World
Ukraine's Yermak meets senior Trump advisers, source says
Ukrainian delegation met on Wednesday with senior representatives of President-elect Donald Trump, a source familiar with the meeting said, as Ukraine seeks support from the incoming team in its war to repel Russian invaders.
The Ukrainian delegation was led by Andriy Yermak, a top aide to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy. The group met in Washington with Trump’s choice for White House national security adviser, Mike Waltz, and his Ukraine envoy, Keith Kellogg, the source said, without providing details.
The Trump transition team did not respond to a request for comment about the meeting.
Trump has vowed to bring about a negotiated end to the nearly three-year-old conflict between Ukraine and Russia, but has thus far not provided details.
World
Romania's Georgescu protests cancelled vote outside polling station
Standing outside a closed polling station on Sunday, the so-called ‘TikTok Messiah’ claimed the Consitutional Court was “cancelling democracy” by anulling the first round of the presidential vote.
Romania’s defiant far-right presidential candidate, Călin Georgescu, stood outside a closed polling station on Sunday in protest of the country’s top court’s unprecedented decision to annul the first round of the vote in which he emerged as the frontrunner.
The Constitutional Court cancelled the election on Friday after a trove of declassified intelligence alleged Russia organised a sprawling campaign across social media to promote Georgescu.
“Today is Constitution Day and there is nothing constitutional in Romania anymore. I am here in the name of democracy,” Georgescu told media in Mogosoaia, outside Bucharest.
“By cancelling democracy, our very freedom is cancelled.”
The court cited the illegal use of digital technologies including artificial intelligence, as well as undeclared sources of funding. Without naming Georgescu, the court said one candidate received “preferential treatment” on social media platforms, distorting voters’ expressed will.
Romanian President Klaus Iohannis said in a statement marking Constitution Day on Sunday that “We find ourselves in a moment of profound responsibility toward the values that characterise us as a nation.”
“The Romanian Constitution defines the framework within which the state and political life operate, serving as a shield against threats to democracy,” he said.
“In turbulent times, state institutions are called upon to act with calm, wisdom and respect for the law, the Constitution and democracy.”
George Simion, the 38-year-old leader of the far-right Alliance for the Unity of Romanians, told reporters outside a closed polling station in Bucharest on Sunday that the annulment amounted to an attack against democracy, saying Iohannis should “take a step back and respect the Constitution, not mock it.”
‘TikTok Messiah’
After Georgescu unexpectedly topped the polls in the first round, his success left many political observers wondering how most local surveys had placed him behind at least five other candidates before the vote.
Many observers attributed his success to his TikTok account, which now has 6.2 million likes and 565,000 followers. But some experts suspected Georgescu’s online following was artificially inflated, while Romania’s top security body alleged he was given preferential treatment by TikTok over other candidates.
Despite being a huge outsider who declared zero campaign spending, Georgescu topped the polls in the first round on 24 November, and was due on Sunday to face reformist Elena Lasconi of the Save Romania Union party in a runoff.
On Friday, Lasconi also strongly condemned the court’s decision to annul the elections, saying it was “illegal, immoral, and crushes the very essence of democracy” and that the second round should have gone forward.
New dates will be set to rerun the presidential vote from scratch.
World
Trump Says He Will Not Try to Replace Fed's Powell
World
New reports claim UNRWA works with terrorists, teaches hate as agency hits back at critics
Following numerous allegations and charges against the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) over its ties to terrorists with involvement in the Hamas terrorist massacre in Israel, the scandal-hit agency is facing new allegations of wrongdoing.
U.N. Watch a Geneva-based NGO, has released parts of a 150-page dossier that Executive Director Hillel Neuer told Fox News Digital shows “high-level UNRWA staff who are complicit with terrorists, who meet with them regularly.”
Before presenting his documentation to the world, Neuer attempted to address it directly with UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini. In a letter to Lazzarini, Neuer explained that Lazzarini’s staff have previously complained that U.N. Watch did not submit its reports to UNRWA for comment prior to publishing. Neuer then recounted several attempts to meet personally with Lazzarini to discuss U.N. Watch’s findings and explained that when it released its dossier, Lazzarini would be unable to “claim… that we do not show you the evidence in advance.”
UN, ISRAEL AT ODDS OVER CAUSE OF DECLINE IN AID DELIVERIES: ‘FALSE NARRATIVES BY INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY’
Neuer’s group then released photographs of senior UNRWA staff, including Lazzarini and former UNRWA Commissioner-General Pierre Krahenbuhl, meeting with alleged terror leaders. “You wouldn’t find these photos on [UNRWA officials’] own social media,” he said. “We found them our own ways, but they don’t post them.”
Neuer pointed Fox News Digital to two undated photos showing Lazzarini meeting with groups that included members of terror organizations, including the Jihadi Islamic Movement, the Islamic Ansar League, and Hamas.
In another photo dating back to late 2014, multiple UNRWA regional directors met with senior Hamas member Ali Baraka. Neuer said, and reporting from Al Watan Voice confirms, that the UNRWA staff wanted to “to congratulate [Baraka] on Hamas’ anniversary.”
