The Palestinian information minister returned to the Gaza Strip with US$2 million stuffed in his luggage, the second straight day a senior Hamas official has hand-delivered large amounts of money to the cash-strapped government.
Youssef Rizka's suitcase delivery signals that Hamas has opened a new front in its battle against international sanctions by taking matters into its own hands -- literally. However, Palestinian officials said the practice had drawn a rebuke from European border monitors, raising questions about how long Hamas could continue.
Since the Hamas-led government took office in March, Israel and Western donors have cut off hundreds of millions of dollars in transfers to the Palestinians. They have demanded that Hamas, which they consider a terrorist group, renounce violence and recognize the Jewish state's right to exist.
Hamas has refused the demands, despite being unable to pay the salaries to most civil servants for the past three months. Instead, it has turned to Arab and Muslim countries for help.
However, international banks have refused to allow the group to transfer money electronically to the Palestinian areas, fearing US anti-terrorism sanctions. The efforts to physically carry money into Gaza shows just how effective the Western sanctions have been.
Rizka returned to Gaza yesterday from a trip to Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Egypt. He immediately declared the money to border officials and turned over the cash to the Palestinian Finance Ministry.
A day earlier, Foreign Minister Mahmoud Zahar returned to Gaza from a trip to Muslim countries with US$20 million in his luggage.
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion