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Iran to be Blacklisted as a Country

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Financial Action Task Force, a Paris based organization will take blacklisting action on Iran this week. Finally, it appears Europe is joining the United States in this effort even while former Secretary of State John Kerry and a democrat U.S. Senate delegation met with Iranian leaders in a secret setting.
The task force designation will encompass 39 member countries and organizations where this calls for sanctions on Iran due to money-laundering, financing of terror organizations, corruption politicians, international crime, illegal arms trade and drug trafficking. It is unclear if the United Nations has offered any resistance or comment. The only other country under this full designation is North Korea, yet another 12 countries are subject to the same scrutiny and punitive actions by the task force. Banking and access to international trade will be limited or terminated in many cases completely.

Meanwhile, Russia and China have stepped in to provide more support and aid to Iran.
In an effort to preserve trade and revenue, Iran was construction a rail system into Central Asia connecting the Caspian countries of Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Russia, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan. Due to US sanctions, Iran has been in a financial tailspin and construction has essentially stopped and the costs were escalating due to the difficult mountainous regions and regional politics. Enter China and Russia.

source

The project is expected to cost 1.2 billion euros ($1.5 billion) and is being financed by an export credit that Moscow has extended to Tehran. It will involve the electrification of 495 kilometers of existing line, including 203 kilometers in mountainous areas, and the updating of 31 stations and 95 tunnels. This railway segment is projected to carry up to ten million tons of cargo annually upon completion, in 2024. Russian and Iranian officials are jubilant: “All this creates conditions for the growth of goods traffic along the International North–South Transport Corridor and the intensification of economic ties in the Caspian region,” they say (Casp-geo.ru, February 18). The reasons are obvious: if this rail project is completed, Russia and Iran will be able to control much of the trade coming through or out of Central Asia, thus limiting the freedom of action of the states of that region and giving Moscow and Tehran a greater voice in Chinese decisions there (Casp-geo.ru, November 28, 2019; Ru.irna.ir, November 13, 2019).

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Development of Xinjiang

For China, the project is extremely important due to several factors. First, it will stimulate the economic development of the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. This autonomous region of China plays a significant role in rail freight transportation on the New Silk Road. The majority of container trains from central, eastern and southern China to Europe run via Xinjiang. Its capital, Urumqi, is also an important railway hub on the corridor towards Europe.

Kashgar, one of the westernmost cities in China, could be another junction in Xinjiang. The Chinese government is discussing the construction of two railway lines from Kashgar: one westward to Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, and another southward. The latter heads to Pakistan, where China Overseas Port Holding Company operates Gwadar Deep Sea Port, and where China intends to build its second, after Djibouti, overseas naval base.

New Silk Road

The second factor of success is the potential of the railway line for the New Silk Road. According to estimations, the Xinjiang – Kyrgyzstan – Uzbekistan route will shorten the route from China to Uzbekistan. Currently, containers going to this Central Asian country must cover long distances and cross the territory of neighbouring Kazakhstan.

Moreover, the railway link between China and Uzbekistan links to Iran (via Turkmenistan) and Turkey, as well as eventually to Europe, especially to Southeast Europe. With this, the route from China to Southeast Europe could be reduced up to 900 kilometres, equal to up to seven or eight days. At the same time, the new railway will allow China to better involve Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan into the New Silk Road.

UN Blacklists Israeli Companies

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Primer:Remember the United States crafted and offered a peace agreement between Israel, Hamas, the Palestinians just a few weeks ago. Reading below, note that ‘united nations’ is hardly what this blacklist encourages.

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights published on Wednesday a “database” of companies doing business with Israeli settlements. The list includes 112 firms, 94 of them Israeli and the other 18 from six other countries, including the United States.

International Women’s Day: Top Inspirational Women Around ... Michelle Bachelet

The database was generated pursuant to Resolution 31/36, adopted by the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) on March 24, 2016, which calls upon the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to produce a “database of all business enterprises” engaged in certain settlement-related activities in “the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem.”

