WASHINGTON - Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has said the US is "looking at" banning Chinese social media apps, including TikTok, over allegations Beijing is using them to spy on users.
India has already barred the wildly popular TikTok app over national security and privacy concerns while other countries are reportedly mulling similar measures.
Asked on Monday by Fox News's Laura Ingraham if the US should consider blocking the apps -- "especially Tik Tok" -- the country's top diplomat said the Trump administration was "taking this very seriously; we are certainly looking at it."
Pompeo said the US had been working for a "long time" on the "problems" of Chinese technology in infrastructure and was "making real progress."
"With respect to Chinese apps on people's cell phones, I can assure you the United States will get this one right too," he said.
"I don't want to get out in front of the president, but it's something we are looking at."
Pompeo earlier lashed out at what he called China's "Orwellian" moves to censor activists, schools and libraries in Hong Kong under a sweeping new security law.
Authorities in the financial hub have ordered schools to remove books for review under the law, which has criminalized certain opinions such as calls for independence or more autonomy.
Libraries in Hong Kong said they were pulling titles written by a handful of pro-democracy activists.
"The Chinese Communist Party's destruction of free Hong Kong continues," Pompeo said in a sharply worded statement.
"With the ink barely dry on the repressive National Security Law, local authorities -- in an Orwellian move -- have now established a central government national security office, started removing books critical of the CCP from library shelves, banned political slogans, and are now requiring schools to enforce censorship," he said.
Pompeo condemned what he called the "latest assaults on the rights and freedoms of the people of Hong Kong."
"Until now, Hong Kong flourished because it allowed free thinking and free speech, under an independent rule of law. No more," he said.
Beijing has faced a groundswell of criticism from primarily Western nations over its decision to impose the security law, which outlaws acts of subversion, secession, terrorism and colluding with foreign forces.
US Vice President Mike Pence told CNBC last week that the law was a "betrayal" and "unacceptable to freedom-loving people around the world."
Last week the US Congress passed tough new sanctions targeting banks involved in violating Hong Kong's autonomy.
The act would punish banks -- including by blocking loans from US institutions -- if they conduct "significant transactions" with officials who violate the city's autonomy.
President Donald Trump must sign the legislation for it to take effect.
Agence France-Presse
MUNICH, Germany - US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Saturday defended the United States' global role and launched a scathing attack on China and Russia, vowing that the West's ideals and values would prevail.
"I'm happy to report that the death of the transatlantic alliance is grossly exaggerated. The West is winning, and we're winning together," Pompeo said in a speech at the Munich Security Conference.
Pompeo was responding to criticism by German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who took an indirect swipe at President Donald Trump on Friday saying his administration rejected the idea of an international community. Steinmeier accused the United States, Russia and China of stoking global mistrust and insecurity.
Citing Russia's 2014 annexation of Crimea, cyber threats in Iran and economic coercion by China, Pompeo said those countries were still "desiring empires" and destabilizing the rules-based international system.
"The West is winning," Pompeo said. "But now, more than thirty years on since the fall of the (Berlin) wall, countries that don't respect sovereignty still threaten us."
Amid growing US concerns over Chinese telecommunications firm Huawei, Pompeo said all three of those nations were using the cyber realm to yield influence.
"Huawei and other Chinese state-backed tech companies are Trojan horses for Chinese intelligence. Russia's disinformation campaigns try to turn our citizens against one another. Iranian cyberattacks plague Middle East computer networks," he said.
source: news.abs-cbn.com
WASHINGTON -- US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Monday warned Silicon Valley not to bolster China's "Orwellian" state, two days before the world's two largest economies sign a partial trade deal.
Speaking to a tech-heavy crowd in San Francisco, Pompeo trumpeted the "phase one" deal to tame a two-year trade war but told businesses that they needed to do more.
"We need to make sure American technology doesn't power a truly Orwellian surveillance state. We need to make sure American principles aren't sacrificed for prosperity," Pompeo said at the Commonwealth Club.
He said he was not discouraging firms from heading to China, insisting that the Trump administration wants "American companies to get rich doing business there."
"At the same time, we need to make sure that our companies don't do deals that strengthen our competitor's military or tighten their regime's grip of repression in parts of that country," he said.
