US to ease human rights criticism of El Salvador, Israel and Russia, WaPo reports
The draft reports related to those countries were significantly shorter than the ones prepared by the administration of Democratic former President Joe Biden, who left office in January, when Donald Trump assumed the presidency.
The State Department, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Reuters on Wednesday, has not yet officially released this year's reports, which cover last year's incidents.
Usually, these annual reports are released around March or April each year.
"The 2024 Human Rights Report has been restructured in a way that removes redundancies, increases report readability and is more responsive to the legislative mandates that underpin the report," a State Department official briefing reporters on Wednesday said.
"The report is not meant to be a every single human rights abuse that's happened in every single country. It's meant to be illustrative and a broad picture of what the conditions of human rights are on the ground in each country."
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Reuters
24 minutes ago
- Reuters
Lula and Putin discuss peace in Ukraine before US summit
BRASILIA, Aug 9 (Reuters) - Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva spoke with Russia's President Vladimir Putin on Saturday for about 40 minutes, the Brazilian presidential palace said, adding that Putin shared information about his discussions with the United States and "recent peace efforts between Russia and Ukraine." The leaders also discussed their cooperation in the BRICS group of emerging countries and "discussed the current international political and economic scenario," according to the statement. The conversation with Lula is the latest of a flurry of calls between Putin and foreign leaders in recent days ahead of the Russian president's expected meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump next week. Putin spoke to the leaders of China and India, both also part of the BRICS group of developing nations, and other presidents from Central Asia and Europe on Friday to brief them on his contacts with the United States about the war in Ukraine. Lula has been in a public spat with Trump since the U.S. imposed a 50% tariff on the imports of Brazilian goods, which Trump linked to an alleged "witch hunt" against his ally and Brazil's former right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro. U.S. imports of some Brazilian products, such as orange juice and aircraft, received a lower rate. Lula told Reuters on Wednesday he planned to call the leaders of the BRICS countries, which also include South Africa, to discuss a joint response to Trump's tariffs on U.S. imports. The Brazilian leader spoke with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday. Trump has threatened BRICS nations with additional 10% tariffs last month, as the group gathered in a summit in Rio de Janeiro in July.
The Independent
an hour ago
- The Independent
Donald Trump must not reward Vladimir Putin's aggression
Donald Trump understands symbolism and imperial delusions, so Alaska is a fitting location for his meeting with Vladimir Putin on Friday. The US president will know that in Putin's eyes, Alaska ought to be Russian territory, sold in a moment of weakness by Alexander II. Just as, in Mr Trump's mind, Canada and Greenland ought to be part of the United States. The theatre of the summit, then, is all set. But some of the cast will be missing. By agreeing to a meeting of just the two of them, Mr Trump appears to be convening a conspiracy to carve up Ukraine in the absence of its leader, Volodymyr Zelensky. This impression was reinforced by Mr Trump talking breezily about Russia and Ukraine 'swapping' territory as part of a peace deal. To Ukrainians – or indeed to anyone who respects the principle of self-determination and the rule of law – this means Mr Putin giving up territory that he has seized by force in exchange for being rewarded for his aggression by gaining further territory that he has not yet been able to steal. No wonder Mr Zelensky has his doubts about this meeting. The Ukrainian president has made it clear that he will discuss anything with anyone anywhere, but what he will not do, rightly, is agree to the dismemberment of his country as a condition of talks. Without Mr Zelensky, it is not clear what this summit can achieve, except to demonstrate ever more clearly to the world and to Mr Trump that it is Mr Putin who is the obstacle to peace. The other cast members who will be missing in Alaska are Ukraine's allies in Europe, what Sir Keir Starmer calls the 'coalition of the willing'. But the Trump administration has at least ensured a side negotiation takes place, with a meeting of national security advisers convened on Saturday by JD Vance, the US vice president, and David Lammy, the British foreign secretary, at Chevening. Meanwhile Mr Zelensky has been canvassing support from European allies, holding phone calls today with Sir Keir, as well as leaders from Estonia, Denmark and France, including conversations about Ukraine's progress "towards EU membership". Recently, President Trump has shown some signs of recognising that Mr Putin does not want peace in Ukraine. He said that he had had enough of the Russian leader assuring him on the phone that he was ready to negotiate, only to discover the next day that Russian missiles had hit a hospital or a school in Ukraine. He set a deadline for the imposition of further sanctions on Russia, which passed this weekend with no measures announced. By agreeing to the Alaska meeting, it looks as if Mr Putin has strung Mr Trump along – again. We have no way of seeing into Mr Trump's heart, so we cannot tell if his appeasement of Mr Putin is a diplomatic ploy to allow the Russian leader to agree a deal that saves face, or if it arises from the genuine admiration for a strong leader. But Mr Trump's motive does not matter – except that, if he is as fixated on the idea of a Nobel Peace Prize as he is said to be, he should be unlikely to win the prize by securing peace through Ukraine's surrender. If it is beginning to dawn on Mr Trump that Mr Putin wants the war to continue, then that can only be a good thing, because it will then be clear exactly who is responsible for prolonging the bloodshed. It is not Mr Zelensky or the Ukrainian people who started this war or who are keeping it going. A recent Gallup poll suggested that a large majority of Ukrainians want a negotiated end to the fighting. They know that this means yielding territory, however bitterly they may resent it. They are willing to pay a price for peace. Mr Trump must ensure that Mr Putin is made to pay a price as well. The Russian aggressor must not be rewarded.
