Washington wants New Delhi to denounce Moscow or face US sanctions for buying Russian weapons
Washington is looking at the possibility of sanctioning India over New Delhi’s purchases of Russian weapons, a senior State Department official has told Congress. The US is also pushing India to disavow Moscow over the current conflict in Ukraine.
President Joe Biden is “looking very closely” at whether to implement or waive the sanctions on countries that buy Russian military hardware, Assistant Secretary of State for South Asian affairs Donald Lu told the Senate.
India recently bought S-400 air defense systems from Moscow, running afoul of a 2017 US law called Countering American Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA), passed in response to allegations of Russian meddling in US elections.
“I can assure you that the administration will follow the CAATSA law and fully implement that law and will consult with Congress as we move forward with any of them,” Lu told lawmakers. “What unfortunately I am not able to say is to prejudge the decisions of the President or the [secretary of state] on the waiver issue or on the sanctions issue, or whether Russia’s invasion of Ukraine will bear on that decision,” he added.
Turkey, a NATO ally, was sanctioned under CAATSA in December 2020 and banished from the F-35 fighter program, for buying S-400s from Russia.
Over the past several months, the US has been in a “pitched battle” with Indian officials, Lu said, with Biden himself as well as Secretary of State Antony Blinken pushing New Delhi “to take a clearer position, a position opposed to Russia’s action.”
India has already canceled orders of MiG-29 fighters, helicopters and anti-tank weapons from Russia, Lu said, but the US would like it to do more. Washington is “in the process of trying to understand whether defense technology that we are sharing with India today can be adequately safeguarded given India’s historical relationship with Russia and its defense sales.”
New Delhi’s abstention at the UN General Assembly vote to condemn Russia on Wednesday and offer of humanitarian aid to Ukraine are “promising steps,” Lu said, adding that “action has begun to turn public opinion in India against a country that they perceived as a partner” after an Indian student was killed in Kharkov, reportedly by a Russian bombing.
Both Washington and Moscow have wooed India in recent years, with Russia signing a number of manufacturing contracts – including weapons and Covid-19 vaccines – while the US renamed its regional command “Indo-Pacific” and declared New Delhi a “major defense partner” in 2016.
India is also taking part in the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, a group that includes the US, Japan and Australia and is aimed at countering China. The White House said on Thursday that Biden held a video call with the group “to discuss the war against Ukraine and its implications for the Indo-Pacific.”
LIMA, Mar 03 (IPS) – The COVID-19 pandemic did not hit everyone equally and employment has shown a clear gender-differentiated impact. Two years after the start of the pandemic, it is more difficult for women than men to recover their jobs, and this is clearly reflected in Latin America.
The investigation will explore whether the video-sharing app violated state consumer protection laws
A bipartisan coalition of US attorneys general on Wednesday launched a probe into video-sharing app TikTok’s impact on children, marking the latest investigation into the effect of social media companies on kids’ safety.
Attorneys general from California, Florida, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Nebraska, New Jersey, Tennessee and Vermont are working together to establish if TikTok has violated state consumer protection laws and put the public at risk.The probe will seek to explore the potential harm young people suffer from using the app, including what TikTok knows about the effects of its service on children.
The attorneys general are seeking information on the methods employed by TikTok to increase user engagement among young individuals, such as boosting their time spent on the app, Massachusetts’ Attorney General Maura Healey revealed on Wednesday.
The same bipartisan coalition of attorneys general announced a similar investigation in November, into Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, exploring how it has impacted children.
A spokesperson for TikTok defended the company’s safety policies that protect younger users, in a statement released in response to the announcement of the investigation.
“We care deeply about building an experience that helps to protect and support the well-being of our community, and appreciate that the state attorneys general are focusing on the safety of younger users. We look forward to providing information on the many safety and privacy protections we have for teens,” the representative said.
The probe by the group of attorneys general comes after US President Joe Biden announced during his State of the Union address on Tuesday that tech companies should be held accountable for children’s online safety.
“We must hold social media platforms accountable for the national experiment they’re conducting on our children for profit,” Biden stated, calling on Congress to “strengthen privacy protections, ban targeted advertising to children [and to] demand tech companies stop collecting personal data on our children.”