The database, also referred to as a blacklist, is inconsistent with U.S. law and policy. U.S. law, at 19 U.S.C. 4452(b)(4), states that Congress “opposes politically motivated actions that penalize or otherwise limit commercial relations specifically with Israel, such as boycotts of, divestment from, or sanctions against Israel.”

In addition, compliance with the blacklist could be inconsistent with the U.S. anti-boycott statute (50 U.S.C 4842), which has long been used to punish compliance with boycotts (and blacklists) fostered by the Arab League.

Boycotts spurred by the UNHRC and its blacklist would likely also run afoul of some or all of the two dozen U.S. state laws that require divestment from companies that boycott Israel (in some cases specifically defined to include Israeli settlements).

Compliance with a boycott fostered by the UNHRC and its blacklist may also cause U.S. companies to run afoul of the U.S. Treasury Department’s separate antiboycott regulations. The regulations implement the Ribicoff amendment to the Tax Reform Act of 1976. Internal Revenue Code section 999 requires U.S. taxpayers to report whether they (or corporations they control) have participated in or cooperated with boycotts not sanctioned by the U.S. government. According to the Treasury, U.S. persons who participate in such boycotts “may be subject to penalties that reduce their foreign tax credit, the benefits of foreign sales corporations, and the deferral available to U.S. shareholders of controlled foreign corporations.”

The blacklist also lacks a basis in international law. Indeed, international law does not prohibit business in disputed territories. Nor is doing such business inconsistent with the principles of corporate social responsibility (which are non-binding). That is the official view of the United Nations, expressed in its Global Compact document titled “Guidance on Responsible Business in Conflict-Affected and High-Risk Areas: A Resource for Companies and Investors.”

Finally, the legitimacy of the database is also thrown into doubt by the very makeup of the UNHRC, which includes as members many of the world’s worst human rights violators. Current UNHRC members sitting in judgment of Israel include the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Eritrea, Libya, Pakistan, Sudan, and Venezuela.

There are more than 100 territorial disputes in the world today, including in Crimea, Cyprus, Kashmir, Nagorno-Karabakh, Tibet, and Western Sahara. Yet only the West Bank and East Jerusalem were singled out for such a database. The decision to focus on Israel raises the question of whether the database is really about human rights, or rather about hypocritically bashing Israel.

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The list identified companies listed in the United States, France, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Thailand and Britain.

Inclusion on the list had no immediate legal implications for the companies. But the issue is highly sensitive as companies named could be targeted for boycotts or divestment aimed at stepping up international pressure on Israel over its West Bank settlements.

Israeli President Reuven Rivlin expressed solidarity with the named businesses, saying, “Boycotting Israeli companies does not advance the cause of peace and does not build confidence between the sides.”

“We call on our friends around the world to speak out against this shameful initiative which reminds of dark periods in our history,” he added.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netnayahu said, “Whoever boycotts us will be boycotted. The UN Human Rights Council is a biased body that is devoid of influence. Not for nothing have I already ordered the severing of ties with it. It was also not for nothing that the American administration has taken this step together with us. In recent years, we have promoted laws in most US states, which determine that strong action is to be taken against whoever tries to boycott Israel. Therefore, this body is unimportant. Instead of the organization dealing with human rights, it only tries to disparage Israel. We strongly reject this contemptible effort.”

The head of Israel’s centrist Blue and White party — ex-IDF Chief of Staff Benny Gantz — tweeted, “A dark day for human rights. The UN high commissioner for human rights has lost touch with reality.”

Hillel Neuer — executive director of the Geneva-based UN Watch NGO — tweeted, “The list has no precedent & turns the UN into Ground Zero for the global anti-Israel boycott campaign.” More here.

