WASHINGTON – The UN human rights expert for Myanmar on Wednesday called on the United States to further tighten sanctions on the country’s military rulers to include their main revenue source, the state oil and gas enterprise.

UN Special Rapporteur Tom Andrews, a former member of the US Congress, also said it was vital for Washington to at least maintain levels of humanitarian support for victims of the junta inside and outside Myanmar.

Andrews told a hearing of the US Congress’s Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission he was “alarmed” by reports that some donors, including the US, might reduce support for Rohingya refugees who fled Myanmar and said a Joint Response Plan that includes food rations for Rohingya children in Bangladesh was only 32% funded so far this year.

Andrews praised Washington for imposing sanctions on the Myanmar Foreign Trade Bank and Myanma Investment and Commercial Bank in June, but said more needed to be done.

“We need to have more sanctions imposed… I urge the US to join the European Union and immediately impose sanctions on the junta’s single largest source of revenue, the Myanma Oil and Gas Enterprise,” Andrews said.

“If you can stop the money, you can cut their ability to continue these atrocities,” he said referring to civilian deaths at the hands of the military.

Andrews also urged Washington to work with other countries to block the junta’s access to weapons.

Last month, Washington expanded its sanctions against Myanmar to include foreign companies or individuals helping the junta to procure jet fuel it uses to launch air strikes, while estimating that the military had killed more than 3,900 civilians since taking power in a 2021 coup.

In January, the United States targeted the managing director and deputy managing director of the Myanma Oil and Gas Enterprise with sanctions, but has yet to go further against the firm, despite the urgings of rights groups and dissidents.

Myanmar military officials have played down the impact of sanctions and say their air strikes target insurgents.

Andrews said in a May report that Myanmar’s military had imported at least $1 billion in arms and other material since the coup and called out Russia and China for aiding its campaign to crush its opposition. — Reuters

BEIJING – Chinese President Xi Jinping and Venezuelan counterpart Nicolas Maduro have signed bilateral cooperation agreements in areas such as economy, trade and tourism, state broadcaster China Central Television (CCTV) reported.

The two nations also signed deals on science and technology, civil aviation and aerospace, CCTV reported on Wednesday.

The pair met during Maduro’s first visit to Beijing in five years against a backdrop of China’s testy relations with the West and energy and debt repayment talks. China is the world’s largest oil importer and oil-rich Venezuela’s largest creditor.

China and Venezuela have long-standing warm ties seen in China’s regular oil purchases despite US sanctions and financial support it bestows upon the cash-strapped Latin American country via loan-for-oil deals and investment.

China on Wednesday upgraded relations with Venezuela to an “all-weather strategic partnership”, typically reserved for a select few nations. The world’s second-largest economy is owed over $10 billion by Venezuela, independent data showed.

Xi said the two countries are “good friends with mutual trust” and common development, state media reported.

He also noted that next year will be the 50th anniversary of the establishment of the pair’s diplomatic relations.

Maduro said Venezuela supports China’s Belt and Road Initiative to boost trade infrastructure, Chinese media said, referring to a related conference in China next month. China has said it has Belt and Road cooperation agreements with more than 150 countries and over 30 international organizations.

He also said Venezuela is willing to closely communicate and cooperate with China within multilateral frameworks such as with the BRICS group and United Nations.

Venezuela is courting membership of BRICS – a group of major emerging economies Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – which recently favored expansion.

A joint statement issued by China’s foreign ministry on Thursday stated that Venezuela is willing to join financial institutions and financing cooperation initiatives such as the New Development Bank set up by BRICS, and will continue to support the internationalization of the yuan.

Venezuela in the statement said, as a reliable supplier with the world’s largest oil and fourth-largest natural gas reserves, it can make important contributions to BRICS’ energy agenda.

China said it is willing to support construction of special economic zones in Venezuela and both countries agreed to further develop bilateral trade and “enrich the variety of trade goods”.

In the statement they also said agreements on aviation and aerospace include future flights between the countries and cooperation in spaceflight.

The countries also agreed to deepen cooperation between legislative bodies to strengthen exchanges on legislation and governance. — Reuters

LONDON – The British government said on Thursday it would invest 200 million pounds ($250 million) of extra funding in the National Health Service (NHS) to help boost its resilience during the busy winter months.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has made cutting NHS patient waiting lists one of his five top priorities ahead of a national election expected next year. More than 7.5 million people in England are on a waiting list for hospital treatment.

“Winter is the most challenging time for the health service,” Sunak said in a statement.

“This extra 200 million pounds will bolster the health service during its busiest period, while protecting elective care so we can keep cutting waiting lists.”

In addition, the government said it would invest 40 million pounds to improve social care capacity and improve discharge from hospital.

The 75-year-old state-run NHS has been struggling to keep up with patient demands, an increasingly elderly and sickly population, and the cost of new medicines and treatments.

A business plan published on Tuesday by NHS England, the largest part of the NHS, put its budget for 2023/24 at 168.8 billion pounds.

The COVID-19 pandemic strained an already creaking system, and services have been further disrupted over the last year by a series of strikes over pay by doctors, nurses and other healthcare workers.

The NHS Confederation, which represents organizations across the healthcare sector, welcomed the funding but said it risked being absorbed by the cost of ongoing industrial action which it estimated had already cost around 1 billion pounds.

