WASHINGTON: The United States on Wednesday announced new sanctions on Israeli settlers in the West Bank over violence against Palestinians, urging its ally Israel to bring greater accountability.
The sanctions were announced on the same day that Israel launched a wide-scale attack on the West Bank that it said killed nine Palestinian fighters, despite warnings by President Joe Biden’s administration against expanding the war in Gaza.
“Extremist settler violence in the West Bank causes intense human suffering, harms Israel’s security and undermines the prospect for peace and stability in the region,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said in a statement.
“It is critical that the government of Israel hold accountable any individuals and entities responsible for violence against civilians in the West Bank,” he said.
The latest sanction targets included Hashomer Yosh, an Israeli group that has supported the unauthorized settler outpost of Meitarim Farm in the south Hebron Hills.
Volunteers from the group earlier this year fenced off a village whose 250 Palestinian residents had all been forced to leave, the State Department said.
Hashomer Yosh’s website, using the biblical name for the West Bank, says the group helps “various farmers throughout Judea and Samaria, who bravely protect our lands and stand strong in the face of economic difficulties and frequent agricultural crime.”
The State Department also imposed sanctions against Yitzhak Levi Filant, who was accused of leading armed settlers in setting up roadblocks and patrols with a goal of attacking Palestinians.
Since Hamas’s unprecedented October 7 attack on Israel triggered war in Gaza, violence has flared in the West Bank, a Palestinian territory occupied by Israel since 1967 and separated geographically from Gaza by Israeli territory.
At least 640 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank by Israeli troops or settlers since the start of the Gaza war, according to an AFP count based on Palestinian official figures.
The United States has repeatedly voiced concern to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about settler violence and about the expansion of settlements championed by far-right members of his government.
US sanctions generally bar targets from the US financial system, leading Israeli banks to restrict dealings with sanctioned individuals for fear of repercussions.
But the Biden administration has held off on imposing sanctions on government ministers leading the settlement policy.
US announces new sanctions on Israeli settlers over violence
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US announces new sanctions on Israeli settlers over violence
- Sanctions announced same day Israel launched wide-scale attack on West Bank despite Biden’s warnings
- At least 640 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank by Israeli troops or settlers since October 2023
Thousands of Afghans face possible deportation after court refuses to extend their legal protection
- TPS for Afghans ended July 14, but was briefly extended by the appeals court through July 21 while it considered an emergency request for a longer postponement
- A federal judge allowed the lawsuit to go forward but didn’t grant CASA’s request to keep the protections in place while the lawsuit plays out
VIRGINIA: Thousands of Afghans in the US are no longer protected from deportation after a federal appeals court refused to postpone the Trump administration’s decision to end their legal status.
A three-judge panel of the Fourth US Circuit Court of Appeals in Virginia said in a ruling late Monday there was “insufficient evidence to warrant the extraordinary remedy of a postponement” of the administration’s decision not to extend Temporary Protected Status for people from Afghanistan and Cameroon.
TPS for Afghans ended July 14, but was briefly extended by the appeals court through July 21 while it considered an emergency request for a longer postponement.
The Department of Homeland Security in May said it was ending Temporary Protected Status for 11,700 people from Afghanistan in 60 days. That status — in place since 2022 — had allowed them to work and meant the government couldn’t deport them.
CASA, a nonprofit immigrant advocacy group, sued the administration over the TPS revocation for Afghans as well as for people from Cameroon, which expire August 4. It said the decisions were racially motivated and failed to follow a process laid out by Congress.
A federal judge allowed the lawsuit to go forward but didn’t grant CASA’s request to keep the protections in place while the lawsuit plays out.
A phone message for CASA on Tuesday was not immediately returned.
Without an extension, TPS holders from Afghanistan and Cameroon face a “devastating choice — abandoning their homes, relinquishing their employment, and uprooting their lives to return to a country where they face the threat of severe physical harm or even death, or remaining in the United States in a state of legal uncertainty while they wait for other immigration processes to play out,” CASA warned in court documents.
In its decision on Monday, the appeals court said CASA had made a “plausible” legal claim against the administration, and urged the lower court to move the case forward expeditiously.
It also said many of the TPS holders from the two countries may be eligible for other legal protections that remain available to them.
Temporary Protected Status can be granted by the Homeland Security secretary to people who face safety concerns in their home countries because of armed conflict, environmental disaster or other conditions. They can’t be deported and can work legally in the US, but they don’t have a pathway to citizenship.
