World
5 EU countries call for sanctions on Gazprombank and Russian diamonds
![5 EU countries call for sanctions on Gazprombank and Russian diamonds 5 EU countries call for sanctions on Gazprombank and Russian diamonds](https://static.euronews.com/articles/stories/07/03/74/78/1000x563_cmsv2_12dd5ac2-f092-54b0-84ed-564c6d318f4f-7037478.jpg)
Gazprombank, the entity that has confirmed instrumental in finishing gasoline funds between Russia and the European Union, needs to be expelled from the SWIFT system within the subsequent spherical of EU sanctions, based on a joint proposal by Poland, Eire and the three Baltic states.
In a doc obtained by Euronews, the 5 member states current a collection of measures in response to Vladimir Putin’s plans to deliver as much as 300,000 reservists into the Russian military and organise referendums within the occupied territories in japanese and southern Ukraine.
The votes, seen by specialists as a doable prelude to full annexation, have been harshly condemned by Western nations as a “sham.”
The mobilisation decree and the referendums are fuelling requires a contemporary raft of EU sanctions in opposition to Russia.
“I believe this requires sanctions from our half, once more,” European Fee President Ursula von der Leyen stated this week.
For the reason that Kremlin launched the invasion of Ukraine, the bloc has imposed six rounds of penalties, along with complementary measures to nice tune their effectivity and increase their scope.
The Fee stated the subsequent bundle will give attention to civilian expertise, with out offering additional particulars.
Of their joint paper, Poland, Eire, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania recommend the trail the bloc ought to select to pile strain on Russia.
The 5 nations need Gazprombank to be lastly expelled from SWIFT, a high-security system that permits monetary transactions. The Moscow-based financial institution acts as middleman between EU shoppers and Gazprom, Russia’s gasoline monopoly, and permits the conversion of euros into roubles.
Since a number of nations in Jap and Central Europe stay extremely depending on pipeline gasoline coming from Russia, Gazprombank has been to date spared from the SWIFT blacklist, a notable omission that Ukrainian officers have repeatedly criticised.
The doc additionally places ahead a prohibition for EU corporations to offer any kind of insurance coverage service for the Russian authorities, businesses and companies. The measure envisions an exemption if the chance insured is situated in EU territory or if it pertains to diplomatic missions.
On expertise, the 5 nations provide an extended record of services whose commerce needs to be both banned or closely restricted, such because the export of EU-made smartphones, cameras, projectors, lasers, radio equipment, lenses and prisms, in addition to laptop software program, {hardware} upkeep, web-hosting providers and cybersecurity methods.
The group additionally proposes an EU-wide ban on using expertise developed by Kaspersky Lab, a Russian multinational recognized for its world-famous antivirus.
Diamond ban, again on the desk
Past expertise, Poland, Eire, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania push collectively for a ban on the import of diamonds that originate or have been processed in Russia.
The EU has already halted the export of its diamonds in the direction of Russia in a bid to harm the nation’s rich elite, however Russia continues to be allowed to ship diamonds into the bloc’s market.
In accordance with the Worldwide Commerce Centre, exports of Russian diamonds have been value $4.5 billion in 2021.
Their prime vacation spot is Belgium, whose diamond centre in Antwerp dominates the worldwide market within the slicing and sharpening of the dear materials.
For the previous months the Belgian authorities has been beneath scrutiny over its perceived opposition to additional constraining diamond commerce with Russia.
“Diamond commerce in Antwerp has tailored over the months of this battle and selections have been made,” Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo stated final week, talking within the Flemish metropolis.
“For those who take a look at the state of affairs at this time and the amount of commerce with Russia in comparison with earlier than the battle, we’re in a brand new world and these are intentionally selections that had been made in Antwerp.”
De Croo famous “sanctions ought to focus extra on the aggressor, relatively than ourselves.”
In one other part of the joint doc, the 5 nations suggest to ban the sale of EU-based actual property to any Russian nationwide, resident or firm – except they’ve the proper of everlasting residency.
