The U.S. should tighten its export controls to prevent Russia from acquiring U.S. technologies through international space cooperation activities, said Benjamin Schmitt, a national security and export control researcher at the University of Pennsylvania. Schmitt, speaking during a March 29 event hosted by the Atlantic Council, said the U.S. specifically needs to impose more restrictions around what types of items it shares with Russians in the International Space Station context.
The House Foreign Affairs Committee this week advanced two sanctions bills, including one that could lead to new human rights sanctions against Haiti and another that would prevent the administration from removing sanctions against Cuba until it meets certain requirements.
The House unanimously passed a bill this week that could lead to new export controls on U.S. goods and technologies that China may be using to develop and support undersea communication cables. The Undersea Cable Control Act would require the State Department to create a “strategy” to “eliminate the availability to foreign adversaries of goods and technologies capable of supporting undersea cables,” and calls on the administration to establish “bilateral or plurilateral agreements” with allies to prevent China and other “adversaries” from acquiring these items.
The U.N. Security Council this week removed an Iraq-related entry from its sanctions list. Amir Hamudi Hassan Al-Sa'di is no longer designated. The U.K. also dropped him from its Iraq sanctions list, the Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation said March 28. Both listed Al-Sa'di in 2003.
Canada this week imposed another set of sanctions against Iran (see 2302270008, 2301090012 and 2212050008), designating eight people and two entities for human rights abuses or for their involvement in Iranian drone and missile production. Among those sanctioned are several military officials, including Hassan Hassanzadeh, commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps forces in Tehran. Canada also sanctioned Imen Sanat Zaman Fara, a company that manufactures equipment for Iranian security forces, and Ravin Academy, a training institute that “specializes” in cybersecurity.
The State Department this week published its 2021 Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act Annual Report in the Federal Register, detailing the “significant action” the agency took to impose Magnitsky sanctions that year, which included 176 foreign person designations. The report lists each of the designations, including why they were designated.
The U.S. and the U.K. this week announced sanctions against people and entities in Syria and Lebanon supporting the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria and the production and export of Captagon, a “dangerous amphetamine,” the Office of Foreign Assets Control said.
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The State Department this week extended its open general license pilot program for three years, allowing users to continue using the licenses beyond the original July 31 expiration date. The agency’s Directorate of Defense Trade Controls said the extension will help it “collect sufficient data to consider the usefulness” of the pilot -- which includes a license each for certain reexports and retransfers -- and will give companies “sufficient certainty” to continue relying on the licenses “without fear that they could expire more quickly than a traditional license.”
The Bureau of Industry and Security this week added 11 entities in China, Myanmar, Nicaragua and Russia to the Entity List for various activities that have contributed to human rights abuses, the agency said in a final rule effective March 28. The entities include procurement firms, a police entity and technology and electronics companies, including several subsidiaries of Chinese surveillance company Hikvision, which was added to the Entity List in 2019 (see 2205090014).