 

Hunter and The Truman National Security Project

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Turn the corner and we find yet another swampy organization where Hunter Biden had a parking space called the Truman National Security Project. Yeesh, this outfit is really a left-leaning organization founded by Rachel Kleinfeld. She is also a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

The roster of young Truman fellows in high places includes Matthew Spence, who co-founded Truman with Kleinfeld and is now a senior aide to Obama’s National Security Adviser Tom Donilon, and Eric Lesser, who until he left for Harvard Law this summer worked in the White House, first as David Axelrod’s right-hand man and then as director of strategic planning for the Council of Economic Advisers. (He also organized the annual White House Seder.) Others have worked in the Department of Homeland Security, the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and Committee on Foreign Affairs, and the Pentagon offices of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. There are journalists, like Patrick Radden Keefe, and analyst-bloggers like Micah Zenko, of the Council on Foreign Relations. And there are people like Liz McNally, a West Point graduate and Rhodes Scholar who worked as a speechwriter for Gen. David Petraeus in Iraq—and who, in August, wound up on the cover of Time magazine under the headline “The New Greatest Generation.” More context and details here.

Okay, back to Hunter…

In 2011, two years into his father’s term as vice president, Hunter Biden was appointed by the Truman National Security Project, a left-leaning foreign policy network, to its board of directors. The younger Biden was, at the time, one of just six members of the governing board, where he served alongside the organization’s founder and CEO, Rachel Kleinfeld, and a handful of corporate leaders. He had no obvious qualifications for the position.

As the Truman Project expanded, Democratic national security heavyweights including Jake Sullivan, Hillary Clinton’s foreign policy guru who ran the Department of Policy Planning during her tenure at Foggy Bottom; Matthew Spence, a Defense Department veteran who served as a senior aide to Obama national security adviser Tom Donilon; and Steve Israel, the former Democratic congressman and head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, eventually joined Biden on the board.

Run for Office

A cached version of the organization’s website shows that Biden rose to the position of vice chairman of the board, serving there until at least March of 2019. It is not clear precisely when—or why—Biden stepped down from the board, and the Truman Project did not respond to requests for comment. But during his tenure on the board, according to the New Yorker, he was in and out of drug rehabilitation facilities several times and, in 2014, joined the board of the Ukrainian gas giant Burisma and was discharged from the U.S. Navy after he failed a drug test. He later claimed that cigarettes he had smoked outside a bar may have been, unbeknownst to him, laced with cocaine.

Founded in 2004 by Kleinfeld, a Yale University graduate and Rhodes Scholar, the Truman National Security Project was intended to mirror conservative think tanks like the Heritage Foundation and the American Enterprise Institute. Funded by the Ploughshares Fund, the organization awards dozens of fellowships every year and aims to mentor a new generation of Democratic foreign policy leaders.

(Sidebar: The Ploughshares Fund was a major funder promoting the Iran Nuclear deal and remember lil Ben Rhodes of the Obama White House later joined Ploughshares.)

Kleinfeld, who left the organization in 2013 and now serves as a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, did not respond to a request for comment. The Truman National Security Project did not return multiple requests for comment. A lawyer for Hunter Biden did not respond to a request for comment. A spokeswoman for John P. Driscoll, the chairman of the board of the Truman National Security Project, did not respond to a series of questions including why Biden was appointed to the board and when he stepped down from the position.

Kleinfeld has, however, written about her deep concern about corruption in Ukraine, writing in 2014, the year Biden joined Burisma’s board, that “Iraq’s fall on the heels of Ukraine’s collapse should be compelling. Curbing corruption before it tips into Kalashnikov-carrying rebels and public crucifixions is good security policy. And we need to get better at it.”

Biden was appointed to the Burisma board as the oil and gas giant faced a slew of corruption investigations involving its owner, Mikhail Zlochevsky, who was facing a money laundering investigation.

During Biden’s time on the board of the Truman Project, the organization joined a network of other left-leaning national-security oriented outlets with which it is closely linked, decried the Trump administration’s foreign policy initiatives and called for the resignation of Attorney General William Barr. Defend American Democracy, which identifies the Truman National Security Project as a “partner organization,” ran a national ad urging Americans to “hold the president accountable for abusing his office and risking national security for his own gain.”