Poland, Eire, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania additionally recommend the EU ought to broaden its definition of the vitality sector to impose restrictions on the commerce of nuclear expertise.
EU sanctions must be permitted by unanimous settlement of the 27 member states.
“We assist the strongest doable sanctions, however we’re additionally conscious that the power lies within the solidarity and unanimity. So we’ll work in the direction of that,” stated a diplomat from one of many 5 signatories.
“We hope to undertake the brand new bundle subsequent week.”
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World
UN chief slammed for not condemning Hamas terrorists in statement on murdered US and Israeli hostages
![UN chief slammed for not condemning Hamas terrorists in statement on murdered US and Israeli hostages UN chief slammed for not condemning Hamas terrorists in statement on murdered US and Israeli hostages](https://static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2024/09/American-hostage-Hersh-Goldberg-Polin-5-others-brutally-murdered-by-Hamas-right-before-rescue-IDF.png)
JERUSALEM – The Secretary General of the United Nations, António Guterres, is facing a barrage of criticism for failing to explicitly condemn the Hamas terrorist movement for its murders of one American and five Israeli citizens on Saturday.
Israel Defense Forces were looking to rescue the six hostages held by Hamas, including Israeli-American Hersh Goldberg-Polin, in the tunnel system below Gaza’s Rafah city, but instead found all six murdered at the hands of the terror group. The Times of Israel, quoting Israel’s ministry of health, reported that the hostages had been murdered between Thursday and Friday morning.
Guterres wrote on X, “I will never forget my meeting last October with the parents of Hersh Goldberg-Polin and other hostage families. Today’s tragic news is a devastating reminder of the need for the unconditional release of all hostages and an end to the nightmare of war in Gaza.”
ISRAEL SHARES DOSSIER SPELLING OUT ALLEGATIONS AGAINST 12 UN EMPLOYEES ALLEGEDLY INVOLVED IN HAMAS ATTACK
Guterres’ post on X sparked criticism from Israel’s former U.N. ambassador Gilad Erdan for playing down the severity of the murders by labeling the news as merely “tragic” and not condemning Hamas outright.
Guterres’ spokesman did not immediately respond to a Fox News Digital press query.
“You are shredding the UN charter” says Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations Gilad Erdan while speaking during a special session of the UN General Assembly regarding the Palestinian bid for full membership to the UN, at UN headquarters in New York City on May 10, 2024. A veto from the United States during an April 18, 2024 UN Security Council meeting previously foiled the Palestinians’ drive for full UN membership. (Photo by Charly TRIBALLEAU / AFP) (Photo by CHARLY TRIBALLEAU/AFP via Getty Images)
Erdan, who only left his role as ambassador last month, told Fox News Digital , “The Secretary General not only has Israeli blood on his hands, but he has American blood on his hands too. Since his “fig leaf” meeting with the hostage families, he has done ZERO to help them. He could have demanded visits from the Red Cross, he could have condemned Hamas and held them to account, but instead he spent his time criticizing the law-abiding democracy of Israel instead of the ISIS-like terrorists.”
Erdan continued “This is a new low, even for the Secretary General. Even today, he wouldn’t condemn the evil Hamas terrorists, but of course, you can’t condemn what you support. Hamas terrorists can rely on a morally bankrupt Secretary General for their survival whose only actions are meaningless photo-ops with hostage families, and criticism of Israel, while innocent hostages are being executed in cold blood.”
