is now less than before the deal, though Iran says it only wants to master nuclear technology for civil uses.

END OF THE ROAD

“The most important issue for us is to reach a point where, firstly, Iranian oil can be sold easily and without hindrance,” Iranian media quoted Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian as saying.

Mora, however, said both the lifting of sanctions and Iran’s nuclear restrictions would be discussed.

Iran insists all U.S. sanctions must be lifted before steps are taken on the nuclear side, while Western negotiators say nuclear and sanctions steps must be balanced.

U.S. sanctions have slashed Iran’s oil exports, its main revenue source. Tehran does not disclose data, but assessments based on shipping and other sources suggest a fall from about 2.8 million barrels per day (bpd) in 2018 to as low as 200,000 bpd. One survey put exports at 600,000 bpd in June.

Mora said he decided to reconvene the talks during many officials’ holidays between Christmas and the New Year so as not to lose time, but he added that talks would stop for three days as of Friday “because the facilities will not be available”, referring to the luxury hotel hosting most meetings.

When the seventh round wrapped up, incorporating some Iranian demands, negotiators from France, Britain and Germany said in a statement: “This only takes us back nearer to where the talks stood in June”, when the previous round ended.

“We are rapidly reaching the end of the road for this negotiation,” they added.

(Additional reporting by Dubai newsroom; Editing by Nick Macfie, David Goodman, Philippa Fletcher and Alison Williams)

 

U.S. appeals court sets Jan 7 argument date in Texas abortion case

(Reuters) – A United States appeals court has set a Jan. 7 argument date in the Texas abortion case, where the panel will hear the state’s bid to push a legal question about enforcement to the state supreme court.

The challengers of Texas’ near total ban on abortion contend the move will delay a merits ruling in the U.S. district court.

Earlier this month, the U.S. Supreme Court left in place a ban on most abortions in Texas but allowed a legal challenge to proceed, with the fate of the Republican-backed measure that allows private citizens to enforce it still hanging in the balance.

(Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Chris Reese)

Biden aide says nuclear talks with Iran could be exhausted in ‘weeks’

By Dan Williams

JERUSALEM (Reuters) -The United States and its partners are discussing time frames for nuclear diplomacy with Iran, U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan said on Wednesday, adding that current talks with Tehran may be exhausted within weeks.

“We’re not circling a date on the calendar in public, but I can tell you that behind closed doors we are talking about time frames and they are not long,” he told reporters during a visit to Israel.

Asked to elaborate on the timeline, Sullivan said: “Weeks.”

Israel has long hinted that if it thinks diplomacy, now focused on slow-moving talks between Iran and world powers in Vienna on reviving a 2015 nuclear deal, has hit a dead end, it could resort to pre-emptive strikes against its sworn enemy.

But there have been doubts among security experts whether Israel has the military capability to effectively halt Iran’s program on its own, or if Washington would back its moves.

Sullivan said the United States continues to believe that “diplomacy, deterrence and pressure” remain the best way to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon.

Sullivan said that in his meeting with Israeli leaders in Jerusalem, “we discussed means of ensuring that we are holding the international community together to maintain the pressure on Iran to live up to its obligations and to come back into compliance” with the 2015 pact.

“And in terms of operational matters, I think those are best left for private diplomatic discussions between the United States and Israel,” he added.

Earlier, Sullivan told Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett that the United States and Israel are at a “critical juncture” for forging a shared security strategy.

In public remarks after his own talks with Sullivan, Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz called on world powers not to allow Iran to play for time at the nuclear negotiations, in recess at Iran’s request and expected to resume next week.

Iran denies seeking nuclear weapons, saying it only wants to master nuclear technology for peaceful purposes.

Washington has been spearheading efforts to revive the 2015 deal in which Iran agreed to curb its nuclear program in return for the lifting of sanctions.

Israel bitterly opposed the deal and former U.S. President Donald Trump withdrew the United States in 2018.

Sullivan, sent by President Joe Biden on a 30-hour visit to Jerusalem and the occupied Palestinian territories, updated Israel on developments in the Vienna talks and the two sides exchanged views on the way forward, the White House said.

Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid said he and Sullivan discussed “the strategy for combating Iran’s nuclear program and the way in which the U.S. and Israel cooperate on this issue.”

Since Trump pulled out of the agreement, Iran has breached the pact with advances in sensitive areas such as uranium enrichment. Sullivan called the U.S. withdrawal “catastrophic.”

