China sanctions US and Canadian officials over Xinjiang stance
BEIJING — China on Saturday announced new sanctions against U.S. and Canadian officials in a growing political and economic feud over its policies in the traditionally Muslim region of Xinjiang.
A statement from the Foreign Ministry said the head of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, Gayle Manchin, would be barred from visiting mainland China, Hong Kong or Macao, and having any dealings with Chinese financial entities.
The commission’s vice chair, Tony Perkins, was also included on the sanctions list, along with Canadian Member of Parliament Michael Chong and the body’s Subcommittee on International Human Rights.
China has strongly rejected accusations of human rights abuses in Xinjiang and has launched calls for boycotts and other punishments against foreign firms including retailer H&M and Nike, along with sanctions against foreign government officials and activists whom it says are spreading false information about its policies toward Uyghurs and members of other Muslim minority groups in Xinjiang.
“They must stop political manipulation on Xinjiang-related issues, stop interfering in China’s internal affairs in any form and refrain from going further down the wrong path. Otherwise, they will get their fingers burnt,” the Foreign Ministry statement said.
More than 1 million members of the Uyghur and other predominantly Muslim ethnic minorities have been confined to detention camps in Xinjiang, according to foreign governments and researchers. Authorities there are accused of imposing forced labor and coercive control measures. birth
China, Iran strike deal: China agreed to invest $400 billion in Iran over 25 years in exchange for a steady supply of oil to fuel its growing economy under an agreement signed Saturday.
The deal could deepen China’s influence in the Middle East and undercut U.S. efforts to keep Iran isolated. But it was not immediately clear how much of the agreement can be implemented while the U.S. dispute with Iran over its nuclear program remains unresolved.
Iran did not make the details of the agreement public before the signing. But experts said it was largely unchanged from an 18-page draft obtained last year by The New York Times.
That draft detailed $400 billion of Chinese investments to be made in dozens of fields, including banking, telecommunications, ports, railways, health care and information technology, over the next 25 years. In exchange, China would receive a regular — and, according to an Iranian official and an oil trader, heavily discounted — supply of Iranian oil.
The draft also called for deepening military cooperation, including joint training and exercises, joint research and weapons development and intelligence-sharing.
NKorea bristles at Biden: North Korea on Saturday snapped back at President Joe Biden’s criticism of its ballistic missile tests, calling his comments a provocation and encroachment on the North’s right to self-defense and vowing to continuously expand its “most thoroughgoing and overwhelming military power.”
The statement issued by senior official Ri Pyong Chol came after the North
on Thursday test-fired two short-range missiles off its eastern coast in the first ballistic launches since Biden took office.
Experts say the flight data released by South Korea’s military and North Korea’s own description of the tests indicted that the North tested a new solid-fuel weapon that is designed to evade missile defense systems and is potentially nuclear capable.
The launches underscored the growing threat such short-range weapons pose to U.S. allies South Korea and Japan, which host a combined 80,000 U.S. troops as the core of America’s military presence in the region.
Md. cops seen berating 5-year-old: A police department in Maryland has released body camera video that captured two of its officers berating a 5-year-old boy who had walked away from his elementary school, calling him a “little beast” and threatening him with a beating.
The video released Friday by the Montgomery County Police Department shows one of the officers repeatedly screaming at the crying child, with her face inches from his.
The boy’s mother has filed a lawsuit over the January 2020 interaction. Lawyers for the child’s mother, Shanta Grant, said the video shows the officers treating her son “as if he were a hardened criminal.” They said Grant is seeking “justice and fair compensation for the trauma he endured.”
A police department spokeswoman told The Washington Post that the two officers in the video remain employed by the department after an internal investigation.
Both of the officers involved in the incident are Black, and so is the 5-yearold boy, according to police department spokesman Rick Goodale.
Lawyer shuns mask, suit tossed: A woman lost her personal injury lawsuit after her lawyer refused to wear a mask in court and the judge threw out her case.
The New York Daily News reported Friday that Brooklyn Judge Lawrence Knipel tossed the case after attorney Howard Greenwald, 68, said he could not breathe wearing the mask in the newly reopened court.
Knipel, who was hospitalized with COVID-19 last spring, insisted the lawyer comply with rules requiring
masks in all buildings.
“Forget about my personal experience with COVID,” the judge told the newspaper.
state court
“We have over half a million dead in this country. We have protocols. The most important protocol is wearing a mask.”