![Thousands of Israelis gathered in Ra'anana to pay their final respects to Almog Sarusi. Hamas abducted the 26-year-old sound and light technician from the Nova Music Festival and killed him in captivity. Israeli soldiers recovered his body along with five others on Saturday.](https://a57.foxnews.com/static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2024/09/1200/675/Hostage-Funeral.jpeg?ve=1&tl=1)
Thousands of Israelis gathered in Ra’anana to pay their final respects to Almog Sarusi. Hamas abducted the 26-year-old sound and light technician from the Nova Music Festival and killed him in captivity. Israeli soldiers recovered his body along with five others on Saturday. (Yossi Zeliger/TPS-IL)
Anne Bayefsky, director of the Touro Institute on Human Rights and the Holocaust and the president of Human Rights Voices, told Fox News Digital that “U.N. Secretary-General Guterres despicably now turns the cold-blooded murder of Israeli hostages by Palestinian terrorists into a win for the terrorists. He refuses to name the perpetrators. And equates their horrible deliberate execution with Israel’s effort to release them.”
![A Palestinian fighter from the armed wing of Hamas takes part in a military parade](https://a57.foxnews.com/static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2024/06/1200/675/Palestinian-Hamas.jpg?ve=1&tl=1)
A terrorist from Hamas takes part in a military parade. Three Palestinian migrants caught at the southern border were detained after they were allegedly found to have terrorist ties. (Reuters/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa/File Photo)
She added “The United Nations top apparatus – its Security Council, General Assembly, and Human Rights Council – has never specifically condemned Hamas. U.N. denial of the right of Israeli self-defense and its promotion of violence against the people of Israel has never been more clear. No amount of U.N. photo-ops with hostages or their families will erase the reality of the U.N.’s insidious role in the nightmare of war in Israel for seven decades.”
UN, HUMAN RIGHTS, MEDIA GROUPS RELY ON HAMAS DEATH TOLL IN ‘SYSTEMATIC DECEPTION’: EXPERT
![Guterres](https://a57.foxnews.com/static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2023/12/1200/675/GettyImages-1833212930.jpg?ve=1&tl=1)
TOPSHOT – U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres speaks during a United Nations Security Council meeting on Gaza, at UN headquarters in New York City on December 8, 2023. Guterres said on December 8, 2023, that Hamas’ brutality could never justify “collective punishment” of Palestinians as Israel presses its campaign against Hamas in the Gaza Strip. (Photo by YUKI IWAMURA/AFP via Getty Images)
In October, Erdan urged Guterres to resign after he claimed that the head of the world body had suggested that Israel was to blame for Hamas’ October 7 massacre that resulted in the murders of nearly 1,200 people, including more than 30 American citizens, and the kidnapping of over 250 people. Guterres came out to refute Erdan’s charges, but the United Nations has long been seen by critics as a bastion of antisemitism and anti-Israel bias.
![Nir Oz bloodied hand](https://a57.foxnews.com/static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2023/10/1200/675/israel_wall_blood_handprint.png?ve=1&tl=1)
A bloodied handprint stains a wall in a Nir Oz house after Hamas terrorists attacked this kibbutz days earlier near the border of Gaza. (Alexi J. Rosenfeld/Getty Images)
On Guterres’ watch, a number of U.N. agencies have been embroiled in scandals where they showed sympathy for Hamas. The scandal-plagued United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) is facing a lawsuit in Manhattan for its alleged role in aiding the terrorist movement Hamas’ slaughter on October 7.
Hillel Neuer, the executive director of UN Watch, lambasted Guterres’ decision to not name the perpetrators of the mass murder of the six people. “Hamas just murdered six Israeli and American hostages by shooting them in the head. Why can’t you say so? Why can’t you condemn them?,” wrote Neuer in a post on X.
Hamas is not on the United Nations’ list of terrorist organizations. Fox News Digital sent press queries to Israel’s current U.N. ambassador and the country’s foreign ministry.
World
Poland marks 85th anniversary of Nazi German invasion
![Poland marks 85th anniversary of Nazi German invasion Poland marks 85th anniversary of Nazi German invasion](https://static.euronews.com/articles/stories/08/69/40/70/1200x675_cmsv2_089bec5e-93bc-58f1-9ac1-9f7354c12ec7-8694070.jpg)
In more than five years of brutal German occupation during WWII, the central European country lost 6 million citizens, or a sixth of its population, of which 3 million were Jewish.
