US officials have granted licenses to the blacklisted Chinese high-tech conglomerate. The approvals open the gates for deals worth hundred of millions of dollars linked to the purchase of semiconductor chips, Reuters reported. Huawei is the world's biggest telecommunications equipment maker.

The US administration announced new sanctions on a Russian ship and two companies involved in the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, news wires reported. But opponents of the nearly completed $11 billion project said the measures would not stop it. "These sanctions do nothing to halt Nord Stream 2," Daniel Vajdich, president of Yorktown Solutions, which advises the Ukrainian energy industry on the matter, said cited by Reuters.

The Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei suffered bitter losses in the first six months of 2021 as the imposed US sanctions weighed on its business. The company reported a a 29% drop in revenue to $49,56bn, Reuters reported. The sharpest fall came from its consumer business group, which includes handsets, where revenue slumped by 47%.

The European Union said on Friday it had adopted a legal framework for a sanctions regime targeting Lebanese individuals and entities after a year of crisis that has left Lebanon facing financial collapse, hyperinflation, as well as food and fuel shortages. As the EU stated, this framework would provide for the possibility of imposing sanctions on those responsible for undermining democracy or the rule of law in Lebanon.

The United States imposed sanctions on Cuba’s defense minister and a special forces unit on Thursday for repressing peaceful protests, news wires reported. “This is just the beginning—the United States will continue to sanction individuals responsible for oppression of the Cuban people,” Biden said in a statement, cited by AFP. The sanctions were imposed under the Magnitsky act, which allows a US president to take action against human rights abuses and corruption.

EU ambassadors agreed on Wednesday to extend for another six months economic sanctions on Russia, first imposed in 2014 for the Crimea annexation and the Kremlin's involvement in conflict in east Ukraine, diplomats said, cited by news wires.

The EU imposed for the first time on Thursday wide-ranging economic sanctions on Belarus, targeting its main export industries and access to finance, news wires reported. They come a month after a Ryanair flight was forced to land in Minsk.

Top US and Chinese diplomats appear to have had yet another sharply worded exchange, with Beijing accusing Washington of politicising the search for the origin of the Covid-19 pandemic and interfering in its internal affairs, AP reported.

In a resolution adopted on Thursday with 626 votes in favour, 16 against and 36 abstentions, MEPs strongly condemn the “Ryanair hijacking” as an act of ‘state terrorism’, and call for journalist Raman Pratasevich and Sofia Sapega, as well as all other political prisoners in Belarus, to be immediately and unconditionally released, EP Press service reported.

Russia on Monday targeted nine Canadian officials with sanctions in retaliation to Canada’s restrictions against Russian officials accused of involvement in the imprisonment of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, AP reported.