(Writing by Dan Williams and Jeffrey Heller; Additional reporting by Stephen Farrell and Jeffrey Heller; Editing by Howard Goller, Alison Williams and Grant McCool)

Putin says Russia has ‘nowhere to retreat’ over Ukraine

By Mark Trevelyan

(Reuters) – President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday that Russia had no room to retreat in a standoff with the United States over Ukraine and would be forced into a tough response unless the West dropped its “aggressive line.”

Putin addressed the remarks to military officials as Russia pressed for an urgent U.S. and NATO response to proposals it made last week for a binding set of security guarantees from the West.

“What the U.S. is doing in Ukraine is at our doorstep… And they should understand that we have nowhere further to retreat to. Do they think we’ll just watch idly?” Putin said.

“If the aggressive line of our Western colleagues continues, we will take adequate military-technical response measures and react harshly to unfriendly steps.”

Putin did not spell out the nature of these measures but his phrasing mirrored that used previously by Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, who has warned that Russia may redeploy intermediate-range nuclear missiles in Europe in response to what it sees as NATO plans to do the same.

Russia rejects Ukrainian and U.S. charges that it may be preparing an invasion of Ukraine as early as next month by tens of thousands of Russian troops poised within reach of the border.

It says it needs pledges from the West – including a promise not to conduct NATO military activity in Eastern Europe – because its security is threatened by Ukraine’s growing ties with the Western alliance and the possibility of NATO missiles being deployed against it on Ukrainian territory.

Ukraine’s President Volodymr Zelenskiy said on Friday that he was ready to meet Russia for “direct talks, tête-à-tête, we don’t mind in what format”. But Moscow has said repeatedly it sees no point in such a meeting without clarity on what the agenda would be.

A Kremlin statement said Putin stressed in a phone call with French President Emmanuel Macron that reconvening the four-power Normandy group – which brings together the leaders of Russia, Ukraine, France and Germany – would require concrete steps by Kyiv to implement existing peace agreements. Ukraine says it is Russia and its proxies who are refusing to engage.

With Western powers keen to show Russia they are solid in their support of Ukraine and NATO, Germany’s new Chancellor Olaf Scholz also spoke by phone with Putin.

U.S. SUPPLIES

Karen Donfried, the U.S. State Department’s top diplomat for Europe, in a briefing with reporters, said Washington was prepared to engage with Moscow via three channels – bilaterally, through the NATO-Russia Council that last met in 2019, and at the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

In the meantime, she said, the United States would continue to send military equipment and supplies to Ukraine in the weeks and months ahead – something that has antagonized Moscow.

“As President (Joe) Biden has told President Putin, should Russia further invade Ukraine, we will provide additional defensive materials to the Ukrainians above and beyond that which we are already in the process of providing,” she said.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said the alliance would seek meaningful discussions with Moscow early next year.

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu alleged that more than 120 U.S. private military contractors were active in eastern Ukraine, where Ukrainian troops have been fighting Russian-backed separatists since 2014, and said they were preparing a “provocation” involving chemical substances.

He offered no evidence in support of the claim, which Pentagon spokesman John Kirby described as “completely false”.

Throughout the crisis, Russia has veered between harsh rhetoric, calls for dialogue and dire warnings, with Ryabkov repeatedly comparing the situation to the 1962 Cuban missile crisis when the world stood on the brink of nuclear war.

Many of its demands, including for a block on NATO membership for Ukraine and the withdrawal of U.S. and other allied troops from Eastern Europe, are seen as non-starters by Washington and its partners.

But rejecting them out of hand would risk closing off any space for dialogue and further fueling the crisis.

(Reporting by Maxim Rodionov, Andrew Osborn, Olzhas Auyezov, Polina Devitt, Natalia Zinets in Kyiv, Humeyra Pamuk, Simon Lewis and Idrees Ali in Washington, Sabine Siebold and Philip Blenkinsop in Brussels; writing by Mark Trevelyan; Editing by Angus MacSwan)

Rise of Omicron dashes New York’s Christmas cheer as COVID surges

By Maria Caspani and Gabriella Borter

NEW YORK (Reuters) -COVID-19 cases surged in New York City and around the United States over the weekend, dashing hopes for a more normal holiday season, resurrecting restrictions and stretching the country’s testing infrastructure ahead of holiday travel and gatherings.