Reuters
an hour ago
- Reuters
Iran threatens planned Trump corridor envisaged by Azerbaijan-Armenia peace deal
DUBAI/MOSCOW, Aug 9 (Reuters) - Iran threatened on Saturday to block a corridor planned in the Caucasus under a regional deal sponsored by U.S. President Donald Trump, Iranian media reported, raising a new question mark over a peace plan hailed as a strategically important shift. A top Azerbaijani diplomat said earlier that the plan, announced by Trump on Friday, was just one step from a final peace deal between his country and Armenia, which reiterated its support for the plan. The proposed Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity (TRIPP) would run across southern Armenia, giving Azerbaijan a direct route to its exclave of Nakhchivan and in turn to Turkey. The U.S. would have exclusive development rights to the corridor, which the White House said would facilitate greater exports of energy and other resources. It was not immediately clear how Iran, which borders the area, would block it but the statement from Ali Akbar Velayati, top adviser to Iran's supreme leader, raised questions over its security. He said military exercises carried out in northwest Iran demonstrated the Islamic Republic's readiness and determination to prevent any geopolitical changes. "This corridor will not become a passage owned by Trump, but rather a graveyard for Trump's mercenaries," Velayati said. Iran's foreign ministry earlier welcomed the agreement "as an important step toward lasting regional peace", but warned against any foreign intervention near its borders that could "undermine the region's security and lasting stability". Analysts and insiders say that Iran, under mounting US pressure over its disputed nuclear programme and the aftermath of a 12-day war with Israel in June, lacks the military power to block the corridor. Trump welcomed Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan in the White House on Friday and witnessed their signing of a joint declaration aimed at drawing a line under their decades-long on-off conflict. Russia, a traditional broker and ally of Armenia in the strategically important South Caucasus region which is crisscrossed with oil and gas pipelines, was not included, despite its border guards being stationed on the border between Armenia and Iran. While Moscow said it supported the summit, it proposed "implementing solutions developed by the countries of the region themselves with the support of their immediate neighbours – Russia, Iran and Turkey" to avoid what it called the "sad experience" of Western efforts to mediate in the Middle East. Azerbaijan's close ally, NATO member Turkey, welcomed the accord. Baku and Yerevan have been at odds since the late 1980s when Nagorno-Karabakh, a mountainous Azerbaijani region mostly populated by ethnic Armenians, broke away from Azerbaijan with support from Armenia. Azerbaijan took back full control of the region in 2023, prompting almost all of the territory's 100,000 ethnic Armenians to flee to Armenia. "The chapter of enmity is closed and now we're moving towards lasting peace," said Elin Suleymanov, Azerbaijan's ambassador to Britain, predicting that the wider region's prosperity and transport links would be transformed for the better. "This is a paradigm shift," said Suleymanov, who as a former envoy to Washington who used to work in President Aliyev's office, is one of his country's most senior diplomats. Suleymanov declined to speculate on when a final peace deal would be signed however, noting that Aliyev had said he wanted it to happen soon. There remained only one obstacle, said Suleymanov, which was for Armenia to amend its constitution to remove a reference to Nagorno-Karabakh. "Azerbaijan is ready to sign any time once Armenia fulfils the very basic commitment of removing its territorial claim against Azerbaijan in its constitution," he said. Pashinyan this year called for a referendum to change the constitution, but no date for it has been set yet. Armenia is to hold parliamentary elections in June 2026, and the new constitution is expected to be drafted before the vote. The Armenian leader said on X that the Washington summit had paved the way to end the decades of conflict and open transport connections that would unlock strategic economic opportunities. Asked when the transit rail route would start running, Suleymanov said that would depend on cooperation between the U.S. and Armenia whom he said were already in talks. Joshua Kucera, Senior South Caucasus analyst at International Crisis Group, said Trump may not have got the easy win he had hoped for as the agreements left many questions unanswered. The issue of Armenia's constitution continued to threaten to derail the process, and it was not clear how the new transport corridor would work in practice. "Key details are missing, including about how customs checks and security will work and the nature of Armenia's reciprocal access to Azerbaijani territory. These could be serious stumbling blocks," said Kucera. Suleymanov played down suggestions that Russia, which still has extensive security and economic interests in Armenia, was being disadvantaged. "Anybody and everybody can benefit from this if they choose to," he said.
