Canada this week announced sanctions against nine Moldovan people, saying they are “Russian collaborators” with ties to sanctioned oligarchs. The country also sanctioned six television stations that have had their operating licenses revoked by Moldova’s Commission for Exceptional Situations and “actively promote and disseminate Russian disinformation” to justify Russia’s war against Ukraine.
President Joe Biden this week renewed a national emergency authorizing certain sanctions related to Syria, the White House said. The situation in Syria "undermines the campaign to defeat the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria" and threatens civilians, peace and security in the region, the White House said. The emergency for Syria was renewed for one year from Oct. 14.
The U.S. could impose new sanctions or tighten existing ones against Hamas in response to the group’s recent attacks on Israel, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said, speaking to reporters ahead of annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank in Marrakesh, Morocco. She said those decisions are under consideration.
A House bill that could apply blocking sanctions on a host of Chinese companies included on various government denied party lists would “create enormous problems” for U.S. companies doing business in China, said William Reinsch, a former Commerce Department official and current Scholl Chair in International Business at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
The U.N. Security Council last week removed an Iraq-related entry from its sanctions list. The entry was for Walid Hamid Tawfiq al-Tikriti, an Iraqi national and governor of the Basrah province who was first sanctioned by the U.N. and the Treasury Department in 2003. He remains sanctioned by Treasury.
The U.S. has sanctioned more than 2,500 Russia-related parties or entities, including over 80% of the country’s banking sector by assets, since Moscow invaded Ukraine last year, said Elizabeth Rosenberg, the Treasury Department’s assistant secretary for terrorist financing and financial crimes. But she said the administration can still do more to increase pressure on the Russian government.
The U.S. this week sanctioned a China-based network of companies and people involved in manufacturing and distributing “ton quantities” of fentanyl, methamphetamine and MDMA precursors. The designations also target two entities and one person based in Canada.
The Office of Foreign Assets Control published two previously issued general licenses under its Russian Harmful Foreign Activities Sanctions Regulations. The full text of each license is available in the notice.
The Office of Foreign Assets Control this week sanctioned two entities and one person for “undermining the peace, security, and stability” of Sudan.
The U.S., the U.K. and the EU have seen a recent uptick in sanctioning people involved in organized crime, especially the U.S., which has “far and away sanctioned the greatest number of criminal actors,” the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime said in a new report this month. But the nongovernmental organization said countries tend to impose these measures as part of a country-focused sanctions regime, which is a mistake because of the “highly fluid nature of modern illicit markets.” Focusing on traffickers and smugglers in one country, for instance, has a “displacement effect” and drives those actors to instead continue their illegal operations in “areas where they may fall outside the parameters of a sanctions regime.”