Rights advocates have voiced growing concern about China's use of technology to develop intrusive electronic surveillance.
In the tightly controlled western region of Xinjiang, where experts say more than one million mostly Muslim people are incarcerated, China is said to be fine-tuning technology that will allow security forces to quickly identify anyone and give details about their movements and background.
"Ask yourselves just a few questions -- who am I dealing with? What's the true risk/return calculus to doing business in China?" Pompeo said.
Trump is set to sign the partial deal on Wednesday after prolonged feuding, dropping new tariffs that were set to take effect on Chinese electronic products and cutting in half those imposed on September 1 on $120 billion worth of products.
The White House has said the agreement includes improvements on Beijing's requirements that foreign companies transfer technology -- which the United States say is a pretext for rampant intellectual theft.
The Trump administration says that the accord will also give US companies better access to the Chinese market for financial services and require China to buy more US products.
"We will do our part in the government. We will keep ramping up our enforcement," Pompeo said.
"But defending freedom and national security isn't just the government's job. It's one for each and every citizen," he told the tech companies.
Agence France-Presse
KIEV - Ukraine has widened its investigation into the founder of energy company Burisma to include suspicion of embezzling state funds, Prosecutor General Ruslan Ryaboshapka said on Wednesday.
Allegations of wrongdoing at Burisma go to the heart of a U.S. impeachment inquiry into whether President Donald Trump improperly pressured Ukraine's leadership to investigate his main rival in the 2020 presidential race.
Trump wants Ukraine to launch an investigation into former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter, who was a board member at Burisma from 2014-2019.
The prosecutor who has investigated Burisma is Kostiantyn Kulyk, who previously met Trump's personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani to discuss accusations against the Bidens.
After he took office in late August, Ryaboshapka launched a wide-ranging audit of criminal cases to see whether they had been conducted properly. Thirteen of them relate to Burisma founder Mykola Zlochevsky, Ryaboshapka told reporters at a briefing on Wednesday.
Burisma did not respond to a request for comment.
Ryaboshapka's predecessors oversaw a series of investigations into Zlochevsky, a multimillionaire former minister of ecology and natural resources. The allegations concern tax violations, money-laundering and licences given to Burisma during the period where Zlochevsky was a minister.
Ryaboshapka said Zlochevsky was now suspected of the "theft of government funds on an especially large scale," but did not provide evidence or details.
Ryaboshapka was speaking after being asked about a document from the general prosecutor's office that was leaked at a separate press conference by three lawmakers earlier on Wednesday.
The document, only part of which was visible, showed Kulyk suspected Zlochevsky of offences including using his official position to embezzle 800 million hryvnias ($33 million) of money belonging to the central bank.
The investigation is effectively on hold, however, because the Ukrainian authorities cannot determine Zlochevsky's whereabouts.
The central bank did not respond to a request for comment.
Giuliani has previously told Reuters he met Kulyk in Paris. He said at that meeting Kulyk echoed allegations that in 2016 Joe Biden as Vice President had tried to have Ukraine's then-chief prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, fired to stop him investigating Burisma. Biden has accused Giuliani of peddling "false, debunked conspiracy theories" for repeating these allegations.
Kulyk told Reuters in October that he had been investigating Zlochevsky for around two years.
Reuters could not independently verify the extent of Kulyk's involvement, but a source close to the energy company saw a spike in activity by Kulyk in regards to Burisma after Giuliani's interest in the company and the Bidens had been conveyed to Kulyk's then superior, Yuriy Lutsenko.
In late January, Kulyk sent Zlochevsky the first of several summons for questioning, documents seen by Reuters showed.
Zlochevsky has not commented on the summons or an announcement by Ryaboshapka in October that his office was reviewing a series of investigations linked to Zlochevsky
source: news.abs-cbn.com
WASHINGTON - Witness transcripts in the impeachment probe into Donald Trump were made public for the first time Monday, with the former US ambassador to Kiev telling investigators she felt threatened by the president in his call to Ukraine's leader.
Democrats are entering an open phase of a congressional probe into potential abuse of power by Trump that has divided Washington as Republicans seek to defend him and his opponents press their effort to remove him from office.
