More than 130 Syrians have been killed by Assad regime airstrikes since Monday, the BBC reports, with strikes in Eastern Ghouta killing 80 people, including 21 children, on Tuesday alone.
The backdrop: U.N. senior advisor Jan Egelan has called Eastern Ghouta "the epicenter of suffering" in Syria. Al Jazeera notes that the area "is one of the last remaining opposition strongholds," making it a major target for Syrian and Russian forces.
Rep. Adam Schiff, ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, released a statement on Wednesday claiming that neither Steve Bannon nor Corey Lewandowski have "articulated legitimate grounds for refusing to appear and answer questions before Congress." Schiff explained that the committee will now move to subpoena Lewandowski and enforce the existing subpoena on Bannon in order to compel them to return for questioning.
Rewind: Last week, Axios' Jonathan Swan reported that Bannon was not at risk of contempt because the committee had "agreed to delay the subpoena for another week while they try to work out proper scope of questioning with the White House." Following Schiff's call for Bannon to appear before the committee now, the delay is likely to end soon.
U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said Tuesday that Russia is already trying to interfere in the 2018 U.S. midterm elections, per Fox News. The secretary, who is on a South American diplomatic tour, spoke to Fox News in Bogota, Colombia and said, “The point is, if it's their intention to interfere, they are going to find ways to do that."
Tillerson is taking his warning one step further than CIA Director Mike Pompeo, who said last month that he has "every expectation" the Russians will try to meddle in the midterm elections in the U.S.
President Trump responded via Twitter to a Fox News report on newly-released texts between FBI agent Peter Strzok and former FBI lawyer Lisa Page, which highlighted a September 2, 2016 text message that said President Obama "wants to know everything we're doing" regarding the FBI's ongoing investigations.
Yes, but: As The Daily Beast's Lachlan Markay points out, "This text came three days before Obama confronted Putin about election-meddling. It's not exactly a mystery why he'd want a full account of what the FBI knew."
Saudi Arabia has approved an Air India request to fly directly from Delhi to Tel Aviv, marking the first time the country will allow flights to Israel use its airspace, reports Israeli newspaper Haaretz.
Why it matters: The new route will cut down on flight time by 2.5 hours, saving the airline money on fuel and allowing it to sell cheaper tickets to passengers. Saudi Arabian airspace has been closed to flights traveling to Israel for the past 70 years, and the historic move could signal the warming of relations between Jerusalem and Riyadh.
Vice President Mike Pence announced during a speech in Tokyo on Tuesday that the United States was set to unveil strict new sanctions against the North Korean regime.
The big picture: Pence, who will attend the Olympics in South Korea later this month, did not include any details about the sanctions or a timetable for implementation, but stated that the United States' ultimate goal is to achieve "complete, verifiable, and irreversible denuclearization" in North Korea.
Defense Secretary Jim Mattis told the House Armed Services Committee that the administration’s Nuclear Posture Review is intended to give the U.S. leverage over Russia in a dispute over a 1987 arms treaty, the AP reports.
Key point: The U.S. has claimed that Russia violated the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces treaty when it deployed a ground-based cruise missile banned by the treaty in 2016. Russia denies the allegation. The proposed missile would “keep our negotiators negotiating from a position of strength…I don’t think the Russians would be willing to give up something to gain nothing from us.”
The United States' trade deficit in 2017 hit $566 billion — the highest since since 2008 — spurred by a $375.2 billion gap with China and a $71.1 billion deficit with Mexico, reports the AP. President Trump has frequently singled out those two nations as he structured his "America First" economic policy around balanced trade deals, pondering tariffs against China and a renegotiation or termination of NAFTA.
Yes, but: A large trade deficit isn't necessarily a bad thing as it indicates that American consumer confidence is strong and willing to buy. Plus, there's good news for Trump's economic policies in the numbers as well: exports of goods in December were the highest since October 2014, per Reuters, indicating that a weak dollar is allowing more consumers abroad to purchase American-made products.
Ahead of his visit this week to South America, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has been warning about the rising influence of China and Russia in the region. "Latin America doesn't need new imperial powers that seek only to benefit their own people,” he said last week.
The big picture: China is now the top trading partner of Brazil, the region’s largest economy, as well as Argentina and Peru, the two South American stops on Tillerson’s trip. Last month in Chile, Tillerson’s Chinese counterpart announced further plans to invest in Latin America, as part of China’s massive Belt and Road initiative.