Poland held solemn ceremonies early on Sunday, marking the 85th anniversary of German Nazi forces invading and bombing the central European country’s territory at the start of World War II.
Sirens wailed and a memorial bell tolled as Polish President Andrzej Duda and deputy ambassador of Germany, Robert Rohde, attended an observance in the town of Wielun, the first civilian target of German bombing in the small hours of 1 September 1939 in Europe.
Some 1,200 people were killed in the attack.
“We can say that we have forgiven even though we remember, even though the pain is persisting, and even though there are still tens of thousands of those who have been directly hurt by the Germans,” Duda said. He also called on Berlin to make amends.
Meanwhile, at a monument on the Baltic Sea’s Westerplatte peninsula, where a military outpost was shelled by a German warship just minutes after Wielun was attacked, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk and Defence Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz laid wreaths and attended a memorial roll call for fallen soldiers.
At the time, the outpost’s outnumbered troops fought for seven days before surrendering to the Germans, becoming a symbol of heroism and patriotism.
Tusk said war was present again in the region as Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, which began in 2022, grinds on.
He said, in a clear reference to Germany, it wasn’t enough to speak about “reconciliation” or to “bend your head in a sense of guilt,” adding that the best sign of lessons learned from the past is “the readiness to organise the entire western world, Europe, and NATO for the defence against aggression that we are witnessing today in the battlefields of Ukraine.”
“Today we will not say ‘never again’. Today we must say ‘never again alone’,” the prime minister said. Tusk also said Poland was building “the most modern army in Europe, one of the strongest in Europe” to actively contribute to the unity and strength of the NATO defence alliance and the European continent, “to defend our civilisation,” and “never again expose our homeland to any risks”.
In more than five years of WWII and brutal German occupation, Poland lost 6 million citizens, or a sixth of its population, of which 3 million were Jews.
Poland’s previous right-wing government demanded $1.3 trillion (€1.17tr) in damages from Germany. Tusk’s current cabinet has toned the demand down to some form of compensation that could serve to strengthen the ties between the two neighbours.
The country also suffered huge losses to its infrastructure, industry, and agriculture.
Germany insists the matter is closed because it paid damages to the Moscow-led East Bloc after the war. Warsaw says it did not receive any share of it.
However, addressing attendees at the Wielun observance on Sunday, Duda said: “Forgiveness and the admission of guilt are one thing, but compensation for the damage caused is another thing. And this issue has not been settled yet.”
World
Federal investigators start probe of bus crash in Mississippi that killed 7, injured dozens more
BOVINA, Miss. (AP) — Investigators with the National Transportation Safety Board on Sunday were at the scene of a bus crash in Mississippi that killed seven people and injured dozens of others.
They plan to look at how well the tires were maintained, NTSB member Todd Inman said at a news conference late Saturday. The NTSB previously said the crash was caused by tire failure.
The 2018 Volvo bus was traveling westbound on Interstate 20 near Bovina in Warren County early Saturday morning when it left the roadway and overturned, according to the Mississippi Highway Patrol. No other vehicle was involved.
Six people aboard were pronounced dead at the scene and another died at a hospital, according to a highway patrol news release. Thirty-six people were taken by ambulance to hospitals.
The highway patrol did not immediately have an update on their conditions Sunday.
The dead included a 6-year-old boy and his 16-year-old sister, according to Warren County Coroner Doug Huskey. They were identified by their mother. Authorities were working to identify the other victims, he said.
The bus was traveling from Atlanta to Dallas with 41 passengers and two drivers, the highway patrol said.
Inman said the NTSB will also look at the carrier’s safety record and protections for bus occupants.
The bus was operated by Autobuses Regiomontanos. A woman who answered the phone at its Laredo, Texas, office said it was aware of the crash, but she didn’t answer questions or provide her name.
The transit company says it has 20 years of experience providing cross-border trips between 100 destinations in Mexico and the U.S. Its website promotes “a modern fleet of buses that receive daily maintenance,” and offers “trips with a special price for workers.”
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