The release of Marie Yovanovitch's deposition came as the White House hardened its opposition to the inquiry, with Trump's top national security lawyer defying a subpoena to testify early Monday.
The probe is examining how Trump pressured Ukraine to investigate his Democratic rival Joe Biden, including by withholding $391 million in military aid that had been approved by Congress to help the US ally defend itself against Russian aggression.
Yovanovitch, who had urged Ukraine to do more to fight corruption, testified last month that she was ousted in May over "false claims" spread by questionable actors allied to Trump.
According to her deposition, she was alarmed by the deepening involvement of Trump's personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani in Ukrainian affairs, and in particular his efforts to get Kiev to investigate Biden.
She said she was "shocked" when she read the summary of Trump's July 25 call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in which Trump said the ambassador was "going to go through some things."
"I was very concerned. I still am," Yovanovitch says.
"Did you feel threatened?" an investigator asks Yovanovitch in the transcript.
"Yes," she replies.
Yovanovitch said Ukraine's Interior Minister Arsen Avakov told her in February after speaking with Giuliani that it would be "dangerous" for Ukraine to become involved in US politics.
"He told me I really needed to watch my back," Yovanovitch said.
The release is the first of what House Intelligence Committee chairman Adam Schiff said would be several key depositions.
He also released testimony from Michael McKinley, a former senior advisor to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo who resigned in September after concluding that the department was not defending top diplomats.
He said he asked Pompeo three times to defend Yovanovitch, eventually telling him that "this situation isn't acceptable." But the secretary was essentially non-responsive.
In his 37 years as a diplomat he had "never seen" efforts to use the State Department and its missions "to procure negative political information for domestic purposes," McKinley told investigators.
[BOLD] 'Irregular back channel'
The depositions demonstrate "the contamination of US foreign policy by an irregular back channel that sought to advance the president's personal and political interests, and the serious concerns that this activity elicited across our government," Schiff and the chairs of two other panels leading the investigation said in a statement.
Schiff said testimony would be released Tuesday from two more key witnesses, then-special representative on Ukraine Kurt Volker and US Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland.
They were in text message chains in which diplomats expressed misgivings about the prospective quid pro quo of political investigations for military aid.
Prior to the release of the first transcripts, Trump sought to attack their credibility by suggesting, without evidence, that Schiff would "change the words that were said to suit the Dems' purposes."
Meanwhile John Eisenberg, Trump's deputy counsel for national security affairs, defied a congressional subpoena, a sign of renewed White House stonewalling.
Eisenberg is reported to have been on the July 25 call. But Trump said Monday there was "no reason" for witnesses to answer questions by investigators.
"This is just another Democrat Hoax that I have had to live with from the day I got elected," the president said.
Robert Blair, an assistant to the president and senior advisor to the acting chief of staff, also refused to testify.
Trump senior associate counsel Michael Ellis and White House budget office associate director for energy Brian McCormack were due for depositions too.
But Schiff said the White House instructed them not to appear, a clear signal that "their testimony would be further incriminating of the president."
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JEDDAH/DUBAI - The United States has discussed with Saudi Arabia and other Gulf allies possible responses to an attack on Saudi oil facilities they blame on Iran and which US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo described as an act of war on the kingdom.
US President Donald Trump on Wednesday struck a cautious note, saying there were many options short of war with Iran, which denies involvement in the Sept. 14 strikes that initially halved Saudi oil output. He ordered increased sanctions on Tehran.
"This is an attack of a scale we’ve just not seen before," Pompeo told reporters before landing in Jeddah for talks with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. "The Saudis were the nation that were attacked. It was on their soil. It was an act of war against them directly."
The Saudi ambassador to Berlin said "everything is on the table," telling Deutschlandfunk radio that options need to be discussed carefully.
Riyadh, which described the assault as a "test of global will," on Wednesday displayed the remnants of 25 Iranian drones and missiles it said were used in the strike as undeniable evidence of Iranian aggression.
The United Arab Emirates on Thursday followed its main Arab ally Saudi Arabia in announcing it was joining a global maritime security coalition that Washington has been trying to build since a series of explosions on oil tankers in Gulf waters in recent months that were also blamed on Tehran.
