WASHINGTON, 22 December 2021, (TON): The Pentagon said “the US State Department has approved the potential sale of Javelin anti-tank missiles to the government of Lithuania in a deal valued at up to $125 million.”

The Pentagon said “the total package of Javelin anti-tank missiles would include 341 of the FGM-148F variant of the weapon and 30 command launch units, spares and technical support.”

The Pentagon’s Defense Security Cooperation Agency notified Congress of the possible sale.

The Pentagon said that the proposed sale “will help Lithuania build its long-term defense capacity to defend its sovereignty and territorial integrity in order to meet its national defense requirements.”

RIYADH, 22 December 2021, (TON): Saudi Shoura Council Speaker Dr. Abdullah bin Mohammed Al-Asheikh has begun an official visit to Pakistan following an invitation from Speaker of the National Assembly Asad Qaiser.

During his trip, Al-Asheikh was scheduled to meet with Pakistani President Arif Alvi, Prime Minister Imran Khan, and other senior officials.

He was also due to hold talks with his Pakistani counterpart to discuss issues of mutual concern, future cooperation between the Shoura Council and National Assembly, coordination on regional and international parliamentary events, and the activation of joint friendship parliamentary committees.

Earlier this week, Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan visited Islamabad where he attended the OIC session on Afghan crisis.

During the conference he stressed the need to ensure that Afghanistan does not turn into a shelter for terrorist and extremist groups, adding that the deterioration of the humanitarian situation in the country will affect regional stability.

BRUSSLES, 22 December 2021, (TON): World powers condemned Hong’s Kong tightly vetted legislature vote, saying rules imposed by Beijing that reduced directly elected seats and controlled who could stand had eroded democracy in the Chinese territory.

China has overseen a sweeping crackdown in Hong Kong in response to huge and often violent democracy protests two years ago.

It imposed a national security law in the former British colony that criminalized much dissent and introduced political rules that vet the loyalty of anyone standing for office.

The first public vote under this new order was held on Sunday for the city’s legislature, with a historic low turnout recorded and the number of those directly elected slashed from half to 22 percent.

Figures showed just 30 percent of the electorate cast ballots, the lowest rate both of the period since the city’s 1997 handover to China and the British colonial era.

Turnout at the last legislature polls in 2016 was 58 percent, while the 2019 district council elections, when pro-democracy figures won a landslide, saw a record 71 percent.

KHARTOUM, 22 December 2021, (TON): Sudan Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok has told “a group of national political and intellectual figures that he intends to resign in the coming hours, two sources close to Hamdok told Reuters.”

Hamdok was reinstated on Nov. 21 following a coup a month earlier that saw the military take power and end a transitional partnership with political parties.

While several political forces took part in drafting the agreement, according to the sources, it has faced widespread criticism from parties and the general public.

On Saturday, hundreds of thousands of people marched on the presidential palace rejecting both military rule and Hamdok’s decision to return, which he had said he took to preserve gains made during the transition and to end bloodshed.

Some 47 people have died in crackdowns on protests against military rule, including two as a result of Saturday’s protest.

BEIJING, 22 December 2021, (TON): China, backed by Russia, blocked a US draft resolution in the UN Security Council that would have provided a system for humanitarian exceptions to economic sanctions imposed on Taliban-controlled Afghanistan.

A diplomat told AFP on condition of anonymity "they want the deletion" of a paragraph of the resolution allowing the sanctions committee responsible for Afghanistan to provide "exemptions from the freezing of assets" if it considers that "such a waiver is necessary to facilitate further assistance to Afghanistan.”

China, which is "opposed in principle to sanctions," is "against a case-by-case exemption mechanism," another diplomat confirmed.

China's UN Ambassador Zhang Jun said in a tweet "Humanitarian aid and life-saving assistance must be able to reach the Afghan people without any hindrance.”

"Artificially created conditions or restrictions are not acceptable."

Washington was hoping for approval on Monday of their draft by the other 14 members of the Security Council, so that they could put it to a vote on Tuesday, diplomatic sources said.

MOSCOW, 22 December 2021, (TON): President Vladimir Putin said that Russia had no room to retreat in a standoff with the United States over Ukraine and would be forced into a tough response unless the West dropped its aggressive line.

Putin addressed the remarks to military officials as Russia pressed for an urgent US and NATO response to proposals it made last week for a binding set of security guarantees from the West.

