Conversations on Vietnam Development
By Nike ChingOctober 21, 2020 04:02 PM VOA
STATE DEPARTMENT – U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo embarks on a week-long trip to South Asia on Sunday, as the United States looks to confront Chinese geopolitical and economic challenges in the Indo-Pacific region.
The top U.S. diplomat is traveling to New Delhi, India; Colombo, Sri Lanka; Male, Maldives; and Jakarta, Indonesia from October 25-30.
Tiếp tục đọc “Pompeo Heads to South Asia as US-China Tensions Escalate”
BY GREGORY POLING | JULY 14, 2020
AMTI UPDATE
Yesterday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced an important shift in U.S. declaratory policy on the South China Sea. This morning, Assistant Secretary of State David Stilwell elaborated further during remarks at CSIS’s annual South China Sea Conference. The press statement from Pompeo listed specific Chinese maritime claims the United States considers illegal. The statement marks a significant clarification of prior U.S. positions but not a radical break from past policy. It makes explicit things that had been implied by previous administrations. And in that it sets the stage for more effective diplomatic messaging and stronger responses to China’s harassment of its neighbors. U.S. partners and allies in the region were seemingly briefed in advance—the Philippine defense secretary, for instance, was ready with a positive statement within hours. And the new policy sparked excited, and often hyperbolic, coverage in the press and social media.
Tiếp tục đọc “HOW SIGNIFICANT IS THE NEW U.S. SOUTH CHINA SEA POLICY?”PRESS STATEMENT
MICHAEL R. POMPEO, SECRETARY OF STATE
The launch of the Mekong-U.S. Partnership reflects the importance of the Mekong region to the United States. Our relationship with Mekong partner countries is an integral part of our Indo-Pacific vision and our strategic partnership with ASEAN. With more than $150 million in initial investments in regional programs, we will build on the good work of the Lower Mekong Initiative and the $3.5 billion in regional U.S. assistance during the last eleven years.
The Mekong-U.S. Partnership is committed to the autonomy, economic independence, good governance, and sustainable growth of Mekong partner countries. The United States has dedicated more than $52 million to fight COVID-19 in the region, building on more than twenty years of Mekong-U.S. cooperation on infectious diseases. We have supported economic growth with more than $1 billion to develop infrastructure in ASEAN countries through the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC), and plan to invest billions more in the coming years.
The Mekong-U.S. Partnership will also continue to strengthen water security and the work of the Mekong River Commission. It will include $55 million in planned new investments to help our Mekong partners combat transnational crime, including narcotrafficking and trafficking in persons, arms, and wildlife. It will also increase support for energy security and electricity sector development through Asia EDGE (Enhancing Development and Growth), the Japan-U.S.-Mekong Power Partnership (JUMMP), and the Japan-U.S. Strategic Energy Partnership (JUSEP). In all our efforts, the United States intends to work closely with partners like Japan, Australia, South Korea, India, and other good friends of the Mekong.
We need to be candid, however, about the challenges we face, including those from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which increasingly threatens the Mekong’s natural environments and economic autonomy.
The CCP’s unilateral decisions to withhold water upstream have exacerbated an historic drought. The United States stands with the region and the Mekong River Commission in calling for transparent data sharing. We encourage countries of the Mekong region to hold the CCP accountable to its pledge to share its water data. That data should be public. It should be released year-round. It should include water and water-related data, as well as land use, and dam construction and operation data. And it should be shared through the Mekong River Commission, the organization that serves the interests of Mekong-region countries, not those of Beijing.
We are also concerned about infrastructure-linked debt and the predatory and opaque business practices of Beijing’s state-owned actors, such as China Communications Construction Company. Concerning also is the boom in trafficking of persons, drugs, and wildlife, much of which emanates from organizations, companies, and special economic zones linked to the CCP.
Countries of the Mekong region have undergone an amazing journey in the last few decades. They deserve good partners. Through the Mekong-U.S. Partnership, we look forward to many more years of collaboration to ensure a peaceful, secure, and prosperous Mekong region.
Secretary of United State Mike Pompeo on Monday announced a formal rejection of “most” of China’s maritime claims in the South China Sea, marking the turning point as Washington officially directs to Beijing’s ambition to assert control in the strategic waters.
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| Chinese maritime claims outside its internationally recognized waters are illegitimate. Photo: Andy Wong/AP |
Accordingly, the administration presented the decision as an attempt to curb China’s increasing assertiveness in the region with a commitment to recognizing international law. But it will almost certainly have the more immediate effect of further infuriating the Chinese, who are already retaliating against numerous U.S. sanctions and other penalties on other matters.The Trump administration escalated its actions against China on Monday by stepping squarely into one of the most sensitive regional issues dividing them and rejecting outright nearly all of Beijing’s significant maritime claims in the South China Sea, reported Military Times. Tiếp tục đọc “US rejects nearly all Chinese claims to territory in South China Sea”
American interventionists learned a lesson from Iraq: pre-empt the debate. Now everyone is for regime change
CARACAS — The United States banned all air transport with Venezuela on Wednesday over security concerns, further isolating the troubled South American nation…
A disinterested historian — Herodotus raised from the dead — would see this as just the latest volley in a siege tale. America has been trying for ages to topple the regime of President Nicholas Maduro, after trying for years to do the same to his predecessor, Hugo Chavez. Tiếp tục đọc “The Liberal Embrace of War”
Updated 6:13 PM ET, Fri March 15, 2019
Washington (CNN) – Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced the US will deny or revoke visas for International Criminal Court staff.
