LONDON (AP) — A Chinese woman who was found with 5 billion pounds ($6.6 billion) in Bitcoin after defrauding more than 128,000 people in China in a Ponzi scheme was sentenced by a U.K. court on Tuesday to over 11 years in prison.
Police said the investigation into Zhimin Qian, 47, led to officers recovering devices holding 61,000 Bitcoin in the largest cryptocurrency seizure in the U.K.
Qian, dubbed “cryptoqueen” by British media, was arrested in April 2024 after spending years evading the authorities and living an “extravagant” lifestyle in Europe, staying in luxury hotels across the continent and buying fine jewelry and watches, prosecutors said.
Police said she ran a pyramid scheme that lured more than 128,000 people to invest in her business between 2014 and 2017, including many who invested their life savings and pensions. Authorities said she stored the illegally obtained funds in Bitcoin assets.
When she attracted the attention of Chinese authorities, Qian fled to the U.K. under a fake identity. Once in London, police said she rented a “lavish” house for over 17,000 pounds ($23,000) per month, and tried but failed to buy multimillion pound properties in a bid to convert the Bitcoin.
Investigators found notes Qian had written documenting her aspirations — including her “intention to become the monarch of Liberland, a self-proclaimed country consisting of a strip of land between Croatia and Serbia.”
They said other notes showed Qian detailing her hopes of “meeting a duke and royalty.”
Judge Sally-Ann Hales said Qian was the architect of the crimes from start to finish.
“Your motive was one of pure greed. You left China without a thought for the people whose investments you had stolen and enjoyed for a period of time a lavish lifestyle. You lied and schemed, all the while seeking to benefit yourself,” Hales said.
The businesswoman, who had pleaded guilty to money laundering offenses and transferring and possessing criminal property, was sentenced Tuesday to 11 years and eight months at Southwark Crown Court.
She was sentenced alongside her accomplice Seng Hok Ling, 47, a Malaysian national who was accused of helping Qian transfer and launder the cryptocurrency. Ling was jailed at the same court for four years and 11 months after he pleaded guilty to one count of transferring criminal property.
When Russians finally began to outnumber Ukrainians in Pokrovsk in recent weeks, the city lay in ruins and bodies lined the streets.
The brutal fight for the Ukrainian city points to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s ultimate aims in the war—and explains why President Trump’s peace efforts have, so far, failed.
(Reuters) -U.S. President Donald Trump said on Monday that he has an “obligation” to sue BBC for misrepresenting his comments ahead of the Jan. 6, 2021 attacks on the U.S. Capitol.
“Well, I think I have an obligation to do it,” Trump told Fox News host Laura Ingraham in an interview.
(Reporting by Jarrett Renshaw; Editing by Himani Sarkar)
After five years in the Olympic Tower, this hub for artists merging X.R., A.I. and performance is set to move to Tribeca. Photo by Ed Lefkowicz.
Launched in 2020 by the Onassis Foundation and NEW INC, the incubator of the New Museum, Onassis ONX Studio has evolved into one of New York’s leading hubs for artists working at the intersection of extended reality (X.R.), A.I. and performance. Closely connected to Onassis Stegi in Athens, the two organizations form a dynamic international channel for creative exchange within the broader Onassis Foundation ecosystem. In New York, Onassis ONX provides an accessible acceleration space for ambitious productions, while at Onassis Stegi—founded in 2010—the focus is on education and professional development, nurturing a rapidly expanding arts-and-technology scene. Rooted in Greece’s long tradition of theater and dramaturgy, this has inspired compelling intersections of theater, dance and technology.
To mark its fifth anniversary, Onassis ONX has announced its relocation from its original venue in the Olympic Tower on Fifth Avenue, just above the Onassis Foundation’s U.S. headquarters, to an expanded 6,000-square-foot space in the heart of Tribeca at 390 Broadway, which also houses PPOW and Matthew Brown Gallery. Set to open in January, the new facility will continue to operate as a hybrid residency, research lab and production studio, offering additional space for exhibitions and public programming that extend the reach of the work developed within the organization.
The new studio includes a motion-capture stage twice the size of the previous one, a three-wall seamless projection room designed for museum-scale installations and an expanded sound studio—four times larger than the original—equipped with a high-fidelity system for immersive sonic environments. It also features enhanced computational infrastructure, including a new server array designed to support A.I. and generative media.
