Palestinian PM Announces His Government’s Resignation Bulgaria Issues EU Entry Ban on 2 Russians Suspected of Espionage
The Palestinian prime minister announced the resignation of his government on Monday, paving the way for a shake-up in the Palestinian Authority, which the U.S. hopes will eventually take on a role in postwar Gaza.
Many obstacles remain to making a revamped Palestinian Authority a reality. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, whose forces were driven from Gaza by Hamas in 2007, has made clear that he would like the PA to govern the enclave after the war. But it is deeply unpopular among Palestinians, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has roundly rejected the idea of putting the authority in charge of the territory.
Abbas must still decide whether he accepts the resignations of Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh's government. But the move signals a willingness by the Western-backed Palestinian leadership to accept a shake-up that might usher in reforms sought by the U.S. as international negotiations ramp up to bring about a cease-fire. The authority, created under interim Israeli-Palestinian peace deals in the early 1990s, administers parts of the West Bank but is beset by corruption.
“The next stage and its challenges require new governmental and political arrangements that take into account the new reality in the Gaza Strip,” Shtayyeh said at a Cabinet meeting.
Gaza Conflict Looms Large at UN Human Rights Council
Amid deteriorating conditions in Gaza, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has renewed his call for a humanitarian cease-fire in the Palestinian enclave. He is also calling for the unconditional release of all hostages abducted by Hamas militants during their attack on southern Israel on October 7.
“Nothing can justify Hamas's deliberate killing, injuring, torturing, and kidnapping of civilians, the use of sexual violence—or the indiscriminate launching of rockets towards Israel and nothing justifies the collective punishment of the Palestinian people,” he said Monday in Geneva as the UN Human Rights Council opened for a six-week session.
Given the crisis facing Gaza, Guterres said he had invoked Article 99 for the first time in his mandate “to put the greatest possible pressure on the council to do everything in its power to end the bloodshed in Gaza and prevent escalation.”
Israel took military action against Hamas after the terror attack on Israel killed 1,200 people, according to Israeli tallies, and led to the capture of about 240 hostages. While dozens of hostages were released during a weeklong cease-fire in November, Israel says it believes 30 hostages subsequently have either died or been killed in the enclave.
The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza says Israel's military operation has left more than 29,780 people dead and some 70,000 people injured.
Hungary Approves Sweden Membership in NATO
The Hungarian parliament Monday ratified Sweden's bid to join NATO, ending 18 months of delays in expanding the West's main military alliance in response to Russia's two-year war on Ukraine.
Sweden becomes the 32nd NATO member, following its Nordic neighbour Finland, which joined last year. Existing members must unanimously approve additions to the alliance, and Hungary was the last NATO country that had yet to ratify Sweden's accession.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, a right-wing nationalist who has forged close ties with Russia, had said that criticism of Hungary's democracy from Swedish politicians had soured relations between the two countries and made lawmakers in his Fidesz party reluctant to approve Sweden's NATO accession.
But Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson met last Friday with Orban in Budapest, Hungary's capital, where they appeared to reach a decisive reconciliation after months of diplomatic tensions.
Following their meeting, the leaders announced a defence industry agreement that will include Hungary's purchase of four Swedish-made JAS 39 Gripen jets and the extension of a service contract for its existing Gripen fleet.
On Monday, Bulgarian authorities imposed an entry ban on two Russian citizens suspected of espionage for Moscow's foreign intelligence service.
Bulgaria's agency for national security identified the two as Vladimir Nikolayevich Gorochkin, 39, and Tatiana Anatolievna Gorochkina, 37, and barred them from entering European Union member states for five years.
The agency said in a statement that the couple had lived undetected in Bulgaria until recently under the aliases Denis Rashkov and Diana Rashkova. The statement indicated they were no longer in Bulgaria but did not elaborate on when they had left the country or indicate where they were believed to be.
According to the agency, the Russians were part of an operation orchestrated by Moscow's Foreign Intelligence Service aimed at infiltrating foreign countries using false identities. Their mission in the EU member country was reportedly to obtain authentic Bulgarian identity documents and credible biographical data confirming their authenticity, which they could then use to carry out intelligence activities outside Bulgaria.
Last September, five Bulgarians living in the UK were charged with spying for Russia. The three men and two women were accused of “conspiring to collect information intended to be directly or indirectly useful to an enemy,” namely Russia, between August 2020 and February 2023.
IAEA: Iran’s Uranium Stock Enriched to 60% Shrinks
Iran's stock of uranium enriched to near weapons-grade has shrunk, bringing it below the theoretical threshold at which it could produce three atom bombs, but problems with inspectors persist, reports by the UN nuclear watchdog said Monday.
Although the International Atomic Energy Agency has said Iran's enrichment of uranium to up to 60% continues apace, Iran diluted more than it produced in the past three months, one of the two confidential quarterly reports to member states said.
The IAEA reports did not give a reason for the so-called “down-blending” of 31.8 kg of material enriched to up to 60%, after which the stock fell by an estimated 6.8 kg since the last such quarterly reports to 121.5kg.