Yemen's Iran-aligned Houthi movement, which is battling a Saudi-led military coalition, claimed responsibility for the assault on two Saudi oil plants, including the world's largest processing facility. US and Saudi officials rejected the claim, saying the attack had not come from the south.
The Houthis on Wednesday said they had listed dozens of sites in the UAE, the Middle East's financial and tourism hub, as possible targets, a threat that could further strain a tense political atmosphere in the region.
Fellow Gulf OPEC producer Kuwait, which said earlier this week it was investigating the detection of a drone over its territory, has put its oil sector on high alert and raised security to the highest level as a precautionary measure.
Pompeo headed to the UAE on Thursday for talks with Abu Dhabi's crown prince after meeting Saudi Arabia's de facto ruler Crown Prince Mohammed on Wednesday.
"These subversive attacks aim to destabilize the region's security and damaging the global energy supply and the global economy," state media quoted Prince Mohammed as telling Pompeo.
Oil prices, which soared following the attack, steadied after Saudi Arabia pledged to restore full production by the end of the month.
INTERNATIONAL INVESTIGATION
Proof of Iranian responsibility, and evidence that the attack was launched from Iranian territory, could pressure Riyadh and Washington, which want to curb Iranian influence in the region, into a response. Trump has previously said he does not want war and is coordinating with Gulf and European states.
Pompeo said the attacks would be a major focus of next week's annual UN General Assembly meeting and suggested Riyadh could make its case there.
"There is an international investigation, let's wait for its results," France's foreign minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told C News television, adding that the General Assembly meeting presented an opportunity to de-escalate tensions.
The French army spokesperson said it sent 7 experts to Saudi Arabia to join the investigation. UN officials monitoring sanctions on Iran and Yemen are also helping probe the attack, which exposed gaps in Saudi air defenses despite billions spent on Western military hardware.
US efforts to bring about a UN Security Council response looked unlikely to succeed as Russia and China have veto powers and were expected to shield Iran.
Tehran has said the US accusations were part of Washington's "maximum pressure" policy on the Islamic Republic to force Iran to renegotiate a 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, which Trump exited last year, reimposing sanctions.
Washington and its Gulf allies want Iran to stop supporting regional proxies, including in Yemen, Iraq and Lebanon, as well as to put more limitations on its nuclear and missile programs.
The UAE, Saudi Arabia's main partner in the Western-backed, Sunni Muslim coalition fighting in Yemen, has scaled down its military presence there as rising Iran tensions risk a war in the Gulf and as Western allies pressed for an end to the war.
The conflict, seen as a proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran, has killed tens of thousands and pushed millions to the brink of famine. Some Western countries such as Germany have halted weapons sales to Saudi Arabia over the ruinous war.
source: news.abs-cbn.com
BANGKOK - The US and 10 Southeast Asian states will hold their first-ever joint maritime exercises in September, aimed at preventing "wrongdoing" as Washington and Beijing jostle for influence in the region.
Washington has traditionally been the dominant naval power in Southeast Asia and its re-engagement with the area comes as a deteriorating trade war with China threatens to engulf the global economy.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo attended a regional summit earlier this month with the 10-country Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in a bid to promote the Trump administration's so-called "Indo-Pacific" strategy.
Also a source of friction is China's expansive claims to the South China Sea, as the resource-rich waters contain some of the world's most vital commercial shipping lanes.
Despite having conflicting interests with four rival claimants in ASEAN, China last year held a joint maritime drill with the regional bloc.
The navies of the US and ASEAN will do the same on September 2, the US embassy in Bangkok announced late Friday, with the exercises launching at a Thai naval base in Chonburi province east of Bangkok.
The purpose of the five-day maritime drill is to "maintain maritime security, focus on prevention and pre-empt wrongdoing in the sea", said a US embassy statement.
The drills will primarily take place off the coast of Vietnam's southernmost Ca Mau province, where the US Navy will dispatch "suspicious boats" in a mock exercise to help ASEAN's navies to "search, verify and legally prosecute" the boats.
Tensions between China and Vietnam have been high since July in the disputed sea when a Chinese survey ship entered waters where Hanoi has several oil and gas projects.
