The United States is looking carefully at Venezuela's Telesur following Washington's designation of five Chinese media outlets as foreign missions, US Special Representative for Venezuela Elliott Abrams said during a press briefing on Wednesday
WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 19th February, 2020) The United States is looking carefully at Venezuela's Telesur following Washington's designation of five Chinese media outlets as foreign missions, US Special Representative for Venezuela Elliott Abrams said during a press briefing on Wednesday.
"I don't have any announcements to make with respect to Telesur but we are looking very carefully at it, because we have had many reports that Telesur is not actually a news source. ... It is analogous to the Chinese news, well, alleged news sources, against which the United States acted yesterday. That is it intends to reflect only the views of a government rather than actually being an independent news source," Abrams said. "We are taking a careful look at Telesur."
The United States on Tuesday designated five Chinese media outlets as foreign missions, namely Xinhua News Agency; China Global Television Network which falls under China Central Television, CCTV; China Radio International; China Daily Distribution Corporation; and Hai Tian Development USA.
According to the State Department's website, "a foreign mission is any mission to or agency or entity in the United States which is involved in the diplomatic, consular or other activities of, or which is substantially owned or effectively controlled by a foreign government, or an organization representing a territory or political entity which has been granted diplomatic or other official privileges and immunities under the laws of the United States or which engages in some aspect of the conduct of international affairs of such territory or political entity, including any real property of such a mission and including the personnel of such a mission."
Beijing has expressed protest to Washington over the decision to equate five Chinese media to the status of foreign missions, the Chinese Foreign Ministry's spokesman, Geng Shuang, said on Wednesday at a briefing.
