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from Axios
LEFT-CENTER BIAS, HIGH, news website
Exclusive: Suspected Chinese spy targeted California politicians
A suspected Chinese intelligence operative developed extensive ties with local and national politicians, including a U.S. congressman, in what U.S. officials believe was a political intelligence operation run by China’s main civilian spy agency between 2011 and 2015, Axios found in a yearlong investigation. The alleged operation offers a rare window into how Beijing has tried to gain access to and influence U.S. political circles. The alleged operation offers a rare window into how Beijing has tried to gain access to and influence U.S. political circles.
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Exclusive: Suspected Chinese spy targeted California politicians
A suspected Chinese intelligence operative developed extensive ties with local and national politicians, including a U.S. congressman, in what U.S. officials believe was a political intelligence operation run by China’s main civilian spy agency between 2011 and 2015, Axios found in a yearlong investigation. The alleged operation offers a rare window into how Beijing has tried to gain access to and influence U.S. political circles. The alleged operation offers a rare window into how Beijing has tried to gain access to and influence U.S. political circles.
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from DW News (Deutsche Welle)
Broadcasting & Media Production Company in Bonn, Germany
Breathing issues, brain fog and a lingering loss of taste are just some of the long-term effects seen in coronavirus patients. Now, experts are warning that COVID-19 could also make it difficult to get an erection. As the world awaits a coronavirus vaccine, experts in Italy and the US are warning of another potential long-term consequence of COVID-19: erectile dysfunction. During a recent interview with the US broadcaster NBC, American physician Dena Grayson said there was growing concern that COVID-19 could cause long-term difficulty getting an erection. "We know that it causes issues in the vasculature," Grayson said. "So this is something that is of real concern — not just that this virus can kill, but can actually cause long-term, lifelong potential complications."
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from EURACTIV
media network for Europe publishing free, independent policy news debates in 12 languages
‘NATO-option’ gets majority in Swedish parliament
For the first time in Sweden’s history the so-called “NATO-option” has obtained a majority in parliament, meaning that while the country edges closer to Finland’s defence and security policy which has the ‘NATO-option’ as its cornerstone, it is also keeping the possibility of NATO membership alive. In 1949, Sweden chose not to join NATO and declared a security policy aiming for non-alignment in peace and neutrality in war. Since the 1990s, however, there has been an active debate on the question of NATO membership. The parliament’s second-largest opposition and populist party, the Sweden Democrats party , joined the rest of the opposition – the Moderate Party, the Christian Democrats and Liberals – in their stance on defence matters, the broadsheet Svenska Dagbladet reported.
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from Hoover Institution
Nonprofit Organization in Stanford, California
U.S. Middle East Policy In The Next Four Years
President-elect Joe Biden and his administration will inherit a very full agenda of problems on January 20, 2021 both foreign and domestic. The Biden team has already signaled that its overriding priority will be to get the COVID-19 pandemic under control and to put the economy on the path to recovery. Given voter concerns on both sides that focus is only to be expected. One exit poll in Virginia, where I live, showed that foreign policy barely registered with voters as an issue. Only 1% said it affected their vote. The Biden Administration will likely not want to pick fights early on that distract from its COVID agenda. Yet foreign policy will impose itself on the Biden Administration, as it inevitably does with all administrations, and no region will present a greater challenge than the Middle East. There is a basis for a bipartisan consensus that China and Russia represent long -term strategic challenges to the United States, and although there may be differences of emphasis and tactical approaches, those issues are likely to be manageable for the Biden Team.
In America today, populists on both sides of the political aisle demand that allies should carry more of the burden, especially the military burden, of upholding the international order. Meanwhile, the fear of a rising China cuts against the grain of this thinking. Chinese leader Xi Jin Ping’s more aggressive foreign policy has generated an equally strong impulse to marshal resources and organize allies to contain China. In an effort to reconcile the contradictory impulses, many analysts and political leaders have fastened onto the idea of retreating from the Middle East. It was President Obama who first planted seeds of this thinking, with his “pivot to Asia.” A similar strain of thought runs through the Trump administration. “We’re getting out. Let someone else fight over this long blood-stained sand,” President Trump said in October 2019. “The job of our military is not to police the world.” Trump was referring specifically to Northwest Syria, but many heard in his words a desire to leave the Middle East as a whole.