Biden wasn’t the organization’s only connection to Burisma. Throughout his tenure on the board he sat alongside Sally Painter, the chief operating officer of the Washington, D.C., lobbying firm Blue Star Strategies, which was hired by Burisma to improve the company’s image in the United States. A November Wall Street Journal report detailed how Painter’s colleague, Karen Tramontano, used Biden’s name in an effort to secure meetings with senior State Department officials, though the paper said it was not clear “whether the younger Mr. Biden knew his name was being used by Blue Star in its contacts with State Department officials on Burisma’s behalf in early 2016.”

While it is unclear when, exactly, Burisma retained Blue Star Strategies, Biden and Painter were serving together on the Truman board while Blue Star was working for Burisma.

As a tax-exempt organization, the Truman National Security Project is required to file tax returns indicating whether any of its officers or key employees have a “business relationship” with any others. Though Burisma tapped Painter’s public relations outfit while Biden was a member of the board, the Truman Project answered “no.” It further indicated that its officers had been briefed on their duty to disclose any conflicts of interest and that it was “regularly and consistently” monitoring compliance with the policy.

Michael Breen, president and CEO of Human Rights First, who served as president and CEO of the Truman Project when the tax returns were filed, and who is identified on them as the individual who possesses the organization’s books and records, did not respond to phone calls or emails seeking comment.

Truman fellows can now be found throughout the D.C. foreign policy establishment. Former secretary of state Madeleine Albright; Senators Chris Coons (D., Del.), Tammy Duckworth (D., Ill.) and Kamala Harris (D., Calif.); and former undersecretary of defense for policy Michele Flournoy are board members of its sister organization, the Truman Center for National Policy.

The Truman National Security Project’s current president and CEO, Jenna Ben-Yehuda, whose contact information is not publicly listed on the organization’s website, did not respond to a request via Twitter for an appropriate point of contact for media inquiries. A page listing the group’s membership is “currently under construction,” according to the group’s website, and the email address listed for press inquiries was inoperative.

On Tuesday—even before his disappointing fifth place finish in New Hampshire—Joe Biden fled the state for South Carolina, where he is hoping African-American voters will revive his flagging campaign. If that hope proves futile, it will be in part because of the perception that, as vice president, Biden either used his name and influence to help friends and family or looked the other way while they did so at places like Burisma and the Truman National Security Project.

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As of June 2017, it is composed of 16 chapters from 47 different states across the nation and claims more than 1,600 members. It supports American leadership, using its defense and diplomacy in the world on issues involving shared security and democracy promotion abroad. Many of its members are former or current military personnel, diplomats, foreign policy lobbyists, and political activists. The Truman Project has been criticized for giving the impression that it is bipartisan and independent while being supportive of the Democratic Party.

 

Facebook Still Deleting Accounts Tied to Iran and Russia

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Social media giant Facebook on Wednesday removed two unconnected networks of accounts, pages, and groups “engaging in foreign or government interference,” one originating in Russia and the other one in Iran, both of which have alleged ties to intelligence services.

Calling the behavior “coordinated” and “inauthentic,” Facebook’s head of security policy, Nathaniel Gleicher, said both operations were acting on “behalf of a government or foreign actor.”

The Russian network primarily targeted Ukraine and its neighboring countries, while the Iranian operation focused mainly on the United States.

The people behind the groups and accounts “coordinated with one another and used fake accounts to misrepresent themselves, and that was the basis for our action,” the social-media company said.

In total, 78 accounts, 11 pages, 29 groups, and four Instagram accounts originating in Russia were removed.

Facebook’s investigation “found links to Russian and military intelligence services” within the Russian network.

The people behind the network would pose as citizen journalists and tried to contact policymakers, journalists, and other public figures in the region.