The spike is alarming public health officials, who see the Omicron variant of the coronavirus fast becoming dominant in the United States and fear an explosion of infections after the Christmas and New Year’s holidays.

With the new variant in circulation, COVID-19 cases are now doubling in one and a half to three days in areas with community transmission, the World Health Organization said on Saturday.

Lines for COVID-19 tests wrapped around the block in New York, Washington, D.C., and other U.S. cities over the weekend as people clamored to find out if they were infected before celebrating the holidays with family.

“I just want to make sure before seeing my wife’s 70-year-old mom that I’m negative,” said David Jochnowitz while waiting for a test in Washington.

With a rapid rise in infections, Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser on Monday reinstated an indoor mask mandate until the end of January and required government workers to get vaccinated, including a booster shot.

“I think we’re all tired of it,” Bowser told reporters. “I’m tired of it too, but we have to respond to what’s happening in our city and what’s happening in our nation.”

In New York City, COVID-19 cases rose 60% in the week that ended on Sunday as the Omicron variant spread rapidly around the U.S. northeast. New York has set records for the most new cases reported in a single day since the pandemic started for three consecutive days.

“It is a predictor of what the rest of the country will see soon, and the minimum – since NYC is highly vaccinated – of what other parts of the country will experience in under-vaccinated cities and states,” said Georges Benjamin, executive director for American Public Health Association.

Many Broadway productions canceled performances as cast and crew have become infected. The popular “Hamilton” production on Monday extended cancellations until after Christmas due to breakthrough COVID-19 infections.

Breakthrough infections are rising among the 61% of the country’s fully vaccinated population, including the 30% who have gotten booster shots.

Omicron appears to be causing milder symptoms in vaccinated populations, and health experts remain optimistic this wave might not cause the same spikes in hospitalizations and deaths as previous surges.

‘JUST STAY HOME’

New York City Health Commissioner Dr. Dave Chokshi on Monday said that while new COVID-19 cases have “increased sharply,” hospitalizations have not jumped at the same rate. He credited vaccinations and booster shots, which help prevent severe illness, and urged that more were needed to build a “sea wall” against the variant.

The rise of Omicron prompted Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, on Monday to require all students, faculty and staff to get a COVID-19 booster shot for the upcoming spring semester.

On Monday, Maryland Governor Larry Hogan announced he tested positive for COVID-19. U.S. Senators Cory Booker and Elizabeth Warren said the same on Sunday. All three said they had been vaccinated and boosted.

Nationally, cases rose 9% in the past week but are up 57% since the start of December, according to a Reuters tally. Hospitalized COVID-19 patients have increased 26% this month, with hospitals in some areas already strained by the Delta variant.

While cases climbed in the U.S. Northeast, Midwest hospitals are still dealing with a surge in patients from a Delta wave this fall. Michigan, Indiana and Ohio have the nation’s most hospitalized COVID patients per 100,000 residents, a Reuters tally found.

In New York City, the daily test rate reached an average of 130,000 per day, Mayor Bill de Blasio told reporters on Monday, more than double three weeks ago.

With demand for tests exceeding capacity, de Blasio said the city was working with the White House and private sector to help increase testing availability.

New York Governor Kathy Hochul said on Monday she was ramping up the state’s testing program, with 1 million kits arriving this week and the same amount in each of the next two weeks.

“More and more people are going to be testing positive from this,” she said. For those who do, she advised: “Just stay home, do not go out. Don’t go to work. Don’t go see your family.”

Omicron’s arrival is a headwind for an economic revival in New York that already lags the rest of the country, especially where employment is concerned.

The pandemic delivered an even larger body blow to the city than the country because of the outsized role played by tourism, leisure and hospitality, which suffered the worst under lockdowns and travel restrictions. New York’s jobless rate topped out at 20% in the spring of 2020 – more than 5 percentage points above the U.S. average, and is still 9%, more than twice the national rate.

(Reporting by Maria Caspani in New York, Lisa Shumaker in Chicago; Additional reporting and writing by Gabriella Borter in Washington and Peter Szekely in New York; Additional reporting by Carl O’Donnell in New York and and Greg Savoy in Washington; Editing by Bill Berkrot)

Russia presses for urgent U.S. response on security guarantees

By Tom Balmforth

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia said on Monday it urgently needed a response from the United States on its sweeping security demands and again warned of a possible Russian military response unless it saw political action to assuage its concerns.

