Tag: Region Europe

US Targets Foreign Banks with Sanctions to Curb Russia’s War Effort In a decisive stroke designed to undermine Russia’s military capabilities, US President Joe Biden has signed a far-reaching executive order targeting the financial sinews aiding Russia’s war efforts in Ukraine. The order, enacted on December 22, 2023, sanctions foreign banks that allegedly support Russia’s defense sector, underscoring the US commitment to stymie Russia’s access to international financial networks and critical war supplies. The Financial Front of Warfare The latest…

Obama-appointed DC district judge Beryl Howell sidestepped the First Amendment by finding Rudy Giuliani guilty of defaming two Georgia election workers before trial for allegedly “not complying with his discovery obligations” and now she’s ordering him to pay $148 million in damages immediately because he’s “unlikely” to have the jury verdict overturned on appeal. Just as we saw with the Colorado Supreme Court unilaterally disqualifying Trump from the 2024 election ballot, every basic tenet of our justice system is being…

France’s Sapin II Law was created in 2016 to address corporate corruption and implement antibribery measures. The legislation took effect in 2017, marking a significant shift in the country’s regulatory compliance landscape. The law, which tracks closely with similar laws in the US, UK, and other EU countries, requires large companies [1] to implement a robust compliance program, including anti-corruption policies, monitoring procedures, and accounting controls.  The law also significantly changes the government’s prosecution strategies for white collar crime, particularly…

Saudi Diplomatic Exchanges and Technological Developments Amidst Political Shifts in North Africa In a recent diplomatic exchange, the Crown Prince of Morocco, Prince Hassan bin Mohammed, received a verbal message from the Saudi Arabian King and Crown Prince, King Salman bin Abdulaziz, and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. The message reiterated the robust fraternal relations between the two nations, discussing how to further enhance and develop these ties across diverse sectors. Saudi Arabia’s Strategic Diplomatic Engagements On another diplomatic front,…

Britain has issued more than 120 financial penalties to offshore companies that have failed to comply with transparency legislation designed to uncover illicit wealth hidden in the UK property market. The Register of Overseas Entities was created after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to help the UK government crack down on oligarchs and other kleptocrats. Individuals that own British property through offshore vehicles had until the end of January 2023 to register such entities and publicly reveal their ownership at Companies…

TALLINN: Russian police have put prominent Russian-American journalist and author Masha Gessen on a wanted list after opening a criminal case against them on charges of spreading false information about the Russian army. It is the latest step in an unrelenting crackdown against dissent in Russiathat has intensified since the Kremlin invaded Ukraine more than 21 months ago, on Feb.24, 2022. The independent Russian news outlet Mediazona was the first to report Friday that Gessen’s profile has appeared on the…

Microsoft’s Threat Intelligence team issued a warning earlier today about the Russian state-sponsored actor APT28 (aka “Fancybear” or “Strontium”) actively exploiting the CVE-2023-23397 Outlook flaw to hijack Microsoft Exchange accounts and steal sensitive information. The targeted entities include government, energy, transportation, and other key organizations in the United States, Europe, and the Middle East. The tech giant also highlighted the exploitation of other vulnerabilities with publicly available exploits in the same attacks, including CVE-2023-38831 in WinRAR and CVE-2021-40444 in Windows…

HAGUE: A group of human rights organisations took the Dutch government to court on Monday, arguing its supply of parts for F-35 fighters contributes to violations of international law in Gaza. The case concerns US-owned F-35 parts stored at a warehouse in the Netherlands and then shipped to several partners, including Israel, via existing export agreements. Oxfam Novib, one of the groups filing suit, said the export “made the Netherlands complicit in violations of the laws of war and the…

BRUSSELS: Alexander Pumpyansky, the son of Russian tycoon Dmitry Pumpyansky, won an appeal against sanctions the European Union introduced over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the bloc’s court said on Wednesday. In the ruling, the court said the EU council had admitted that from March 9, 2022 – two weeks after the invasion of Ukraine and six months before the first set of sanctions – Pumpyansky was no longer president and member of the board of Sinara nor board member of TMK,…

HELSINKI: Finland will close its entire border with Russia to travellers for the next two weeks in a bid to halt the unusually large flow of asylum seekers to the Nordic nation, which the government and its allies say is an orchestrated move by Moscow. Finland last week shut all but one of its border posts to travellers from Russia, keeping open only the northernmost crossing located in the Arctic.But this too would now close, the government said on Tuesday….

With Russian tanks and troops descending on Ukraine in early 2022, Cyprus became a hotbed of financial activity. The island country has long been known as an offshore transit point for the fortunes of Russian billionaires, and as sanctions loomed over many of them last year, Cyprus financial services firms fielded a series of urgent demands to transfer funds and shareholdings, newly revealed records show. In one case, documents show that two Russian billionaires, Alexander Abramov and Alexander Frolov, needed…

Italy has just delivered a devastating blow to the controversial agenda of the World Economic Forum (WEF) and billionaire magnate Bill Gates for global food control, with the historic approval of a ban on the production and sale of cultivated meat. The Chamber of Deputies voted 159 in favor, 53 against, and 34 abstentions in support of the bill presented by Minister of Agriculture Francesco Lollobrigida. The legislation […] prohibits the production and market introduction of foods and feeds derived from cellular…

November 16, 2023 WASHINGTON — Today, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) designated eight individuals and six entities pursuant to Western Balkans-related Executive Order (E.O.) 14033 and Russia-related E.O. 14024. In a coordinated action, the U.S. Department of State also designated two individuals and 12 entities pursuant to E.O. 14024. “Russia has continued to use its influence in the Western Balkans to stymie the region’s integration into international institutions and organizations, as well as…

PARIS: France has issued an international arrest warrant for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, accused of complicity in crimes against humanity over chemical attacks in 2013, a judicial source and plaintiffs in the case said Wednesday. The judicial source told AFP Assad was also suspected of complicity in war crimes for the attacks, blamed by the opposition on the regime, that killed more than 1,400 people near Damascus in August 2013. International warrants were also issued for the arrests of Assad’s…

A senior Ukrainian military officer with deep ties to the country’s intelligence services played a central role in the bombing of the Nord Stream natural gas pipelines last year, according to officials in Ukraine and elsewhere in Europe, as well as other people knowledgeable about the details of the covert operation. The officer’s role provides the most direct evidence to date tying Ukraine’s military and security leadership to a controversial act of sabotage that has spawned multiple criminal investigations and…

Consider the source (and the timing)… No lesser deep-state mouthpiece than The Washington Post just dropped a bombshell with the revelation that Ukrainian Colonel Roman Chervinsky “was integral to the brazen sabotage operation” on the Nord Stream pipeline, “according to officials in Ukraine and elsewhere in Europe, as well as other people knowledgeable about the details of the covert operation.” The bombing, dubbed a “dangerous assault on Europe’s energy infrastructure” by US and Western officials at the time, marked a critical juncture in the ongoing…