They would post content in Russian, English, and Ukrainian “about local and political news including public figures in Ukraine, Russian military engagement in Syria, alleged SBU (Ukrainian Security Service) leaks related to ethnic tensions in Crimea and the downing of the Malaysian airliner in Ukraine in 2014.”

Similarly, six Facebook and five Instagram accounts were removed originating in Iran that engaged in “coordinated inauthentic behavior.”

Some tried contacting public figures and they shared posts on such topics as the U.S. elections, Christianity, U.S.-Iran relations, U.S. immigration policy, and criticism of U.S. policies in the Middle East.

About 60 people had followed one or more of the Iran-based Instagram accounts, the media company said.

*** What there is more….

Add in Vietnam and Myanmar.

Per Facebook in part:

Each of them created networks of accounts to mislead others about who they were and what they were doing. We have shared information about our findings with industry partners.

We’re constantly working to detect and stop this type of activity because we don’t want our services to be used to manipulate people. We’re taking down these Pages, Groups and accounts based on their behavior, not the content they posted. In each of these cases, the people behind this activity coordinated with one another and used fake accounts to misrepresent themselves, and that was the basis for our action.

We are making progress rooting out this abuse, but as we’ve said before, it’s an ongoing challenge. We’re committed to continually improving to stay ahead. That means building better technology, hiring more people and working closer with law enforcement, security experts and other companies.The individuals behind this activity posed as locals and used fake accounts — some of which had already been detected and disabled by our automated systems — to manage Groups and Pages, post and comment on various content. Some of these accounts represented themselves as citizen journalists and tried to contact policymakers, journalists and other public figures in the region.

Screenshot of content posted by some of these Pages Screenshot of content posted by some of these Pages  Read more here for more fake news sampling noted by Facebook.

Meet the Billion Dollar Boondoggle Act

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It would be ironic if the report itself came in $1 billion over budget and five years behind schedule.

(Really? Behind schedule and over budget and it has to be $1 billion? Your thoughts?) It is a start however introduced by 2 Republicans, Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-WI8) and Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA).

What is a billion dollars? | Sam Diacont

Context

A number of taxpayer-funded projects are taking significantly longer or costing significantly more than originally projected. Prominent examples include everything from the current 2020 Census to NASA space missions, plutonium cleanup sites to New York City subway construction.

What the bill does

The Billion Dollar Boondoggle Act would require an annual public report detailing all federal projects that are running at least $1 billion over budget or at least five years behind schedule.

(That would likely include President Trump’s proposed border wall, for which U.S. Customs and Border Protection last week increased its original cost estimate up to $11 billion.)

The report would be compiled by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). It would feature such components as both the original and current estimated costs of the projects, and supposed explanations justifying the increased expenses or late arrivals.

The Senate version was introduced last February 26 as bill number S. 565, by Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA). The House version was introduced a month later last March 27 as bill number H.R. 1917, by Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-WI8).

What supporters say

Supporters argue the legislation allows for better management of misused and mishandled money allocated funded by American taxpayers.

“There are far too many taxpayer-funded projects that are billions of dollars over budget and years behind schedule,” Sen. Ernst said in a press release. The bill “will require the disclosure of the cost and timeline of these federal projects, bringing overdue accountability and transparency to the process, which will allow us to identify problems before they become a bottomless pit of taxpayer dollars.”

“Mismanagement of multibillion-dollar government projects should not be treated like business as usual,” Rep. Gallagher said in a separate press release. “It’s our job in Congress to be responsible stewards of taxpayer dollars, and this bill provides much-needed transparency of large-scale projects so we can get to the bottom of a problem before it becomes a bottomless pit of money.”

GovTrack Insider was unable to locate any explicit statements of opposition.

Odds of passage

The Senate version has attracted five cosponsors: four Republicans and one Democrat. It passed the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on November 6, and now goes for a potential vote by the full chamber.

The House version has attracted 12 cosponsors: eight Republicans and four Democrats. It awaits a potential vote in either the House Budget or Oversight and Reform Committee.