Moscow, which has unnerved the West with a troop buildup near Ukraine, last week unveiled a wish list of security proposals it wants to negotiate, including a promise NATO would give up any military activity in Eastern Europe and Ukraine.

Washington has said some of Russia’s proposals are obviously unacceptable, but that the United States will respond some time this week with more concrete proposals on the format of any talks.

Emily Horne, spokesperson for the White House National Security Council, said Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan spoke by phone with his Russian counterpart, Yuriy Ushakov, to stress the United States is prepared to communicate through multiple channels including bilateral engagement.

Sullivan “made clear that any dialogue must be based on reciprocity and address our concerns about Russia’s actions, and take place in full coordination with our European allies and partners. He also noted that substantive progress can only occur in an environment of de-escalation rather than escalation,” she said.

Konstantin Gavrilov, a Russian diplomat in Vienna, said that relations between Moscow and NATO had reached a “moment of truth”.

“The conversation needs to be serious and everyone in NATO understands perfectly well despite their strength and power that concrete political action needs to be taken, otherwise the alternative is a military-technical and military response from Russia,” he was quoted as saying by RIA news agency.

The U.S. response is likely to shape Moscow’s calculus over Ukraine, which has become the main flashpoint in East-West relations.

The United States and Ukraine say Russia may be preparing an invasion of its ex-Soviet neighbor. Russia denies that and says it is Ukraine’s growing relationship with NATO that has caused the standoff to escalate. It has compared it to the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, when the world came to the brink of nuclear war.

Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said that Moscow had so far received no response from the United States.

“I think they’ll try to turn this into a slow-moving process, but we need it to be urgent, because the situation is very difficult, it is acute, it tends to become more complicated,” he was quoted by RIA as saying.

The Kremlin said it was still too early to assess the West’s response, but that information from “various sources” about a readiness to discuss the ideas was positive.

Asked separately about a Belarusian proposal to host Russian nuclear weapons in the event of similar deployments in its vicinity by the West, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Moscow had numerous options.

“It’s no secret the deployment of different types of armaments near our borders that could pose a danger would require corresponding steps to be taken to balance the situation. There are all sorts of options here,” he said.

(Reporting by Tom Balmforth, Maria Kiselyova and Dmitry Antonov; additional reporting by Steve Holland in Washington; editing by Mark Trevelyan, William Maclean)

‘Tidal wave’: Omicron could put U.S. COVID-19 surge into overdrive

By Joseph Ax and Barbara Goldberg

(Reuters) – Two years into the coronavirus pandemic, the United States is confronting another dark winter, with the red-hot Omicron variant threatening to further inflame an already dangerous surge of cases.

Hospitalizations for COVID-19 have jumped 45% over the last month, and cases have increased 40% to a seven-day average of 123,000 new infections a day, according to a Reuters tally.

Pfizer Inc, one of the chief vaccine makers, on Friday predicted the pandemic would last until 2024 and said a lower-dose version of its vaccine for children ages 2 to 4 generated a weaker-than-expected immune response, which could delay authorization.

The Omicron variant appears to be far more transmissible than previous iterations of the virus and more agile in evading immune defenses, according to early studies.

Public health officials say it is likely to become the dominant variant in the country, following fast-moving spreads in countries such as South Africa and the United Kingdom, and could strain hospitals still struggling to contain this summer’s Delta variant surge.

“GET BOOSTED NOW. Tidal wave of Omicron likely coming to a hospital near you soon,” Dr. Tom Frieden, former chief of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), posted on Twitter.

Preliminary data in South Africa suggests Omicron leads to milder illness than the Delta variant, which is still driving much of the current wave. But a British study released on Friday found no difference in severity between the two variants.

Either way, Omicron’s extraordinary level of infectiousness means it could cause many additional deaths, the top U.S. infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, said on Friday.

“When you have a larger number of people getting infected, the total amount of hospitalizations is going to be more. That’s just simple math,” Fauci told CNBC.

Fauci also said officials are discussing whether to redefine what it means to be “fully vaccinated” to include booster shots, which according to early studies significantly improve protection against severe cases from the Omicron variant. President Joe Biden warned on Thursday that unvaccinated Americans face “severe illness and death” in coming months.