The ship left for a brief period this month, and then came back -- prompting calls from Hanoi to vacate the area.
But a Thai defense ministry spokesman on Saturday played down the timing of the US-ASEAN drills.
"We held exercises with China, now we are having exercises with the US... it has nothing to do with the current situation," said Lieutenant General Kongcheep Tantravanich.
On Friday, a US military ship sailed through the Taiwan Strait to conduct a "freedom of navigation" voyage, the island's defense ministry said.
The move is likely to further irk China in the wake of Washington's latest $8 billion arms sales to self-ruling Taiwan, which Beijing views as part of its territory.
source: news.abs-cbn.com
TEHRAN -- Iran and the United States, locked in a tense standoff after the US withdrew from a nuclear deal, traded barbs Sunday the day before the US tightens sanctions against the Islamic republic.
Both sides say they want to avoid going to war, but tensions have spiraled as a series of incidents, including attacks on tankers and the shooting down of a US drone by Iran in the Gulf, raised fears of an unintended slide towards conflict.
On Sunday, Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said a US-made MQ9 Reaper "spy drone" -- also widely used for carrying out military strikes -- had encroached his country's airspace on May 26.
He made the allegation in a tweet that included a map purporting to show the drone had violated Iranian airspace.
It was dismissed as "child-like" by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo as he headed to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates for Iran talks with the two US allies.
Zarif's statement came after Iran said it had shot down a US Global Hawk drone on Thursday for violating its airspace near the strategic Strait of Hormuz -- a claim the United States denies.
US President Donald Trump called off a planned retaliatory military strike Friday, saying the response would not have been "proportionate", as Tehran warned any attack would see Washington's interests across the Middle East go up in flames.
On Sunday US national security adviser John Bolton cautioned Iran against misinterpreting the last-minute cancellation.
"Neither Iran nor any other hostile actor should mistake US prudence and discretion for weakness," Bolton said in Jerusalem.
With the strike called off, Washington secretly launched cyber-attacks against Iranian missile control systems and a spy network in response to the downed drone, according to US media reports.
US media said the attack crippled computers used to control missile launchers and a spying group tracking ships in the Gulf.
Iran is yet to officially react to the claim, but Fars news agency called the move a "bluff" and said it was meant to repair the White House's "lost reputation" following the downing of its drone.
The downing of the US drone came after a series of attacks on tankers in the congested shipping lanes of the Gulf, which Washington has blamed on Tehran.
Iran has denied responsibility for those attacks.
US 'CYBER ATTACKS'
Trump, who spent Saturday huddling with his advisers, said he was ready to reach out to Iran if the country agreed to renounce nuclear weapons.
"When they agree to that, they're going to have a wealthy country. They're going to be so happy, and I'm going to be their best friend," he told reporters.
Iran has denied seeking a nuclear weapon, and says its program is for civilian purposes.
A multinational accord reached by Tehran and world powers in 2015 sought to curb Iran's nuclear ambitions in exchange for sanctions relief.
But Trump left that agreement more than a year ago and has imposed a robust slate of punitive economic sanctions designed to choke off Iranian oil sales and cripple its economy -- which he now plans to expand.
"We are putting major additional Sanctions on Iran on Monday," tweeted Trump, who has also deployed additional troops to the Middle East.
"I look forward to the day that Sanctions come off Iran, and they become a productive and prosperous nation again - The sooner the better!"
Pompeo added: "When the Iranian regime decides to forgo violence and meet our diplomacy with diplomacy, it knows how to reach us. Until then, our diplomatic isolation and economic pressure campaign against the regime will intensify."
'REPETITIVE' TALKS
A minister from Britain's Foreign Office was in Tehran on Sunday to meet top Iranian diplomats for "urgent de-escalation" of tensions, yet the Iranian party said the talks were "repetitive."
Minister of State for the Middle East Andrew Murrison had the "usual talking points", said Kamal Kharazi, the head of the Strategic Council of Foreign Relations at Iran's foreign ministry.
With the US out of the deal, Iran has said it would reduce some of its nuclear commitments unless the remaining partners -- Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia -- help it circumvent US sanctions and sell its oil.
