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Sanctions

Pan-Arab Convoy Aims To Break Blockade, Provide Aid To Syria

The Arab and International Campaign to Break Siege on Syria announced plans on 24 February to launch a popular, pan-Arab campaign to confront the western-led blockade against Syria through an aid convoy in light of the devastating earthquake that killed over 50,000 people in Turkiye and Syria. On Saturday, the Syrian news agency SANA reported that the preparations to participate in the Arab Youth Forum in Solidarity with Syria in March are already underway. The campaign, titled “The Arab Unity Convoy to Break the Embargo Imposed on Syria,” is headed by Magdi al Masrawi, former secretary-general of the Arab National Congress, and draws an example from the “Convoy of Arab Unity, Maryam” to break the siege on Iraq in the early 2000s.

SOS – Alliance For Global Justice Has Been Attacked!

Alliance for Global Justice and our fiscally-sponsored projects are under attack by right-wing media. They’re doing their best to intimidate and silence us in order to neutralize our effectiveness in growing and supporting movements for liberation and justice worldwide. They have convinced the company that handles our credit card donations to block AfGJ and our projects from use of this critical fundraising tool. This isn’t the first time they’ve come at us. In the 1980s, the Young Republicans claimed that the Nicaragua Network, our founding organization, was taking college students to Nicaragua to train in guerilla warfare techniques.

How US Sanctions Block Aid To Earthquake Victims In Syria

The terrible earthquake that hit a wide area of southeastern Türkiye and neighboring Syria has reportedly killed at least 36,000 people as of Feb. 13, with estimates that this total will reach 50,000. This winter the survivors who lost their housing face freezing and wet conditions, without any alternative shelter, without any electricity, without any heating and with inadequate access to food.  While the devastation has taken place in both countries, and Türkiye faces enormous difficulties delivering aid, it does not face the economic warfare that the U.S. and its NATO allies have directed at Syria for over a decade. Even in the midst of this humanitarian crisis, Washington has ordered a halt to any delivery of financial aid to the legitimate government of Syria.

Calls To Withdraw Sanctions On Earthquake-Hit Syria Grow Louder

On Monday, February 13, Syrian Permanent Representative to the United Nations (UN) Bassam Sabbagh stated before the UN Security Council (UNSC) that all countries should provide humanitarian assistance to all those affected by the earthquake that hit Turkey and Syria on February 6 and avoid all kinds of politicization. He also reiterated Syria’s position that “Western imposed illegal coercive measures” have caused delays in support for earthquake relief in the country. Sabbagh was speaking during the special meeting called by the UNSC to discuss the impact of the earthquake on Syria.

Mexico’s AMLO Announces Campaign Against US Blockade Of Cuba

Mexico’s progressive President Andrés Manuel López Obrador announced that his country will lead an international movement to end the US government’s illegal blockade against Cuba. The Mexican president, known popularly by his initials AMLO, condemned the six-decade US blockade of Cuba as “inhumane”. He said the global campaign to overturn it must be more “active”, complaining that, while the vast majority of countries on Earth vote against the US embargo every year at the United Nations General Assembly, nothing ever changes.

Wilson Center Think Tank Reloads The US Roadmap Against Venezuela

The recent teachers’ protests in Venezuela took place in a climate where, along with the inflationary pressure of the beginning of 2023, they seem to be linked to a type of mobilization that has been gradually getting expressed, at the national level, with unions and other ”visible” platforms of “civil society,” in the background of the advances and tensions around the government-opposition dialogue process in Mexico. In the midst of this, the definitive collapse of the “Guaidó project,” the reckoning of Voluntad Popular with the G3 [other main parties of the opposition], and the loss of initiative of the opposition in general, seem to force a correction of Washington’s approach to Venezuela.

US Sanctions Block Aid To Syria, After Earthquake Killed Thousands

Illegal US and EU sanctions have prevented some humanitarian aid from being sent to Syria, after a devastating earthquake killed thousands of people. The death toll is increasing by the day, but at least 3000 Syrians had lost their lives due to the earthquake as of February 9. Thousands of buildings were also destroyed. This is especially damaging because Syria had already been destabilized by a decade of war, fueled with billions of dollars and foreign meddling by the US, Europe, and Israel. Syrian Arab Red Crescent director Khaled Hboubati told the Associated Press that unilateral Western sanctions have exacerbated the “difficult humanitarian situation”. “There is no fuel even to send (aid and rescue) convoys, and this is because of the blockade and sanctions”, Hboubati warned. Syria’s United Nations Ambassador Bassam al-Sabbagh explained that US and EU sanctions have prevented planes from landing in Syrian airports, “So even those countries who want to send humanitarian assistance, they cannot use the airplane cargo because of the sanctions”.

Sanctions Hamper Relief And Rescue Work In Earthquake-Devastated Syria

The head of the Syrian Arab Red Crescent, Khaled Hboubati, demanded on Tuesday, February 7, that Western countries, specifically the US and its allies, lift their siege and sanctions on Syria so that rescue and relief work can proceed unimpeded, after the country was devastated by a powerful earthquake on Monday. “We need heavy equipment, ambulances and fire fighting vehicles to continue to rescue and remove the rubble, and this entails lifting sanctions on Syria as soon as possible,” Hboubati said at a press conference on Tuesday, as reported by the Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA). A powerful earthquake registering a magnitude of 7.8 struck Turkey and Syria on Monday. Over 5,000 people have been reported dead so far. In Syria alone the death toll was 1,602 on Monday. These numbers are only expected to rise as a large number of people are suspected to be still buried under the debris of houses that collapsed in the earthquake and its aftershocks.