Onassis ONX is the Onassis Foundation’s global platform for digital culture, championing artists who push the boundaries of new media through the creation, exhibition and circulation of immersive, technology-driven works. Photo: Mikhail Mishin
“It’s been amazing to see how much interest, focus and support for art and technology has expanded in New York City and around the world,” Jazia Hammoudi, program director of Onassis ONX, told Observer ahead of the announcement. “It’s been a long journey for many of us, but witnessing this evolution now feels incredibly rewarding.”
Created as an arm of Onassis Culture—the cultural branch of Greece’s leading philanthropic organization, which has championed “aid, progress and development” since 1975—ONX quickly became central to the foundation’s mission as a cultural innovator and supporter of contemporary art. From the outset, the foundation has operated from a deeply humanist perspective, Hammoudi explained. “It’s an organization that takes its lead from artists rather than dictating from the top down, continually looking to understand what’s actually happening across the cultural and intellectual landscape. It’s about paying close attention to what artists and audiences are thinking about, interested in and in need of. That same responsiveness to artistic and technological innovation is what inspired the foundation’s expansion in both New York and Athens.”
At its core, ONX is first and foremost an accelerator. Its foundation lies in the production space, tools and technical consultation it provides—but beyond that, it functions as an aesthetic and intellectual incubator. “We offer extensive creative consultation and curatorial support to artists, so they’re not only producing work here but also developing its conceptual and public trajectory,” Hammoudi added. “An artist can come to ONX, build their work and we’ll help them find the right platform for it—whether that’s a festival, an exhibition within our own programs in New York or Athens, or through one of our partner institutions.” Onassis ONX also helps artists secure additional funding, either through internal seed grants and commissions or through its global network of partners.
“Tribeca Immersive” is the Tribeca Festival section co-produced by Onassis ONX. AI Ego | Photographer: Mikhail Mishin
Since its founding, ONX has supported an impressive roster of artists and collectives redefining the intersection of performance and technology, including LaJuné McMillian, Peter Burr, Stephanie Dinkins, Sutu (Stuart Campbell) and Jayson Musson. Projects developed at ONX often blur the boundaries between theater, gaming environments, installation and live performance—echoing the Onassis Foundation’s broader mission to explore the future of culture and human experience through technology.
“Our goal is to provide holistic support for artists working in new media because we recognize that many traditional museums and cultural institutions weren’t designed to meet their needs,” Hammoudi said. “Our work is twofold: to provide artists with the resources and infrastructure they need and to help institutions evolve into what 21st-century creativity actually looks like.”
ONX currently supports about 85 member artists worldwide who have full access to production facilities, seed grants, funding opportunities, internal open calls and ongoing staff consultation. This membership model ensures long-term, sustained support for artists working in new media. “We know that this kind of work takes time—and often requires many different minds and kinds of intelligence to bring to completion,” Hammoudi explained. “As advocates and field builders, we see these ongoing relationships with artists as essential to the growth and vitality of the field itself.”
The new space will also enable the organization to deepen and expand its global partnerships. As part of its mission as a field builder, Onassis ONX collaborates with international partners to develop residencies, exchange programs, fellowships, exhibitions, funding initiatives and distribution channels.
Onassis ONX supports artists and creative teams through capacity-building programs, research and incubation initiatives, acceleration services, seed funding, exhibitions, fellowships and collaborative partnerships The Power Loom | Photographer: Mikhail Mishin
For example, Onassis ONX is a partner on Lincoln Center’s Collider Fellowship, runs a residency exchange with MIT’s Open Documentary Lab and maintains a core partnership with NEW INC, where artists track work within the ONX space. Looking ahead, Hammoudi said the goal is to continue expanding these partnerships to support a growing cohort of artists. “It’s important for us to maintain a deep, ongoing connection with our 85 member artists while also creating ways to offer short-term, project-based support to those who come to us with a specific challenge or need. This expansion allows us to do both.”
Notions of hybrid identity beyond biological, mythological and digital limits
Inaugurating Onassis ONX’s new space will be “TECHNE: Homecoming,” an exhibition uniting six visionary artists whose multimedia installations explore hybrid identity shaped through biological, mythological and digital kinships. “The show reflects our belief that technology can deepen the ways we connect—with one another, with our histories and with the stories we choose to tell about the future,” Hammoudi said.
