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Biden Pushes New Russia, Iran, Korea, China Effort Before Trump Term
US President Joe Biden delivers remarks on the economy at the Brookings Institution in Washington, DC, US, Dec. 10, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque
President Joe Biden is pushing US national security agencies ahead of Donald Trump‘s inauguration to devise new strategies to tackle the risky, deepening ties among Russia, Iran, North Korea, and China, according to US officials.
In exchange for Iran‘s help with the Russian war effort in Ukraine, Moscow is giving its ally fighter aircraft, missile defense, and space technology, Biden concluded in a national security memorandum issued on Tuesday.
Russian President Vladimir Putin is giving North Korea fuel, money, and technology, and is recognizing it as a de facto nuclear state. Russia is conducting joint patrols with China in the Arctic, the administration said.
The classified document was described in general terms to reporters, but has not independently been reviewed by Reuters. Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea have disputed similar assessments in the past and accused Washington of destabilizing behavior.
Biden‘s new document orders various arms of the US government to restructure groups currently organized by region to better focus on issues linking the four countries that span Europe and Asia.
The document’s strategies and policy suggestions could be implemented — or rejected altogether — by President-elect Trump, a Republican who takes office on Jan. 20.
“When the new team sort of looks at it, I don’t think they will see anything in it that is trying to box them in or tilt them toward one policy option or another,” said one of the senior administration officials, who declined to be named.
Another official said they want to create “new options so that a new team and Congress can really hit the ground running.”
The officials said the challenges ahead include ensuring that any sanctions and export controls imposed on the four countries are applied in a coordinated way that doesn’t risk blowback from those countries and enabling the United States to better handle simultaneous crises involving several of the countries. North Korean troops are now serving in Russia, for instance.
“We’re now in a world where our adversaries and our competitors are learning very quickly from one another,” said one of the officials.
But there are limits to the countries’ cooperation, another of the officials said, including Russia and Iran‘s failing to assist their ally Bashar al-Assad, the former Syrian president who was toppled over the weekend.
“This realignment sort of raises for China the question about what kind of future it wants to see and if it really wants to be all-in with this grouping,” the person said.
The post Biden Pushes New Russia, Iran, Korea, China Effort Before Trump Term first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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‘With or Without Russia’s Help’: Iran Pledges to Block South Caucasus Route Opened Up By Peace Deal
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a cabinet meeting at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., July 8, 2025. Photo: Kevin Lamarque via Reuters Connect.
i24 News – Iran will block the establishment of a US-backed transit corridor in the South Caucasus region with or without Moscow’s help, a senior adviser to Iran’s supreme leader was quoted as saying on Saturday by the Iran International website, one day after the historic peace agreement between Azerbaijan and Armenia.
“Mr. Trump thinks the Caucasus is a piece of real estate he can lease for 99 years,” Ali Akbar Velayati said of the so-called Zangezur corridor, the establishment of which is stipulated in the peace deal unveiled on Friday by US President Donald Trump. The White House said the transit route would facilitate greater exports of energy and other resources.
“This passage will not become a gateway for Trump’s mercenaries — it will become their graveyard,” the Khamenei advisor added.
Baku and Yerevan have been at loggerheads 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 or forcing almost all of the territory’s 100,000 ethnic Armenians to flee to Armenia.
Yet that painful history was put to the side on Friday at the White House, as Trump oversaw a signing ceremony, flanked by Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan.
The peace deal with Azerbaijan—a pro-Western ally of Israel—is expected to pull Armenia out of the Russian and Iranian sphere of influence and could transform the South Caucasus, an energy-producing region neighboring Russia, Europe, Turkey and Iran.
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UK Police Arrest 150 at Protest for Banned Palestine Action Group
People holding signs sit during a rally organised by Defend Our Juries, challenging the British government’s proscription of “Palestine Action” under anti-terrorism laws, in Parliament Square, in London, Britain, August 9, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Jaimi Joy
London’s Metropolitan Police said on Saturday it had arrested 150 people at a protest against Britain’s decision to ban the group Palestine Action, adding it was making further arrests.
Officers made arrests after crowds, waving placards expressing support for the group, gathered in Parliament Square, the force said on X.
Protesters, some wearing black and white Palestinian scarves, chanted “shame on you” and “hands off Gaza,” and held signs such as “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action,” video taken by Reuters at the scene showed.
In July, British lawmakers banned Palestine Action under anti-terrorism legislation after some of its members broke into a Royal Air Force base and damaged planes in protest against Britain’s support for Israel.
The ban makes it a crime to be a member of the group, carrying a maximum sentence of 14 years in prison.
The co-founder of Palestine Action, Huda Ammori, last week won a bid to bring a legal challenge against the ban.
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‘No Leniency’: Iran Announces Arrest of 20 ‘Zionist Agents’
Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi addresses a special session of the Human Rights Council at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, June 20, 2025. REUTERS/Denis Balibouse
i24 News – Iranian authorities have in recent months arrested 20 people charged with being “Israeli Mossad operatives,” the judiciary said, adding that the Islamic regime will mete out the harshest punishments.
“The judiciary will show no leniency toward spies and agents of the Zionist regime, and with firm rulings, will make an example of them all,” spokesperson Asghar Jahangiri told Iranian media. However, it is understood that an unspecified number of detainees were released, apparently after the charges against them could not be substantiated.
The Islamic Republic was left reeling by a devastating 12-day war with Israel earlier in the summer that left a significant proportion of its military arsenal in ruins and dealt a serious setback to its uranium enrichment program. The fallout included an uptick in executions of Iranians convicted of spying for Israel, with at least eight death sentences carried out in recent months. Hit with international sanctions, the country is in dire economic straights, with frequent energy outages and skyrocketing unemployment.
In recent weeks Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi affirmed that Tehran cannot give up on its nuclear enrichment program even as it was severely damaged during the war.
“It is stopped because, yes, damages are serious and severe. But obviously we cannot give up of enrichment because it is an achievement of our own scientists. And now, more than that, it is a question of national pride,” the official told Fox News.