24/10/2025

FRIDAY | OCT 24, 2025

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Trump slaps ‘tremendous sanctions’ on Russian oil

Ukrainian villages captured: Moscow MOSCOW: Russian forces captured two frontline villages in southeast Ukraine and also reported the capture of an island in southern Ukraine, its Defence Ministry said on Wednesday. Ukraine’s military reported success near the town of Dobropillia, an area in the Donetsk region, the heart of the frontline, where officials say Kyiv’s forces are making headway in a counter-offensive. Russian forces have been engaged in a long, grinding westward advance along and near the front line in eastern Ukraine, announcing the capture of new villages on nearly a daily basis. Its troops hold about 19% of Ukrainian territory. The Russian Defence Ministry said its forces control Pavlivka in Zaporizhzhia region in the southeast, one of four regions it claims as Russian territory, and Ivanivka, just inside Dnipropetrovsk region, where they have established a foothold. It also said it struck Ukrainian energy infrastructure in what it said was a response to Ukrainian attacks on Russian civilian targets. Ukrainian authorities earlier said six people had been killed in Russian strikes overnight. Reuters could not independently verify battlefield accounts from either side. Russian news agencies yesterday quoted the Defence Ministry as saying paratroops and other servicemen have pushed their way across the Dnipro River to take control of Karantynnyi Island, close to the city of Kherson in the south. Ukraine’s military last week said Russian forces had unsuccessfully tried to land on the island. Near Dobropillia, in Donetsk, Ukraine’s 132nd separate battalion of airborne forces said it has taken control of the village of Kucheriv Yar from Russian forces. – Reuters TEL AVIV: Israel’s Supreme Court yesterday pushed back the hearing of a petition filed by an organisation representing international media outlets in Israel and the Palestinian territories, demanding independent access for journalists to Gaza. The state attorney acknowledged that “the situation has changed” and requested a further 30 days to examine the circumstances. No date has been set for the next hearing. Since the war began in October 2023, Israeli authorities have prevented foreign journalists from entering the territory, taking only a handful of reporters inside on tightly controlled visits alongside its troops. “For over two years, Israel has blocked foreign reporters from going into the territory, greatly hindering the media’s ability to cover this conflict,” said the Foreign Press Association (FPA), which filed the petition. The FPA, which represents hundreds of foreign journalists, began petitioning for independent access to Gaza soon after the war broke out, but these demands have been repeatedly ignored by Israeli authorities. Media watchdog Reporters Without Borders has joined the petition filed by the FPA. While Israel has prevented foreign reporters from entering Gaza, its forces have killed more than 210 Palestinian journalists in the territory, said Reporters Without Borders advocacy and assistance director Antoine Bernard on Tuesday. “The result is an unprecedented violation of press freedom and the public’s right to reliable, independent and pluralistic media reporting. “The Supreme Court has the opportunity to finally uphold basic democratic principles in the face of widespread propaganda, disinformation and censorship, and to end two years of meticulous and unrestrained destruction of journalism in and about Gaza. “No excuse could justify not opening Gaza to international, Israeli and Palestinian media.” On Oct 10, Israel declared a ceasefire and started pulling back troops as part of US President Donald Trump’s 20-point plan. – AFP Hearing of media appeal delayed

WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump slapped sanctions on Russia’s two largest oil companies on Wednesday, complaining that his talks with Russian leader Vladimir Putin to end the Ukraine war “do not go anywhere”. The European Union (EU) also unveiled a fresh wave of sanctions to pressure Russia to end the war with Ukraine, which is allied with Washington and Brussels. Trump has held off pulling the trigger on sanctions against Russia for months, but his patience snapped after plans for a fresh summit with Putin in Budapest collapsed. “Every time I speak with Putin, I have good conversations, and then they do not go anywhere,” said Trump. But he expressed hope that the “tremendous sanctions” against Russian oil giants Rosneft and Lukoil would be short-lived. “We hope that the war would be settled,” he said alongside Nato Secretary-General Mark Rutte. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Wednesday the United States still wants to meet with the Russians, despite the sanctions. o EU unveils fresh wave of penalties to pressure Kremlin to end war