The artist lineup embodies the kind of interdisciplinary, cross-knowledge collaboration the foundation has long supported, featuring works that range from Andrew Thomas Huang’s two-channel video installation and sculptural environment—rooted in a Buddhist folktale and informed by his collaborations with Björk and FKA Twigs—to Tamiko Thiel’s Atmos Sphaerae, a video installation tracing Earth’s atmospheric evolution from primordial void to Anthropocene through a poetic translation of molecular data into visual form that collapses conventional timescales. Meanwhile, Damara Inglês’s “phygital” installation reimagines the afterlife of Queen Nzinga of Angola through the lens of Cyber-Kimbandism, merging Bantu cosmology, A.I. and 3D design to position technology as both a spiritual conduit for ancestral connection and a tool of anti-colonial resistance.
Miriam Simun, Contact Zone (Level 2), 2024. Courtesy of the artist and Onassis ONX
In a similar spirit, Natalia Manta’s looping animations, digital tombs and hybrid sculptures oscillate between the archaeological and the alien, provoking transhistorical reflections on human time across geographies and collective memory. Sister Sylvester presents Drinking Brecht, an experimental work of automated theater and performance-as-installation that functions as a Marxist-feminist laboratory. Finally, Miriam Simun’s generative three-channel projection Contact Zone Level 2 brings the Swiss Alps into collision with the artist’s own intestines beneath an A.I.’s gaze, continuously reconfiguring to explore the symbiosis between organic and artificial life—a visionary intersection of nature, technology and consciousness beyond human perception. “Technology becomes the mediator for this imagining, allowing a hybrid being—a new chimera—to emerge between nature and self. It’s a wild and deeply thought-provoking work,” Hammoudi said.
In each case, technology enables artists to construct more expansive worlds around their practice, extending the reach of their bodies and presence while dissolving the traditional genre boundaries that once defined art-making. “Those old taxonomies—this artist does that, that one does this—are becoming almost irrelevant,” Hammoudi noted, emphasizing that many of these works use digital tools not as spectacle but as instruments for expanding how we sense, perceive and experience reality—or move beyond its human limits.
An installation view of Sister Sylvester‘s Drinking Brecht (2024). Courtesy of the artist and Onassis ONX.
The exhibition will be part of the annual Under the Radar Festival, which this year includes two Onassis ONX performances—We Have No Need of Other Worlds (We Need Mirrors) by Graham Sack and ¡Harken! by Modesto Flako Jimenez—as well as MAMI, a mainstage production conceived and directed by Mario Banushi and commissioned by Onassis Stegi. Together, these works underscore the foundation’s multifaceted support for artists working at the intersection of performance and new technology—an ever-expanding field as creators increasingly experiment with digital embodiment, exploring performance, the shifting boundaries between analog and digital and what it means for the body to exist in real time and space within contemporary digital culture.
Balancing studio production and public programming
Looking ahead, Onassis ONX will continue to balance its mission of providing a dedicated workspace for artists with a growing commitment to public engagement. Beginning in 2026, ONX will host two in-studio exhibitions each year—one in January and another in the fall—along with quarterly public programs developed in collaboration with organizations such as NEW INC, Pioneer Works, Rhizome and Lincoln Center. The foundation also plans to continue its major annual off-site exhibition each June, following last year’s presentation at Tribeca Immersive. “This model allows us to keep the studio primarily a development space while maintaining a consistent public presence through exhibitions and thought-leadership events announced on our website and newsletter,” Hammoudi said.
The move from Midtown to Tribeca doubles the studio’s square footage and puts Onassis ONX at the center of downtown New York’s dynamic contemporary scene. There Goes Nikki | Photographer: Mikhail Mishin
In Athens, the focus remains educational, with ongoing incubation programs such as ONX Futures and the annual A.I. Summer School each July. The Athens space will also present an ONX showcase in May and contribute to the foundation’s broader cultural calendar, which includes the Borderline Festival in April. The foundation also produces Plásmata, its large-scale digital art biennial in Pedion tou Areos Park. Held every two years, it is one of the few outdoor digital art biennials in the world, combining large-scale installations, performances and music with works by both Greek and international artists, including recent participants such as John Fitzgerald, Jiabao Li, William Kentridge and Johan Bourgeois.
Ultimately, ONX’s mission—across both New York and Athens—is to expand the understanding of art and technology not only as mediums but as frameworks for examining how we live today. As traditional genres continue to dissolve, the foundation remains committed to supporting artists working at these frontiers, where art and life increasingly intersect.