A top Iranian military official warned Washington against any strikes.
"Firing one bullet towards Iran will set fire to the interests of America and its allies" in the region, armed forces general staff spokesman Brigadier General Abolfazl Shekarchi told the Tasnim news agency.
"If the enemy -- especially America and its allies in the region -- make the military mistake of shooting the powder keg on which America's interests lie, the region will be set on fire."
A former top US military adviser warned the tensions with Iran "could spin out of control".
"My biggest concern is the president is running out of room, running out of options and while rhetoric goes back and forth on how close we came to hitting Iran just the other day, that this thing could spin out of control," former chairman of the Joint Chiefs Mike Mullen told ABC's "This Week."
source: news.abs-cbn.com
WASHINGTON - U.S. President Donald Trump, declaring a national emergency because of tensions with Iran, swept aside objections from Congress on Friday to complete the sale of over $8 billion worth of weapons to Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Jordan.
The Trump administration informed congressional committees that it will go ahead with 22 military sales to the Saudis, United Arab Emirates and Jordan, infuriating lawmakers by circumventing a long-standing precedent for congressional review of major weapons sales.
Members of Congress had been blocking sales of offensive military equipment to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates for months, angry about the huge civilian toll from their air campaign in Yemen, as well as human rights abuses such as the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi at a Saudi consulate in Turkey.
Lawmakers and congressional aides warned earlier this week that Trump, frustrated with Congress holding up weapons deals including the sale of bombs to Saudi Arabia, was considering using a loophole in arms control law to go ahead by declaring a national emergency.
"President Trump is only using this loophole because he knows Congress would disapprove ... There is no new 'emergency' reason to sell bombs to the Saudis to drop in Yemen, and doing so only perpetuates the humanitarian crisis there," said Senator Chris Murphy.
Murphy, a Democrat, made public on Twitter on Wednesday that Trump was considering the loophole in the Arms Control Export Act to clear the sales.
Several of Trump's fellow Republicans, as well as Democrats, said they would object to such a plan, fearing that blowing through the "holds" process would eliminate Congress' ability to check not just Trump but future presidents from selling weapons where they liked.
Representative Mike McCaul, the top Republican on the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, said the administration’s action was "unfortunate" and likely to damage future White House interactions with Congress.
"I would have strongly preferred for the administration to utilize the long-established and codified arms sale review process," McCaul said in a statement.
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a statement that U.S. partners in the Middle East needed the contracts to be completed to help deter Iran, and that the decision to circumvent Congress was meant to be a "one-time event."
It is not the first time Congress and Trump have clashed over policy in the region, or the division of powers between the White House and Capitol Hill. The House and Senate voted to end U.S. military support for the campaign in Yemen earlier this year, but Trump vetoed the resolution.
BOON TO DEFENSE INDUSTRY
In documents sent to Congress, Pompeo listed a wide range of products and services that would be provided to the countries.
They include Raytheon precision-guided munitions (PGMs), support for Boeing Co F-15 aircraft, and Javelin anti-tank missiles, which are made by Raytheon and Lockheed Martin Corp.
Other companies that will benefit include General Electric , now cleared to sell engines for use in F-16 fighter jets operated by the UAE and the U.S. unit of French firm Thales , which was cleared to sell a fuzing system for Paveway IV precision guided bombs to Britain and the UAE.
It will also likely be welcome news for Britain’s BAE Systems Plc and Europe’s Airbus, clearing the way for installation of Paveway laser-guided bombs on European-built Eurofighter and Tornado fighter jets sold to Saudi Arabia, as well F-15 fighters built by Boeing.
"I am disappointed, but not surprised, that the Trump Administration has failed once again to prioritize our long-term national security interests or stand up for human rights, and instead is granting favors to authoritarian countries like Saudi Arabia," Senator Bob Menendez said in a statement.
Menendez, ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, vowed to fight the action, and said he was in talks with both Democrats and some of Trump's fellow Republicans on ways to preserve congressional review of arms sales.
The Foreign Relations Committee chairman, Republican Senator Jim Risch, said he had received formal notification of the administration's intent to move forward.
