Latest news with #UNSanctions
Malay Mail
10-07-2025
- Politics
- Malay Mail
US sanctions UN expert on Palestinian territories over Gaza criticism, ICC push
WASHINGTON, July 10 — US Secretary of State Marco Rubio yesterday announced Washington was sanctioning the United Nations special expert on the Palestinian territories, following her criticism of Washington policy on Gaza. 'Today I am imposing sanctions on UN Human Rights Council Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese for her illegitimate and shameful efforts to prompt (International Criminal Court) action against US and Israeli officials, companies, and executives,' Rubio said on social media. In a subsequent statement he slammed the UN expert's strident criticism of the United States and said she recommended to the ICC that arrest warrants be issued targeting Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Rubio also attacked her for 'biased and malicious activities,' and accused her of having 'spewed unabashed antisemitism (and) support for terrorism.' He said she escalated her contempt for the United States by writing 'threatening letters' to several US companies, making what Rubio called unfounded accusations and recommending the ICC pursue prosecutions of the companies and their executives. 'We will not tolerate these campaigns of political and economic warfare, which threaten our national interests and sovereignty,' Rubio said. While Albanese was appointed by the UN Human Rights Council, she does not speak on behalf of the United Nations itself. The Italy-born expert released a damning report earlier this month denouncing companies she said 'profited from the Israeli economy of illegal occupation, apartheid, and now genocide' in the occupied Palestinian territories. The report provoked a furious response from Israel, while some of the named companies also raised objections. Albanese has leveled broadsides against the policies of Israel in Gaza, and of US President Donald Trump, particularly the plan he announced in February to take over the Gaza Strip and resettle its residents elsewhere. That proposal faced a rejection from Palestinians, Middle East leaders and the United Nations. Albanese dismissed it as 'utter nonsense' and an 'international crime' that will sow panic. 'It's unlawful, immoral and... completely irresponsible because it will make the regional crisis even worse,' she said on February 5 during a visit to Copenhagen. US ally Israel on Wednesday commended Rubio's action against the rapporteur. 'Albanese has consistently undermined the credibility of the UN Human Rights Council by promoting false narratives and pushing for illegitimate legal actions that ignore the realities on the ground,' Israel's UN Ambassador Danny Danon said. — AFP
National Post
03-07-2025
- Politics
- National Post
Iran suspends cooperation with UN nuclear watchdog 'until certain conditions are met'
Article content 'Iran has just issued a scandalous announcement about suspending its cooperation with the IAEA,' he said in an X post. 'This is a complete renunciation of all its international nuclear obligations and commitments.' Article content Saar urged European nations that were part of Iran's 2015 nuclear deal to implement its so-called snapback clause. That would reimpose all UN sanctions on it originally lifted by Tehran's nuclear deal with world powers, if one of its Western parties declares the Islamic Republic is out of compliance with it. Article content Israel is widely believed to be the only nuclear-armed state in the Middle East, and the IAEA doesn't have access to its weapons-related facilities. Article content Tammy Bruce, a spokesperson for the U.S. State Department, separately said it was 'unacceptable that Iran chose to suspend cooperation with the IAEA at a time when it has a window of opportunity to reverse course and choose a path of peace and prosperity.' Article content Iran's move so far stops short of what experts feared the most. They had been concerned that Tehran, in response to the war, could decide to fully end its cooperation with the IAEA, abandon the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and rush toward a bomb. That treaty has countries agree not to build or obtain nuclear weapons and allows the IAEA to conduct inspections to verify that countries correctly declared their programs. Article content Iran's 2015 nuclear deal allowed Iran to enrich uranium to 3.67 per cent — enough to fuel a nuclear power plant, but far below the threshold of 90 per cent needed for weapons-grade uranium. It also drastically reduced Iran's stockpile of uranium, limited its use of centrifuges and relied on the IAEA to oversee Tehran's compliance through additional oversight. The IAEA served as the main assessor of Iran's commitment to the deal. Article content But Trump, in his first term in 2018, unilaterally withdrew Washington from the accord, insisting it wasn't tough enough and didn't address Iran's missile program or its support for militant groups in the wider Middle East. That set in motion years of tensions, including attacks at sea and on land. Article content Iran had been enriching up to 60 per cent, a short, technical step away from weapons-grade levels. It also has enough of a stockpile to build multiple nuclear bombs, should it choose to do so. Iran has long insisted its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes, but the IAEA, Western intelligence agencies and others say Tehran had an organized weapons program up until 2003. Article content Article content Israeli airstrikes, which began June 13, decimated the upper ranks of Iran's powerful Revolutionary Guard and targeted its arsenal of ballistic missiles. The strikes also hit Iran's nuclear sites, which Israel claimed put Tehran within reach of a nuclear weapon. Article content Iran has said the Israeli attacks killed 935 'Iranian citizens,' including 38 children and 102 women. However, Iran has a long history of offering lower death counts around unrest over political considerations. Article content The Washington-based Human Rights Activists group, which has provided detailed casualty figures from multiple rounds of unrest in Iran, has put the death toll at 1,190 people killed, including 436 civilians and 435 security force members. The attacks wounded another 4,475 people, the group said. Article content U.S. intelligence suggests the facilities were 'completely obliterated' by the strikes, Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell told reporters Wednesday in a briefing, repeating the Trump administration's assertion.
