BRASILIA: Brazilian officials have yet to receive visas to attend the UN General Assembly in New York next week, the foreign ministry said Monday, as trade and diplomatic ties with Washington remain strained.
The trial and conviction of Brazil’s far-right former president Jair Bolsonaro angered his ally Donald Trump, the US president who has already slapped a 50-percent tariff on Brazilian imports.
“We have received information from the US government that the visas have not yet been granted. They are being processed,” foreign ministry official Marcelo Marotta Viegas told a press conference.
He said a refusal to grant the visas would be a “legal violation” by the United States.
Viegas did not say how many visas were pending approval.
“It’s concerning,” Stephane Dujarric, spokesman for United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, said of the visa delay.
Bolsonaro was sentenced last week to 27 years in prison for a botched coup attempt.
Aside from the tariffs, Washington has also revoked the visas of several Brazilian Supreme Court judges and a government minister.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Monday that further US action could be expected to pressure Brazil over Bolsonaro’s conviction.
“We’ll have some announcements in the next week or so about what additional steps we intend to take,” Rubio told Fox News from Jerusalem on Monday.
Brazilian officials yet to receive US visas for UN assembly
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Brazilian officials yet to receive US visas for UN assembly
- Foreign ministry official Marcelo Marotta said a refusal to grant the visas would be a “legal violation” by the US
Australia hits Afghan Taliban officials with sanctions, travel bans
- The Taliban has said it respects women’s rights, in line with its interpretation of Islamic law and local custom
- The measures were part of a new Australian government framework that enabled it to “directly impose its own sanctions and travel bans to increase pressure on the Taliban, targeting the oppression of the Afghan people,” Wong said
SYDNEY: Australia on Saturday imposed financial sanctions and travel bans on four officials in Afghanistan’s Taliban government over what it said was a deteriorating human rights situation in the country, especially for women and girls.
Australia’s Foreign Minister Penny Wong said the officials were involved “in the oppression of women and girls and in undermining good governance or the rule of law” in the Taliban-run country.
Australia was one of several nations which in August 2021 pulled troops out of Afghanistan, after being part of a NATO-led international force that trained Afghan security forces and fought the Taliban for two decades after Western-backed forces ousted the Islamist militants from power.
The Taliban, since regaining power in Afghanistan, has been criticized for deeply restricting the rights and freedoms of women and girls through bans on education and work.
The Taliban has said it respects women’s rights, in line with its interpretation of Islamic law and local custom.
Wong said in a statement the sanctions targeted three Taliban ministers and the group’s chief justice, accusing them of restricting access for girls and women “to education, employment, freedom of movement and the ability to participate in public life.”
The measures were part of a new Australian government framework that enabled it to “directly impose its own sanctions and travel bans to increase pressure on the Taliban, targeting the oppression of the Afghan people,” Wong said.
Australia took in thousands of evacuees, mostly women and children, from Afghanistan after the Taliban retook power in the war-shattered South Asian country, where much of the population now relies on humanitarian aid to survive.
