Tag: Region Asias

(Bloomberg) — US President Joe Biden dropped into a meeting at the last minute in the White House to see a man all of Washington wants an audience with: Sauli Niinisto, once upon a time known as the “Putin whisperer.” The impromptu get-together was thrown together as Biden joined Niinisto and US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan. The pair of presidents have now met three times and spoken four since late 2021 — giving the Finnish head of state unprecedented access to the world’s most powerful leader.

At stake is the stalled expansion of NATO, with Turkey and Hungary holding up the biggest shift in the security landscape of western Europe in several decades.

WASHINGTON ― U.S. Indo-Pacific Command has outlined new spending requirements to boost deterrence against China, including billions of dollars in new weapons, new construction and closer military-to-military collaboration with America’s allies in the region.

The command’s congressionally-ordered assessment delivered Wednesday calls for more than $87 billion in spending between 2024 and 2028; with $15.4 billion for fiscal year 2024 alone. That represents a significant jump from last year’s $9 billion request for FY23 and five-year projected spend of $77 billion.

With China competition a bipartisan priority on Capitol Hill, the Indo-Pacific Command assessment of its needs offers a blueprint for China hawks to add to President Joe Biden’s $842 billion defense budget for FY24, which requests $9.1 billion for the Pentagon’s Pacific Deterrence Initiative.

The company attributed the decision to the latest round of Western sanctions against Russia, saying that transactions in dollars and euros will be unavailable to any individuals residing in Russia regardless of nationality.  

The exchange also banned users based in the EU from making transfers in Russian rubles via the platform, according to media reports. When trying to make a transaction in rubles, the platform prompts users to select a ‘local currency’ for P2P.

“In order to continue using Binance P2P, users can choose other available fiat currencies,” a representative of the exchange told Forbes Russia. 

Ukrainian troops eased out of their most precarious defences in Bakhmut. Russian President Vladimir Putin has set the conquest of the eastern provinces of Luhansk and Donetsk, known collectively as the Donbas region, as one of his goals – and Bakhmut in Donetsk is key to that. “We understand that after Bakhmut, they could go farther,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told CNN. “They could go to Kramatorsk. They could go to Sloviansk. It would be open road for the Russians after Bakhmut to other towns in Ukraine in the Donetsk direction.”

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries also learned from the agency that the data is now being offered for sale on the dark web.   Leading lawmakers were informed of a “significant data breach” at the DC Health Link marketplace potentially affecting all members of the House and their families in a letter from the Chief Administrative Office of the House on Wednesday. CAO Catherine Szpindor promised a full list of the individuals affected but advised members to secure their finances “out of an abundance of caution” as their data may have been compromised.  

The Boeing 777 was en route from Kuala Lumpur International Airport to Beijing with 239 passengers on board on March 8, 2014, when it vanished from the grid less than an hour into its journey.  For three years, Malaysia, China, and Australia searched for the plane in the Indian Ocean, where it was believed to have crashed, only to come…

A cellist is accused of helping Vladimir Putin channel $50 million into Swiss accounts. 4 bankers are also accused of not having checked the real source of the money. Putin is believed by some to have accrued vast wealth during his time as Russian leader. Four bankers have been accused of helping Vladimir Putin’s cellist best friend channel millions of…

Pentagon chiefs reportedly blocking Washington from sharing evidence of alleged war crimes in Ukraine with the International Criminal Court. The US Department of Defense is reportedly at odds with the administration of President Joe Biden over helping the Hague-based International Criminal Court (ICC) investigate alleged war crimes committed in Ukraine.

The chief executive officer (CEO) of Company 1, a multi-national corporation headquartered in Malta and with operations in the United Kingdom, United Arab Emirates, Singapore, and the United States was charged with bribery in an indictment returned on September 30, 2019.

A former managing director of The Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (Goldman Sachs) was sentenced today to 10 years in prison for his role in a multibillion-dollar bribery and money laundering scheme involving Malaysia’s state-owned investment and development fund, 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB).

“Today, Roger Ng was sentenced for his role in a massive and egregious bribery and money laundering scheme involving the bribery of high-level foreign officials in Malaysia and the United Arab Emirates and theft of billions of dollars meant to benefit the Malaysian people,” said Assistant Attorney General Kenneth A. Polite, Jr. of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division. “The Justice Department remains firmly committed to holding accountable individuals who engage in corruption, undermine the rule of law, and abuse our financial system to launder their illicit funds.  This sentence sends a strong message to criminals around the world:  if you violate our laws, we will bring you to justice.”

A recent controversy has called into question the agreement that decides who prosecutes U.S. troops in Japan.

The House rejected Matt Gaetz’s war powers resolutions to pull 900 U.S. troops from Syria days after a visit from Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Mark Milley.

House lawmakers reexamined shortfalls from the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Switzerland won’t break its constitutional neutrality to assist in the supply of military aid to Ukraine, its president has said Read Full Article at RT.com

The new intelligence reviewed by US officials suggested the perpetrators behind the sabotage were “opponents of President Vladimir V Putin of Russia”, the Times reported, but did not specify the members of the group and who organised and paid for the operation, which would have required skilled divers and explosives experts.

India has imposed money-laundering regulations on trade in cryptocurrencies, according to a government release published on Tuesday, in the latest step to tighten control of the sector. A range of crypto transactions, namely the exchange, transfer, safekeeping and administration of virtual assets, now fall under the Prevention of Money-Laundering Act (PMLA), the notification from the Ministry of Finance published by The Gazette of India states. The PMLA obliges financial institutions to keep a record of all transactions for ten years, provide the records to officials in necessary, and to verify clients’ identity.