“TECHNE: Homecoming” is presented as part of Under the Radar Festival, which this year includes two Onassis ONX performances and one mainstage production commissioned and produced by Onassis Stegi. Photo by Ed Lefkowicz
MADRID (Reuters) -Three people died and 15 were injured on Saturday as rough seas battered the Spanish holiday island of Tenerife, emergency services said.
A rescue helicopter airlifted a man who had fallen into the water at La Guancha, a beach in the north of the island, but he was pronounced dead on arrival at hospital, emergency services said.
In a separate incident, a man was found floating on the beach at El Cabezo in the south of the island. Lifeguards and medical staff were unable to resuscitate him and he was pronounced dead at the scene.
A woman suffered a heart attack and died when a wave swept 10 people into the sea at Puerto de la Cruz in northern Tenerife. Three others from the group were seriously injured and taken to hospital for treatment.
The Canary Islands, a Spanish archipelago off the west coast of Africa that includes Tenerife, are on alert for coastal hazards, the islands’ emergency service said on Sunday.
(Reporting by Graham KeeleyEditing by David Goodman)
MILAN (Reuters) -Local staff at some American military bases in Italy have not been paid due to the U.S. government shutdown and Rome is in talks with U.S. authorities to resolve the issue, the Italian foreign ministry said on Saturday.
About 2,000 non-military Italian employees, mainly at Aviano Air Base and the Vicenza army base in northeast Italy, missed their October pay despite being employed under Italian work contracts, the ministry said.
Italian workers at U.S. Navy bases in the country, however, were paid on time as the navy applies different rules to the army and air force.
In the United States, the record-long shutdown has left millions of federal government workers without paychecks, has frozen critical food aid and has snarled airline travel, among other impacts.
Italy’s Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani urged both Washington and the U.S. embassy in Rome to act swiftly, regardless of when the shutdown ends.
“(Italy’s) foreign ministry has made a request to the U.S. embassy in Rome, which confirmed that the U.S. Army and U.S. Air Force are examining with the Pentagon the possibility of using their own funds to pay the Italian employees,” the ministry said in a statement.
(Reporting by Francesca Landini; Editing by Susan Fenton)
KYIV (Reuters) -Russia launched a barrage of drones and missiles in overnight attacks on Ukraine on Saturday, killing at least three people and damaging large energy infrastructure facilities in three regions, Ukrainian officials said.
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Russia had launched more than 450 drones and 45 missiles.
Two people were killed and 12 wounded in the city of Dnipro when a drone hit an apartment building. One person was killed in the Kharkiv region, regional officials said.
Energy facilities in the Kyiv, Poltava and Kharkiv regions were damaged, Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko said.
ZELENSKIY CALLS FOR MORE SANCTIONS PRESSURE
Zelenskiy said the strikes showed that sanctions pressure should be intensified.
“… for every Moscow strike on energy infrastructure – aimed at harming ordinary people before winter – there must be a sanctions response targeting all Russian energy, with no exceptions,” he said on the Telegram app.
Since the start of its full-scale assault on Ukraine almost four years ago, Russia has made a point of attacking the power sector as the need for heating grows. This autumn it has attacked gas facilities nine times in the space of two months, according to the state energy firm Naftogaz.
Moscow’s Defence Ministry said it had launched “a massive strike with high-precision long-range air, ground and sea-based weapons” on weapon production and energy facilities in response to Kyiv’s strikes on Russia.
Russia also said its forces continued to advance in grinding battles around the key towns of Pokrovsk and Kupiansk, and had captured a tiny village in eastern Ukraine.
Ukraine regularly sends its drones to strike oil facilities inside Russia.
As diplomatic efforts to stop the war have faltered, Kyiv is trying to reduce Moscow’s ability to finance its war.
The Ukrainian air force said 406 Russian drones and nine missiles had been shot down, and 26 Russian missiles and 52 drones had hit 25 sites.
Svyrydenko said the government and energy companies were working to restore damaged electricity, water and heating provision.
In the central Poltava region, two cities – Kremenchuk with a population of about 200,000 people and Horishni Plavni with some 50,000 residents – lost most of their electricity and were using generators to provide water, city officials said.
(Reporting by Olena Harmash; Editing by Kevin Liffey)
TUNIS (Reuters) -Jailed Tunisian opposition leader Rached Ghannouchi, 84, began a hunger strike, joining two prominent politicians who are protesting what they call “unjust imprisonment,” lawyers said on Saturday, marking the latest escalation in a standoff with President Kais Saied.