In a statement, Risch said, "I am reviewing and analyzing the legal justification for this action and the associated implications."
In his memorandum justifying the emergency declaration, Pompeo listed years of actions by Iran. "Iranian malign activity poses a fundamental threat to the stability of the Middle East and to American security at home and abroad," he wrote, and cited "a number of troubling and escalatory indications and warnings" from Tehran.
Trump's administration also announced that it was sending 1,500 additional troops to the Middle East, which it described as an effort to bolster defenses against Iran against what it sees as a threat of potential attack.
Members of Congress from both parties have worried that Trump is pushing toward war with Iran. Clarke Cooper, assistant secretary of state for political-military affairs, said the administration was responding to important needs from partners.
"This is about deterrence and it's not about war," he told Reuters in a telephone interview.
source: news.abs-cbn.com
RIYADH - US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Sunday arrived in Riyadh, where he is set to ask Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to ensure the killers of journalist Jamal Khashoggi are held accountable.
The top US diplomat, on an extensive Middle East tour, embarked on his second politically sensitive visit to Saudi Arabia since Khashoggi's murder inside its Istanbul consulate sparked an international outcry.
"We will continue to have a conversation with the crown prince and the Saudis about ensuring the accountability is full and complete with respect to the unacceptable murder of Jamal Khashoggi," Pompeo told reporters in Qatar, before flying to Riyadh.
"So, we'll continue to talk about that and make sure we have all the facts so that they are held accountable, certainly by the Saudis but by the United States as well."
Khashoggi, a Washington Post contributor, was murdered on October 2 in what Saudi Arabia called a "rogue" operation, tipping the kingdom into one of its worst diplomatic crises and subsequently straining ties between Riyadh and Washington.
Pompeo was speaking in Doha after meeting his Qatari counterpart, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani. He also met the Qatari emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, before heading to Saudi Arabia.
Pompeo's visit to Saudi Arabia, where he will be hosted by Prince Mohammed, is part of an extensive eight-day trip to Amman, Cairo, Manama, Abu Dhabi, Doha, Riyadh, Muscat, and finally Kuwait City.
SMILES WITH MBS
US President Donald Trump has brushed aside international outrage to stand by Prince Mohammed over the murder of Khashoggi, whose corpse was dismembered inside the kingdom's Istanbul consulate.
His support has come despite the US Central Intelligence Agency's reported conclusion that Prince Mohammed very likely ordered the murder. A bipartisan resolution approved by the US Senate last month also held the crown prince responsible for the killing.
Riyadh prosecutors have announced indictments against 11 people, and are seeking the death penalty against five of them. But Prince Mohammed, whose right-hand aides were allegedly involved in the murder, was exonerated by prosecutors.
On a previous visit to Riyadh at the height of the Khashoggi affair, Pompeo's broad smiles with the crown prince outraged some Americans.
However, Trump has said Washington wants to preserve the alliance with the oil-rich kingdom, which he sees as a bulwark against common foe Iran and a lucrative buyer of US arms.
Rights groups have called on Pompeo to also press Prince Mohammed over the jailing of women activists in the kingdom, amid claims that many of them faced sexual harassment and torture during interrogation.
"I am struck by what is not included in Pompeo's itinerary: the brave women activists of Saudi Arabia, who are being held in the kingdom’s prisons for seeking rights and dignity," Alia al-Hathloul wrote in The New York Times Sunday.
Hathloul's sister, Loujain, is among more than a dozen activists arrested last May -- just before the historic lifting of Saudi Arabia's decades-long ban on women drivers.
GULF CRISIS
During his visit to Qatar, Pompeo refused to comment on reports Washington had recently considered military action against Tehran.
He also called on Qatar and other Gulf countries to end the worst political rift in the region for years, which has seen Doha diplomatically and economically isolated by neighboring former allies for the past 19 months.
Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt -- all US allies -- cut ties with Qatar in June 2017, accusing it of supporting terrorist groups and seeking closer ties to Saudi arch-rival Iran.
Qatar -- also a US ally -- denies the allegations and accuses the countries of seeking regime change.
"As for the GCC... we are all more powerful when we're working together when we have common challenges in the region and around the world," Pompeo said, referring to the six member nations of the Gulf Cooperation Council.