The latest surge is creating yet another round of disruptions to daily life, though widespread lockdowns have not been put in place. Several states have hit alarming levels of cases and hospitalizations.

Exhausted hospital workers in Ohio who are in their 22nd month of pandemic response will be getting some help starting on Monday from 1,050 National Guard troops – including 150 nurses, emergency medical technicians and others with medical training – being deployed to hospitals around the state, Governor Mike DeWine told a news conference on Friday.

In New York City, Radio City Music Hall announced that Friday’s four performances of the Rockettes’ iconic Christmas show were canceled due to “breakthrough COVID-19 cases in the production.” Broadway shows have also canceled performances this week after outbreaks among vaccinated cast members.

Both the National Hockey League and National Basketball Association postponed games this week, and the NBA and National Football League imposed heightened COVID-19 restrictions after dozens of players tested positive.

The CDC released a new “test-to-stay” strategy on Friday that allows unvaccinated children to remain in school even if they are exposed to the virus.

The protocol is intended to replace automatic quarantines, which have required tens of thousands of students to miss school days this fall.

“If exposed children meet a certain criteria and continue to test negative, they can stay at school instead of quarantining at home,” CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky told reporters.

Dr. Leana Wen, a public health professor at George Washington University, on Friday praised the test-to-stay school policy change but said implementation would still be a challenge, in part due to persistent testing shortages.

“I’m not sure how we’re able to literally implement this test-to-stay when we don’t even have enough testing for people who are symptomatic,” she told CNN.

(Reporting by Joseph Ax in Princeton, New Jersey, and Barbara Goldberg in Maplewood, New Jersey; Additional reporting by Nandita Bose, Carl O’Donnell, Susan Heavey, Caroline Humer, Mrinalika Roy, Leroy Leo and Frank Pingue; Editing by Howard Goller)

Canada Supreme Court to hear appeal of U.S. asylum seeker pact

By Anna Mehler Paperny

TORONTO (Reuters) – Canada’s Supreme Court said on Thursday it will hear an appeal seeking to overturn a pact with the United States under which Canada turns back asylum-seekers at land border crossings coming from the United States.

As a result, refugee advocates will have a chance to make their case against the Canada-U.S. Safe Third Country Agreement in Canada’s highest court.

Under the agreement, signed in 2002, asylum-seekers presenting at U.S.-Canada border crossings are turned back and told to apply for refugee status in the first country in which they arrived.

Refugee advocates argue the agreement violates asylum-seekers’ equality rights and right to life, liberty and security of the person under Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms. They argue the U.S. refugee system is not analogous to Canada’s and the agreement results in people being held in detention or deported to potential persecution.

Last year the Federal Court agreed the agreement violates rights but this past spring the Federal Court of Appeal overturned that decision. It upheld the agreement, saying refugee advocates should have challenged the government’s secret reviews designating the United States a “safe country,” rather than the agreement itself.

The agreement has been challenged previously. The challenge was successful at federal court but overturned on appeal. At that time, in 2009, the Supreme Court declined to hear the case.

Janet Dench, executive director of the Canadian Council for Refugees, which brought the challenge, welcomed the Supreme Court’s decision and said on Thursday the case’s implications go beyond refugees.

“It’s a strong message, too, to the most vulnerable in our society that the judicial system is going to hear their claim.”

Canada’s Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Minister’s office declined to comment.

(Reporting by Anna Mehler Paperny; Editing by Dan Grebler)

U.S. imposes sweeping human rights sanctions on China, Myanmar and N Korea

By Daphne Psaledakis, David Brunnstrom and Simon Lewis

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The United States on Friday imposed extensive human rights-related sanctions on dozens of people and entities tied to China, Myanmar, North Korea and Bangladesh, and added Chinese artificial intelligence company SenseTime Group to an investment blacklist.

Canada and the United Kingdom joined the United States in imposing sanctions related to human rights abuses in Myanmar, while Washington also imposed the first new sanctions on North Korea https://www.reuters.com/world/china/us-maintain-troop-level-south-korea-minister-2021-12-02 under President Joe Biden’s administration and targeted Myanmar military entities, among others, in action marking Human Rights Day.

“Our actions today, particularly those in partnership with the United Kingdom and Canada, send a message that democracies around the world will act against those who abuse the power of the state to inflict suffering and repression,” Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo said in a statement.

