China, Iran, Russia on agenda as Pompeo testifies in U.S. Senate | News

Source link

        by <span class="article-author">Thomson Reuters</span>

</p><div>

    <p>By Patricia Zengerle

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. lawmakers expect to question Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on dealings with China and Russia, the decision to move troops out of Germany and weapons exports when the country’s top diplomat offers rare public testimony in the Senate on Thursday.

Pompeo will testify at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing for the first time in 15 months, discussing the State Department’s annual budget request.

Foreign Relations Committee Democrats released a report this week that harshly criticized Pompeo’s tenure at State, saying he had harmed the department’s ability to conduct diplomacy by leaving jobs open for months, treating career diplomats poorly and promoting a culture of retaliation.

“This is not just about an attack on one federal agency; it is a disgrace to American values and leadership, and puts our national security at risk,” said Senator Bob Menendez, the foreign relations panel’s top Democrat.

Lawmakers are also likely to ask Pompeo about President Donald Trump’s abrupt firing in May of Steve Linick, the State Department inspector general, as he investigated arms sales to Saudi Arabia and allegations that Pompeo improperly ordered a taxpayer-funded subordinate to handle personal errands.

Pompeo has denied wrongdoing.

A host of other issues are also on lawmakers’ minds, Senate aides said. Among them are deteriorating relations with China, after Washington and Beijing each closed one of the other country’s consulates and Pompeo recently announced an end to Hong Kong’s special trading status.

Lawmakers also want to ask about tensions with Iran heightened by military exercises in the Gulf and plans to withdraw about 12,000 troops from Germany in fallout from Trump’s long-simmering feud with NATO ally Berlin.

They also are concerned about Trump’s plans to allow more drone exports and reports that Russia offered bounties for the killing of Americans in Afghanistan.

(Reporting by Patricia Zengerle; Editing by Lincoln Feast.)

    <!-- Go to www.addthis.com/dashboard to customize your tools -->

</div><script>(function(d, s, id) {
  var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];
  if (d.getElementById(id)) return;
  js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id;
  js.src = "https://connect.facebook.net/en_US/sdk.js#xfbml=1&version=v2.8&appId=282959895462370";
  fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs);
}(document, 'script', 'facebook-jssdk'));</script>


source https://iranians.global/china-iran-russia-on-agenda-as-pompeo-testifies-in-u-s-senate-news/

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Latest $84 million cuts rip the heart out of the ABC, and our democracy

Image
Source link By Alexandra Wake, Program Manager, Journalism, RMIT University At the height of the coronavirus emergency, and on the back of devastating bushfires, Australia’s much awarded and trusted national broadcaster has again been forced to make major cuts to staff, services and programs. It is doing so to offset the latest $84 million budget shortfall as a result of successive cuts from the Coalition government. In the latest cuts, wrapped up as part of the national broadcaster’s five-year plan , 250 staff will lose their jobs the major 7:45am news bulletin on local radio has been axed ABC Life has lost staff but somehow expanded to become ABC Local independent screen production has been cut by $5 million ABC News Channel programming is still being reviewed. Even the travel budget, which allows journalists and storytellers to get to places not accessible by others, has been cut by 25%. These are just the latest in a long list of axed services, and come off the ...
Read more

the coronavirus and Joe Biden

Image
Source link By David Smith, Senior Lecturer in American Politics and Foreign Policy, US Studies Centre, University of Sydney The US presidential election is being shaped by the two crises that have defined 2020 so far: the coronavirus pandemic and the national reckoning over police brutality and racism. COVID-19 has infected millions of Americans and killed 125,000, while causing the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression . Camera phone footage of George Floyd’s brutal killing sparked America’s largest wave of protests at least since the 1960s . The term “unprecedented” has been used widely to describe these events , but they are just the latest versions of the two oldest and biggest problems in American politics: government dysfunction and racial injustice. The “winning” years In 2016, Donald Trump presented appealingly easy solutions to these problems. Untainted by government, he would “ drain the swamp ” of bureaucrats and his business acumen would fix problems th...
Read more

World ‘woefully’ underestimating female genital mutilation – more lifestyle

Source link Female genital mutilation affects far more countries than previously thought, meaning global estimates for the number of women who have been cut are “woefully” low, researchers said on Tuesday. FGM is traditionally associated with a swathe of African countries, but the study highlights growing evidence that the ritual is also practised in other regions including the Middle East and Asia. World leaders, who have pledged to end FGM by 2030, are “seriously off track”, rights group Equality Now said, as it called for global efforts to end the practice to be broadened to more countries. The United Nations’ children’s agency UNICEF estimates that about 200 million girls and women have been cut worldwide, based on data from 31 countries, mostly in Africa. But Equality Now said at least 92 countries were affected by FGM, including Singapore, Iran, India and Sri Lanka. The study also included an account of FGM from the United States, where a woman from a white Christian commu...
Read more