WASHINGTON (AP) — Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warned Tuesday of potential global economic damage from rising tensions in the Middle East and pledged that the U.S. and its allies won't hesitate to use their sanctions powers to address Iran's "malign and destabilizing activity” in the region.
She made her remarks ahead of this week's spring meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, saying Iran's weekend missile attack on Israel “underscores the importance of Treasury’s work to use our economic tools to counter Iran’s malign activity.”
She added: “From this weekend’s attack to the Houthi attacks in the Red Sea, Iran’s actions threaten the region’s stability and could cause economic spillovers.”
Iran's missile attack on Israel early Sunday came in response to what it says was an Israeli strike on Iran's consulate in Syria earlier this month. Israel’s military chief said Monday that his country will respond to the attack, while world leaders caution against retaliation, trying to avoid a spiral of violence.
As the IMF and its fellow lending agency, the World Bank, hold their spring meetings this week, high on the agenda are the fast-rising tensions between Iran and Israel and what escalation could spell for the global economy.
Israel and Iran have been on a collision course throughout Israel’s six-month war against Hamas militants in Gaza. The war erupted after two militant groups backed by Iran led an attack on Oct. 7 that killed 1,200 people in Israel and kidnapped 250 others. An Israeli offensive in Gaza has caused widespread devastation and killed over 33,000 people, according to local health officials.
“We’ve targeted over 500 individuals and entities connected to terrorism and terrorist financing by the Iranian regime and its proxies since the start of the Administration," Yellen said, citing sanctions against Iran’s drone and missile programs, militant groups Hamas, the Houthis, Hezbollah, and other Iraqi militia groups.
“Treasury will not hesitate to work with our allies to use our sanctions authority to continue disrupting the Iranian regime’s malign and destabilizing activity,” she said. “I fully expect we will take additional sanctions actions against Iran in the coming days."
The annual gathering will take place as other ongoing conflicts, including Russia's invasion of Ukraine, threaten global financial stability.
Yellen in February offered her strongest public support yet for the idea of liquidating roughly $300 billion in frozen Russian Central Bank assets and using them for Ukraine’s long-term reconstruction.
She said Tuesday that the U.S. is “continuing to work with our international partners to unlock the economic value of immobilized Russian sovereign assets and ensure that Russia pays for the damage it has caused.” Yellen added that she will meet with Group of Seven finance leaders Wednesday to continue discussions on the topic and will look at “a series of possibilities, ranging from actually seizing the assets to using them as collateral.”
Another major issue for this year's meetings on the U.S. side, Yellen said, will be ongoing conversations about Chinese industrial policy that poses a threat to U.S. jobs and the global economy. She traveled to Guangzhou and Beijing earlier this month, to hold “difficult conversations” with counterparts over what she describes as China's overcapacity in its wave of low-priced Chinese green tech exports that could overwhelm factories in the U.S. and make it impossible to compete.
Yellen said she plans to meet later this week with her Chinese counterparts for a fourth meeting of the U.S.-China Economic and Financial Working Groups, "to share information, identify potential areas of cooperation, and, when we disagree, frankly communicate concerns.”
U.S. Treasury and China’s Ministry of Finance launched the economic working groups in an effort to ease tensions and deepen ties between the nations.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen attends a press conference in Beijing, China, Monday, April 8, 2024. Ever since she ate mushrooms that can have psychedelic effects in Beijing last July, Americans and Chinese have been united in their interest in what Janet Yellen will eat next. (AP Photo/Tatan Syuflana)
Three women were diagnosed with HIV after getting “vampire facial” procedures at an unlicensed New Mexico medical spa, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a report last week, marking the first documented cases of people contracting the virus through cosmetic services using needles.
Federal health officials said in a new report that an investigation from 2018 through 2023 into the clinic in Albuquerque, VIP Spa, found it apparently reused disposable equipment intended for one-time use, transmitting HIV to clients through its services via contaminated blood.
Vampire facials, formally known as platelet-rich plasma microneedling facials, are cosmetic procedures intended to rejuvenate one’s skin, making it more youthful-looking and reducing acne scars and wrinkles, according to the American Academy of Dermatology.
After a client's blood is drawn, a machine separates the blood into platelets and cells.
The plasma is then injected into the client's face, either through single-use disposable or multiuse sterile needles.
Vampire facials have gained popularity in recent years as celebrities such as Kim Kardashian have publicized receiving the procedure.
HIV transmission via unsterile injection is a known risk of beauty treatments and other services, officials say.
Despite this, the Academy says vampire facials are generally safe.
Health officials say spa facilities that offer cosmetic injection services should practice proper infection control and maintain client records to help prevent the transmission of bloodborne pathogens such as HIV.
The New Mexico Department of Health was notified during summer 2018 that a woman with no known HIV risk factors was diagnosed with an HIV infection after receiving the spa's vampire facial services that spring.
During the investigation, similar HIV strains were found among three women, all former clients of the spa. Evidence suggested that contamination from services at the spa resulted in the positive HIV infection tests for these three patients, according to the CDC report.
Another woman, who also received services at the spa, and her male sexual partner, who did not go to the spa, were both found to have a close HIV strain as well, but the HIV diagnoses for these two patients “were likely attributed to exposures before receipt of cosmetic injection services," the CDC said.
Evidence suggested that contamination from services at the spa resulted in the positive HIV infection tests for the other three patients.
Health officials found equipment containing blood on a kitchen counter, unlabeled tubes of blood and injectables in the refrigerator alongside food and unwrapped syringes not properly disposed of. The CDC report said that a steam sterilizer, known as an autoclave — which is necessary for cleaning equipment that is reused — was not found at the spa.
Through the New Mexico Department of Health's investigation, nearly 200 former clients of the spa, and their sexual partners, were tested for HIV, and no additional infections were found.
According to the CDC, free testing remains available for those who previously frequented the spa.
The former owner of VIP Spa, Maria de Lourdes Ramos de Ruiz, pleaded guilty in 2022 to five felony counts of practicing medicine without a license, including conducting the unlicensed vampire facials.
The New Mexico Attorney General's office said Ramos de Ruiz also did illegal plasma and Botox-injection procedures.
According to prosecutors, inspections by state health and regulation and licensing departments found the code violations, and the spa closed in fall 2018 after the investigation was launched.
Ramos de Ruiz was sentenced to 7 1/2 years, with four years being suspended on supervised probation, 3 1/2 years time in prison and parole, according to court documents.
Raul A. Lopez, attorney for Ramos de Ruiz, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Alexa St. John is an Associated Press climate solutions reporter. Follow her on X, formerly Twitter, @alexa_stjohn. Reach her at ast.john@ap.org.
'Vampire facials' were linked to cases of HIV. Here's what to know about the beauty treatment
'Vampire facials' were linked to cases of HIV. Here's what to know about the beauty treatment
FILE - This electron microscope image made available by the U.S. National Institutes of Health shows a human T cell, in blue, under attack by HIV, in yellow, the virus that causes AIDS. Three women who were diagnosed with HIV after getting “vampire facial” procedures at an unlicensed New Mexico medical spa are the first believed to have contracted the virus through a cosmetic procedure using needles, according to federal health officials. (Seth Pincus, Elizabeth Fischer, Austin Athman/National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases/NIH via AP, File)
