The Bank of Russia has set out a new framework to regulate cryptocurrencies, proposing tiered access that would allow everyday investors to buy digital assets alongside professional market participants, while maintaining tight controls on risk and usage. In a concept paper released Tuesday and submitted to the government for review, the central bank said both qualified and non-qualified investors would be permitted to acquire crypto assets, but under different rules, limits and testing requirements.
If (Putin) says no this time, here's what I hope President (Donald) Trump will do: Sign my bill that has 85 co-sponsors and put tariffs on countries like China who buy cheap Russian oil. Make Russia a state sponsor of terrorism for kidnapping 20,000 Ukrainian kids. And most importantly, seize ships that are carrying sanctioned Russian oil like you're doing in Venezuela.
A trial got underway in Seoul last week for 46 South Koreans, mostly men in their 20s, accused of participating in online scam operations in Cambodia. Since mid-October, South Korea has repatriated 107 nationals from Cambodia where officials estimate upwards of 1,000 of its citizens are working either "voluntarily or involuntarily" in scam compounds. The repatriation effort follows public outrage over the death of a South Korean college student, who was reportedly lured to Cambodia and forced to work in a scam center.
The new chief of MI6, Blaise Metreweli, will warn of "the acute threat posed by Russia" when she makes her first public speech later. She will highlight so-called hybrid warfare, which includes incidents such as cyber attacks and drones suspected of being launched near critical infrastructure by Russian proxies. Ms Metreweli will describe this as "an acute threat posed by an aggressive, expansionist and revisionist Russia".
President Donald Trump said Wednesday that the United States has seized an oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela as tensions mount with the government of President Nicolas Maduro. Using U.S. forces to seize an oil tanker is incredibly unusual and marks the Trump administration's latest push to increase pressure on Maduro, who has been charged with narcoterrorism in the United States.
After the US government placed sanctions on the United Nations' special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, Francesca Albanese, her life turned upside down. Credit cards stopped working, she told Al Jazeera. A hotel reservation booked by the European Parliament was cancelled. Medical insurance was denied. For Albanese, the consequences of her work on Israel's genocide against the Palestinian people of Gaza were not just professional they were personal, too.
The Australian government has imposed financial sanctions and travel bans on four officials in Afghanistan's Taliban government, citing the deteriorating human rights situation in the country, particularly for women and girls. Australia's Foreign Minister Penny Wong said in a statement on Saturday that Canberra had established a world-first autonomous sanctions framework for Afghanistan, which would allow it to directly impose its own sanctions and travel bans to increase pressure on the Taliban.
The U.S. Treasury Department imposed a $7.1 million fine on a New York-based property management firm Thursday, accusing it of violating sanctions by managing luxury real estate properties for oligarch Oleg Deripaska, who has close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control said Gracetown Inc. had received 24 payments between April 2018 and May 2020 totaling $31,250 on behalf of a company owned by Deripaska. OFAC says it gave Gracetown notice that dealings with Deripaska were prohibited, but the firm proceeded anyway.
The United States has designated Venezuela's so-called Cartel de los Soles a foreign terrorist organization, marking the latest escalation in US-Venezuela tensions. Washington alleges Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro heads the organisation, which, the US says, is involved in widespread corruption and drug trafficking. Maduro denies the accusations amid growing fears of potential US military action in the region, and his government has called the cartel an invention.
President Donald Trump said Wednesday that he is barring South Africa from participating in the Group of 20 summit next year at his Miami-area club and will stop all payments and subsidies to the country over its treatment of a U.S. government representative at this year's global meeting. Trump chose not to have an American government delegation attend last weekend's summit hosted by South Africa, saying he did so because its white Afrikaners were being violently persecuted. It is a claim that South Africa, which was mired for decades in racial apartheid, has rejected as baseless.
Europeans are seething over US President Donald Trump's suggestion that billions in Russian assets frozen in European countries may be used to the benefit of the US government and firms. After a Trump proposal on how to end Russia's war in Ukraine that called on Ukraine to give up territory and reduce the size of its armed forces, Europeans rushed to damage control and have now floated a counter offer.
Donald Trump on Monday began the process of designating certain Muslim Brotherhood chapters as foreign terrorist organizations and specially designated global terrorists, a move would bring sanctions against one of the Arab world's oldest and most influential Islamist movements. Trump signed an executive order directing secretary of state Marco Rubio and treasury secretary Scott Bessent to submit a report on whether to designate any Muslim Brotherhood chapters, such as those in Lebanon, Egypt and Jordan, according to a White House fact sheet.
Cybercrime fighters in the US, UK, and Australia have imposed sanctions on several Russia-linked entities they claim provide hosting services to ransomware gangs Lockbit, BlackSuit, and Play. The sanctions target an organization called "Media Land," an entity that the US Department of Treasury describes as a provider of hosting services to "criminal marketplaces and ransomware actors" and which allowed its infrastructure to be used for "multiple distributed denial-of-service (DDOS) attacks against U.S. victim companies and critical infrastructure."