The status, however, is inherently precarious because it is up to the Homeland Security secretary to renew the protections regularly — usually every 18 months. The Trump administration has pushed to remove Temporary Protected Status from people from seven countries, with Venezuela and Haiti making up the biggest chunk of the hundreds of thousands of people affected.
Homeland Security officials said in their decision to end the Temporary Protected Status for Afghans that the situation in their home country was getting better.
Groups that help Afghan TPS holders say the country is still extremely dangerous.
“Ending TPS does not align with the reality of circumstances on the ground in Afghanistan,” Global Refuge President and CEO Krish O’Mara Vignarajah said in a statement. “Conditions remain dire, especially for allies who supported the US mission, as well as women, girls, religious minorities, and ethnic groups targeted by the Taliban.”
He called on Congress to provide Afghan TPS holders with a “permanent path to safety and stability.”
France’s culture minister to be tried on corruption charges
- “We will appeal this decision today,” Dati’s lawyers, Olivier Baratelli and Olivier Pardo, said
- Dati, a daughter of working-class North African immigrants, was defiant in comments made Monday ahead of the decision
PARIS: France’s Culture Minister Rachida Dati is to go on trial accused of corruption and abuse of power while she was a European Parliament member, a judicial source told AFP on Tuesday.
Dati, a high-profile minister who holds ambitions to become Paris mayor next year, was placed under investigation in 2019 on suspicion she lobbied for the Renault-Nissan car group while at the European Union institution.
Dati, 59, denies the allegations. She did not respond to an AFP request for comment.
“We will appeal this decision today,” Dati’s lawyers, Olivier Baratelli and Olivier Pardo, told AFP.
Dati, a daughter of working-class North African immigrants, was defiant in comments made Monday ahead of the decision.
“I will lead you to victory. Some people are trying to attack me over my private life, over many aspects that are collateral to my candidacy,” said Dati, who is mayor of the French capital’s 7th district that is home to most French ministries, the country’s parliament and many foreign embassies.
“I am not afraid of anything or anyone.”
Dati, who was justice minister under right-wing leader Nicolas Sarkozy from 2007 to 2009, will remain in the government, said an associate of President Emmanuel Macron.
“The president has taken note of the decision to refer Rachida Dati to the criminal court. As a referral is not a conviction, she will continue her work,” said the associate on condition of anonymity.
Dati is accused of accepting 900,000 euros ($1 million) in lawyer’s fees between 2010 and 2012 from a Netherlands-based subsidiary of Renault-Nissan, but not working for them, while she was an MEP from 2009 to 2019.
Investigations have sought to determine whether she carried out banned lobbying for the carmaker at the European Parliament.
In their order signed on Tuesday, a copy of which was seen by AFP, the investigating magistrates said that Dati’s activities in parliament “amounts to lobbying,” which “appears incompatible with both her mandate and the profession of lawyer.”
Initially placed under the more favorable status of assisted witness — a step before being indicted — in 2019, Dati was charged in 2021.
She has since repeatedly sought to have the charges quashed.
French investigating magistrates also ordered that Carlos Ghosn, the former Renault-Nissan chairman and chief executive, be tried, the judicial source said.
The 71-year-old, who has been living in Lebanon for years after escaping arrest in Japan, has also rejected the charges against him.
A hearing on September 29 will decide on the date of the trial, the source said.
According to another source following the case, the trial could be held after the Paris municipal elections in March next year.
“She will go until the end,” Jean-Pierre Lecoq, mayor of the French capital’s 6th district and one of Dati’s close associates, said on Tuesday.
Ghosn, who headed the Renault-Nissan alliance, was arrested in Japan in November 2018 on suspicion of financial misconduct, before being sacked by Nissan’s board.
He jumped bail the following year and made a dramatic escape from Japan hidden in an audio-equipment box, landing in Beirut, where he remains as an international fugitive.
Japan and France have sought his arrest.
Ghosn’s lawyers did not respond to a request for comment.
US envoy to discuss finalizing Gaza aid ‘corridor’: State Dept
- Steve Witkoff, President Donald Trump’s globe-trotting negotiator, is traveling to the region for new talks
WASHINGTON: The United States said Tuesday that it was sending an envoy to the Middle East for talks that aim to finalize a “corridor” for aid to war-ravaged Gaza, where authorities said people are dying of starvation.
Steve Witkoff, President Donald Trump’s globe-trotting negotiator, is traveling to the region for new talks, State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce told reporters.
Witkoff comes with “a strong hope that we will come forward with another ceasefire as well as a humanitarian corridor for aid to flow, that both sides have in fact agreed to,” she said.
