China and Belarus held the ninth meeting of their economic and trade working group in Beijing this week, where the two sides applauded their deepening trade ties and vowed to continue expanding opportunities for Chinese companies in Belarus.
Six Senate Democrats -- led by Banking Committee ranking member Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Foreign Relations Committee ranking member Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire -- urged the Trump administration May 5 to increase sanctions on Russia to pressure Moscow to end its war on Ukraine.
The EU and the U.K. should strengthen trade and security ties in response to rising geopolitical tensions and threats posed by Russia, top European Parliament members said ahead of the first EU-U.K. summit May 19.
The House of Representatives passed several sanctions bills late May 5, including one aimed at officials who undermine democracy in the Republic of Georgia (see 2501070037).
The Senate Banking Committee voted 14-10 largely along party lines May 6 to approve John Hurley to be undersecretary of the treasury for terrorism and financial crimes, sending his nomination to the full Senate for its consideration.
The European Commission this week outlined a new plan to gradually phase out imports of Russian oil, gas and nuclear energy while diversifying European energy imports by buying more from other markets. The “roadmap” details a series of proposals the commission plans to make in the coming weeks, including one that would ban all new and existing Russian gas spot contracts by the end of the year and all remaining Russian gas imports by 2027.
Companies must spend more resources on export compliance, and governments need to do a better job of coordinating and updating multilateral export control lists, in order to prevent Russia, Iran and other “rogue actors” from buying as many sensitive dual-use goods, researchers said this week.
EU and Lithuanian authorities last month raided a logistics business suspected of illegally exporting items to Russia and Belarus, seizing more than $1.7 million worth of goods from the company. The items allegedly were made in EU countries before the company rerouted them through Central Asian countries to circumvent EU sanctions, the European Anti-Fraud Office and the Lithuanian Customs Criminal Service said.
Real estate developer Charles Kushner, President Donald Trump’s nominee to be U.S. ambassador to France, said May 1 that he would encourage the French government to reimpose sanctions on Iran for violating its nuclear-weapons-related obligations.
The U.K. on May 1 amended one entry under its Russia sanctions regime, the Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation announced. OFSI updated the listing of Albert Shigabutdinov to reflect that he's a director of the TAIF Group, a firm operating in the Russian energy, financial services and communications sectors.