The move is meant to deter a potential investigation by the judicial body into alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by US troops in Afghanistan.
Pompeo, speaking from the State Department Friday, said the restrictions include “persons who take or have taken action to request or further such an investigation.” He said the policy had already taken effect, but declined to say who had been restricted or would face future restrictions. Tiếp tục đọc “US denying visas to International Criminal Court staff”
Christoph Flügge warns over ‘shocking’ moves by Trump administration and Turkey
A senior judge has resigned from one of the UN’s international courts in The Hague citing “shocking” political interference from the White House andTurkey.
Christoph Flügge, a German judge, claimed the US had threatened judgesafter moves were made to examine the conduct of US soldiers in Afghanistan. Tiếp tục đọc “UN court judge quits The Hague citing political interference”
By Patrick Buchanan
“Assad must go, Obama says.”
So read the headline in The Washington Post, Aug. 18, 2011.
The story quoted President Barack Obama directly:
“The future of Syria must be determined by its people, but President Bashar al-Assad is standing in their way. … the time has come for President Assad to step aside.”
France’s Nicolas Sarkozy and Britain’s David Cameron signed on to the Obama ultimatum: Assad must go! Tiếp tục đọc “How the War Party Lost the Middle East”
List of United States treaties >>
List of treaties unsigned or unratified by the United States >>
U.S. withdraws from international accords, says U.N. world court ‘politicized’ >>
President Donald Trump recently proclaimed June 2018 to be National Ocean Month and stated his support for better utilizing the vast resources contained in America’s Exclusive Economic Zone, the 200-nautical mile zone off U.S. coasts over which the U.S. has jurisdiction. Tiếp tục đọc “7 Reasons U.S. Should Not Ratify UN Convention on the Law of the Sea”
The presidents of Honduras and Guatemala are set to meet Saturday to implement a strategy to return a caravan of thousands of migrants to Honduras after U.S. President Donald Trump warned the convoy must be stopped before it reaches the U.S.
A standoff between the migrants and Mexican police continued as they settled on a bridge separating Guatemala and Mexico, with some clinging to the closed border gate crying “there are children here.”
The migrants broke through the fence Friday, running into a wall of police in Mexico, whose government has promised the U.S. will confront the caravan. Tiếp tục đọc “Migrant Caravan: Honduras, Guatemala Leaders to Meet on Migrant Caravan – The Latest: UN calls on Mexico, US to respect migrants”
Michael Cohen, former personal lawyer to President Trump, leaves his apartment building in New York City on Tuesday. Richard Drew/AP
Updated at 7:03 p.m. ET
Michael Cohen, President Trump’s former personal lawyer and fixer, has pleaded guilty to eight counts in federal court in New York, federal prosecutors announced Tuesday evening.
They include five counts of tax evasion, one count of falsifying submissions to a bank and two counts involving unlawful campaign contributions.
Cohen’s conduct “reflects a pattern of lies and dishonesty over a significant period of time,” said Robert Khuzami, deputy U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, outside the federal courthouse in Manhattan. Tiếp tục đọc “Donald Trump’s Attorney And Fixer Michael Cohen Pleads Guilty To 8 Federal Counts”
ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) — Paul Manafort, the longtime political operative who for months led Donald Trump’s successful presidential campaign, was found guilty of eight financial crimes in the first trial victory of the special counsel investigation into the president’s associates.
A judge declared a mistrial Tuesday on 10 other counts the jury could not agree on.
The verdict was part of a stunning one-two punch of bad news for the White House, coming as the president’s former lawyer, Michael Cohen, was pleading guilty in New York to campaign finance charges arising from hush money payments made to two women who say they had sexual relationships with Trump.
Tiếp tục đọc “Ex-Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort guilty on 8 charges”
newindianexpress Published: 20th June 2018 04:02 AM | Last Updated: 20th June 2018 04:02 AM | A+A A-
US Ambassador Nikki Haley. (File |AP)
WASHINGTON: The United States withdrew from the United Nations Human Rights Council on Tuesday, condemning the “hypocrisy” of its members and its alleged “unrelenting bias” against Israel.
The US ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, came to Washington to announce the decision alongside President Donald Trump’s top diplomat, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
Both insisted the United States would remain a leading champion of human rights but, for many, the decision will reflect Trump’s general hostility to the world body and to multilateral diplomacy in general. Tiếp tục đọc “US withdraws from United Nations Human Rights Council, condemns latter’s bias against Israel”
Statements by Pres. Donald Trump and U.S. government (and British and French) officials to justify American military actions in Syria are painful reminders not only of lies we were told about Viet Nam a half century ago. We heard echoes of those same lies regarding Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, and many other places in the world that are now much worse off after our military actions — actions that were illegal, no matter how we try to parse the meanings of the documents and international agreements that we signed. Tiếp tục đọc “Rev. James Swarts: Remarks at Spring Action 2018”
CVD 
Commentary By
Senior Research Fellow in Anglo-American Relations
Vice President, Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute
Senior Research Fellow in International Regulatory Affairs
KEY TAKEAWAYS
U.S. accession would provide no benefits not already available to the U.S., while creating unnecessary burdens and risks.
The U.S. does not need to join the convention in order to access oil and gas resources on its extended continental shelf, in the Arctic, or in the Gulf of Mexico.
Despite subsequent changes in 1994 that led the Clinton administration to support U.S. accession, the Trump administration should oppose accession to this treaty.