Most of the country’s opposition leaders are in jail and some parties have accused Saied of turning Tunisia into an “open-air prison” while using the judiciary to cement his authoritarian rule.
Ghannouchi follows opposition politician Jawhar Ben Mbarek who has been on a “wildcat” hunger strike since last week. And Republican Party leader Issam Chebbi started a hunger strike on Friday, demanding his release.
Ghannouchi, head of the Ennahda party and a fierce critic of Saied, has been detained since 2023 and was sentenced to 37 years in prison across multiple cases, including illicit foreign financing and conspiracy against the state. He has refused to appear in court, saying he won’t face judges who only follow Saied’s orders.
Lawyers, family, and rights groups say Ben Mbarek’s health has sharply deteriorated, he is refusing treatment and is at risk of dying.
The Tunisian Prisons Authority denied that the prisoners’ health had deteriorated due to the hunger strikes, saying medical examinations showed conditions were “normal and stable,” without giving additional details.
This year, courts handed prison sentences ranging from five to 66 years to opposition leaders including Ben Mbarek and Chebbi on charges including “conspiracy against state security.” Human rights groups say these prosecutions targeted political opponents.
Lawyer Dalila Ben Mbarek said Jawhar informed her that he would soon leave the prison “either free or dead.” His father said Saied was responsible for any harm that came to his son, calling him a dictator.
The opposition says Saied’s sudden closure of the elected parliament in 2021 and his move to rule by decree was a coup.
Saied denied this, saying his actions were necessary to save Tunisia from years of chaos; he has called jailed opposition leaders criminals, traitors and terrorists.
(Reporting By Tarek Amara; Editing by Thomas Derpinghaus)
(Reuters) -Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Friday appointed a new commander responsible for drone air defences, seen as a critical element in defending against the threat of Russian drones.
The president’s website said Yuri Cherevashenko had experience in helping create Ukraine’s first group of reaction forces of air defence mobile brigades.
He also played a role in developing interceptor drones, which Zelenskiy and other officials have portrayed as a key part in countering intensive Russian drone assaults in the more than 3-1/2-year war.
Zelenskiy said a meeting of Ukraine’s command set out several tasks for the new commander, including the development of interceptor drones and the introduction of new means to strengthen air defences.
Ukraine’s top commander, Oleksandr Syrskyi, said in September that Ukraine was looking to improve performance by interceptor drones to create a “layered system” of defence against Russian drones.
(Reporting by Ron Popeski and Oleksander KozhukharEditing by Rod Nickel)
If you want to see what a “living constitution” looks like, go to Europe. On Tuesday, in Vainik v. Estonia, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that four longtime prisoners in Estonia were due restitution from the state for “weight gain, sleeping problems, depression, and anxiety” caused by not being allowed to smoke in prison.
The decision was grounded on Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The text of Article 8 doesn’t mention any right to enjoy a cigarette whenever one pleases. Rather, it protects a broad “right to private life,” which the court accused Estonia of violating in the Vainik case. “The Court,” the judges wrote, “was sensitive to the context of the already limited personal autonomy of prisoners, and that the freedom for them to decide for themselves—such as whether to smoke—was all the more precious.” An odd ruling, but perhaps Europe loves its cigarettes that much?
If politics makes strange bedfellows, war sometimes makes strange career paths. In her 20s, Iryna Terekh was a “very artsy” architect who viewed the arms industry as “something destructive.” Now Ms. Terekh, 33, is chief technical officer and the public face of Fire Point, a Ukrainian defense company. She and her team developed the Flamingo, a long-range cruise missile that President Volodymyr Zelensky has called “our most successful missile.”
(Reuters) -The United States fully backs the European Union using frozen Russian assets as a tool to support Ukraine and end the war with Russia, a U.S. source familiar with the situation told Reuters on Friday.
As the West seeks to ramp up pressure on Moscow, the European Commission has proposed a plan allowing EU governments to use up to 185 billion euros ($217 billion) – most of the 210 billion euros worth of Russian sovereign assets currently frozen in Europe – without confiscating them.
Washington “absolutely supports (the EU) and the steps they’re taking right now to be in a position to make use of those assets as a tool,” the source said, requesting anonymity to discuss an ongoing issue.