Reuters
25-06-2025
- Politics
- Reuters
France making own assessment of Iranian nuclear damage, Macron says
THE HAGUE, June 25 (Reuters) - France will finalise its own analysis on damage to Iran's nuclear facilities in the next few days and will then compare results with allies, French President Emmanuel Macron said on Wednesday, after U.S. and Israeli strikes. Speaking to reporters after a NATO summit in The Hague, Macron said he would meet the head of the U.N. atomic watchdog Rafael Grossi in Paris later to discuss his latest assessment. "We are finalising our analysis with everything we have and then it will be confronted with the analysis of other interested countries, obviously the Americans, other Europeans, Israelis," Macron said. President Donald Trump said earlier on Wednesday that the damage from the strikes was severe and "there was obliteration," though he also conceded that U.S. intelligence had been inconclusive. France, along with Britain and Germany, is party to a 2015 nuclear deal between world powers and Iran and prior to the war between Israel and Iran had sought to play a role to negotiate a solution to the Tehran's contested nuclear programme. Following the strikes, the European powers have few levers and diplomacy has been thrown into disarray. However, they will at some point need to make a decision whether to re-impose United Nations sanctions on Iran before the U.N. resolution ratifying the 2015 deal expires in October. "We have a timeline that is running and decisions need to be made by the summer," Macron said.
The Herald
23-06-2025
- Politics
- The Herald
North Korea condemns US strikes on Iran as violation of sovereign rights
North Korea said on Monday it strongly condemns the US strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities as a grave violation of a sovereign state's security interests and territorial rights, the country's state media reported. The US and Israel are the culprits of the tensions in the Middle East born out of Jerusalem's 'ceaseless war moves and territorial expansion accepted and encouraged by the West', North Korea's foreign ministry said. "(North Korea) strongly denounces the attack on Iran by the US which violently trampled down the territorial integrity and security interests of a sovereign state,' an unnamed spokesperson said in a statement carried by KCNA news agency. 'The just international community should raise the voice of unanimous censure and rejection against the US and Israel's confrontational acts,' the statement said. Iran and nuclear-armed North Korea have maintained friendly ties and have been suspected for decades of military cooperation, including in developing ballistic missiles. A now-defunct panel of experts monitoring UN sanctions said in 2021 the two countries had resumed cooperation on long-range missile development projects, including the transfer of critical parts. 'Pyongyang could provide important assistance in helping Iran reconstitute destroyed missile production facilities, including at new sites to avoid scrutiny, perhaps,' said Ankit Panda of the US-based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Whether either country would be interested in substantively cooperating on efforts to rebuild or accelerate Iran's nuclear weapons programme is less certain, given the political and military sensitivities over such technology, he said. 'There are matters pertaining to weapons design that the North Koreans would not want to proliferate because once in Iran, they could be discovered by the US and potentially assist the US in undermining its deterrent,' Panda said. However, Pyongyang has substantive experience in weaponisation and could be able to assist in the non-fissile components of a nuclear bomb, such as the conventional explosives, he added. North Korea has taken unprecedented steps in the past year to deepen military assistance to Russia, another partner of Iran, by sending thousands of troops and ballistic missiles and other weapons for use in fighting Ukraine, according to US, Ukrainian and other intelligence sources. Reuters
BBC News
18-06-2025
- Politics
- BBC News
North Korea to send thousands to help rebuild Russia's Kursk region
North Korea will send thousands of workers to help rebuild Russia's war-torn Kursk region, Moscow's security chief has said. Russian Security Council Secretary Sergei Shoigu who is currently holding talks with North Korea's Kim Jong Un in its capital Pyongyang, described the deployment as "fraternal assistance", Russian state media South Korea and Japan were quick to condemn the plan, with Seoul it saying it was a violation of UN sanctions on North months concerns have swirled of deepening military collaboration between the two authoritarian states, amid reports of thousands of North Korean soldiers helping Russia fight its war on Ukraine. On Wednesday, Russia's TASS news agency quoted Shoigu as saying North Korea would send a "division of builders, two military brigades [of] 5,000 people", as well as 1,000 deminers to help with the "restoration" of the Kursk region."This is a kind of fraternal assistance from the Korean people and leader Kim Jong Un to our country," Shoigu was quoted as saying, according to an AFP report. North Korean state media also added that the meeting saw both Kim and Shoigu discuss other "long-term plans". South Korea was quick to respond, with a foreign ministry official saying they had "grave concerns" over the "continuing illegal cooperation between North Korea and Russia", local media has also expressed worries over the cooperation. "We are seriously concerned about these developments as it will worsen the Ukrainian situation and affect the regional security environment surrounding Japan," Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi told reporters on November last year, Russia and North Korea signed a mutual defence treaty, saying they would help each other in the event of "aggression" against either country, with Kim saying it took their relationship to a "new high level of alliance". South Korean intelligence offficers say there are an estimated 15,000 North Koreans working in Russia under bilateral industrial cooperation programmes - a source of revenue for Pyongyang. Separately, Western officials had in January told the BBC that at least 1,000 of an estimated 11,000 North Korean troops in Russia had been killed in just three months. A Seoul lawmaker said in April that they believed there were about 4,700 North Korean casualties, including 600 have said that Pyongyang could be paid, or may be given access to Russian military technology in exchange for the North Korea and Russia confirmed the presence of the North Korean troops in April - an admission that was condemned by South Korea and the the time, Seoul described the deployment as "illegal", saying that it was in violation of the UN Charter and the UN Security Council top Russian and North Korean officials have maintained regular contact as the war in Ukraine continues. When Shoigu visited Pyongyang earlier this month, Kim vowed to support Russia "unconditionally", including on "the Ukrainian issue", North Korean state media in April, Russia also claimed it had regained full control of the western Kursk region - which has been denied by Ukraine.
