The U.S. Embassy in Cuba said Tuesday that its top official, Jeffrey DeLaurentis, had left Havana after completing his three-year mission and that his deputy would become interim charge d’affaires.

Scott Hamilton, a career diplomat who has served as deputy chief of mission in Havana for two years, will become chief until further notice, the U.S. Embassy spokesman in Havana said.

“[DeLaurentis’] departure is part of the normal rotation cycle of career diplomats,” he said, adding he could not comment on DeLaurentis’ next assignment.

Some Cuba onlookers had questioned whether DeLaurentis, who led the embassy during the historic U.S.-Cuban detente and restoration of diplomatic ties in July 2015, would stay on under U.S. President Donald Trump.

Trump last month announced a partial rollback of that opening toward Cuba, ordering tighter restrictions on Americans traveling to Cuba and a clampdown on U.S. business dealings with the Caribbean island’s military.

DeLaurentis had been U.S. chief of mission in Cuba since August 2014, his third posting in Havana.

Then-U.S. President Barack Obama, a Democrat, last year nominated the career diplomat to be the first U.S. ambassador to Cuba in more than five decades, but his nomination got stuck in the Republican-controlled Senate.

“The president will decide when and if we nominate an ambassador to Cuba or any country,” the Havana U.S. Embassy spokesman said. “Should the president decide not to nominate an ambassador, a chargé will be named in accordance with the department’s principal officer assignment procedures.”

Hamilton has previously undertaken overseas assignments in Botswana, Ecuador, Colombia, South Africa and Russia.
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China’s ambassador to the United States has said reports of trade growth between his country and North Korea, in spite of international efforts to press Pyongyang to give up its nuclear and missile programs, give “a distorted picture.”

Last week U.S. President Donald Trump denounced China’s trade with North Korea, saying it had grown almost 40 percent in the first quarter, and cast doubt on whether Beijing was helping to counter the threat from North Korea.

Data released in April showed China’s trade with North Korea grew 37.4 percent year on year in the first quarter, in spite of a ban on coal imports China announced in February.

“This is a distorted picture,” China’s ambassador to the United States, Cui Tiankai, said in a speech to a Washington think tank on Monday.

Cui said bilateral trade declined in 2015 and 2016, and by 41 percent in April and 32 percent in May as a result of the coal import ban.

At the same time, Cui stressed that U.N. Security Council sanctions on North Korea did not constitute an embargo.

“Normal trade … is not banned by these sanctions,” he said.

Copy of speech released

The Chinese embassy released a copy of Cui’s speech, originally delivered in an off-the-record setting, on Tuesday.

Cui said China backed further U.N. action against North Korea for violations of U.N. resolutions such as nuclear tests and launches of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs).

He did not though make clear whether China believed North Korea’s latest missile test last week, which the United States described as a first ICBM test, was of that type of missile.

Diplomats say the United States is aiming for a vote within weeks to strengthen U.N. sanctions on North Korea over the test, but Russia has objected to a Security Council condemnation of the launch as a U.S.-drafted statement labeled it an ICBM.

Sanctions necessary

Cui said sanctions were necessary, but could not solve the North Korean problem alone. He repeated a call for Washington to back a Chinese “suspension for suspension” proposal under which North Korea would freeze weapons testing in return for suspension of U.S.-South Korean military exercises.

Washington says the exercises are needed to maintain defenses against North Korea and U.S. officials say Beijing could face U.S. economic and trade pressure unless it does more to rein in North Korea.

Washington is expected to press the issue when senior U.S. and Chinese officials meet on July 19 to discuss bilateral economic issues.

 
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Energy Secretary Rick Perry said Tuesday that “state-sponsored” or criminal hackers were targeting U.S. nuclear power plants and other energy providers, but that the government had resources to safeguard the nation’s electric grid.

Perry told Fox Business Network that the threat of cyberattacks on the electric grid “is real, it’s ongoing and we shouldn’t be surprised when you think of the world we live in today.”

The FBI and the Department of Homeland Security told energy providers last week that hackers might be trying to breach their computer systems. Hackers appear to have tried to breach the business and administrative networks of unidentified facilities, DHS said.

There was no threat to public safety, the agency said. DHS and the FBI routinely advise the private sector of possible cyberthreats to help officials protect potentially vulnerable networks.

The source of the intrusions is unknown, but Perry said the hackers “may be state-sponsored” or just “criminal elements” trying to penetrate vulnerable sites.

Perry said “the good news” is that the Energy Department has substantial resources to combat the threat “and we have been working on his for a long time.”

Perry cited work by the Idaho National Laboratory to devise a “full-out grid” that helps officials detect problems and protect the grid.

“I want Americans to feel very comfortable we are doing everything possible to protect their information, but more importantly to protect the electrical grid from those that would try to penetrate in and do harm or do mischief,” Perry said.

The Nuclear Energy Institute, an industry group, said last week that no nuclear reactors had been affected by the would-be hackers. If any facilities were affected by a cyberattack, a publicly available report would have to be made to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which oversees the nation’s commercial nuclear fleet.

Senator Edward Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat, asked the Trump administration to tell Congress how many nuclear plants in the U.S. had been targeted by cyberattacks and how officials were addressing the threat.