Russia’s largest oil companies that fund the Kremlin’s war machine,” said US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. He said it was “one of the largest sanctions that we have done against the Russian Federation”. “Putin has not come to the table in an honest and forthright manner, as we had hoped,” he said, adding that Trump is “disappointed at where we are in these talks”. Trump this week halted plans to hold talks with Putin in Budapest, saying he did not want a “wasted” meeting. The Kremlin on Wednesday appeared to leave the door open for a summit, saying ahead of the sanctions announcement that preparations were ongoing. “No one wants to waste time, neither Trump nor Putin,” said Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov. As part of the new EU measures, the 27-nation bloc brought forward a ban on the import of liquefied natural gas from Russia by a year to the start of 2027. It also blacklisted over 100 tankers from Moscow’s so-called shadow fleet of ageing oil vessels and imposed controls on the travel of Russian diplomats suspected of espionage. The package was scheduled to be formally adopted yesterday, just before Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky joined EU leaders at a summit in Brussels. – AFP

“We are always going to be interested in engaging if there is an opportunity to achieve peace,” Rubio told reporters. Separately, the EU agreed to impose new measures aimed at crimping Moscow’s oil and gas revenues over the war, a spokesperson for the bloc’s Danish presidency said. That package, which is the 19th from the EU since the war began, sought to keep the pressure on Russia in light of Trump’s faltering peace push and an escalation of Russia’s offensive. Ukraine’s ambassador to the United States welcomed the sanctions. “This decision fully aligns with Ukraine’s consistent position that peace could only be achieved through strength and by exerting maximum pressure on the aggressor using all available international instruments,” said Ambassador Olga Stefanishyna. The US sanctions represent a major stepping up of its actions against Russia and reflect Trump’s growing frustration at being unable to persuade Putin to end the conflict despite what he calls his personal chemistry with the Kremlin chief. The sanctions involve a freezing of all Rosneft and Lukoil assets in the United States, while barring all US companies from doing any business with the Russian oil titans. “Given Putin’s refusal to end this senseless war, the Treasury is sanctioning

A Palestinian walking amid the rubble of destroyed buildings in the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood of Gaza. – AFPPIC

Israel must facilitate relief in Gaza, says court ISTANBUL: The International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled on Wednesday that Israel is obliged under the Geneva Convention to agree to and facilitate relief schemes provided by third states and impartial humanitarian groups, Anadolu Ajansi reported. UNRWA staff were affiliated with armed groups, saying “Israel has not substantiated its allegations that a significant part of UNRWA employees are members of Hamas” or what it called “other terrorist organisations”.

State Marco Rubio on Wednesday warned Israel against annexing the West Bank, saying steps taken by parliament and settler violence threatened a Gaza peace deal. Israeli lawmakers voted on Wednesday to advance two Bills on annexing the occupied West Bank, barely a week after US President Donald Trump pushed through a deal aimed at ending a two-year war. “They are a democracy, they are going to have votes and people are going to take these positions. But at this time, it is something we think might be counterproductive,” said Rubio. However, he also voiced optimism overall for preserving the peace deal. “Every day there would be threats to it, but I think we are ahead of schedule in terms of bringing it together, and the fact that we made it through this weekend is a good sign.“ – AFP

It also found no evidence of discrimination in the UNRWA’s distribution of aid based on nationality, race, religion or political opinion. “The occupying power may never invoke reasons of security to justify the general suspension of all humanitarian activities in occupied territory,” the court said, reiterating that Israel’s obligation to facilitate aid is “unconditional”. It reaffirmed that the law of occupation applies alongside international humanitarian law governing hostilities, and Israel must comply with both sets of obligations. In a separate development, US Secretary of

According to the ICJ, these relief schemes include the International Committee of the Red Cross and the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) to ensure sufficient aid reaches the Gaza Strip. It underscored that Israel, as the occupying power, carries an unconditional duty to ensure the local population’s basic needs are met. It found that the population of Gaza has been “inadequately” supplied under Article 59 of the Fourth Geneva Convention and Israel must permit and assist relief operations. The court rejected Israel’s claims that