The U.N. Security Council on March 7 added one entry to its ISIL (Da’esh) and al-Qaida sanctions list. Sanctions now apply to the terrorist group Khatiba al-Tawhid wal-Jihad, which operates in Syria, Turkey, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Russia, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Egypt, Afghanistan and Ukraine. The State Department sanctioned the group earlier this week (see 2203070059).

China banned the import of poultry and related products from Canada following an outbreak of an avian flu subtype at a Canadian turkey farm, China's General Administration of Customs said in a Feb. 21 notice, according to an unofficial translation. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency said the highly pathogenic H5N1, which occurred on a farm in Nova Scotia, was reported to the World Organization for Animal Health. The Nova Scotia farm has poultry and products for local sale, CFIA said. China said any poultry or poultry products sent from Canada will either be returned or destroyed.

The Office of Foreign Assets Control designated three individuals, nine entities and one vessel on Feb. 23 as part of its counterterrorism efforts. Abdo Abdullah Dael Amed of Yemen, Chiranjeev Kumar Singh of India, and Konstantinos Stavridis of Greece were added to the Specially Designated Nationals list, along with entities in Turkey, Yemen and the United Arab Emirates. The Department of the Treasury said in a press release said that the targets were key components in a "complex international network of intermediaries" helping to finance Houthi rebels in Yemen.

Turkey will slash the value-added tax on staple food from 8% to 1% in a bid to curb inflation, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said at a virtual news conference, Bloomberg reported. Finance Minister Nureddin Nebati said that the Turkish government will create a task force to look at prices and a mobile app to help citizens find the cheapest goods in other efforts to fight high prices. Nebati also said the government will implement a new Credit Guarantee Fund package that will guarantee up to 60 billion liras, or $4.45 billion, allowing banks to dole out much more, Bloomberg said. So far, the Turkish central bank has cut interest rates by 500 basis points in four meetings since September, Bloomberg said. Turkey also recently authorized its agriculture ministry to restrict ag exports in an effort to control domestic food price inflation (see 2202020032).

Turkey recently granted its agriculture ministry the authority to restrict exports of 20 agricultural products in an effort to lower domestic food inflation, USDA's Foreign Agricultural Service said in a Jan. 28 report. As of the report, USDA said the ministry hasn’t yet limited the exports but could decide to impose the restrictions in the future, “depending on local market conditions.” The authority, which is valid through Dec. 31, could apply to potatoes, tomatoes, onions, garlic, lemons, various meats, eggs and other foods.

Retaliatory tariffs against the U.S. cost exporters more than $27 billion from mid-2018 to the end of 2019, with sales to China accounting for about 95% of the losses, USDA said in a new report this month. Although the phase one U.S.-China trade deal and China’s tariff exemption programs helped to “significantly” rebound some U.S. exports to the country, the agency said U.S. market share still remained below pre-retaliatory tariffs levels one year after the deal.

The U.K. lifted its suspension on licensing military exports to Turkey, the Export Control Joint Unit said in a Dec. 13 notice. Confident that decisions on all license applications to Turkey can be taken on a case-by-case basis following a careful assessment against the Strategic Export Licensing Criteria, the ECJU released the military export suspension and will work with advisory government departments to get through some of the applications, it said. The expectation is that the unit will take around eight weeks to clear the backlog of existing applications for Turkey, the ECJU said.

The Bureau of Industry and Security added 37 entities to the Entity List, including 34 Chinese research institutes and technology companies, for supporting China’s military modernization efforts or Iran’s weapons program. Other entities added to the list, located in Georgia, Malaysia and Turkey, supplied U.S.-origin items to Iranian defense industries, BIS said.

The European Union initiated a pair of anti-circumvention investigations into its antidumping and countervailing duty orders on certain woven and/or stitched glass fiber fabrics from China and Egypt, consigned from Turkey, the European Commission said. The investigation will cover certain woven and/or stitched glass fiber fabrics consigned from Turkey, whether declared as originating in Turkey or not. The investigations were initiated after TECH-FAB Europe requested them in November, alleging that assembly operations in Turkey substantially increased after the imposition of the orders.

The Bureau of Industry and Security will add 37 entities to the Entity List this week for supporting China’s military modernization efforts or Iran’s weapons program and defense industries. The entities, located in China, Georgia, Malaysia and Turkey, will be subject to a license review policy of presumption of denial for all items subject to the Export Administration Regulations. No license exceptions will be available for the entities, BIS also added three additional aliases under Huawei’s Entity List entry. The additions take effect Dec. 17.