Junior and senior doctors are due to take joint strike action for the first time later this month, and again in October.

“There remain serious challenges to be resolved, the most pressing of which is industrial action … We need to see this situation settled as it has already gone too far,” said NHS Confederation chief executive Matthew Taylor. — Reuters

WASHINGTON – The United States plans to withhold $85 million in military aid to Egypt because of Cairo’s failure to meet US conditions on freeing political prisoners and other issues, according to a congressional notification obtained by Reuters and a US senator.

Senator Chris Murphy, a Democrat, urged the Biden administration to withhold $235 million more, and two other sources familiar with the matter said a decision on those funds was expected soon.

“We are consulting with Congress as we finalize our actions,” said a State Department spokesperson when asked about Murphy’s comments on the Senate floor.

Of the $85 million that is being withheld, $55 million will be redirected to Taiwan, and the remaining $30 million to Lebanon, a State Department letter to congressional committees laying out the foreign military financing showed.

The Egyptian embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

“The administration rightly decided to withhold that first tranche – $85 million tied to the release of political prisoners – because there’s just no question there has not been enough progress,” Senator Murphy said.

“I would urge the administration to finish the job and withhold the full $320 million … until Egypt’s human rights and democracy record improves,” he added.

Rights groups have long accused Egypt of widespread human rights abuses under President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s government, including torture and enforced disappearances.

Egyptian authorities have taken some steps since late 2021 that they say aim to address rights, including launching a human rights strategy and ending a state of emergency, but critics have dismissed the measures as largely cosmetic.

Some high-profile detainees have been pardoned or released but activists say new detentions have outnumbered releases and that thousands of political prisoners remain in jail, with restrictions on free speech as tight as ever.

For decades, the United States has given Egypt about $1.3 billion a year in aid to buy US weapons systems and services. This aid is largely the result of the 1979 Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty.

Over the last decade or so, the US Congress has made some aid subject to human rights conditions.

Under US law, $85 million is contingent on Egypt “making clear and consistent progress in releasing political prisoners, providing detainees with due process of law, and preventing the intimidation and harassment of American citizens.”

These conditions cannot be waived by the executive branch.

A further $235 million is conditioned on Egypt meeting democracy and human rights requirements. These conditions, however, can be waived if the executive branch certifies this is in the US national security interest.

There is a further loophole for the $235 million, which can be given to Egypt regardless if it is for “counterterrorism, border security and nonproliferation programs for Egypt.”

Last year, Washington allowed the full $75 million that was then contingent on progress on political detentions and allowed a further $95 million to go to Egypt under the counterterrorism, border security and non-proliferation exception.

This amounted to a decision to withhold $130 million, the same amount as the year before.

The $85 million withheld “is an important reversal from last year,” said Seth Binder of the Project on Middle East Democracy rights group.

“But if the administration withholds less than it has the last two years it would in essence be saying to al-Sisi that it believes the Egyptian government has improved its rights record, which is just not true.” — Reuters

LONDON – Most global coffee firms will not be ready to comply with the European Union’s new law preventing imports of commodities linked to deforestation, and small farmers may suffer as a consequence, a major coffee sector report has found.

The EU’s landmark law, which comes into effect at end-2024, requires importers of commodities like coffee, cocoa, beef, soy, rubber and palm oil to produce a due diligence statement proving their goods are not contributing to the destruction of forests – a major source of climate change – or risk hefty fines.

According to the biennial Coffee Barometer, prepared by a group of NGOs, coffee firms’ lack of preparedness for the law might prompt them to shift sourcing to more developed regions like Brazil that have better traceability, leaving the millions of mostly small scale, poverty stricken farmers in the lurch.

It called on both the EU and coffee firms to ensure this does not happen, not least because desperate farmers might be forced, in such a scenario, to expand into forested areas to increase output in order to make ends meet.

These farmers would then sell to regions with less stringent environmental rules, negating the intended impact of the law. Deforestation is responsible for about 10% of global greenhouse gas emissions that drive climate change, and the law aims to tackle the EU’s contribution to this.

“Investing in farming communities in vulnerable landscapes may seem risky, however these investments are essential to tackling the root causes of global deforestation,” said Niels Haak of Conservation International, one of the sponsors of the report.

Coffee is produced by an estimated 12.5 million farmers in roughly 70 countries, but just 5 of them – Brazil, Vietnam, Colombia, Indonesia and Honduras – produce 85 percent of the world’s coffee.

The remaining 15 percent is produced by 9.6 million farmers or two thirds of the total, in countries like Ethiopia, Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya, Peru, Guatemala, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Costa Rica and Mexico.

These countries have “inadequate infrastructure and low levels of traceability”, the report found.

“Without proactive support from buyers, smallholders lacking organization and resources to provide the requisite data for compliance (with the law) will bear the initial impact,” the report said.

The EU’s deforestation law has caused much consternation amongst producing countries.

Indonesia has accused the EU of ‘regulatory imperialism’, while Malaysia has said the law is a “deliberate effort” to increase costs and barriers for its palm oil sector – a key source of export revenue for the country.

Roughly 130,000 hectares of forest have been lost annually over the last 20 years due to land being cleared for coffee growing as farmers – most of whom remain at or below the poverty line – attempt to make ends meet, the Coffee Barometer found. — Reuters