Earthquake Damage In Syria Must Lead To Sanction Relief

Earlier today two large earthquakes have caused widespread damage in south Turkey and north Syria. Some 10 million people live in the affected area. The current count of death is already above 2,500. Whole city blocks have 'pancaked' (vid) and were destroyed. Many dead will likely still be under the rubble. The area is prone to earthquakes. Just days ago an expert had warned that a big one was coming. International support for the areas has started. Turkey is generally earthquake prone and has a lot of rescue stuff. It will now get more. Unfortunately Syria, which is under devastating sanctions, will get little. This would be a good time to lift those sanctions if only for purely humanitarian reasons.

UN Human Rights Chief: End Venezuela Sanctions

The United Nations human rights chief has called for sanctions on Venezuela to be lifted, stating that they “exacerbated the economic crisis and hindered human rights” and created “hurdles” for “the country’s recovery and development”. UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk visited Venezuela in January. There, he met with government officials, right-wing opposition leaders, civil society groups, and religious institutions. “I heard from across the spectrum of people I spoke to, including humanitarian actors and UN agencies, about the impact of sectorial sanctions on the most vulnerable segments of the population and the hurdles sanctions create for the country’s recovery and development, not least in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic”, Türk said.

Lawyers Ask Biden To Remove Cuba From State Sponsors Of Terrorism List

ACERE, the Alliance for Cuba Engagement and Respect, announces the release of a letter to President Biden signed by prominent lawyers nationwide expressing concern over the continued placement of Cuba on the State Sponsors of Terrorism (SSOT) list. The letter, which was sent to the President today January 20th as he begins the second half of his term, highlights the lack of legal or moral justification for Cuba’s inclusion on the SSOT list, especially in light of the fact that it had been removed from the list just a few years prior by the Obama-Biden administration. The letter, which is signed by 160 lawyers, comes on the heels of a similar letter sent to the President by 18 former heads of state, as well as petitions signed by hundreds of civil society organizations and thousands of citizens, all calling for the United States to lift its embargo and for Cuba to be removed from the SSOT list.

Sanctions: A Wrecking Ball In A Global Economy

Sanctions imposed without United Nations endorsement are illegal. That is why they could be legally imposed on South Africa by a resolution of the UN General Assembly in 1962, but are unlawful when imposed by one government, often with selected allies, against any other country, for whatever reason. Known correctly as “unilateral coercive measures,” such actions are not only contrary to international law in themselves, but may lead to other breaches of the law if their effects are so severe as to become “crimes against humanity.” The report, Sanctions: A Wrecking Ball in a Global Economy, is a comprehensive overview of sanctions on more than 40 countries, imposed by the US and in turn by many of its allies.

How Western Sanctions Blow Back

Economic coercion, through the imposition of sanctions, is an act of war. Many of these sanctions have caused hardship, especially for the civilian populations of targeted countries. But just as a rifle recoils on the shooter’s shoulder, potentially causing injury, so too can sanctions backfire on the user. That is the title of a new book, “Backfire: How Sanctions Reshape the World Against U.S. Interests.” This is not to say that sanctions don’t cause suffering, but they have a mere 13% success rate in altering a targeted state’s behavior in the way desired. The failure of sanctions has long been recognized, although that seems not to have dampened U.S. persistence in adding ever more of them. The blowback effect has begun, and more is predictably on the horizon.

How Sanctions Contributed To Venezuela’s Economic Collapse

During the past decade, Venezuela lived through the largest economic contraction documented in the history of the Western Hemisphere. The implosion took place at the same time as the U.S. government barred oil purchases, froze government bank accounts, prohibited the country from issuing new debt, and seized tankers bound for Venezuela. One would think it should be self-evident that any account of Venezuela’s economic contraction would place economic sanctions in a central role. However, sanctions play a surprisingly limited role in most mainstream accounts of the Venezuelan crisis. A recent Council on Foreign Relations background piece on Venezuela mentioned sanctions only in passing and instead attributed the country’s economic collapse to “decades of poor governance” and the “perils of becoming a petrostate.”

US Spreads Misery By Imposing Sanctions On A Third Of Humanity

On November 14, the Biden administration announced yet another round of sanctions on Russia, targeting this time Russia’s military supply chains by imposing sanctions on 14 individuals and 28 entities that it said were part of a transnational network that procured technology to support Moscow in its invasion of Ukraine. One of the companies blacklisted was Milandr, a Russian microelectronics company that Washington says is part of Moscow’s military research and development structure. The sanctions additionally targeted several aviation-related companies and two individuals—Abbas Djuma and Tigran Khristoforovich Srabionov—who facilitated the Russian mercenary Wagner Group’s acquisition of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) from Iran, which have been used in the Ukraine War.
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