Does The US Need A Lebanon Policy?
The season of offering advice to the next administration is upon us once more. When it comes to American policy toward Lebanon, the purveyors of advice are faced with two key questions. The first question is: Does the US even need a Lebanon policy? At first glance, the question appears flippant, especially when considering the amount of attention the US routinely lavishes on it. ... But one is hard-pressed to find a compelling national interest that would warrant it. Lebanon is not a US ally. It is, rather, an Iranian satrapy under the control of Hezbollah, the local arm of the Qods Force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Managing The Relationship Between The U.S. And Saudi Arabia
The new Biden administration will encounter a Middle East that is very different from the one President Trump inherited from President Obama in 2017, and nowhere is the change more obvious than in Saudi Arabia. The kingdom is undergoing a dramatic process of transformation that includes the unprecedented consolidation of power in the hands of Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman (MBS), the adoption of policies of social liberalization focused primarily on youth and women, and the implementation of a plan for economic diversification to lessen dependence on oil revenue. In addition, Saudi Arabia is asserting itself as a regional power and is no longer hyper cautious as it once was about making its influence felt. For example, it is leading an anti-Islamist and an anti-Iranian alliance of Arab states, is on the verge of normalizing relations with Israel, and is deeply involved in Yemen’s civil war, which has turned into a quagmire.
The Biden Administration Can And Should Rectify America’s Failures In Syria
Managing The Relationship Between The U.S. And Saudi Arabia
The new Biden administration will encounter a Middle East that is very different from the one President Trump inherited from President Obama in 2017, and nowhere is the change more obvious than in Saudi Arabia. The kingdom is undergoing a dramatic process of transformation that includes the unprecedented consolidation of power in the hands of Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman (MBS), the adoption of policies of social liberalization focused primarily on youth and women, and the implementation of a plan for economic diversification to lessen dependence on oil revenue. In addition, Saudi Arabia is asserting itself as a regional power and is no longer hyper cautious as it once was about making its influence felt. For example, it is leading an anti-Islamist and an anti-Iranian alliance of Arab states, is on the verge of normalizing relations with Israel, and is deeply involved in Yemen’s civil war, which has turned into a quagmire.
The Biden Administration Can And Should Rectify America’s Failures In Syria
It has been almost a decade since the Syrian people rose up against the Assad regime, demanding their freedom. While the world was hesitant to support the protestors, malign powers gladly stepped in to help Assad, creating an unmitigated disaster that has devastated Syria and sent shockwaves around the world. Half of the population, around 13 million people, has been displaced, and more than a quarter of all Syrians have fled the country. Over 50% of the country’s critical infrastructure has been destroyed, over 80% of the population lives below the poverty line, and an entire generation of children knows nothing but war, dilapidated tents, and the squalor of camps. Still, the crisis has yet to be addressed in any clear and meaningful way by the most important actor on the world stage, the United States.
Putting Human Rights Into Negotiations With Iran
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Putting Human Rights Into Negotiations With Iran
During the presidential campaign, candidate Biden never spared his words criticizing the Trump administration's Iran policy, in particular the decision to withdraw from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). This so-called "Iran Deal" was the signature foreign policy accomplishment of the Obama administration, which his successor revoked in May 2018. In its place, the U.S. has been pursuing a "maximum pressure campaign"--if not always consistently--through sanctions, with the goal of forcing Iran back to the negotiating table. The prospect of a return to the JCPOA fit into the Biden campaign's general political narrative of returning to the policies of the Obama era. Reestablishing the status quo ante Trump as far as Iran is concerned could additionally contribute to rebuilding trans-Atlantic ties, since the European allies are eager to see the U.S. back in the JCPOA. More broadly, a return would amplify Biden's stated goal of reasserting an American commitment to multilateralism, by drawing a clean line separating him from the Trump-era unilateralism associated with the program of "America First." Getting back into the Iran Deal is a likely priority of a Biden agenda.
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from The Spokesman-Review
Newspaper in Spokane, Washington
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