Putin said "what the US is doing in Ukraine is at our doorstep... And they should understand that we have nowhere further to retreat to. Do they think we’ll just watch idly?"

"If the aggressive line of our Western colleagues continues, we will take adequate military-technical response measures and react harshly to unfriendly steps."

Putin did not spell out the nature of these measures but his phrasing mirrored that used previously by Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, who has warned that Russia may redeploy intermediate-range nuclear missiles in Europe in response to what it sees as NATO plans to do the same.

Russia rejects Ukrainian and US charges that it may be preparing an invasion of Ukraine as early as next month by tens of thousands of Russian troops poised within reach of the border.

TEL AVIV, 22 December 2021, (TON): Israel's former military intelligence chief admitted Tel Aviv's involvement in the US airstrike that killed Iranian general Qassem Soleimani in January last year, making it the first public admittance of the country's involvement in the operation.

Soleimani, led the elite Quds Force of Iran's Revolutionary Guard and was believed to have led Iran's involvement with the paramilitary groups operating overseas.

Associated Press reported “he was killed in a US drone strike conducted at Baghdad Airport.”

Just a week following the strike, NBC News had reported that it was Israel intelligence that helped gather details of the late general's Damascus-Baghdad flight.

Moreover, according to media reports, Israel had access to Soleimani’s numbers and it had conveyed the information to the US.

Maj Gen Tamir Heyman, a former Israel general who led the military intelligence until October, is the first official fo confirm Tel Aviv's involvement in the murder.

The comments first appeared in November in a Hebrew-language magazine known to be closely linked to Israel's intelligence services.

RIYADH, 22 December 2021, (TON): Saudi Press Agency  reported “Saudi Arabia’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Prince Faisal bin Farhan met with British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss on Monday during the GCC-UK ministerial meeting.”

SPA said “they reviewed aspects of the partnership between the Kingdom and the UK, and “discussed opportunities to enhance cooperation between the two countries in areas of mutual benefits and common interests.”

Prince Faisal and Truss discussed the results of the extraordinary meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) on the humanitarian situation in Afghanistan, during which the Kingdom called for a response to the escalating humanitarian crisis facing Afghans.

MOSCOW, 22 December 2021, (TON): Russia expelled two German diplomats in response to a spat with Berlin over a German court’s ruling that Moscow had ordered the 2019 assassination of an ex-Chechen commander in a Berlin park.

Russia’s foreign ministry said in a statement “it did not say when the German diplomats needed to leave Russia the German ambassador was informed that two diplomatic employees of the German embassy in Russia were declared ‘persona non grata’ as a symmetrical response.”

The ministry added that it had registered a “strong protest” with the German envoy over Berlin’s expulsion last week of two Russian diplomats last week.

Judges in Berlin sentenced Russian national Vadim Krasikov, alias Vadim Sokolov, to life in prison last week after convicting him of gunning down Georgian national Tornike Kavt­arashvili, 40, in a Berlin park in 2019.

The murder was meant “as retaliation” for being a Kremlin opponent, a judge said.

Russia’s foreign ministry said that Moscow categorically denies the unfounded and divorced from reality accusations that it was involved.

WASHINGTON, 22 December 2021, (TON): A senior State Department official said “the United States would show greater flexibility on financial sanctions imposed on Afghanistan after the Taliban takeover to allow delivery of humanitarian aid to the war-ravaged country.”

The official, who spoke to Islamabad-based journalists working with foreign media organisations, indicated that increased cash flow to Afghanistan would be allowed to put more liquidity in the country facing acute cash shortage. Similarly, more private remittances to Afghanistan would be allowed.

The statement came amid growing calls for the US to review its punishing sanctions regime on the Afghan Taliban.

US envoy, Iranian FM discuss Afghan situation with army chief.

US sanctions and assets freeze following the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan have exacerbated the economic conditions in the country that was heavily reliant on donor assistance. The humanitarian crisis there resulting from drought and decades of conflict has been aggravated by the economic crunch.

Foreign ministers of Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) member countries, who met in Islamabad on Sunday to discuss the humanitarian situation in Afghanistan, had also called for easing of sanctions so that they “do not impede the provision of humanitarian aid or economic resources to preserve the institutions, schools and hospitals in Afghanistan and to allow multilateral development institutions, United Nations agencies, funds and programmes and other humanitarian organisations to channel existing assistance and assets towards humanitarian assistance.”