In another instance, Neuer said he was able to find a photo and transcript from a February 2017 meeting between former UNRWA chief Pierre Krahenbuhl, Baraka, members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), and others. According to U.N. Watch, Krahenbuhl reportedly told the assembly that “we are united, and no one can separate us.”
In September 2024, the U.S. Department of Justice announced “terrorism, murder conspiracy, and sanctions-evasion charges” against Baraka and five other Hamas leaders for their roles in Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, terror attack, which killed 40 Americans and over 1,000 others.
UN ACCUSED OF DOWNPLAYING HAMAS TERRORISTS’ USE OF GAZA HOSPITALS AS NEW REPORT IGNORES IMPORTANT DETAILS
Krahenbuhl and his staff were investigated in 2019 for reports of “sexual misconduct, nepotism, retaliation, discrimination and other abuses of authority.” Krahenbuhl resigned from his position, but in April 2024 was named the head of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). Leading congressional voices requested that Secretary of State Antony Blinken and U.S. Agency for International Development Administrator Samantha Power “persuade the ICRC to reconsider this appointment” given Krahenbuhl’s “disastrous tenure” as UNRWA commissioner-general.
Fox News Digital asked the ICRC about the photos of Krahenbuhl posing with terror leaders, and of congressional concern about his fitness for the position in the Red Cross. An spokesperson told Fox News Digital that the ICRC “was not present in the meeting, so it cannot speak to the full context of the discussion.”
They also stated that Krahenbuhl “has demonstrated through his work at ICRC and his decades of humanitarian experience that he has one objective: to secure aid to civilians in conflict zones. Meeting with any group that controls access to civilians, is an essential part of the ICRC work and other humanitarian organizations in conflict zones.”
Allegations of hate in UNRWA Education
U.N. Watch’s latest dossier also includes interviews of UNRWA students taken by local Palestinian film crews over a period of three weeks during the summer of 2024. In one interview, a 14-year-old former student of UNRWA’s Ein Arik co-ed school said that his school taught him “’to fight back and resist’ so that ‘Palestine will be liberated and our lands will return to us by the good grace of Allah.’” The child later explains that the solution for Jerusalem is to “kill the Jews. We get rid of the Jews.”
A second NGO, IMPACT-se has reported extensively on educational materials used in UNRWA schools for over two decades. In a Nov. 13 report, IMPACT-se names 12 high-ranking UNRWA principals, deputies, directors or deputy directors of training centers who held membership in either Hamas or PIJ. The report notes that nine of the 12 participated in the terror attack of Oct. 7, with “some even serving as Nukhba operatives,” members of the special forces units of Hamas. Two of the dual UNRWA- and Hamas-member principals headed schools “under which Hamas tunnels were built.”
ISRAELI PARLIAMENT BANS UNRWA OVER TERRORISM TIES, FACES INTERNATIONAL BACKLASH
The latest IMPACT-se review complements findings from March 2023 that two UNRWA schools headed by Hamas members had “promote[d] violence and terrorism in self-created study material.” Now, IMPACT-se has named three additional schools where Hamas operatives served as UNRWA staff. The NGO found that these schools promoted “libels against and non-recognition of Israel” and “gratuitously insert[ed] content promoting hatred and violence against Israel into grammar exercises.”
IMPACT-se found that UNRWA schools are “shamelessly flout[ing]” UNESCO standards, which include “peace-building, respect for non-Palestinian groups, and avoiding incitement to violence.”
The group’s report cites intelligence claiming that “over 10% of the 510 [senior] employees in UNRWA’s education system in the Gaza Strip,” are members of PIJ or Hamas. UNRWA members are not allowed to be participants in terror groups designated by the U.N. Security Council. But as Neuer explained, “The U.N. terror list is one of the thinnest lists in the world,” because “Russia and China can block any designation they don’t like.” Neuer said this means “there’s virtually no Palestinian groups” on the list.
Fox News Digital reached out to UNRWA media officials on numerous occasions for its response to the contents of IMPACT-se’s and U.N. Watch’s dossiers, about allegations that UNRWA schools were not adhering to UNESCO standards, and about Lazzarini’s refusal to meet with Neuer.
Bill Deere, director of the UNRWA representative office in Washington, told Fox News Digital, “UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini has cautioned the spread of disinformation against UNRWA,” which he says “is meant to create chaos and divert attention from the political aims to dismantle the Agency.” Reiterating the content of a statement Lazzarini shared on X in the aftermath of Neuer’s dossier being released, Deere said, “UNRWA recommends before giving oxygen to accusations like these, double-check the source and question the intent to avoid becoming an echo chamber for disinformation and de facto the fueling of hate and putting other people’s lives in danger.”
Addressing U.N. Watch’s interviews with UNRWA students, he said, “What they don’t tell you is these children were filmed without the knowledge or permission of their parents,” Deere said. “The kids were isolated and asked a series of leading questions designed to elicit a response. This is beyond misleading, it’s twisted and desperate.”
The U.S. was among numerous countries to pause support to UNRWA in January after the initial proofs emerged of members’ participation in the terror attack of Oct. 7. Congress has halted funding to UNRWA through March 2025.
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