“Given the consequences of a breach of safety at a nuclear power station … evidence that foreign governments have targeted U.S. nuclear power stations must be treated with the utmost gravity,” Markey wrote in a letter to Perry, Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly and other officials. “These profound risks to public safety and U.S. national security require a robust and coordinated response across federal agencies.”
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A U.S. military plane crashed Monday in the southern state of Mississippi, killing at least 16 people.

Officials did not give details about where the plane originated from or where it was flying when it went down in a field about 150 kilometers north of Mississippi’s capital city, Jackson.  The cause of the crash was also not clear.

Marine Corps spokeswoman Capt. Sarah Burns said only that a KC-130 aircraft “experienced a mishap.”

Leflore County Emergency Management Agency Director Frank Randle told reporters that 16 bodies had been recovered from the site of the crash.

Marcus Banks, the fire chief from the city of Greenwood, said debris from the plane was scattered in a radius of about eight kilometers.
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One unintended consequence of President Donald Trump’s appearance at the Group of 20 Summit in Hamburg, Germany was renewed focus on the blurring of lines between his official duty and family. As VOA White House Bureau Chief Steve Herman reports this was caused by Ivanka Trump representing the president during at least one working session of the summit.
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A new package of economic sanctions on Russia and Iran unacceptably constrains the president’s authority, the White House said Monday as Democrats complained that the Trump administration was trying to weaken the penalties.

The legislation sailed through the Senate nearly a month ago in response to Russia’s meddling in the 2016 presidential election and its belligerence toward Ukraine. But the bill stalled in the House with Democrats and Republicans blaming each other for the delay.

Marc Short, the White House legislative director, told reporters that the administration backs the new sanctions on Russia and Iran. But he appeared to object to a key part of the legislation that would give Capitol Hill a much stronger hand in determining Russia sanctions policy. The bill would require a congressional review if President Donald Trump attempts to ease or end penalties against Moscow.

“Our concern is that the legislation, we believe, sets an unusual precedent of delegating foreign policy to 535 members of Congress by not including certain national security waivers that have always been consistently part of sanctions bills in the past,” Short said.

Following his lengthy meeting on Friday with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Germany, Trump said he wants to move forward “working constructively with Russia.”

Executive authority questioned

Officials from the Treasury and State departments met last week with House congressional staff to voice their concerns over the congressional review section of the bill. The officials said the provision would infringe on the president’s executive authority, according to an aide knowledgeable of the discussions.

But weakening that provision substantially could provoke resistance from Republicans and Democrats. Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee, the Republican chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, heralded the review requirement as the proper exercise of congressional authority.

Corker told reporters Monday that it’s not unusual for a White House to resist oversight of foreign policy. But he said the sanctions review requirement is a “very important” part of the legislation.

“Any administration would prefer to conduct foreign policy 100 percent without involvement from Congress,” Corker said. But no Trump administration official has contacted him to say “we don’t want this legislation to pass. That has never occurred,” he said.

A contradiction with White House

Trump tweeted Sunday that sanctions against Russia were not discussed at his meeting with Putin. But White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders contradicted Trump, telling reporters Monday that “sanctions specific to election-meddling were discussed” in the meeting.

Ashley Etienne, a spokeswoman for House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, said that Democrats have been demanding for weeks, to no avail, that the House Republican leadership bring the sanctions bill to the floor for a vote.

“While Putin and President Trump meet privately, the American people are left to ask why Republicans are more concerned with Russia’s interests than the integrity of our democracy,” she said.

Technical change upsets Democrats

A key sticking point for Democrats is a proposed technical change to the bill made late last month by the Senate that Democratic aides said Monday would prevent rank-and-file House members from being able to challenge a president’s decision to lift or ease the sanctions against Russia.

But AshLee Strong, a spokeswoman for House Speaker Paul Ryan, blamed House Democrats for holding up the bill unnecessarily. She said House Republicans are fully prepared to coordinate with the Senate and move the bill forward, “but House Democrats are blocking that and demanding their own changes to the bill.”

Separately, a Republican aide said House leaders were confident the sanctions package would be approved before Congress leaves for the August recess. The Republican and Democratic aides were not authorized to speak publicly and requested anonymity to discuss private talks.

While Congress was on its weeklong July 4 recess, a new wrinkle developed that could make approval of the legislation more difficult. The national trade association representing oil and gas companies said the bill could harm U.S. energy companies while strengthening the hand of Russian businesses.

Bill would cost Americans money, jobs

The American Petroleum Institute said late last week that the bill would expand a prohibition on U.S. energy companies from being involved in oil projects located in Russia to projects around the world that include Russian energy firms. In trying to punish Moscow, the group said, the bill could instead penalize major American business, potentially costing billions of dollars in jobs and economic activity.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, the former CEO of Exxon Mobil, has declined to endorse the sanctions legislation. He said during congressional testimony that Trump needs to have “the flexibility to adjust sanctions to meet the needs of what is always an evolving diplomatic situation” with Russia.

The legislation cleared the Senate two weeks ago with 98 votes, an overwhelming margin that suggested the bill would speed quickly through the House and to Trump’s desk. But progress on the measure slowed almost immediately. House Republican leaders said the bill ran afoul of a constitutional requirement that legislation involving revenue start in the House.

The necessary repairs were made, according to Corker, and approved by the Senate in late June.

 
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