After Russian President Vladimir Putin sent troops into Ukraine in 2022, the United States and its allies prohibited transactions with Russia’s central bank and finance ministry, immobilizing around $300 billion of sovereign Russian assets.
The European proposal is being held up due to concerns from Belgium, where most of the assets are located.
Germany suggested on Friday that recent drone sightings over airports and military bases in Belgium were a message from Moscow not to touch the frozen assets. Moscow has denied any connection to the incidents and has promised a “painful response” if its assets are seized.
In a renewed attempt to end Russia’s war, U.S. President Donald Trump hit Rosneft and Lukoil, its two biggest oil companies, with sanctions late last month, adding to an unprecedented basket of economic sanctions that seek to pressure Moscow and those doing business with it.
The move underlined Washington’s intent to squeeze Russia’s finances and force the Kremlin towards a peace deal in its 3-1/2-year-old full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Washington is watching the fallout from the Rosneft and Lukoil move and “there are more things we could do to try to up the pressure,” the source said.
(Reporting by Jonathan Spicer; editing by Philippa Fletcher)
The UK government appears determined to press on with its plans to hike taxes for gambling operators despite warnings from industry leaders that such measures could harm jobs, drive players toward unregulated websites, and reduce funding for British sport. Lawmakers are considering a proportional system with higher taxes for more harmful types of gambling.
Online Gambling Can Be Especially Addictive
A recent report from the Treasury Select Committee urged the government to resist what it described as “industry scaremongering” and to impose a tax rate that reflects the growing social harm from online betting games. The report comes just weeks before Chancellor Rachel Reeves presents her first Budget as the UK faces mounting pressure to address a sizeable fiscal deficit.
The cross-party committee, chaired by Dame Meg Hillier, stated that online gambling now constitutes almost half of the UK’s total gambling revenue. The report notes that while traditional betting, such as horse racing and bingo, can usually be enjoyed safely, online casino games and virtual slots have created a new generation of high-frequency, high-loss gambling.
Online betting games are extracting huge amounts of money from people who have been funnelled into the most addictive, harmful corners of the industry via their love of sports, or the occasional game of bingo.
Dame Meg Hillier, Treasury Select Committee chair
The committee’s findings are based on months of evidence sessions examining how to strike a balance between tax policy, economic growth, and social responsibility. MPs dismissed arguments that higher taxes would push consumers toward unregulated operators, instead recommending harsher crackdowns against illegal offshore sites.
Gambling Operators Attempted to Downplay the Commission’s Concerns
Gambling industry representatives remain firmly opposed to any potential tax hikes. Grainne Hurst, chief executive of the Betting and Gaming Council (BGC), argued that regulated gambling is already one of the UK’s most heavily taxed sectors, contributing £4 billion ($5.27 billion) annually to the Treasury and supporting over 100,000 jobs. She cautioned that a tax hike could have rippling consequences for the broader economy.
Hurst also informed MPs that the industry invests heavily in safer gambling practices like affordability checks, stake limits, and data-driven monitoring systems. However, the Treasury Committee remained unconvinced. Its report criticized the industry’s claims that gambling caused no social harm and pointed out that gambling platforms exploit player data and behavioral patterns to encourage longer play and higher losses.
The impacts of problem gambling in our communities are plain to see, and the industry’s boldfaced claim to our inquiry that it does no social harm is staggering.
Dame Meg Hillier, Treasury Select Committee chair
Reeves’s upcoming Budget could clarify whether online casino and slot games will face a higher tax rate compared to sports betting. Treasury sources have suggested that MPs are considering leaning toward a more graduated system based on the relative risk of harm. With the government showing no signs of yielding to industry pressure, the days of uniform gambling taxation may be numbered.
KYIV (Reuters) -More than 1,400 citizens from three dozen African countries are fighting alongside Russian forces in Ukraine, Kyiv’s foreign minister said on Friday.
Ukrainian officials say Russia has tried to bolster the force attacking its smaller neighbour by recruiting fighters from a variety of countries, sometimes through subterfuge.
Andriy Sybiha said Russia was enticing Africans to sign contracts that he described as “equivalent to … a death sentence”, and urged African governments to warn their citizens.
“Foreign citizens in the Russian army have a sad fate,” he wrote on X. “Most of them are immediately sent to the so-called ‘meat assaults’, where they are quickly killed.”
South Africa said on Thursday it would investigate how 17 of its citizens joined mercenary forces after the men sent distress calls for help to return home.