“At the beginning of the year they decided to do a down-blending . ... A couple of weeks later they did another down-blending, this time with a smaller amount,” a senior diplomat said when asked about the reports seen by Reuters, adding that it was not clear why Iran had done it.
“Maybe they don't want to increase tensions [with the West]. Maybe they have an agreement with somebody. We don't know.”
Russian Prosecutors Seek to Imprison Human Rights Leader over Op-Ed
Russian prosecutors are seeking to imprison the co-chair of the Nobel Prizewinning human rights group Memorial for nearly three years over an article he wrote criticizing Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
During a hearing Monday in Moscow, prosecutors accused 70-year-old Oleg Orlov of “repeatedly discrediting” the Russian army. Orlov, who was in the courtroom, described his trial as a “strangulation of freedom.”
Authorities charged Orlov after the article was published. Back in October, a court convicted him and fined him the equivalent of $1,600, a comparatively lower punishment than others who have criticized the ongoing war. The prosecution appealed, prompting this retrial.
This time, Russian prosecutors are seeking a stronger punishment, aiming for a sentence of two years and 11 months. A verdict is expected on Tuesday. Russia has been relentlessly clamping down on dissent in the two years since it invaded Ukraine in what it has termed a special military operation.
During the hearing, many of Orlov's supporters were in attendance. According to Russian independent media outlet Mediazona, more than 100 of his supporters were present, along with more than a dozen Western diplomats.
Memorial said that prosecutors accused Orlov of “political hatred of Russia,” which he has denied.\
During Monday's hearing, Orlov was seen largely not engaging with court proceedings, instead opting to read The Trial, by Franz Kafka, a book about a character arrested for an unknown crime in a nonsensical legal system.
South Korea Sets Thursday Deadline for Return of Striking Doctors
South Korea's government gave striking young doctors four days to report back to work, saying Monday that they won't be punished if they return by the deadline but will face indictments and suspensions of medical licenses if they don't.
About 9,000 medical interns and residents have stayed off the job since early last week to protest a government plan to increase medical school admissions by about 65%. The walkouts have severely hurt their hospitals' operations, with numerous surgeries and other treatments cancellations.
Government officials say adding more doctors is necessary to deal with South Korea's rapidly ageing population. The country's current doctor-to-patient ratio is among the lowest in the developed world.
The strikers say universities can't handle so many new students and argue the plan would not resolve a chronic shortage of doctors in some key but low-paying areas like paediatrics and emergency departments.
Vice Health Minister Park Min-soo said during a televised briefing Monday that the government won't seek any disciplinary action against striking doctors if they return to work by Thursday.
“We want them to return to work by the end of this month, February 29. If they return to the hospitals they had left by then, we won't hold them responsible” for any damages caused by their walkouts, Park said.
But he said those who don't meet the deadline will be punished with a minimum three-month suspension of their medical licenses and face further legal steps such as investigations and possible indictments.
Trump Appeals $454m Judgment in New York Civil Fraud Case
Donald Trump has appealed his $454 million New York civil fraud judgment, challenging a judge's finding that Trump lied about his wealth as he grew the real estate empire that launched him to stardom and the presidency.
The former president's lawyers filed a notice of appeal Monday asking the state's mid-level appeals court to overturn Judge Arthur Engoron's February 16 verdict in Attorney General Letitia James' lawsuit.
Trump's lawyers wrote in court papers that they're asking the appeals court to decide whether Engoron “committed errors of law and/or fact” and whether he abused his discretion and/or his jurisdiction.
Engoron found that Trump, his company and top executives, including his sons Eric and Donald Trump Jr., schemed for years to deceive banks and insurers by inflating his wealth on financial statements used to secure loans and make deals. Among other penalties, the judge put strict limitations on the ability of Trump's company, the Trump Organization, to do business.
The appeal ensures that the legal fight over Trump's business practices will persist into the thick of the presidential primary season and likely beyond as he tries to clinch the Republican presidential nomination in his quest to retake the White House.
If upheld, Engoron's ruling will force Trump to give up a sizable chunk of his fortune. Engoron ordered Trump to pay $355 million in penalties, but with interest, the total has grown to nearly $454 million. That total will increase by nearly $112,000 per day until he pays.
Navalny Set to Be Freed Before Sudden Death, Says Ally
Shortly before his death in an Arctic penal colony on February 16, Russian opposition politician Alexey Navalny was set to be exchanged for a Russian prisoner in Germany, spokeswoman Maria Pevchikh said in a video statement Monday, an allegation shared by Navalny's family and supporters.
“Alexey Navalny could be sitting in this seat right now, right today. That's not a figure of speech, it could and should have happened,” said Pevchikh in the statement posted to YouTube.
Pevchikh said she had confirmation that talks for a swap were in their “final state” on February 15, the day before Navalny was reported dead.
“Navalny should have been out in the next few days because we got a decision about his exchange,” said Pevchikh, who lives outside Russia.
She alleged that Navalny was killed a day later because Russian President Vladimir Putin could not tolerate the thought of him being free and decided to “get rid of the bargaining chip.”
Pevchikh did not present evidence or disclose sources for her assertions.