"Disputes between countries that have a shared objective are never helpful."
He added that "President Trump and I both believe the ongoing dispute in the region has gone on too long".
However, Pompeo later admitted in a Q&A session with US embassy staff in Doha that no progress was made on resolving the issue.
Mediation efforts by the United States, which at first appeared to back the boycott of Qatar, have stalled, as highlighted by the recent resignation of US envoy Anthony Zinni.
For Washington, turning the page on the crisis is essential for the successful launch of the Strategic Alliance of the Middle East (MESA), which is a NATO-style security pact that includes Gulf countries as well as Egypt and Jordan.
The US and Qatar held the second "strategic dialogue" between the two countries on Sunday, and signed agreements on defence, education and culture.
source: news.abs-cbn.com
WASHINGTON - The head of the CIA on Sunday denied his agency had any role in fomenting the recent anti-government protests in Iran but predicted the violent unrest "is not behind us."
Mike Pompeo, named a year ago by President Donald Trump to head the intelligence agency, told Fox News Sunday that economic conditions in Iran "are not good."
"That's what caused the people to take to the streets," he said. He blamed what he called Tehran's "backward-looking" regime for turning a deaf ear to the voices of the people.
Asked about a claim by Iran's prosecutor general, Mohammad Javad Montazeri, that a CIA official had coordinated with Israel and Saudi Arabia -- Iran's regional rivals -- to work with exiled Iranian groups to stir dissent in Iran, Pompeo replied simply: "It's false."
"This was the Iranian people -- started by them, created by them, continued by them, demanding a better set of living conditions and a break from the theocratic regime."
LOOMING DEADLINES
Trump has repeatedly tweeted his support for Iranian protesters while castigating the Tehran regime, seizing on the recent unrest to again slam the multiparty nuclear deal with Iran as deeply flawed.
Trump faces deadlines around mid-month on whether to renew temporary waivers or restore US sanctions on Iran. In October, Trump refused to certify that Iran was respecting its commitments under the 2015 nuclear accord, but did not reimpose sanctions or abandon the deal itself.
The administration has not revealed its intentions, but the Iran unrest is seen as a possible pretext for blowing up the nuclear accord.
The US Congress has been working on legislation aimed at tightening terms of the agreement in ways that might satisfy Trump's demands, and Pompeo expressed careful optimism that it might succeed.
"They could do something," he said. "They could take some of the weaknesses from the agreement... extend deadlines (and) snap back sanctions into place where they could really happen."
But Bob Corker, head of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, said last week that while talks on Iran were continuing with the White House and its European partners, no new bill was imminent.
Any agreement, Corker said, would take several more weeks to work out.
source: news.abs-cbn.com
The White House has developed a plan to replace Secretary of State Rex Tillerson with Central Intelligence Agency Director Mike Pompeo within the next several weeks, the New York Times reported Thursday.
Under the plan, Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas would take over for Pompeo at the helm of the CIA, the paper said in its online edition, quoting senior administration officials.
It was not immediately clear whether President Donald Trump has given final approval to the plan developed by his chief of staff John Kelly, according to the paper.
Asked by reporters about the matter at the start of his Oval Office meeting with the crown prince of Bahrain, Trump only said, "He's here. Rex is here."
Tillerson has been at odds with Trump's White House on a range of issues such as Iran, Qatar and most recently North Korea.
According to the report, Cotton, a Republican who has been a key ally of Trump on national security issues, has signaled that he would accept the CIA job if offered.
Under the plan, the shake-up of Trump's national security team would happen around the end of the year or shortly after, it said.
While some administration officials initially expected Tillerson to be replaced by U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley, Pompeo has become the White House favorite.
Pompeo has impressed Trump during daily intelligence briefings and become a trusted policy adviser even on issues beyond the CIA's normal mandate such as health care, according to the paper.
The rift between the president and his chief diplomat came to light in early October following a news report that Tillerson was on the verge of resigning this past summer amid policy disputes with Trump.
It was also reported that Tillerson called Trump a "moron" after a July 20 meeting at the Department of Defense with members of Trump's national security team and Cabinet officials.
source: news.abs-cbn.com