Bruce declined to give further details on his itinerary or the corridor, saying that he was traveling around Gaza.
She did not say how the diplomacy would relate to the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, a controversial initiative backed by Israel and the United States that has seen chaotic scenes of troops firing on hungry Palestinians racing for food.
The UN on Tuesday said Israeli forces had killed more than 1,000 Palestinians trying to get food aid since the GHF began its operations in late May, with most near the foundation’s sites.
Justice Department wants to interview Jeffrey Epstein’s former girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell
- If Ghislaine Maxwell “has information about anyone who has committed crimes against victims, the FBI and the DOJ will hear what she has to say,” Blanche said
- A lawyer for Maxwell confirmed there were discussions with the government
WASHINGTON : The Department of Justice wants to interview Jeffrey Epstein’s former girlfriend, who was convicted of helping the financier sexually abuse underage girls and is now serving a lengthy prison sentence, a senior official said Tuesday.
If Ghislaine Maxwell “has information about anyone who has committed crimes against victims, the FBI and the DOJ will hear what she has to say,” Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said in a post on X, adding that President Donald Trump ”has told us to release all credible evidence.”
A lawyer for Maxwell confirmed there were discussions with the government.
The overture to attorneys for Maxwell, who in 2022 was sentenced to 20 years in prison, is part of an ongoing Justice Department effort to cast itself as transparent following fierce backlash from parts of Trump’s base over an earlier refusal to release additional records in the Epstein investigation.
As part of that effort, the Justice Department, acting at the direction of the Republican president, last week asked a judge to unseal grand jury transcripts from the case. That decision is ultimately up to the judge.
Epstein, who killed himself in his New York jail cell in 2019 while awaiting trial, sexually abused children hundreds of times over more than a decade, exploiting vulnerable girls as young as 14, authorities say. He couldn’t have done so without the help of Maxwell, his longtime companion, prosecutors say.
The Justice Department had said in a two-page memo this month that it had not uncovered evidence to charge anyone else in connection with Epstein’s abuse. But Blanche said in his social media post that the Justice Department “does not shy away from uncomfortable truths, nor from the responsibility to pursue justice wherever the facts may lead.”
He said in his post that, at the direction of Attorney General Pam Bondi, he has “communicated with counsel for Ms. Maxwell to determine whether she would be willing to speak with prosecutors from the Department.” He said he anticipated meeting with Maxwell in the coming days.
A lawyer for Maxwell, David Oscar Markus, said Tuesday in a statement: “I can confirm that we are in discussions with the government and that Ghislaine will always testify truthfully. We are grateful to President Trump for his commitment to uncovering the truth in this case.”
Fugitive Moldovan oligarch implicated in $1 billion bank fraud detained in Greece
- Vladimir Plahotniuc fled Moldova in 2019 as he faced a series of corruption charges
- The Greek police unit tackling organized crime said Interpol was seeking Plahotniuc on suspicion of participating in a criminal organization
CHISINAU: A fugitive Moldovan oligarch implicated in a $1 billion bank fraud and other illicit schemes was detained Tuesday in Greece, Moldova’s national police said.
Vladimir Plahotniuc fled Moldova in 2019 as he faced a series of corruption charges including allegations of complicity in a scheme that led to $1 billion disappearing from a Moldovan bank in 2014, which at the time was equivalent to about an eighth of Moldova’s annual GDP.
Plahotniuc has denied any wrongdoing.
Moldovan police said in a statement they were informed by Interpol’s office in Athens that two Moldovan citizens had been detained, including Plahotniuc, who was placed on Interpol’s international wanted list in February. Authorities did not name the other detainee.
The Greek police unit tackling organized crime said Interpol was seeking Plahotniuc on suspicion of participating in a criminal organization, fraud and money laundering.
Moldova’s Ministry of Justice and Prosecutor’s Office are in the process of exchanging information to begin seeking extradition of Plahotniuc and the other detainee, a government official told The Associated Press.
Plahotniuc, one of Moldova’s wealthiest men, fled to the US from Moldova in June 2019 after failing to form a government with his Democratic Party.
The US declared him persona non grata in 2020 and his whereabouts were unknown for years.
The powerful businessman and politician was added to a US State Department sanctions list in 2022 for alleged corruption. The charges included controlling the country’s law enforcement to target political and business rivals and meddling in Moldova’s elections.
He was added to a UK sanctions list in 2022 and barred from entering the country. His assets were frozen in the UK and its overseas territories.