The North Korean mission at the United Nations and China’s, Myanmar’s and Bangladesh’s embassies in Washington did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Biden gathered over 100 world leaders at a virtual summit this week and made a plea for bolstering democracies around the world, calling safeguarding rights and freedoms in the face of rising authoritarianism the “defining challenge” of the current era. The U.S. Treasury Department has taken a series of sanctions actions this week to mark the summit.

The Treasury on Friday added Chinese artificial intelligence company SenseTime to a list of “Chinese military-industrial complex companies,” accusing it of having developed facial recognition programs that can determine a target’s ethnicity, with a particular focus on identifying ethnic Uyghurs.

As a result the company will fall under an investment ban for U.S. investors. SenseTime is close to selling 1.5 billion shares in an initial public offering (IPO). After news of the Treasury restrictions earlier this week, the company began discussing the fate of the planned $767 million offering with Hong Kong’s stock exchange, two people with direct knowledge of the matter said.

U.N. experts and rights groups estimate more than a million people, mainly Uyghurs and members of other Muslim minorities, have been detained in recent years in a vast system of camps in China’s far-west region of Xinjiang.

China denies abuses in Xinjiang, but the U.S. government and many rights groups say Beijing is carrying out genocide there.

The Treasury said it was imposing sanctions on two Myanmar military entities and an organization that provides reserves for the military. The Directorate of Defense Industries, one of the entities targeted, makes weapons for the military and police that have been used in a brutal crackdown on opponents of the military’s Feb. 1 coup.

The Treasury also targeted four regional chief ministers, including Myo Swe Win, who heads the junta’s administration in the Bago region where the Treasury said at least 82 people were killed in a single day in April.

Canada imposed sanctions against four entities affiliated with the Myanmar military government, while the United Kingdom imposed fresh sanctions against the military.

Myanmar was plunged into crisis when the military overthrew leader Aung San Suu Kyi and her government on Feb. 1, triggering daily protests in towns and cities and fighting in borderlands between the military and ethnic minority insurgents.

Junta forces seeking to crush opposition have killed more than 1,300 people, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP) monitoring group.

The Treasury also blacklisted North Korea’s Central Public Prosecutors Office had been designated, along with the former minister of social security and recently assigned Minister of People’s Armed Forces Ri Yong Gil, as well as a Russian university for facilitating the export of workers from North Korea.

North Korea has long sought a lifting of punishing U.S. and international sanctions imposed over its weapons programs and has denounced U.S. criticism of its human rights record as evidence of a hostile policy against it.

The Biden administration has repeatedly called on North Korea to engage in dialogue over its nuclear and missiles programs, without success.

The U.S. State Department on Friday also barred 12 people from traveling to the United States, including officials in China, Belarus and Sri Lanka.

(Reporting by Daphne Psaledakis, Simon Lewis, David Brunnstrom, Matt Spetalnick, Alexandra Alper, Tim Ahmann and David Ljunggren; Editing by Chris Sanders, Alistair Bell and Jonathan Oatis)

Russia demands rescinding of NATO promise to Ukraine and Georgia

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia demanded on Friday that NATO rescind a 2008 commitment to Ukraine and Georgia that they would one day become members and said the alliance should promise not to deploy weapons in countries bordering Russia that could threaten its security.

The demands were spelt out by the Russian foreign ministry in its fullest statement yet on the security guarantees that President Vladimir Putin says he wants to obtain from the United States and its allies.

“In the fundamental interests of European security, it is necessary to formally disavow the decision of the 2008 NATO Bucharest summit that ‘Ukraine and Georgia will become NATO members’,” the ministry said in a statement.

Ukraine is at the center of a crisis in East-West relations as it accuses Russia of massing tens of thousands of troops in preparation for a possible large-scale military offensive.

Russia denies planning any attack but accuses Ukraine and the United States of destabilizing behavior, and has said it needs security guarantees for its own protection.

The ministry statement followed a video call between Putin and U.S. President Joe Biden this week that was dominated by discussion of Ukraine.

The foreign ministry said Moscow was proposing a series of steps to reduce tensions, including to agree safe distances between Russian and NATO warships and planes, especially in the Baltic and Black Seas.

Moscow called for the renewing of a regular defense dialogue with the United States and NATO and urged Washington to join a moratorium on deploying intermediate-range nuclear forces in Europe.

(Writing by Mark Trevelyan; Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky and Frances Kerry)