And Kenya said last month that some of its citizens had been detained in military camps across Russia after unknowingly getting caught up in the conflict.
Sybiha said the total number of African recruits could be higher than the 1,436 identified, originating from 36 countries, and that most foreign mercenaries in Ukrainian custody had been captured during their first combat mission.
He said Ukraine would provide more specific information about the countries and regions from which Russia has recruited troops.
(Reporting by Dan Peleschuk; Editing by Kevin Liffey)
PARIS (Reuters) -Four people were arrested after protesters used flares to disrupt a concert by the Israeli Philharmonic Orchestra in Paris on Thursday night, the latest in a wave of anti-Israel incidents linked to the Gaza conflict, French officials said on Friday.
In footage posted on social media, protesters were seen lighting flares and chanting pro-Palestinian slogans in La Philharmonie concert hall in northern Paris as some audience members and security personnel tried to remove them.
Despite the chaos and several interruptions, the concert went ahead after the protesters were evacuated.
“I strongly condemn the actions committed last night during a concert at the Philharmonie de Paris. Nothing can justify them,” Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said on X.
“I thank the personnel from the Paris police who enabled the rapid arrest of several perpetrators of serious disturbances inside the venue and contained the demonstrators outside. Four people have been placed in custody,” he added.
The Paris prosecutor’s office said three women and a man were in custody, on charges ranging from violence, destruction and organising an unauthorised protest.
Culture Minister Rachida Dati on X condemned the disruptions as going against the “fundamental rights of our Republic.”
The Philharmonie said it had filed a criminal complaint.
(Reporting by Dominique VidalonEditing by Alexandra Hudson)
BRUSSELS (Reuters) -The European Union has adopted stricter visa rules for Russian nationals in light of what it calls the “weaponisation of migration, acts of sabotage and potential misuse of visas”.
Russian nationals will no longer be eligible for multiple-entry visas and must apply for a new visa each time they travel to the EU, a statement from the European Commission read. It said the aim was to protect public policy and security.
There will be limited exceptions for dissidents, independent journalists and human rights defenders.
“Starting a war and expecting to move freely in Europe is hard to justify,” EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said on X.
“The EU is tightening visa rules for Russian nationals amid continued drone disruptions and sabotage on European soil. Travelling to the EU is a privilege, not a given.”
(Reporting by Charlotte Van Campenhout; Editing by Kevin Liffey)
MADRID (Reuters) -Police said on Friday they had arrested 13 people accused of belonging to the first cell of Venezuela’s “Tren de Aragua” crime gang detected in Spain, following raids in five cities.
Tren de Aragua, originally formed in Venezuelan prisons, has grown into one of Latin America’s most violent transnational criminal networks, linked to drugs, human trafficking and extortion.
The United States this year designated it as a global terrorist organisation, citing its reach beyond the region.
Police said the arrests took place in Barcelona, Madrid, Girona, A Coruna and Valencia in an investigation into the group’s alleged efforts to expand its operations into Spain, where Venezuelans make up one of the largest immigrant communities.
Officers seized synthetic drugs, cocaine, a marijuana plantation and two laboratories producing “tusi”, also known as pink cocaine, a substance the gang is known to traffic.
The operation follows a 2024 arrest in Barcelona of the alleged gang leader’s brother, who was accused of trying to expand the group into Spain.
(Reporting by Jesus Calero, editing by Andrei Khalip and Alex Richardson)
Gunvor pulled its offer to buy the international assets of sanctioned Russian oil producer Lukoil after the U.S. Treasury Department said it opposed the deal and called the Swiss commodities trader the “Kremlin’s puppet.”
The move signals the Trump administration is taking a hard-line approach in its recently launched effort to use economic pressure on Moscow to end the war in Ukraine.
BERLIN (Reuters) -Russia must never come to the assumption that it can win a war against NATO or one of the alliance’s members, Germany’s Chief of Defence Carsten Breuer warned in a speech to the country’s top military brass in Berlin on Friday.
“We need to look into the lessons learned from the war in Ukraine, adapt them for ourselves and develop our own concepts and structures accordingly because the war in Ukraine is our teacher,” Breuer said, adding that Moscow expected a quick win when it invaded its neighbour in 2022.
“We must prevent Russia from another miscalculation like this. Russia must never come to the assumption that it can win a war against NATO or a single NATO country.”
(Reporting by Sabine Siebold, Editing by Miranda Murray)
